A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Honoring Donna Leslie of the South Dakota Retailers Association for outstanding service to the business community.

WHEREAS, Donna Leslie has been a leading staff member of the South Dakota Retailers Association since being hired as communications director on September 12, 1988; and

WHEREAS, Donna has worked for four executive directors, three dozen board presidents, and more than one hundred fifty board members during nearly thirty-seven years of service; and

WHEREAS, Donna has written virtually every article in nearly three hundred issues of the Retail Prophet magazine, which provides important, timely information to thousands of South Dakota businesses; and

WHEREAS, Donna has “kept an eye” on thirty-seven legislative sessions for the South Dakota Retailers Association and produced more than one hundred sixty issues of the Legislative Bulletin, while compiling each edition of the popular Legislative Lineup guide to the legislative session; and

WHEREAS, Donna has been the historian and information hub of the South Dakota Retailers Association, helping guide its growth from two thousand members in 1988 to four thousand today; and

WHEREAS, Donna has skillfully managed the South Dakota Retailers Association’s scholarship program, which has awarded two hundred eighty scholarships totaling more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars; and

WHEREAS, Donna’s incomparable fashion sense has translated into bronze as the guiding force in dressing the statue of Governor Robert S. Vessey outside the Retailers Association office; and

WHEREAS, Donna is the longest-serving employee during the one hundred twenty-eight years the South Dakota Retailers Association has served this state; and

WHEREAS, the press release announcing her hire stated that, “Hiring Donna Leslie is a positive step that will help us in providing better information to our members and the public as well,” and she has more than lived up to that billing; and

WHEREAS, after consuming approximately forty-eight thousand two-hundred eighty-five cups of coffee during her tenure, Donna intends to retire in May 2025;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the One Hundredth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that Donna Leslie has made a positive difference in the lives of many South Dakotans by helping make the South Dakota Retailers Association one of the country’s largest and most effective business organizations.