The sad news comes that Jan Nicolay, a longtime Sioux Falls educator and state legislator, died this morning, aged 82.
As this blog wrote in 2018, Nicolay was a trailblazer for women in South Dakota politics. First elected to the State House in 1982, it was in 1987 that she became the first woman to co-chair the powerful Joint Appropriations Committee, appointed by Rep. Debra Anderson, who became the first female Speaker of the House at the same time. Nicolay served as House chair for ten years from 1987-96; for six of those years, from 1987-92, she co-chaired the committee with my grandfather, Senate Chair Henry A. Poppen.
Nicolay’s career, though, was in education, and she was also a trailblazer for women in that field. As Virginia Olson wrote in the Argus Leader in 2015:
She became the first woman to be named a secondary education principal in Sioux Falls when she took the top job at Washington High School in 1987. . . . For nearly 40 years, Nicolay was involved in education in Sioux Falls. Early in her career, she was well aware of a resistance to women’s leadership abilities when it came to being a principal at a secondary level.
You can read that entire story here. As Olson writes, Nicolay went from being an assistant principal at Patrick Henry Middle School, to principal at Washington High School (leading the move from the old high school downtown to the new facility in Northeast Sioux Falls), to Roosevelt High School. In 2001, she led Southeast Technical Institute on an interim basis, then served four years on the State Board of Education.
Nicolay’s legacy in the State Legislature continues to this day. The Joint Appropriations Committee is a world apart from the rest of the legislature, and there is a long history of committee chairs training the next generation of leaders. Among Nicolay’s proteges was J. E. “Jim” Putnam of Armour, who would serve in both houses as appropriations chair or vice chair for sixteen consecutive years from 1995-2010. Putnam, in turn, mentored Jean Hunhoff of Yankton, who today serves as Senate Appropriations Chair and is the longest-serving woman in the history of the State Legislature, and Deb Peters of Hartford, who chaired the senate committee for four years. Nicolay, Hunhoff, and Peters are the only women to chair the appropriations committee in either house.
The City of Sioux Falls also benefits from Jan Nicolay’s passion for the outdoors, which she shared with her late husband Jerry. She championed the creation of the Game Fish and Parks Outdoor Campus in Sioux Falls, winning its approval in her last legislative session. As she told me, she had to win over Governor Bill Janklow, who opposed the idea, arguing that if Sioux Falls got one, every town would want one. “We can only hope!” was Nicolay’s response.
Keloland News had a nice feature about Nicolay in April.
I first met Jan Nicolay when I was a child, visiting my grandpa in Pierre as the two co-chaired the appropriations committee. I remember her speaking at the Kingsbury County Lincoln Day Dinner when Grandpa retired from the legislature in 1992 (I was nine years old). I came across her again a decade later, when I served on the Board of Regents as a student, and she served on the State Board of Education, which at the time oversaw the technical institutes. Now, I am serving as vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, learning from Senator Jean Hunhoff. Until her death, Jan Nicolay was living in my district, a constituent who donated to my campaign and displayed by yard sign.
She will be missed by many, but her legacy will be long remembered, and even longer felt.
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