District 4 is hopping with candidates! The newly drawn district includes all of Grant and Deuel counties, then oozes around Watertown and Brookings to include the rest of Codington and Brookings counties. Two candidates have already filed their petitions for State House: James Gilkerson of rural Brookings and my current fave Kathy Tyler from Milbank. Tyler gets extra points for being the first Democrat to file for the 2012 race for Legislature.
Also joining the race for District 4 House is arch-conservative Republican Fred Deutsch of Florence. Deutsch showed some blog chops while serving on the Watertown school board (and he is still VP of that august local body). He's not afraid to throw punches... and he's not afraid to take those punches back and apologize when he realizes he's wrong. I don't know Gilkerson well enough to comment yet, but a tussle between Deutsch and Milbank school board VP Tyler should provide great policy fun.
Now we just wait to see if term-limited Speaker of the House Val Rausch will challenge Senator Tim Begalka for his Senate seat. Nummy nummy....