Category: editor-notebook

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Hit the Road!

The July/August issue arrived yesterday. If you subscribe, you should be getting your copy soon. Inside you’ll find a 20-page guide featuring one special thing to see in each of our 66 counties. I like to think of them as 66 road trip ideas. Pick up a copy to see what we landmark we chose from your county!

Other features in the magazine include:

When the Highway Came to Elk Point … How Eisenhower’s interstate program changed South Dakota.

Like it or Not: A Zucchini Cook-off … Six ways to rid yourself of our most prolific vegetable.

Sent to Moon, South Dakota … Leave your lunar gear at home but take a map. By Paul Higbee

Family ‘Artnership in Sioux Falls … Mary Groth and Liz Bashore Heeren’s collaborations bear fruit.

A Night on the Town in Rapid City … Art Alley adds spunk to ‘Summer Nights.’ Photography by Jeremiah M. Murphy.

Call our office at 1(800) 456-5117 if you’d like to order a copy.

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The First Song to the Flood of 2011

Fill Your Hearts with Love & Your Shovels With Dirt

By Bernie Hunhoff

South Dakotans in the way of the river have been too busy sandbagging, moving furniture and — in a few cases — blaming the Corps of Engineers to find time to reflect. But not everyone.

Kris Kitko, a talented folk singer in North Dakota, has written a hauntingly beautiful song about the ravages of the Missouri in her state. Both the video and the lyrics reflect just as well on South Dakota — except that the prisoners in North Dakota who volunteered their assistance are in stripes rather than orange.

Well-known Pierre artist Jim Pollock is keeping a journal of his community’s trials and tribulations. Surely his sketchbook is in a back pocket.

Dave Tunge, South Dakota’s best aerial photographer, has been flying his Piper Cub up and down the river valley, shooting images from 1,000 feet.

Fires come and go in hours. Tornadoes in mere minutes. This particular flood will batter us for weeks, and eventually many more artists and songwriters and photographers will find the time and inspiration to try to explain what is happening to the river people.

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We’re Back!

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Heidi Marsh, our marketing director, is pioneering our online efforts.

Hopefully you’ve missed South Dakota Magazine’s online presence. Well, here we are with a new look and some new content. We’ve had many meetings and work sessions, trying to plan for the best possible site for our readers. We have a vision for this to be a site that celebrates life in South Dakota.

Please visit us often for stories — some written just for the Web, and others revised from past issues of the magazine. We’ll also provide an up-to-date calendar of events, colorful photo galleries, recipes and food stories. Several columnists will bring new perspective to the site, and we’re making other plans as well. We’d like this to be an everyday extension of our magazine, which we print six times a year. We have a lot to share in between issues!

Our marketing director, Heidi Marsh, is pioneering our online efforts. She ushered us into the online world when she joined our staff by getting us on facebook and twitter and sending out e-newsletters. Now she is becoming a web expert by learning the ins and outs of web design and function. Here’s a little interesting trivia on Heidi — she is 26 years old, the exact same age as South Dakota Magazine. She was even born in the same month our first issue appeared on newsstands.

What you see here is just the beginning. Tell us what you think of this new look, and what you’d like to see more of (or less).

In other magazine news, we’re sending our July/August issue of the paper magazine to the printer today. It will be on newsstands by July 1. Our magazine staff will be celebrating after work this Friday on the dock at Yankton’s historic Ice House. Stop by and break a beer bottle with us. It’s an Ice House tradition.

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Could You Refuse The Burros?

Thousands of vacationing families have encountered the friendly pack of burros that lives along the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. It’s become tradition to stop and feed them a treat, but while preparing our May/June 2011 issue’s “Oughta Do” list for kids, we discovered the burros were never meant to be there and visitors really shouldn’t feed them.

Of course we should have known not to give them food. There are signs posted throughout the park discouraging feeding any wildlife. Like most motorists, we assumed that meant the buffalo, bighorn sheep, and the other more dangerous creatures. But certainly not the affable burros.

However, when we called the park seeking more information, a ranger told us the burros are just as wild as any other animal that roams the Black Hills National Forest. She further reported that burros are not native to the Hills. Workers brought them to help haul materials while building roads and bridges, and to carry visitors up Harney Peak. When construction work was finished, the men turned the burros loose.

Nowadays, when you drive the Wildlife Loop, the fearless burros walk right up to your car. They’ll even stick their heads in the window if they smell something good. And that could be anything. A burro once snatched a cough drop from a driver’s hand.

Park rangers don’t recommend visitors feed them, but they know it happens. And it probably always will. Very few people can say no to the world’s cutest beggars.

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A Waterfall in Union County?

Does East Union Creek in southeast South Dakota have a scenic little waterfall? I searched for awhile yesterday evening but to no avail.

The search began when I was in Elk Point earlier in the day, working on an article there. An old-timer told me about some historic spots in Union County, and he said one of the prettiest places was a waterfall on the creek which is in the northern part of Union County somewhere northwest of a Union Creek Lutheran Church — which I did happen to find. But I figure the waterfall — if there is one — is further north than I was.

My source seems like too nice a fellow to have sent me on a wild goose chase. And all his other tips were right where he said they were — old churches, stagecoach stops, historic cemeteries, backroads to the Missouri River, and so on.

Union County is a beautiful place to travel in springtime. The rolling hills near Union County State Park and the Big Sioux River are little-known treasures to most South Dakotans. But whether there’s a waterfall or not remains to be seen.