Legacy Larry Pressler
From SD Hall of Fame Programs
Legacy Larry Pressler
 Hall of Fame Inductee |
 |
| Induction Category |
|---|
| Political |
| Induction Year |
| 2020 |
| Home Town |
| Humboldt, South Dakota |
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| Birth |
| March 09, 1942 | Humbolt, South Dakota |
| Recommended Links |
Looking Beyond What is and Pursuing What Could Be
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Former Sen. Larry Pressler, a Rhodes Scholar with a law degree from Harvard, served two combat tours in Vietnam and spent 22 years in Congress, including 18 in the U.S. Senate, where he chaired the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committees. At heart, though, the Humboldt native remains a farm kid who loves Class B basketball and knows how it feels to sleep on straw in the State Fair’s 4-H barn. For more than two decades in Congress, his focus, always, was on helping the people of South Dakota. After his election to the Senate, he wrote a book, “U.S. Senators from the Prairie.’’ Researching the lives of past South Dakota senators prompted Pressler to model his career after Sens. Richard F. Pettigrew and Peter Norbeck, both of whom devoted their service to improving their home state and its people. “I wanted to be a senator for South Dakota,’’ Pressler said. And he was. His work on the Telecommunications Act involved efforts to bring fiber-optic cable to South Dakota, giving residents of farms, ranches, and small towns access to the Internet and connections to the rest of the world, a critical advancement for rural communities. Think, for example, how South Dakota school children would have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 without distance learning capabilities. Pressler’s early 4-H experiences (he has a photo with President Kennedy, whom he met because of his work as an all-American 4-H member) influenced his Senate efforts to increase funding for county agents and assistant agents, enhancing 4-H clubs across the state. Pressler secured aid for projects in every South Dakota county. He championed funding for research and professorial staffing at South Dakota colleges, and he played a key role in starting Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown and enhancing programs at Mitchell Technical Institute. When Yankton College struggled, Pressler helped find a replacement, a federal prison that continues to operate today. Pressler entered politics in 1974, running for Congress during the post-Watergate reform era. When he first reached the U.S. House of Representatives the next year, he quickly became known for his aggressive service to constituents back home. He participated in hundreds of meetings annually in counties across South Dakota and made it a commitment to meet each year with leaders of Native American tribes in the state. In fact, he devoted one staff member’s full time to working on Native American issues and problems. Pressler’s advocacy was essential to the creation and growth of the D, M&E Railroad, a vital transportation link that serves such various entities as the cement plant in Rapid City, bentonite plants in Belle Fourche, and grain and ethanol operations across the state. A rail connection in Rapid City, “Pressler Junction,’’ recognizes his efforts, without which rail service might not exist in the state today. Pressler also played a key role in improvements to visitor safety and convenience at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, particularly on the highway leading from Keystone and the memorial. Throughout his career, he worked on programs and projects to assure air service to South Dakota and on numerous projects that benefited Ellsworth Air Force Base. He helped to create the Earth Resources Observation and Science Data Center (EROS), a national archive of remotely sensed images of Earth’s land surface near Sioux Falls. From his first years in the House, he worked on projects to move Missouri River water to communities both West River and East River. All of those things he did for South Dakota while maintaining a national presence. He is famously remembered as the senator who couldn’t be bribed during the FBI sting called ABSCAM. He briefly ran for president in 1980, focusing his campaign on Vietnam veterans’ issues. After the Senate, Pressler remained active in state and national issues, lecturing at universities across the country and around the globe. He serves on the Jericho Project’s Veteran Homeless Advisory Council, which has recently opened two homeless facilities for veterans in the Bronx and Harlem. Pressler and his wife, Harriet, have a daughter, Laura, and four grandchildren: Addison, Bethany, Julia, and Ryan. He divides his time between his farm in South Dakota and Washington, D. C. and still follows Men & Women’s Class B basketball in South Dakota. He played for the old Humboldt Eagles Basketball (now West Central). |
2020 Medallion Celebration Legacy Testimonial Video
Legacy Interview: Sen. Larry Pressler