November 11, 1959 - June 19, 2023

Mark Steven Boggs was born November 11, 1959 in Hot Springs S.D. to Donald M Boggs and Phyllis A (Kendall) Boggs. He grew up mostly in Pringle with a few stints in Custer. He attended Pringle and Custer Schools.

Mark was not a fan of school and went to work in the timber at a young age with his first “real” job for Dick Hanson, cutting trees. He also skidded and hauled logs before the age of 18. In June, the year he was 18, he went to work for Burlington Northern Railroad, working on the track doing maintenance of way. After a long lay off he quit and went back to work in the timber, moving to Osage Wyoming working for his dad hauling into Powder River Timber. It was there that he met the love of his life, Joann Cook. They were married July 2, 1983. To this union, 4 boys, Justin, Michael, Monte and Levi were born. It was with great sadness that only Justin and Levi grew to adulthood. 

On July 4, 1988, Mark and Joann moved back to South Dakota to their current location 25 miles down Pleasant Valley Rd. Mark continued working in the timber hauling logs until April of 1993 when he was hired back on the railroad. He retired from BNSF with 30 years and 3 months service in July of 2020.

Timber work never got out of his blood. Mark and his dad put together a sawmill and ran it for a few years, but the inconvenience of it being at his Dad’s wore on him so he purchased a portable sawmill in 2004 and proceeded to make it a permanent sawmill. Mark and Joann ran Redhills Lumber as partners, working weekends, until retirement.  After retirement it was a full-time endeavor until his brain cancer diagnosis in September of 2022. They made many friends through the business and always did their best to make sure that their customers got exactly what they were looking for.

Mark loved the outdoors. He took a few weeks each year to get in some camping and fishing, inviting family and friends to join him. His driving ability was always appreciated. He would pull a 34-foot camper and a 22-foot boat together for miles to make the trip most enjoyable for everyone. It was the decline of his driving abilities that gave us an indication that something was seriously wrong right before his brain cancer diagnosis. He liked the road less traveled. There were many trips through the hills on whatever backroads he could find. His passion for ATV trips introduced his children and grandchildren to his passion for enjoying nature. Although he lived on a backroad, that did not stop him from riding his Harley on 20 miles of gravel to ride it through the twists and turns of “Harley Mountain Road”, his name for Iron Mountain Road. 

Mark was known for using “gooder”. He trained many of his friends to say it around him in place of better. He never got Joann trained, much to his dismay. He was known for his dry sense of humor. A person had to watch closely to know if he was serious or joking. This tripped up many a person over the years.

He always enjoyed having gatherings at his home. He would always have a project that he would have to finish before the gathering so something would be different. Over the years, he built up his yard into a beautiful landscape, planting many trees, and babying them along, watering a couple of times a week. When he moved to their home place in 1988 there was one pine tree and one cedar tree in the yard, now there are over 50 trees making it a beautiful oasis in the red dirt that he loved showing off. He would plant a new section each year to “real yard grass” adding a sprinkler head to his underground sprinklers to keep it going.

Mark’s ability to look at a problem and be able to fix it without any real studying was an amazement to everyone who met him. He was very mechanically inclined, although he would tell you that he did not really like to do mechanical work. In the last several years of his life, he taught himself on the lathe and milling machine and was able to do many intricate projects. After his brain cancer diagnosis, his lathe and milling machine work was his sanity; building many things, just because he could. 

Mark is survived by his wife, Joann, of nearly 40 years; his sons, Justin (Erin) Boggs of Tea, S.D. and Levi (Kaitlyn) Boggs of Hewitt, Texas; his grandsons, Eli, Jamie and Marcus Boggs; his mother, Phyllis Boggs (Punch Morsett) of Custer; his brothers, Tony (Carol) Boggs of Pringle, Toby Boggs of Custer, and Adam (Miranda) Boggs of Custer; his sisters, Cindy (Kevin) Quasney of Rapid City; Debbie Juliano of Edgemont and Tracy (Kelly) Hanson of Dayton, Wyo,; sister in laws, Opal (Ricky) Forbes of Nacogdoches and Cora (Douglas) Petersen of Parade, S.D. as well as aunts, uncles and many cousins, nephews and nieces.

He was preceded in death by his two sons, Michael and Monte; his dad, Donald Boggs; brother-in-law, James Juliano; and brother and sister in law, Bruce and Gloria Grummons.

Services were held at Custer Community Church on Saturday, June 24th with burial following at the Pringle Cemetery.

Arrangements have been placed in the care of Chamberlain McColley’s Funeral Home in Custer, S.D.