Legend Shantel Krebs

Learning to Lead at an Early Age

Shantel’s parents, Jerald and Sheila both came from agriculture roots and were hard-working, humble individuals who passed on traits such as an incredible work ethic, the importance of taking care of nature, and improving their family, community and greater area.

Shantel and her older sister and brother had many responsibilities, such as household and farming chores, answering the phone for the trucking operation, and delivering accurate information regarding customer needs. All these required Shantel to pay attention to details!

Shantel credits her parents trusting her with these important duties for developing her critical thinking skills. An important lesson was to always take responsibly for mistakes and create a solution.

When Shantel was just nine years old, she took over her brother’s lawn mowing service. This was Shantel’s first small business, and she had to invest $50.00 into buying her brother’s used push mower. This experience taught her to keep track of approximately 20 customers (which lawns to mow each week) and how to work around her other activities and responsibilities.

Even at a young age, Shantel valued excellent customer service. She not only ensured her clients’ lawns were mowed well and on time but also recognized the importance of building relationships. After each job, she made a point to stop by and chat with her customers—mostly older women—often enjoying a treat they offered. Those conversations helped her connect with each person and played a key role in developing her personality and communication skills.

In addition, Shantel’s mother encouraged her to volunteer at a nursing home when she was just nine years old and in the third grade. Talking with 98-year-olds as a third grader helped develop Shantel’s listening and speaking skills, as well as how to engage people. Finally, this experience taught Shantel the importance of placing other’s needs above yourself.

Shantel believes her growth was enhanced because of the people she put in her ‘circle’ and the encouragement of her parents.

Finding Her Way

As a young girl, Shantel fell in love with nature and enjoyed spending time outside playing with her cats and newborn kittens. She also savored going for long evening horseback rides.

Shantel is an accomplished saxophone player which she began playing as a fifth grader. Shantel chose the saxophone because her sister had played it and handed the instrument down to her. Although Shantel also played the piano, she loved the saxophone and credited her Arlington school band director, Bob King, with inspiring her and her fellow students. Director King’s excellent instruction and ability to motivate the young musicians led to the band winning many competitions.

Shantel excelled at playing the saxophone and played at church, was in High School and College All State Band, and tried out and made the prestigious FFA National Band.

Through these activities, Shantel found she enjoyed entertaining and competing. Discovering this about herself led to some incredible experiences!

Miss South Dakota

Since Shantel knew she loved to perform, she started exploring the Miss South Dakota Scholarship Program. Since the program had a talent competition, and awarded scholarships, Shantel believed the program might be a way to earn money for her college tuition and have some fun performing.

So, in 1997 Shantel entered the competition and was crowned Miss South Dakota! Since this is a scholarship program, Shantel won enough money to fund her entire college education!

She represented the state in the 1998 Miss America competition, where she presented a saxophone solo as her talent.

Lessons from Miss South Dakota & Miss America – Speaking & Networking

When asked what she learned from competing in the Miss South Dakota and Miss America Programs, without hesitation, Shantel said: “Public speaking skills!”

During the interview program of the competitions, participants must clearly articulate their thoughts and opinions on difficult topics, career goals, what their impact has been, and what they have done for community service.

While serving as Miss South Dakota, Shantel traveled 40,000 miles across the state speaking at schools, Chamber of Commerce meetings, Kiwanis Clubs and other community events. During this time, she met many people and eventually came to understand this network of people developed during her reign as Miss South Dakota would grow even larger and help support her blossoming career!

Business Owner

Using the lessons she learned from her lawn mowing business, working in her family’s operations, school activities and competing in Miss South Dakota and Miss America, Shantel opened two small businesses in 2005.

Shantel’s shoe and clothing stores were located in downtown Sioux Falls. Today this area includes many thriving stores, restaurants, and offices. However, when Shantel took the risk of starting her stores, the area was just beginning to revitalize and so there were not as many businesses or people shopping.

Shantel loved putting her small‑business skills to work in downtown Sioux Falls. But, as you’ll see, she also embraces new challenges—and the next one soon appeared.

South Dakota Government Service

During her senior year in high school, Shantel’s mother encouraged her to apply to become a Legislative Page. Upon selection to the program, Shantel not only learned the process of making laws, but she also met many influential people and some eventually held important positions in South Dakota government, such as Secretary of State and Secretary of Agriculture.

Shantel also met Jim Abbott, who was serving in the South Dakota House of Representatives and later became President of the University of South Dakota. He saw something special in Shantel and told her, “Someday you’re going to sit in this seat young lady.” The experience left an impression on Shantel and motivated her to want to engage in politics.

A few years later, at just 32 years of age, Shantel became a South Dakota State Legislator! She was elected to the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2005 where she served until 2011 when she was elected to the South Dakota Senate and served until 2015.

During her time in the South Dakota House of Representatives and the Senate, Shantel introduced over 500 pieces of legislation that eventually became laws!

Shantel was also the first woman to Chair the House Transportation Committee and one of the first women to Chair the powerful Agriculture Committee.

Serving Miss America

Shantel enjoyed competing in the 1998 Miss America Competition as Miss South Dakota, and she eventually became a volunteer member of the Miss America National Board.

• This meant she was one of the people who made important decisions for the Miss America Competition. Since this was a volunteer position, Shantel did not get paid.

It wasn’t long before Ms. Krebs became the Chair of the National Board – which meant she was in charge of the board – the people running the organization.

Shantel showed everyone she was smart and organized, and suddenly the Miss America National Board made her the Chief Executive Officer, also called the CEO.

• A CEO oversees an entire organization, so Shantel was the leader of the Miss America Competition!

When she became the Miss America CEO, (which was also a volunteer position) the organization had very bad money problems, so Shantel had to change many things to ensure they had enough money to run the competition. Shantel also redesigned Miss America so the young women of today felt it matched their goals. This is important so young women would continue to compete.

Just like the Miss South Dakota Organization, the Miss America Organization is a scholarship organization. In fact, Miss America is the largest scholarship organization for women in the world!

• Remember, a scholarship is like a prize that helps people pay for school. The Miss America Organization awards over five million dollars to young women each year. Believe it or not, hundreds of women in South Dakota have had their college paid for by the Miss America Organization!

Shantel helped fix the money problems the organization had by thinking about how the organization should run. Because of her ideas, Miss America Opportunity raised more money and increased scholarship dollars to record levels!

Although Shantel’s service to others is not about getting credit, Carol Nesbitt, Co-Executive Director of Miss South Dakota Organization, had the following to say about Shantel:

“Shantel is the epitome of what this program is about. She is an empowered woman who empowers other young women to succeed and achieve and give back”. Shantel started a new scholarship *[South Dakota Strong] in The Miss South Dakota Organization in June 2024, giving $10,000 to young women who share their stories of strength in adversity. What a gift!”

*The South Dakota Strong Scholarship requires Miss South Dakota participants to compose an essay about what makes them “South Dakota Strong.”

Avera Health...A New Opportunity!

Have you ever given much thought to the people who work in a store, restaurant, or hospital? Have you ever wondered what would happen if those people decided not to work in those places? The people who own and run businesses think about their employees a great deal because it is often difficult to find people who want to learn new skills and work hard.

In 2019, Shantel and a friend, Dave Flicek, started thinking about how they could help people develop skills that would allow them to do important jobs in hospitals. Working with Avera Health, (a group of hospitals and medical centers throughout South Dakota) and Southeast Technical College, Shantel and Dave co-developed the Avera Academy.

The Avera Academy is a program for 12th grade students who attend Sioux Fall High School to participate in and find out if they are interested in a career in the medical field. The students attend classes at Southeast Technical College Monday through Thursday and then on Friday they spend time at Avera Health observing and learning about many aspects of a medical career. Not only did Shantel co-create the Avera Academy, she was also the leader of the program for the first few years.

As you can tell by now, Shantel Krebs is not afraid to try new adventures and in 2023, she started a new position at Avera Health - CEO of Avera St. Mary’s Hospital in Pierre, SD! This means she oversees the entire hospital!

Work Ethic

Shantel has worked hard her entire life and constantly sought out opportunities!

For instance, Shantel did not just magically become Miss South Dakota, she had to be brave to enter the competition which consisted of interviewing with a panel of people who were listening carefully to her answers to see if they made sense and included a good understanding of what was happening in America. She also had to be part of the public competition where a large audience watched all the contestants answer questions, perform physical activities, and present a talent like playing the Saxophone (as Shantel did).

When Shantel wanted to work in the South Dakota Government as a Representative, Senator and Secretary of State, she needed to travel all over South Dakota meeting people like farmers, ranchers, bankers, teachers and police officers and tell them why they should vote for her.

Shantel has the same qualities as you. She gets nervous, she is sometimes scared, and sometimes she wants to be lazy. However, she ignored these feelings and just kept going and trying new things...and ended up doing amazing things for South Dakota!

The Making of a Meaningful Life & Career

The success Shantel experiences did not just happen and was not given to her. Instead, the choices she made during childhood, teen years, and early adulthood developed her confidence and skills. As she reflects on her abilities and career opportunities, Shantel credits her parents’ way of life with impacting her choices. In addition, Shantel believes the people she put in her ‘circle’ or her ‘network’ greatly impacted her skill set and life.

When asked what drives her in life and career, Shantel says she enjoys solving problems, the day-to-day activities involved in working, and looking back at each day and thinking about how she made a positive impact and helped someone or something. Shantel believes in making the community a better place to live. For Shantel, this is what has built her self-worth and value.