Editor at South Dakota Magazine
What’s more important: being in the right place at the right time or jumping at opportunities as they come? 
John Andrews, a 2002 graduate of South Dakota State University and editor at South Dakota Magazine, might have trouble giving you a solid answer—both of those have been true for his successful career as a South Dakota journalist.
First taste of journalism
Andrews, a Lake Norden native, got his first taste of journalism writing for his high school newspaper. After enrolling at SDSU in 1998, he started down the track of broadcast journalism. Television or radio were his future, Andrews thought.
“When you’re in the journalism track, you have to take all the basic newswriting courses and at the same time, I was taking history courses where I was required to write longer research papers,” Andrews said. “I sort of felt myself being pulled more into that long-form print format.”
During the latter part of his undergraduate years, Andrews began working for The Collegian, SDSU’s student-run newspaper, where he wrote a feature story on John Hittle ’98/M.S. ’01, the public address announcer for Frost Arena.
“I remember part of the story focused on how he came to call Frost Arena the world’s largest rabbit den,” Andrews said. “We discussed whether or not rabbits actually have dens. We kind of went down a rabbit hole on that—no pun intended.”
In one of the basic newswriting courses Andrews was required to take, he wrote a story on South Dakota’s Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, a very familiar subject since it stands on Lake Norden’s Main Street. His professor, Jack Getz ’64, encouraged him to submit his story to South Dakota Magazine.
“I put it in an envelope and sent it down there,” Andrews said. “I didn’t know if anything would ever come of it.”
Two years later, Andrews was taking a magazine writing course, and one of the requirements was that students should try to get their work published in a magazine. Out of the blue, Andrews received a letter from Jerry Wilson, then the managing editor at South Dakota Magazine, explaining that he was sorry for the delay in getting back to him. Andrews’ submission had been buried underneath a pile of mail on his desk, but they wanted to publish his story on the Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame.
“It’s one of those mysteries of the universe,” Andrews said. “It was two years in the making, but in the May/June 2002 issue of South Dakota Magazine, my slightly edited piece appeared. It also fulfilled the requirement of that course and sort of made me start to think that a career on the print side of things might be worth going after.”
Professional career
After graduating from SDSU, Andrews remained in town and began working at The Brookings Register. As a news reporter, he made the daily walk down the block to the police station to learn of the incidents from the day before while also attending regular school board and county commission meetings. He remained at the Register until 2005, when he decided to explore a career change.
“I was sort of done with the newspaper life, and I had really gotten to appreciate history and research,” Andrews explained. “I thought maybe a life as a history professor where I could teach history and write long articles or books would be worth it.”
He enrolled at the University of South Dakota to pursue a master’s degree in history. He focused primarily on South Dakota history, with his thesis centered around South Dakota politics in the 1970s. After graduating, he was set to pursue a Ph.D. in history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, but with a wife and two young children back in Yankton, he wasn’t sure the timing was right.
“I started looking around for jobs in Yankton,” Andrews said. “We had gotten South Dakota Magazine at my house when I was in high school, so I had enjoyed reading the magazine and was familiar with it.”
It was summer 2007 when Andrews, equipped with his resume and writing samples, drove down to the magazine’s offices—located at the historic Pennington House in downtown Yankton—in search of a job. Luckily, Bernie Hunhoff, the founder and publisher, happened to be there that day. Hunhoff explained to Andrews that while they weren’t looking for writers at the moment, he would be glad to take a look at his work.
“He called me back a few days later and said he had an opening for a marketing position,” Andrews said. “I had no idea what marketers even did, but he said if I wanted to take the position, I could have it.”
Andrews called a few close friends with experience in media positions for advice. They told him in no uncertain terms that he would be a fool to not take the job.
“I started working in marketing, and as I was doing that, I would get little writing projects along the way—probably so they could just sort of test me,” Andrews said. “The writing assignments eventually got longer, and the marketing stuff got less and less.”
Eventually, the magazine hired someone else to do the marketing, and Andrews moved into a full-time writing position. The thought of pursuing a Ph.D. also faded into history.
Andrews has been with the magazine ever since, becoming managing editor in 2010 and editor in 2022. He contributes feature stories, organizes the magazine’s departments, manages the website, compiles a monthly e-newsletter and writes an occasional column that appears in several South Dakota weekly newspapers. One of his favorite feature stories from his 15-year career was about the culture of rock collecting in the Black Hills, specifically the Fairburn Agate—a rare gemstone found in the agate beds of southwestern South Dakota. In his story, “The Search for the Fairburn Agate,” Andrews traveled West River where he actually found a small Fairburn Agate with the help of a retired law enforcement officer.
“There’s this whole subculture of rock finding and collecting that was very South Dakota specific that we wanted to tap into,” Andrews said. “That was a lot of fun—I enjoyed that story.”
As a journalism veteran, Andrews has some advice for students interested in the field:
“When I was in college, they said print was dying. While that may be true for some newspapers and even some national magazines, that is not what we have found here at South Dakota Magazine. In fact, we’ve added a few thousand subscribers in the 15 years that I have been here. Newspapers are a different animal, and a lot of them are emphasizing the digital versions of their products. They are still going to need people to be content producers. There’s always going to be a demand for good stories—the medium is going to change—but we’re still going to need people to tell them. Don’t be discouraged. The demand is going to be there in some way.”
Addison DeHaven
