Hill City Chamber hires new assistant

Otensha Milimo is the newest Hill City Area Chamber of Commerce administrative assistant.
Milimo took over earlier in the month, replacing Jeannie Kirkpatrick.
“This is my first full summer in the Black Hills, and my cousin knew that I was looking for work this upcoming summer,” Milimo said. “She works in the Hill City area herself and read about the job opening at the Hill City Chamber of Commerce. She shared the job advertisement posted on their Facebook page with me, and I contacted (executive director of the chamber Janet Wetovick-Bily) as soon as I read about the position. I was heavily interested in the job.”
Her job, right now, is to manage a lot of the behind the scenes work that goes into promoting Hill City and chamber members. The chamber, she said, are glad to have the support of so many incredible businesses, and it wants to promote them as much as it can.
This, she said, includes mailing out weekly newsletters, spreading literature about Hill City all over the country and advertising on the chamber website.
Milimo might have grown up in Texas, but she has strong ties to South Dakota. Much of her family on her mother’s side resides in the state, and she is currently attending college at South Dakota School of Mines. There, she is majoring in biomedical engineering and hopes to attend medical school to work in psychiatry.
She said she has learned an incredible amount in such a short amount of time being an engineering student, and the skills she takes with her to work are the abilities to focus on long and tedious tasks.
Further, she said her­ extensive technical knowledge with computers and programming as well as essential skills in time management and task delegation are key.
“Professionally, I look forward to further developing my skills in task efficiency and working with web designing,” she said. “I am also very interested in expanding my skills in marketing through socialization and networking, something the Hill City Chamber of Commerce specializes in very frequently. Personally, I am also excited to learn more about the Black Hills that I have grown to love.”
Milimo’s grandparents have lived in Hill City for her entire life, so she said she is already familiar with the area and has always cherished the town — particuarly with the shops and the tourist opportunities.
Haven taken this job, she said she is learning there is even more to Hill City — from the devotedly hardworking community to the close ties embedded within the town.
So far, Milimo said she is grateful to find that she has enjoyed each day of her job so far. She loves doing the work she has to do, and, every day, she becomes a more developed and skilled worker.
“I would love to share how excited I am about working with the community in a position that entails so much community outreach of a town that I adore. I look forward to meeting with more business owners and learning all about what it looks like not only to promote their businesses but to run them as well,” she said. “I cannot picture myself coming across a job better suited for me at this time in my life — truly.”