Susan Luschas

Susan Luschas

Susan Luschas is a Solari subscriber in South Dakota, and her remarkable “turtling for cash” journey illustrates what one determined person can achieve.

Susan is an MIT-educated electrical engineer—turned farmer and rancher—who moved to South Dakota in 2020 from California’s Silicon Valley. Around the same time, alert to the escalating attacks on cash, Susan and her household made the decision to always pay with cash, but she did not stop there. In one-on-one conversations, she also started talking to anyone who would listen about the unsung merits of cash and also creatively used Halloween as an opportunity to grab kids’ and parents’ attention.

When the Sioux Falls School District announced in July 2024 that it was going to take all of its sporting and fine arts events cashless, Susan decided it was time to take a more public stand. Springing into action to protest the policy, she attended school board meetings, distributed handouts and “Refuse to Comply” flyers, and said yes to a growing number of speaking engagements.

Susan was able to pitch legislation requiring the acceptance of cash payment for admission to school-affiliated events to her local representative, John Sjaarda. Buttressed by statistics showing that almost one in five South Dakotans does not have a credit card and pays in cash, as well as 20 newspaper articles—including front-page coverage—and a bottom-up “Team Cash” that now comprises over three dozen activists across the state, Sjaarda ran with it, and Team Cash got the bill signed into law.

Modestly describing how she saved the legislator time by drafting the bill for him, Susan says:

“I supported him from there. I did talking points, flyers, letters to the editor, and everything statistics, and made copies for the committees and all the paper handouts. I did everything I could to support him and make his job as easy as possible. That was my goal as a citizen.”

Susan picked an issue, made it her own, and persevered. We encourage our subscribers to be inspired by Susan’s example and do the same!