I've loved graveyards since I was a child. They are peaceful, beautiful, and full of history. In fact, I find a cemetery a wonderful place for a picnic when I'm working in one. I've learned to travel with a lawn chair! I've always been interested in genealogy. When I started Ancestery.com....Find a Grave kept coming up. Once I learned I could help people AND wander around graveyards...I was hooked!! I am a taphophile!

I co-owned my family truck and diesel repair business for many years until I decided to sell it. I continued to work there as office and parts manager until September 2019. Over those 45 years I knew most of my customers very well and loved the customer service part of the business. From there I've now gone to work at the city owned hospital. The job I have there is dealing with people both on the phone and in person. Something I greatly enjoy! I loved riding motorcycle until I had an accident and got myself a TBI. The Black Hills of South Dakota (or anywhere else I can look for agates...including some cemeteries!) is another love, searching out old ghost towns and graveyards, and my favorite thing...photography. In January 2019, I had my right hip replaced...which has been a blessing to my wandering graveyards! Ten years of limping got to be too much.

IF YOU HAVE YOUR MESSAGE SYSTEM TURNED OFF AND WANT TO CONTACT ME ABOUT SOMETHING...PLEASE INCLUDE A WAY FOR ME TO CONTACT YOU. OTHERWISE...I HAVE NO WAY OF CONTACTING YOU AND I MAY IGNORE WHAT YOU WRITE. It's getting old receiving messages from people asking/telling me what to do yet they have their own message system set for no messages.

I love going out and looking for requested graves. But something new I've noticed in the last year is people are requesting a picture when there is already a picture posted. OR...they are clicking the request for a photo but looking for other information on that person. When members do this they end up wasting the time of volunteers. PLEASE! Only use the request button if you want a photo of the grave!

As of now I go out to look or work in cemeteries every Sunday when our South Dakota weather permits. For years my dad rode with me but he passed away in March 2025 at the age of 99. So once the snow melts, his wife and I go out searching for requests, mapping, or inventorying cemeteries. Of the three local cemeteries, I keep them up-to-date with burials, photos, and locations.

As requests in my area have dropped or get snagged by other volunteers I have began mapping local cemeteries. If the cemetery has a book I go through it to make sure everyone buried there has a page on FAG. Whether they have a stone or not. By using the information in the book I also locate unmarked graves and take pictures of the general area of the grave. I then add written locations of the unmarked grave. I have done this to all three local cemeteries and I try to keep them up to date each month with new burials. I'm also trying to get the three local cemeteries that aren't marked with their block numbers to put up signage to help people locate family graves. For those local cemeteries I have recorded the location of every grave. The signs would make it so much easier to locate the graves. UPDATE: Our biggest local cemetery, Greenwood, has now installed signs for the location of block numbers! It took us about 2.5 hours to put up all the signs with the help of my map!

I have mapped the three main Brookings cemeteries and quite a few of the surrounding area cemeteries. If you're looking for a grave, feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to help you!

If I started a page for one of your relatives and you'd like to manage the page...please ask. I don't care what FAG's 'rules' are on the subject. I will gladly turn the page over to you as long as you plan to manage it for updates. And if there's other information you can add to that person's page, that's all the better. I've added things to people's pages that I delivered newspapers to in the 1960s! I feel their distant relatives might get a kick out of these personal tidbits. But I only add nice things.

I also grant anyone permission to use my photos that I've added for any purpose, without my consent. If they are something you want to use then you must know the person involved. I also grant you permission to use my photos I've posted on any other grave finding site. I do not grant anyone permission to use my personal profile photo.

Well, back to the cemeteries!