Peggy Cruse

Peggy Patterson^[1] was born on December 18, 1934, in Merkel, Texas.^[2] She was a graduate of Hale Center High School.^[3] She married Max Cruse on June 8, 1954, in Friona, Texas.^[1][3] Together, they had three children: Teryl, Cathy, and Brad.^[1] Following their wedding, Peggy moved with Max to Pierre, South Dakota.^[3] In 1976, the Cruses ran a farm sized at 6,800 acres (2,800 ha; 10.6 mi²; 28 km²).^[4]

In June 1966, Peggy Cruse was elected as vice chairman of the Hughes County Democratic Party.^[5] She was then appointed to the Associated School Boards of South Dakota in August 1967.^[6] The following year in September, she resigned from the board and was replaced by Phyllis Wulf of rural Aurora County.^[7] In May 1974, Peggy was installed as treasurer of the Pierre Toastmistress Club.^[8] In June 1977, Cruse was elected to the Pierre Board of Education,^[9] alongside Patricia Adam.^[10] She won re-election unopposed in 1980.^[11] Cruse and Adam were appointed to the professional performance evaluation committee.^[12] In 1983, Cruse and Adam faced challenges from Don Cleland and Casey Kebach.^[9] Adam won re-election with 1,488 votes; however, Cruse lost to Kebach by a margin of 30.^[13] In the 1986 election to the South Dakota House of Representatives, Cruse challenged incumbents Benny Gross and Bernard Christenson, both Republicans, to represent the 24th district.^[14] In the general election in November, although Christenson managed to hold his seat, Cruse defeated Gross by a 3-point margin.^[15] Cruse was sworn in alongside the rest of the South Dakota Legislature on January 10, 1987.^[16] The South Dakota Farmers' Union gave Cruse a perfect rating for her voting record in the 1987 session. She was given a rating of 70 percent for the following year.^[17][18]

While in the House, Cruse advocated for various issues related to children, such as calling for a state commission on children's issues and stricter regulations on day cares.^[19][20] In October 1987, the Local Government Study Commission proposed legislation that would force the approximately 4,000 unlicensed day cares in South Dakota to register.^[21]: 1B Cruse welcomed the proposal, although she criticized the panel for not recommending a state commission for regulating child care issues.^[21]: 4B The proposal passed the House Health and Welfare Committee in a 7–5 vote in February 1988.^[22] In December 1987, Cruse and the three female members of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee convinced the committee to reject the abolition of the Commission on the Status of Women.^[23] In March 1988, Cruse formally requested George S. Mickelson, the governor of South Dakota, to appoint a child care commission.^[24]

Cruse ran for re-election in 1988, but lost to Republicans Michael H. Shaw and Lola Schreiber.^[25] Cruse placed third in a field of four candidates, losing by over 10 points to Schreiber.^[26] Mickelson believed that Cruse's opposition to a ban on corporate pig farming was the root cause of her defeat.^[27] Cruse was succeeded by Shaw, who was sworn in on January 10, 1989.^[28][29] In the 1992 United States presidential election, Cruse endorsed Bill Clinton and served as a member of his campaign's South Dakota committee.^[30][31] She was also delegate for Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.^[32] In 1993, Cruse was selected as secretary of the South Dakota Senate after Democrats won a majority of seats, a position she served in until 1994.^[33][34] In 2002, Cruse again sought to represent the 24th district in the House.^[35] She placed last with 19 percent of the vote.^[36]

A 2002 biography in the Argus Leader listed her occupation as a retired farmer.^[37] Cruse's husband Max died on January 22, 2017, of Alzheimer's disease.^[1] Soon after, from April 2017 to February 2018, Cruse was a member of the South Dakota Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias State Plan Work Group, which aimed to create a plan to improve health care in South Dakota for those affected by Alzheimer's.^[38] In 2025, she served as secretary of the South Dakota Discovery Center, a children's museum in Pierre.^[39]