BROOKINGS — “Keep moving. Do something fulfilling.”
Those few words pretty much sum up the philosophy and world view of Brookings resident Jerry Thoms, 83. Today he battles Parkinson’s disease and macular degeneration: “It’s slowed me down a bit, but it hasn’t stopped me.”
Thoms was diagnosed with PD about 12 years ago. He has had 34 shots in his right eye for macular degeneration and has lost most of the vision in his left eye. He attends a PD support group in Brookings once a month.
Looking back, one might see a bit of irony as to the way Thoms, who spent many of the long years of his working life outdoors, came into the world in Sioux Falls: Near the end of a three-day blizzard in 1943, his father, Walter G. Thoms, drove Jerry’s mother, Marie T. Thoms, to the hospital in a pickup. When it got stuck in a snowdrift, she had to help push it out. Since then, Jerry Thoms has had no fondness for a South Dakota winter.
Growing up, Thoms attended General Beadle Grade School, located “right at the edge of the wrong side of the tracks.” He attended Washington High School, where he was told by a guidance counselor that he “should probably go to a vo-tech school instead of college.” What might have happened if he had followed that advice?
Instead, he attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls and graduated in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in English, history and philosophy. Next stop: University of South Dakota in Vermillion, where he earned a master’s degree in English literature. Still pursuing his higher education, he started studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for a doctorate in English. In 1968, he moved to Kansas State University in Manhattan and earned his doctorate.
He came to Brookings in 1972 and taught English at South Dakota State University for several years. “I did creative writing one time, but I stuck mainly with freshman and junior composition,” Thoms noted. “I liked it, but I got tired of it after about 10 years.”
Leaving his post at SDSU, he went to work for the South Dakota Humanities Council, writing and administering seminars on the humanities and their relationship to public policy issues. The program included political and educational figures, such as George McGovern, Bill Janklow, and George Mickelson. While there, he had begun writing part-time for a variety of outdoor magazines. He left the SDHC about 1990.
From then until about 2020 and the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thoms worked full-time as a field editor and senior writer for publications that included: Pheasants Forever Journal; Gun Dog; Wildfowl; Ducks Unlimited; Delta Waterfowl; Peterson’s Hunting Magazine; Bird Dog and Retriever News; Shotgun Sports; Sporting Clays; Dakota Outdoors; and several newspapers. He focused on hunting, fishing and dog training. Gathering materials for his writing took him to 25 states.
A favorite of his was Gun Dog magazine, for which he served as a field editor and as a senior writer for 16 years. “It was an empty distinction,” Thom said, with a hint of sardonic humor. “It didn’t involve any more money for gas or groceries. But it gave me some prestige when I wanted to go somewhere and gather material for an article.”
He has also written several handbooks on cooking wild game and on training hunting dogs. A “gun dog” — aka “bird dog” — is used for hunting waterfowl and other birds, such as pheasants and quail. Thoms is also noted as a “chef” who likes cooking what he shoots. His “Pheasant Hunter’s Cookbook” features “Simple, Easy, Quick Recipes for Ringneck Roosters.”
As to dogs, Thoms has a special fondness for German shorthair pointers and has hunted with a dozen of them over 65 years.
Thoms’s sense of humor has led to his penning “a one-liner joke book as one of my projects. I’ve gathered jokes over several decades. I’ll explain how one-liner jokes work on several levels, from simple and silly to more serious and profound. I wanted to do a book on humor because it has always been a big part of my life, especially when facing any adversity. My wife, Marlys, says she married me (in 1986) because I made her laugh at a time in her life when she truly doubted that she would ever laugh again. It never hurts to have a good laugh or even a chuckle.”
About two weeks ago Thoms got underway on his most recent project: putting together a documentary on the late Tony Dean, for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Dean was 68 when he died in 2008. He was a conservationist, outdoor writer and broadcaster who produced hundreds of videos and radio programs on hunting and fishing in the Dakotas. Thoms is looking to get some journalism students to help him sort and categorize all the materials that Dean produced. The result of their efforts will be an hour-long documentary for SDPB.
— Contact John Kubal at [email protected]m.
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