Lynette Kurth: Shrink to Fit

Pretty, perky and petite are the three words that pop into my mind when I see Lynette Kurth breeze through the door of Piesano’s Italian restaurant for a late lunch.  As she sits down at our table, I say them out loud, and the smile that lights up her face is worth a million pizzas.“You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to hear someone use words like that to describe someone like me,” she says.The first thing I am compelled to do is apologize for suggesting a lunch meeting to someone who’s recently lost half her body weight.“Oh, I eat out all the time,” she says, perusing quickly through the menu before ordering a sandwich, cup of soup and ice water from the waitress who has arrived to take our order..“What, no salad?” I ask, immediately regretting the stereotype—although I’ve ordered one for myself.“Actually, that a good question,” she says.  “Salad is something I don’t eat.  It’s pretty much empty calories, and I need every calorie to count.”From here, Lynette begins to describe the dramatic details of the past two years of her life, when she made the somewhat radical and controversial decision to undergo bariatric gastric bypass surgery.

“The first thing to know about this surgery is that it’s not a fix.  You have to fix yourself up here,” she says, touching her forehead with her index finger.  “And probably here too,” she adds, dropping the same finger to a spot above her heart.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

Jeremy Thomas: Railroad Cars to Handlebars

There’s something to be said about how much people change by the time their high school reunion rolls around.The president of Rapid City Central High School’s class of ’97 is no exception.Jeremy Thomas won’t quite be his old self when he and his high school classmates reunite this summer after going their separate ways 10 years ago.Thomas lost his left leg below the knee in June 1997 — three weeks after he graduated from high school.It’s a story he doesn’t mind retelling.The fit and trim 28-year-old who likes to hit the trails hard on the weekend looks nothing like the hefty high school senior who partied hard on the weekend.His partying ways eventually caught up with him.Thomas can’t recall in detail all the events that set in motion such a life-defining moment. He remembers leaving a party near the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology campus on a Friday night.Something rankled him enough that he decided to ditch it.“For whatever reason, I left,” he said.And he left drunk.His first inclination was to hop aboard a train chugging along some nearby tracks. And he made it, thanks to the slow-moving cars and all the liquid courage he downed that evening.Thomas remembers climbing on top of the train and moving from car to car in an effort to get to the front car. He went along for the ride for about a half hour — until he noticed the train approaching New Underwood, a town nearly 20 miles east of Rapid City, and felt a sudden urge to bolt.“I had to get off,” he said.So he jumped.He landed in between cars on his feet. But not for long. The steady train of cars knocked him down on the tracks.

He watched the train roll over him for another five minutes. And then it slipped into the night.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

Joel Higgins Births New Church

The Spring Creek Church has already outgrown its location at the Kirk Funeral Home on Minnesota Street in Rapid City.  Its pastor, Joel Higgins, is searching for a new home even though the church is not even yet a year old.  Joel is the type of person who doesn’t mind having to put some effort into a task.  A veteran of the U.S. Navy, a triathlete who’s climbed Mount Kilmanjaro and a former campus minister for Dakota Wesleyan University, he doesn’t seem to experience any shortfall of energy or dedication.The way that Joel says grace over lunch at a local diner is a reflection on his faith, free of flowery invocations or ceremony, yet respectful, meaningful and even graceful: He picks up his plate with both hands and holds it an inch or two above the table, asking you to do the same.  “Are you thankful for your food?” he asks, looking me directly in the eye.  I reply in the affirmative.  “Good” he says.  And with that, we eat. 

 (Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

Beth Lytle: Lady of the Dance

It was a case of a Beth meeting a Beth.  Not only do we share the same name, we discover we were born in the same year.  And once we’ve settled who looks younger for our unmentionable years (she does), we can get on with the business at hand: hearing the fascinating story of Beth Lytle’s life.  From the moment I first hear her speak, my initial observation is this:  this Beth is not from around these parts.“I’m a southern girl,” she says, with a hint of a drawl and a low-pitched chuckle.It’s also instantly apparent that this striking woman is a dancer.  There’s something about the way she holds her head, her long, swan-like neck, the fluid movement of her hands as she gestures, or the elegant way she moves across the floor—making a five-step trek across her kitchen for a cup of coffee look like a graceful glissade.In fact, Beth looks like a born dancer, although she’ll tell you that very few people are actually born with natural dance ability.“There’s God-given talent, certainly, and there’s the body you are born with, but one of the most important things is the passion to work hard, stick with it, and make it happen,” she says. 

And she should know.  A native of Jackson Mississippi, Belinda Beth Ware, nicknamed “BB” as a child (“but nobody has called me that for a long time,” she is quick to point out) spent an incredible 18 years in a professional dance career that started when she was 16 years old and took her all over the world.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

Daryl Paluch: Serving up Year-Round Tennis

Once upon a time, a young lad from south Rapid sat in his classroom at South Junior High and had a revelation.  “I couldn’t read.  I hated school. I knew I had to find a sport,” says tennis pro Daryl Paluch.  But this didn’t translate into a direct path to the tennis court.  The young man had to weed out a few other sports along the way.  And of course there was the issue of not having a choice about going to school.“I was dyslexic, but nobody ever caught it,” he says.  “I thought I was dumb.  I got nervous about tests and speeches and I had a definite confidence problem at school that spilled over into the rest of my life.”The sports available to Daryl at that time were pretty much limited to baseball, basketball and football.  He tried them all, though he admits he wasn’t very good at any of them.  The one thing he had going for him was a good strong arm, so he landed on the baseball field as a pitcher and catcher.He stuck with baseball through his early teens but started to lose interest when he got hit in the eye with a baseball.  “I couldn’t help it, I was scared of the ball after that,” he recalls.  “And I ended up right back where I started from–with a confidence problem.”

It was only after a neighbor gave him a badminton racket and he started hitting balls against walls that Daryl found the elusive element that had been missing from all the sports he’d tried so far.  It was pretty simple: this was fun.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

Joyce’s Choices: From the Capitol to Custer

Nestled cozily in the hills just off America West Road outside of Custer, the Hazeltine home looks like the perfect place for South Dakota’s longest serving Secretary of State to retire.  It offers privacy, awesome views in all directions, and the quiet company of fresh, fragrant pines.  And that’s just the exterior.  Inside are the trappings of Joyce’s impressive three-term, 16-year public service with the state of South Dakota: original artwork from all over the world, gifts from ambassadors and heads of state, and framed photos of employees, co-workers, children and grandchildren.“It’s a house full of junk, but everything means something,” says Joyce, when she greets me at the door and invites into her home on a sunny February afternoon.

The welcoming committee includes the sum total of the 32 paws and feet that live at the Hazeltine home:  five cats, two dogs—and her best friend and soul mate of 50 ½ years, her husband Dave.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)

James and the Giant Truffle

There is a chocolate shop near the edge of Deadwood, close to where highway 385 turns off for Pactola and Hill City. There is a large sign, beautifully designed and painted, depicting a cartoon female chipmunk. She looks quite attractive (to male cartoon chipmunks) as she runs along, smiling merrily and holding aloft a chocolate truffle on a platter. She wears a leopard-skin vest and black boots and her hair appears to have been hastily tied back into a chignon from which a couple of strands have escaped. Above this energetic figure are lettered the words “Chubby Chipmunk” and below it, “Hand Dipped Chocolates.”
It was 9:30 when I arrived at the door. The store was not yet open so I rapped timidly on the glass and waited. I must admit that I felt a bit of trepidation; I am not a genial gregarious person by nature, though my various occupations have forced me to moderate my inborn shyness to some degree. Still, I tend to face new experiences and acquaintances with an underlying lack of confidence and a certain degree of skepticism.
The door was opened by an attractive, smiling, woman in a leopard-skin apron. Her hair appeared to have been hastily tied back into a chignon from which a couple of strands had escaped. The main difference between the woman, who introduced herself as “Chip,” and the chipmunk on the sign, was that Chip is definitely not chubby. Also, she had a smear of chocolate in her bangs, which for some reason gave me the impression that I was going to enjoy working with her. She handed me a name tag with “Tag A. Long, Chipmunk in Training” printed on it. I wondered whether it had been made especially for me, or whether I had been preceded by numerous other respected journalists, but either way it told me that Chip had a sense of humor, and it made me feel welcome.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring 2007 FACES)