The American Legion Auxiliary (ALA) South Dakota held its first annual Girl’s State in 1947 in Mitchell on the Dakota Wesleyan University (DWU) campus. 117 girls attended the first year. DWU held the annual event until 1985 when Girl’s State was moved to the South Dakota State University (SDSU) campus. Girl’s State changed locations a final time in 2002 when it was moved to its current location on the University of South Dakota (USD) campus at Vermillion. Currently over 400 young women attend the ALA South Dakota Girl’s State’s annual event.

Girl’s State is a part of the ALA’s summer leadership and citizenship programs. The event is open to all interested junior girls for a week the summer before their senior year. Each ALA unit is allowed to send a certain number of participants. For the Wagner ALA, they are allowed to send two girl staters. The goal of this event is to open young women’s minds and eyes to the mechanics of the American government and politics for education and for potential future career paths in those fields.

The first day of Girl’s State the attendees meet at the USD campus and get registered. The first step is to be sorted into cities, then to be assigned a member of one of two created political parties. Once sorted into the cities, girls nominated and elected for different city positions. After city positions comes county positions, state official positions, legislators, and judicial branch positions. Girl’s craft party platforms, campaign for their nominees, hold a mock trial, and the legislative body meets to organize, elect leaders and pass bills just as our state legislature does. A newer addition to Girl’s State would be Journalism City, where participants spend their days covering and reporting on the events of each day and creating a daily newspaper.

Alice (Barnard) Kafka was Wagner ALA’s first Girl’s State attendee. She attended in 1948, the second year that Girl’s State was held. Alice kept a detailed journal from her week at Girl’s State and the experiences described in the journal paint a memorable picture of her experience that Alice is no longer able to remember in order to share. Some programs have stayed the same while others have changed and evolved since Alice’s time at Girl’s State in comparison to Wagner’s 2023 Girl’s State attendee, Jenny Barnett’s, experience.

In Alice’s experience, when getting to Girl’s State, all the girls registered which was over 200 girls. Then they were each given a physical checkup before being sent to the gym which would be her living quarters with 80 other attendees for the week. The way that Alice describes her day felt military in schedule and in some of the activities required of the girls. Every morning the girls would be up early to attend the flag raising ceremony before being required to do calisthenics. After calisthenics the girls would attend breakfast after which they were required to return to their living quarters to tidy up in order to pass inspection. After passing inspection, the girls would assemble in their city rooms. Alice was a part of the city of Cleveland and the girls were divided by their sleeping arrangements. In their city rooms they would hold nominations and elections, hear political speeches from candidates, vote, hold meetings, etc. After spending time in their city rooms, the girls would then attend an assembly where they would either hear from government speakers such as the then current Governor, George Mickelson, county law enforcement, state treasurer duties, etc. or have classes such as the class she had to take as a nominee for Cleveland mayor called the “Law in Relation to Women”, demonstration of court room procedures, political organizations, etc. Everyone, whether a part of the legislative body or not, attended legislative sessions in the final days of Girl’s State. There was also mandatory afternoon recreation time where the girls had the choices of either volleyball, swimming or softball. On Sunday the girls attended church and went on a site seeing tour of Mitchell. Other interesting events that took place during her week for Alice were being a part of the Girl’s State chorus, she was nominated for mayor but lost by one vote, she was a part of the Federalist party and she was elected a county commissioner. With military precision every night at 5:15 there was a flag retreat and lights out was always at 10:45 p.m.

Alice ends her journal entry with these final thoughts. “This ended a week of enjoyable experiences, and knowledge. Besides being educational, it was fun”.

The experience had by 2023 Girl’s Stater, Jenny Barnett, seventy-five years later shares several similarities but highlights some definite differences. In their cities during Alice’s experience, there were only seven positions nominated and voted on as opposed to Jenny’s experience where everyone in the city held a position. Both ladies were randomly assigned to political parties; Alice a Federalist and Jenny a Nationalist. Both ladies enjoyed a long list of speakers and educational assemblies. A major difference between the two experiences was the more rigorous routine that Alice experienced with required participation in recreation time where she was utterly exhausted by the end of her days to a scheduled day for Jenny but with more options and freedom to choose between different speakers and lectures. The addition of Journalism City, and the ability to take part in the judicial part of the government were two important additions to the event since Alice’s experience.

Jenny attended USD for the ALA South Dakota 2023 Girl’s State. She was a part of the city of Chicago and sang with the Girl’s State Choir. Jenny held many positions during her week at Girl’s State including councilwoman for Chicago, County Commissioner for Minnehaha County and an appellate attorney. As an appellate attorney she argued cases in the Girl’s State Supreme Court. Her favorite memory from Girl’s State was getting to stand in USD’s courtroom and argue her appeal before the Girls State Supreme Court. Her favorite speakers were South Dakota Attorney General, Marty Jackley, and Dr. Tracey Diefenbach. Dr. Diefenbach talked about her losses due to war and how she has used those experiences to create a ranch for Max Rhythmic Motion Sequencing (MRMS) therapy using horses that helps rehabilitate Veterans.

Jenny would definitely recommend Girl’s State. The experience made her more aware of all the moving parts that work together to form the government. She now has a new found respect for those in government positions after her experiences at Girl’s State. The experience had a profound impact on Jenny who is now planning on studying political science in college in hopes of pursuing a career in government. Jenny’s final thoughts about Girl’s State were “…Girl’s State is an incredible opportunity to not only learn about how our government functions, but also to have fun within a community of other young women”.

In the 75-year time span between the two young women’s experience there have been some additions and changes, but the principles of the ALA South Dakota Girl’s State have stayed the same. Their goal is to educate and inspire young women to explore all opportunities around them including politics and the inner workings of the way the government works.

Thank you, Alice and Jenny, for sharing your experiences. I would like to express my appreciation of thanks to the Alice Kafka family for donating Alice’s journal to the Wagner American Legion Auxiliary and allowing me to share her experiences through her journal with the community. It is an invaluable piece of ALA history.