About Us

The Ranch is a venue for spiritual awakening, growth, and healing. Hundreds of men and women struggling with PTSD, both young and old, have found refuge and help at The Ranch. The Ranch sits on 540 acres of South Dakota prairie, about 20 miles southeast of Pierre, SD, right in the heart of pheasant hunting country.

In fact, our location is situated in an area known as the best in the world for pheasant hunting. Our ministry uses pheasant hunting as a keystone for helping veterans and for our fundraising. During the pheasant season, we host pheasant hunts for veterans, including those who are wheelchair-bound or have suffered other severe physical and mental injury.

The Ranch’s location melds raw prairie with rough-hewn yet comfortable accommodations. Our meeting places and bunk house feature interior design that takes hunting and the West as inspiration. Guests will find art and sculptures made using these motifs, along with real saddles, spread throughout all areas. The Ranch offers nine private bedrooms that can accommodate up to 22 guests. A converted two-story grain bin provides an additional bunking area. Other areas include a great hall for meetings as well as a kitchen. A 25-ft tall steel observation tower features a large hot tub raised above the ground.

But pheasant hunting isn’t all that can be enjoyed at The Ranch. Other activities and projects can be done at our facility. The Ranch offers visitors access to well-equipped carpentry and metal shop, plus a motor pool of ATVs, utility vehicles and excavation/construction equipment. Plus, there is a quiet, secluded area among large boulders and trees set aside for prayer, mediation, and group worship services that reinforce the spiritual mission of The Ranch.

Picture in your mind the farms and ranches near Pierre, South Dakota – a landscape similar to what’s shown in the movie “Dances With Wolves” (the film was shot right in this area). This land produces feed corn, wheat, soybeans, and seed grains. It also produces people of the land who’ve inherited a profound sense of tenacity and pride in a job well done at the end of a day filled with hard work. One of those is Ken Korkow.

Ken found college “boring,” and like many of his buddies back home, enlisted in the military. Ken, specifically, entered the Marine Corps. After basic training, Corporal Ken Korkow was transferred directly into combat in Vietnam as a mortar section leader in Company B, 1^st Battalion, 3^rd Marine Division, at the notorious Khe Sanh Combat Base. This base suffered relentless daily attack by the North Vietnamese Army for 77 days. During this time, Ken received citations for The Navy Cross and the Purple Heart. On March 30, 1968, Ken’s men came under intense attack. He single-handedly destroyed the hostile mortar placement, and made repeated trips under fire to carry his wounded men to an aid station. Ken was seriously wounded in this attack, and contributed to the defeat of the numerically superior enemy, while saving the lives of many of his brothers in arms.

After his medical discharge, Ken earned undergraduate and MBA degrees and became a successful land broker. During this time, Ken threw himself into work, becoming a work addict as a way to deal with war-torn memories. But it wasn’t keeping away the nightmares, anguish, and “survivor’s guilt.” He was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before there was a name for it.