The Hope in That LoveRemembering Deputy Katherine Frank

To Katherine Frank’s family, friends, and fellow officers: Sioux Falls needs to see your strength and the depth of your love for her.

The air was heavy inside the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center yesterday. You could feel the gravity of grief. Throughout the venue and across the grounds outside, law enforcement officers, first responders, and support personnel came together with extraordinary organization, precision, and care. With Katherine’s casket draped in the American flag, it felt as though an entire law enforcement family had come to say goodbye to one of their own. Some had served beside her. Others had never met her. Across different uniforms, badges, and state lines, they had come to stand beside a family and a department facing a loss that words could never make right.

At the center of it all was one irreplaceable person: Katherine. Twenty-six years old. A sister, a friend, a Minnehaha County deputy who chose to serve the people who live here. Someone whose siblings remembered her laughter, her personality, and the certainty that she would be there when they needed her. One person, whose absence leaves a space no gathering, however large, could ever fill.

One thought from the service has stayed with me: Katherine wasn’t ready to come out of the game. She was still at the beginning of a career she cared about. There were people she still wanted to help, memories still to make, and years she should have had with the people she loved. Pastor Stelter spoke to the breaking hearts and tired legs in that room, reminding those gathered that their communities still needed them. Sitting with those two thoughts—the life Katherine still wanted to live, and the work her fellow officers must find the strength to continue—is heartbreaking.

Frank family, your love for Katherine was unmistakable. To her brothers and sisters: the memories you shared helped us understand the sister you grew up with, the person you could count on, and the future together you should still have had. I hope you felt how many people wanted to stand beside you. As we were reminded during the service, Katherine’s place in this community does not disappear when the funeral ends and everyone goes home. Her service on this earth has ended. The love she gave and the difference she made remain.

As a photographer, I find it impossible to look through the viewfinder at someone grieving so deeply and not feel some of that grief myself. It is impossible to describe in words everything that made this service so meaningful. That is why we have photos—to preserve what we struggle to explain, and help others understand something of what it felt like to be there. Being trusted with these moments is a responsibility I take deeply to heart. I hope these photos show how fiercely Katherine was loved and how many people stood together in her name.

Exactly like it was said in the service—Sioux Falls needs to see the hope in that love. We saw it inside the PREMIER Center and in the people who traveled here to stand with us. Now we need to keep it here—in the way we care for the Frank family, support Katherine’s fellow deputies, and remember her in the years ahead. May the people who will spend the rest of their lives missing her continue to feel the love this community showed them yesterday.