Bartles named speaker of the SD house

A majority of the Republican members of the House of Representative caucus picked High Bartles of Watertown to serve as Speaker of the House for the upcoming legislative session. He becomes the first speaker to ascend to that role without first serving as Speaker Pro Temp. Jess Olson of Rapid City and Jon Hansen of Dell Rapids also ran for the speaker job. Rep. Will Mortenson of Pierre defeated Scott Odenbach of Spearfish and Rebecca Reimer of Oacoma or majority leader. Taylor Rehfeldt of Sioux Falls was elected top assistant majority leader.