Arthur L. Rusch received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Dakota and has served as a circuit judge in South Dakota's First Judicial Circuit for seventeen years. An avid local historian, he has given numerous presentations, including the Herbert S. Schell Lecture for the University of South Dakota History Department, and has received the Richard Cropp Award for an outstanding paper at the 2008 Dakota Conference sponsored by the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College.