Two company executives, lifelong friends, killed in crash near Groton

GROTON, S.D. (AP) — Two executives of an agriculture equipment dealer who were lifelong friends have died in a highway crash in South Dakota.

Mark Kreps and Steve Connelly were both vice presidents at Fargo, North Dakota-based RDO Equipment Co. The South Dakota Highway Patrol says the 54-year-old men died when their pickup truck rear-ended a dump truck west of Groton on Tuesday afternoon.

The company said in a Facebook post that they “were everything you could want in a friend, team member, and leader.” The company says Connelly was vice president of the Midwest agriculture region, overseeing locations in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota, and Kreps was vice president for agriculture sales.

The driver of the dump truck was not hurt.

August 20, 2020