Sheila Groft Hansen, daughter of Marlin and Marilyn Groft, is a fifth-generation South Dakotan, raised on a family farm near Redfield. She graduated from Redfield High School and from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, as did her three brothers: Gordon, Travis, and Derek. She has taught in the Spearfish School District since 1989, first as a middle school English teacher and most recently as the middle school librarian and information literacy teacher. Sheila and her husband, David, a farm boy from Cresbard, have two children, Slade and Justice.

The birth of her children, a trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 1995, and to sites of former concentration/death camps in Europe in 1997, coupled with seeing Saving Private Ryan in 1998, all contributed to Sheila’s developing a more civic-minded, global perspective for her eighth grade English classroom. As a result, in 1999 she and her students created an authentic research and writing project, Fallen Sons and Daughters of South Dakota in WW II, where students transformed individual names from an impersonal list into a highly personal series of biographical profiles to honor South Dakota’s casualties of WW II. At the same time, the USHMM chose Sheila as a senior education fellow. In May of 2001, while in the early stages of preparing for a move to Colorado, Sheila received a call from then-Governor William Janklow, who offered her a year’s leave of absence to complete the project. Therefore, during the 2001-2002 school year, Sheila served as the project’s state coordinator, chief spokeswoman, high priestess, and head scapegoat. She worked with teacher volunteers implementing the Fallen Sons project in 61 schools across South Dakota. In August of 2002, Sheila presented Governor Janklow with over 2,000 profiles that became a 6-volume book set published by the State and released in January of 2003; the profiles are available for viewing at <http://www.state.sd.us/military/VetAffairs/sdwwiimemorial/> as is her Fellowship project, which she considers still a work-in-progress: Testimonies from the Midwest. An unprecedented and highly collaborative effort, Fallen Sons serves, among other things, as a proud symbol of what South Dakota’s students, teachers, schools, and communities are all about.

Sheila’s work has gained widespread recognition and awards. She is often asked to speak to diverse organizations in South Dakota about her work. In 2001, the School Administrators of South Dakota awarded her the state’s Golden Apple for innovative curriculum design and implementation; in 2002, the Veterans of Foreign Wars chose her as the Middle School National Citizenship Teacher of the Year, and she was the featured speaker at the South Dakota Retired Teacher Convention in Pierre. She has also been nominated and/or chosen as Middle School Teacher of the Year, Fibercom/Highmark Teacher of the Month, Student Choice Employee of the Year, Who’s Who Among American Teachers, and Disney’s American Teacher Awards. By executive proclamation, August 21, 2002, was “Sheila Hansen Day” in the state of South Dakota. Her connections with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC have led to her helping to bring a Museum-sponsored teacher in-service to Sioux Falls in 2002, and being a teacher trainer at the Museum for a summer educational conference that same year. More recently she was a featured speaker at the Museum’s 10-year anniversary kickoff event, “An American Mosaic: Lessons from the Holocaust” in April of 2003, where she was introduced to speak by Ted Koppel and interviewed for a piece in the Washington Post. While there, she met Nobel laureate, Holocaust survivor, noted author, and personal hero, Elie Wiesel, moments before he and Colin Powell delivered keynote speeches for the Days of Remembrance commemoration in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. In December of 2003, the USHMM flew Sheila to Des Moines, Iowa, to represent the Museum in presenting a middle school student at North Polk Junior High with first place in the middle school division of the Museum’s May Art and Writing Contest. In March of 2004, Sheila served as a facilitator and instructor at the USHMM’s Northern California Forum at Stanford University. In December of 2004, she was selected as a member of the newly formed Regional Education Corps sponsored by the USHMM. She was trained in Washington and is part of a two-person team whose role is to assist in implementation of the Museum’s outreach plans in the Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. Her first assignment is to organize and implement a USHMM teacher workshop in North Dakota during the 2005-2006 school year. Additionally, in 2004-2005 she served as a teacher consultant for a South Dakota Public Broadcasting companion project to Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State entitled "Lessons from the Holocaust: Exploring the Relationship between the Holocaust and the Native American Experience."

In February of 2004, Sheila received a Legislative Commemoration by the 79th Legislature of the State of South Dakota, honoring her for her “commitment and dedication to South Dakota veterans” and for “working with hundreds of South Dakota school students to improve their research, writing, and English skills.” On September 20, 2004, Senator Daschle spoke of the Fallen Sons project on the floor of the United States Senate, thus entering Sheila and her students, Shirley Swanson and her students, and Walter LaPointe, KIA casualty from Mosher, SD, and his family into the Congressional Record. Sheila’s partnership with Governor Rounds, devoted individual citizens, and various state agencies from early 2003 to the present time has made the South Dakota Fallen Sons and Daughters of the Korean War a reality. In addition to being published in this book format, these 260+ profiles can be viewed at <http://koreanwarmemorial.sd.gov/>.

Sheila's final installment of the Fallen Sons project, Fallen Sons of the Vietnam War, commenced research during the 2004-2005 school year and will be completed in time for the Dedication of the SD Vietnam Memorial in September of 2006.