Two coaches, an official and a contributor to high school sports are slated to be inducted into the South Dakota Basketball Coaches Hall of Shrine in 2025.

Byron Utter of Mobridge, Mike Tuschen of Stickney, Ron Eastmo of Deadwood and Larry Rohrer of Beresford are slated to be honored at the upcoming South Dakota state high school girls and boys basketball tournaments in March 13-15 and 20-22.

For more on the South Dakota Basketball Coaches Association, visit https://sdbbca.k12.sd.us/.

Here are the biographies of the 2025 inductees:

Byron Utter

A McIntosh High School and Northern State University graduate, Utter began his teaching and coaching career in Langford in 1981. He moved to Mobridge in 1994 and completed his career as a teacher, coach, athletic director and school administrator there.

Utter coached boys and girls basketball and track for 30 years. His teams averaged 15 wins per season and qualified for eight state tournaments. His combined girls basketball record was 344-152 in 22 years and included state B runner-up finishes in 1989 and 1990 at Langford and a state A runner-up finish in 2006 at Mobridge.

Utter was selected as the South Dakota Basketball Coach of the Year in 1989. He and his wife, Kristi, have three daughters and eight grandchildren. He feels fortunate to have worked with some very talented colleagues, assistant coaches and hard-working young men and women.

The best life and team advice Utter received came in a class taught by Dr. James Kretchman at Northern State: “To be highly successful in coaching, business or family, remove the words me, my and I from your vocabulary and replace them with the words we, our, us and you.  The true meaning of “ Team.” Utter said he used that advice every day.

Mike Tuschen

Tuschen graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1978 and Dakota State University in 1982 before started his teaching and coaching career at Stickney and continued coaching with the Corsica-Stickney consolidation.

He has coached girls basketball, assistant football, grade school and junior high basketball, summer baseball programs and varsity boys basketball at Stickney and Corsica-Stickney, compiling a 567-267 career record with two state B championships in 2002 with Stickney and 2011 with Corsica-Stickney.

Tuschen’s teams won 19 conference championships and appeared in eight state tournaments, six with Stickney and two with Corsica-Stickney.

Tuschen, who retired from coaching in 2021, earned Region Coach of the Year honors five times from the South Dakota Basketball Coaches Association. The South Dakota Basketball Coach of the Year in 2011, he also was a nominee for the honor in both 1993 and 2002.

He said:  “This honor represents all the great student-athletes I have had the honor to coach. Thank you to the communities for their support. A special thank you to my family: wife Sandy, son Aaron (senior starter in 2002) and daughter Amber for all their sacrifices and support.”

Ron Eastmo

Eastmo began officiating in 1963 and 1964 while still in high school, officiating junior high and othre sub-varsity boys basketball games under the mentoring of Bill Ausmann.

Returning to Lead in 1971 after attending South Dakota State University and serving in the United States Army, Eastmo began officiating high school boys basketball and football along with South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference football and men’s basketball games. In the mid-1970s, he started working high school girls basketball and SDIC women’s basketball.

Prior to retiring in 2009, Eastmo was honored to officiate numerous boys and girls basketball section, district, region and state basketball tournaments, three state football championships, two NAIA football playoffs and a SDIC men’s’ ‘s basketball tournament. He was chosen as the National Federation of Interscholastic Officials (NFIOA) Outstanding Girls Basketball Official for South Dakota in 1992 and was inducted into the Black Hills Sports Officials Association Hall of Fame in 2016.

Eastmo thanks Jim Phillips, Jim Aberle and all the other partners he worked with over the years and gives special thanks to his wife Virginia, son Eric and daughter Allison for their support, encouragement and sacrifices during these years.

Larry Rohrer

The Sioux Falls Lincoln and University of Sioux Falls graduate began his broadcasting career at KELO in 1974 and continued at KXRB Radio for several years before joining South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB) in 1988.

Rohrer served as SDPB Radio Manager and launched the SDPB Internet Services department in 1998 before being named SDPB’s Director of Content (Managing SDPB Radio, TV, and Digital media content). In his retirement, he continues to do voice work and volunteer fundraising for SDPB.

During his career, he helped design and launch SDPB’s first website, streaming audio for legislative coverage, created and managed SDPB’s internet coverage of South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA) Athletic and Fine Arts championships, and later, the television coverage to dramatically expand media access to those events.

Rohrer was the co-founder and board chairman of Honor Flight South Dakota (a four-year project that raised money for/and conducted 12 separate charter trips to honor local World War II veterans with a tour of the National WWII memorial in Washington DC. He continues to serve on other local boards,  including Arts South Dakota, and is a member of the Beresford City Council.

He also has been inducted into the Lincoln High School Hall of Fame (2010), Dakota Country Music Hall of Fame (2022) and South Dakota Hall of Fame (2023).