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• Kelly Marker, a licensed counselor with Behavior Management Systems in Rapid City, said people who struggle with depression and anxiety will be the most affected by this year's seemingly never-ending winter and a lack of sunlight.
• "They certainly can have a more difficult time just because we're accustomed to seeing the sunshine come out at this point. It can have an impact on individuals like that," she said, adding that people who are not susceptible to depression will probably just end up being a little crabbier. "We wake up to the snow and say, 'Oh, man.'"
• Marker said she recommends clients taken Vitamin D-3 pills and go tanning. On snow days, Marker said she tries to remain active by cleaning or working on a project she put off. She'll also escape the weather outside by curling up with a good book.
• "On a day like today, it's a mental thing," she said. "I know by Friday it's going to be 70. I just have to make it through Friday."
• Others in Sioux Falls are taking a similar approach to their thinking.
• Ami Kolb, 39, said she thinks Monday's storm is the last of the season and that it will warm up by the weekend.

• "I know it's toward the end," she added.
• Liz Erickson, a 29-year-old salon owner in Sioux Falls, said growing up in South Dakota, she has become accustomed to snow in April.
• "I guess we live in South Dakota," she said with a chuckle. "The moisture is good, but it does get tiring."
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• BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Six schools in the Dakotas are starting a new athletic conference.
• The North Star Conference will compete in the NAIA, starting in the fall. Its North Dakota members during the first year will be Jamestown College, Mayville State and Valley City State. Its South Dakota members will be Dakota State in Madison and Presentation College in Aberdeen, a former NCAA Division III school.
• Presentation was notified Monday that it had been accepted into the NAIA.
• Dickinson State in North Dakota plans to join the North Star in 2014-15. That school, the other North Dakota schools and Dakota State all once were members of the now-defunct Dakota Athletic Conference.
• The North Star conference plans to hire a commissioner later this spring and

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