All of the William and Ann Halter kids were back home in Moody County this past weekend.
They try to get together somewhere at least once a year, having gone separate ways since growing up on a farm south of Ward, and attending Fletcher Country School.
This year though, David (Sioux Falls), Bill (Duluth, MN), Mike (Chattanooga, TN), and sister Susan Halter Jones (Watertown), gathered in Moody County to witness their brother Vernon (Willow, AK) be inducted into the Flandreau Athletic Hall of Fame.
“It’s a huge honor, it’s one of the bright spots of my whole life to have my local friends in Flandreau acknowledge me,” Vern said.
“Plus, I’m a dog musher. Which is something totally different. Most of the time it’s someone really good at track and field, or they have whole teams that are inducted. So this is a big honor for me.”
A few of the siblings gathered earlier in the day Sunday and drove around the county, and revisited their old home.
“This was just a really, really nice town to grow up in,” Susan said.

Her brothers agreed, Vern stating that South Dakota has never left him, even after decades of living in a remote area of Alaska adjacent to Denali National Park.
“Growing up here in Moody County and on the farm was really something, but I always had a wanderlust to me. When I was a junior in law school, I built a houseboat on barrels and took it from Vermillion to New Orleans. That was quite an experience and I think that carried over to Alaska. Really, I was only going to go for a summer,” he said.
Fresh out of Law School at the University of South Dakota, he took a job as a law clerk on Kodiak Island. From there, he was sent to Dutch Harbor to be a judge. It was where he met his wife, Susan. It’s where a dear college friend, who moved to Alaska with him, also met his wife — Susan Butcher, a four-time Iditarod Champion.
It was Butcher who introduced him to sled dog racing.
“I think I’m on my 49th summer in Alaska, I just got hooked,” he said.
“It’s been quite a life and transition. I was a lawyer and judge for a long time. But then I ran the Iditarod, I thought I would do it once but then I decided to do it again, and the court system made me quit my job. They gave me six months off the first time, but they wouldn’t do it a second time, so I had to quit my job to be a dog musher,” he said, with a chuckle.
Sponsorships from Norwest (Wells Fargo), John Morrell out of Sioux Falls, who donated meat each year to him and the dogs, Wigwam socks, Cabela’s, and others in the lower states kept him coming back each year to visit.
A program sponsored by Norwest/Well Fargo Bank, called Dream your Dream, especially had him traveling home and touring to schools across the country.
“I’d see tens of thousands of students each year, in every town where there was a Wells Fargo Bank. I did it every year for 15 years, which got me back here, so it was nice.”
1983 was his rookie year. Eighteen Iditarods (1000 miles), six Yukon Quests (1000 miles), and 10 John Beargrease Marathon Sled Dog Races (400 miles) later, Vern still raises sled dogs and will still race on occasion, but he’s got another musher at the helm for this year’s Iditarod.
A young woman from Minot, North Dakota, 33-year-old Sidney Bahl, is taking over his reins.
Vern was one of many inducted this past Sunday night into the newly established Flandreau Athletic Hall of Fame. The banquet recognized many others, including Billy Cone, Mike Talks Different, Neil Teer, Jr., Theresa Moss Oldman, Charissa Sheppard Covey and Charles Knutson, the 1950s FIS Boys State Champion cross country teams, the 1976 FHS girls state champion track and field team, the 1983 FHS boys state champion golf team, Daryl Christensen, Craig Severtson, Georgia Adolph, and John Shaeffer.