My mother, Pamela Sedler, was raised in the Bristol/Watertown area of northeast South Dakota. She graduated from Watertown High School. She has her nursing degree and has spent most of her career as a nurse. She changed professions in 2002 when she purchased Dakota Hypnosis in Sioux Falls. She is a hypnotist specializing in weight loss.

My father, Douglas Voss, grew up on a farm in the Andover/Groton area, also in northeast South Dakota. He graduated from Bristol High School and then attended Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, graduating with an elementary education/coaching degree. He later completed his Masters Degree in school administration and has spent the last 37 years in K-12 education. He is currently serving as the superintendent at the Centerville Public School, in Centerville, South Dakota.

I was born August 6, 1969 in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I joined an older sister, Wendy. Our family lived in Wessington, South Dakota, from 1969-1974. My father taught middle school and coached high school football and basketball. In 1972 he coached a boys basketball team to a 2nd place finish in the state tournament. In 1974, my father accepted a job as elementary principal in the Winner School District in Winner, South Dakota.

In 1977 we left Winner and moved to Farnhamville, Iowa. My father served as a elementary principal in a consolidated school district. While living in Iowa my mother completed her nursing degree at a community college in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Due to the entire family missing South Dakota, we moved back to Agar, South Dakota, in 1979. My mother worked as a nurse in Gettysburg while my father was the superintendent of schools for the Agar School District.

As I entered jr. high school, I had a strong desire to play football. Since the Agar School District did not offer football, we moved back to Wessington in 1984 so that I would have the opportunity to play. My father became superintendent of schools for the Wessington School District and my mother worked as a nurse in Huron, South Dakota. While in Wessington my older sister graduated from high school in 1984. I later graduated from Wessington High School in 1988.

After graduating from high school, I attended college at Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota. I graduated with an elementary education degree in 1992. After graduating from college I married Jayna Troth on August 21, 1992. That fall Jayna started law school at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota, and I started my teaching career in the Gayville-Volin School District. I taught third grade and coached girls and boys basketball.

In the spring of 1995 Jayna graduated from USD Law School and I graduated from USD with a Masters Degree in elementary administration. During that summer, Jayna took a job in Sioux Falls with a federal judge. I accepted a job with the Rutland School District as their elementary principal, and we purchased a house on Lake Brant. Our first daughter, Danielle, was born that August.

In 1998, I was given the opportunity to return to the Gayville-Volin School District to serve as their superintendent/high school principal. We regretfully sold our house on Lake Brant and rented an apartment in Sioux Falls so that my wife could continue working at a Sioux Falls law firm. Jayna, Danielle, and our second daughter, Cassandra (who was born that summer), lived in the apartment while I moved into a house in Gayville. I traveled back to Sioux Falls on the weekends to spend time with my family.

In 1999, I accepted the position as superintendent/high school principal for the Hurley School District. My family moved to Hurley during the summer of 1999. In the summer of 2002, I graduated with my Specialist Degree (Ed.S.) in school administration from USD. My family grew in 2003 when our third daughter, Sydney, was born.