Billy Mawhiney

Executive Director

Billy Mawhiney grew up on a farmland in a rural Missouri town of 113. On the farm is where he learned a strong work ethic and how to be a caring neighbor. He is a member of the Wyandotte Nation, the tribe instrumental in the founding of Kansas City, Kansas and Detroit, whose tribe language family comes from the Northern Iroquoian. He began his career in afterschool while in college at the Boys & Girls Clubs in Springfield, Missouri. He spent 8 years at that developing impact programming. He would eventually take a leap into licensed school age programs at the YMCA for the next 4 years. He and his now husband Kyle would eventually move to Brooklyn, New York, where he fell in love with cooking. Billy taught cooking classes for high school students at Validus Prep in the Bronx. They moved to South Dakota to be closer to family, start a family of their own and eventually find his way back to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Sioux Empire where he was the Director of Operations.

Billy has spent his formative years in South Dakota working on advocacy at the state and federal level, expanding capacity for his organization and will now turn that energy into all afterschool programs throughout the state of South Dakota. In his spare time you can catch him in his heirloom tomato garden or teaching a cooking class at Plum’s Cooking Company in Downtown Sioux Falls.

Karla Johnson

Advisor to the Executive Director

Karla Johnson has been the Network Lead of South Dakota Afterschool Network since August 2018. Karla is the former Business Development Director of EmBe in Sioux Falls and CEO of Youth Enrichment Services. Karla is one of the pioneers of South Dakota’s School Age Care industry, creating programs in elementary schools as early as 1980. She established before and after school programs in numerous public and private elementary schools throughout southeast South Dakota and provided technical assistance to several school districts across the state as they created before and after school programs for their students. She is a past president of the South Dakota School Age Care Alliance board, a past Chair of the South Dakota Afterschool Network, and a past member of the National Afterschool Association Board of Directors. Karla is also a past President of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra League and former member of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors.