Perhaps you’ve seen Doug Day over the years as he’s been out patrolling fields, monitoring local waterways, checking on hunting and fishing licenses, enforcing state parks laws, and working to otherwise improve habitat for fish and wildlife across the region.
Day worked most of his career as a Conservation Officer for the State of South Dakota. And at six feet three inches tall, he was often a pretty intimidating figure to meet out in the field. Especially if you were out doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing.
But what most might never assume, is that when Day would go home at night and take off the uniform, he’d take up a whole other world of work. One far more soft-hearted and artistic.
“My mother was a master quilter, so I would help her with fabric and stuff when I was home,” said Day. “I got my first sewing machine back in the 1980’s because I needed to fix my own stuff, being alone and a bachelor and everything. That one kept me going for a long time. And then, mom got me this machine, it’s under here .. from an estate sale from a friend. That worked well for years.”

He still has that original machine, along with his mother’s own sewing machine and one other that she apparently never could figure out — in his upstairs home office.
Two of the machines get put to use almost daily, especially this time of year, he said. Guiding him in that work, even after her passing this past year, is his mother. The family found boxes upon boxes of material pre-cut and color coordinated in her Humboldt, Iowa home. Day is putting the finishing touches on several new quilts that he’s made, several of which he plans to donate to Avera for patients that might be in need. The hardest part, he said, is getting the corners to come point to point.
He’s getting it down though.
Other’s he’s finished recently, have gone to his new baby grandson, Morgan.  
“I think she’s looking down on us and pretty proud,” said Day.
Morgan, by the way, was born on the very same day that his mother passed this past year. Spending time with the machines and the patterns and the projects, Day feels keeps them all connected. He also just installed a new zipper in Morgan’s car-seat cover. He’s now also working on the perfect teddy bear for him from one of his mother’s old patterns.
Day grew up in Iowa but he has been a resident of Flandreau since 1989, moving here originally from Webster, for his job as a Conservation Officer. He worked from home until the State provided him with an office in the Moody County Courthouse. When he wasn’t in the office, he was literally out in the field. Day retired from that job to spend more time with family and in the community in 2011. He volunteers with the Wild Turkey Federation, and otherwise right now, helps care for his wife of 28 years, Maggie, who is fighting a cancer diagnosis. The couple also spends as much time as they can right now with their son Adam, daughter-in-law, Jill, and their grandson, Morgan.