Teeners Split Doubleheader

teeners cale meiners

 

The Winner Teeners split a double header with Lead-Deadwood Sunday afternoon at Leahy Bowl.

In the first game, Winner won 8-2. Riley Calhoon was the winning pitcher.

Luke Engel had two hits.

In the second game, Winner lost 7-5. Willy Schroeder was the losing pitcher. Cale Meiners had two hits.

Friday in Chamberlain  the Teeners defeated Chamberlain 8-2. Carter Brickman was the winning pitcher.

Ryan Sherman had a double.

The Teeners will host its tournament Saturday and Sunday.

Jr. Teeners Fall to Colome

meiners pitching

 

Winner Junior Teeners lost a hard fought game with Colome in extra innings 9-4 on June 4.

Kameron Meiners and Gage Watson shared duties on the mound and combined for 7 strikeouts.

Phillip Jorgensen reached base safely twice and scored a run.

“I was pleased with how we played our first game,” said coach Jon Hanson. “We have quite a few things still to work on but our pitching and defense kept us in the game.”

On Friday, Winner traveled to Chamberlain and came away with a 15-4 victory.

“Our offense showed up and exploded for 10 hits,” said Hanson. He said Nolan Sachtjen was sharp on the mound with seven strikeouts in only three innings of work. “We showed up to play and looked great in every aspect of the game. Good things happen when we can put the ball in play and make plays defensively,” said coach Hanson.

Legion Sweeps Valentine

Winner/Colome Legion baseball team swept a double header over Valentine, Neb., Sunday.

The Royals won 3-1 in the first game in five innings.

Reed Harter threw the complete game giving up one run on two hits, 1 walk and 10 strikeouts.

Leading hitters were Riley Calhoon, Kelly O’Bryan and Nick Lantz each with singles. Calhoon had two RBIs.

In the second game, Winner/Colome won 8-4 in eight innings.

Landon Engel started on the mound and pitched 4 1/3 innings giving up four runs on 4 hits, 6 walks and 6 strikeouts.

Harter pitched 2 2/3 of an inning in relief to earn the win. He have up no runs on 1 hit, 1 walk and 5 strikeouts.

Jordan Turgeon pitched the 8th inning giving up no runs on no hits, 1 walk and 2 strikeouts.

Calhoon had 3  singles, 2 RBI and a 2 stolen bases. Harter had a double and a single with 3 runs scored  and 3 stolen bases. O’Bryan added a double and 2 RBIs.

“I was pleased with the way we played overall since this was our first game of the year for a few of the guys,” said coach Drew Weber. “I thought that we pitched really well and limited our errors in the field, but we were far from perfect. It’s always nice to win  a couple of games to start the  season, especially in extra innings in the second game. We have a lot of young players filling in and they stepped up for us Sunday,” said the coach.

The next action for the Legion team will be Friday, June 12, went they host Gregory County at Leahy Bowl at 7 p.m.

Teeners Open with Victory

teeners calhoon pitching

Winner Teeners opened the season with a 7-2 victory over Colome Thursday in Winner.

Ty Bolton was the winning pitcher and threw a  complete game.

Leading hitters for Winner were Bolton with a double and a single and Noah Cerv with a triple.

Winner scored four runs in the fourth inning.

The losing pitcher for Colome was Jeremiah Yeaman. Also pitching were Kelly O’Bryan and Jackson Kinzer.

Drew DeMers had two hits for Colome.

Turkeys ‘work’ for him, but in a good way

dianne&bob with canned vegs

 

By Dan Merritt

Advocate reporter

Turkeys work for Bob Vrbsky at his rural Colome garden, west of town. The bird kind, that is.

“Wild turkeys come and they’ll go right through there and clean them bugs right out.

“They pull the potato bugs off. So we don’t have to spray.”

And that’s just fine with the now retired, former 40-year law officer at Winner, Colome, and Gregory.

He largely employs organic gardening methods at big gardens west of town and in Colome at his home place.

Control of weeds is by hand and tiller.

“Pesticides and chemicals. Herbicides and all that,” Vrbsky said. They’re not his choice to help in the growth of all sorts of fruits and vegetables.

All sorts which are eaten, canned, or frozen including tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, peas, onions, sweet potatoes, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, mulberries, cucumbers, rhubarb, asparagus, watermelons, muskmelons, pumpkins and many more of nature’s goodies.

He and wife Dianne even make wine from the grapes, elderberries, chokecherries, strawberries, and gooseberries they grow.

“I’d just as soon have our own (fruits and vegetables) because it’s known how they are grown,” Vrbsky commented.

The taste is so much more lively direct from the gardens, he noted. So much more snap to it.

And the savings is tremendous, taking his wife “out” to eat, he added.

“I take her out for supper every night. We walk down to the garden and say ‘What do you want tonight?’ ”

“Everybody thought that was kind of expensive (going out nightly), till they found out we were going to the garden, eating veggies,” Vrbsky laughed.

The two can harvest a meal, for example, of lettuce, broccoli, potatoes, sweetcorn, carrots.

Of course, that’s later in the summer when these things have matured.

“Right now, winter onions are just going out. We’ve been eating them,” Vrbsky noted.

“They’re getting just about to the end; now something else will come in.

“They stay over-winter and then they bunch-up.They’re called bunching onions.

“They grow every year from bulbs. Early in the spring, they’ll be up and growing.”

It’s early summer now by the calendar, but the weather this garden season hasn’t seemed to notice.

“We had frost the other night,” Vrbsky reported. “It got some of our tomato plants we started.

“We’ll have to see how much damage there is.

“But we have volunteer ones coming up. So we’ve got, always, plenty of tomatoes. We don’t worry about that.”

Gardens are known for pumping-out lots of tomatoes once they start ripening. At times, the overflow is difficult to deal with, even giving them away.

That’s where canning comes in at the Vrbsky resident as directed by expert Dianne.

“Making taco sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato juice,” she said.

A lot of it goes to their now-grown three sons and one daughter and their families. The Vrbskys also have 11 grandkids and two great-grandkids.

And there’s more than just canned tomato products that go to their offspring, the Vrbskys reported.

“Anything. Whatever they want. Sauerkraut from cabbage. Pickles. Asparagus,” the two said.

They were both raised on farms in the Winner-Colome area. A big garden just went with farming and they continued on with the tradition in town with their own large patch (actually, two: one east of their home and the other just south).

They added another acre or so of garden west of town about 10 years ago.

When the Vrbskys were “growing” kids at their place in town, the garden was a natural, mandatory work project for the youngsters.

“They called it ‘Hell’s Half-Acre,’ ” Dianne disclosed. Particularly when they were owly with each other and were sent there as punishment.

“They had to pull weeds when they fought — just pickin’ at each other,” she reminisced.

“When they got a little naughty, they had a chore to go pull a row of weeds,” Bob recalled.

But, for the most part, working the family garden was just part of life at the Vrbsky home, they indicated. Still is. Last year, they harvested 900-pounds of potatoes.

Bountiful harvests after 40 years of gardening as a married couple (not to mention being raised with gardens as kids) — one can probably expect that.

And it can be expected next year. And the next. And the next . . .

As long as he has the ability to get to the soil, Bob Vrbsky vowed. “As long as I can still crawl down the row.”

The couple’s daughter is Guyla of Kimball. Their three sons are: Gary and Ray in the US Army (Philadelphia, PA and Clarksville, TN) and Dave in Taylor, Texas.

Students on SDSU Dean’s List

Area students has been named to the spring semester dean’s list at South Dakota State University.

Named to the list are: Tasha Hauf, Colome; Emilee Graesser, Dallas, 4.0 grade point average; Chance Littau, Carter;  Carson Covey, Hamill; Trevor Larson, Hamill, 4.0 grade point average; Sarah Calhoon, Justin Vanneman, both of Ideal; Jack Kerner, 4.0; Kip Littau, Katie Mathis, Trace Meyer, 4.0; Rebecca Moorhead, 4.0 Samantha Stickland and Corey Wackel, 4.0, all from Winner; Allie Kingsbury, Wood.

School Board Approves Bid Contracts

By Dan Bechtold

Editor

Winner School Board approved two quotes for soil and survey work on the proposed auxiliary gym at Monday’s meeting.

The board accepted the quote of FMG, Rapid City,  for $5,790 for geotechnical work on the project. The other bidder was American Engineering Testing Inc., Rapid City,  $5,850.

The quote of Brosz Engineering was approved to do a survey of the land at a price of $4,900. Chairman Mike Calhoon abstained from voting since his brother works for Brosz.

The other company supplying a quote was FMG at $7,500.

Supt. Bruce Carrier presented an update on the May 26 meeting that members of the auxiliary gym committee held with the architect. He presented the board notes that were provided by Upper Deck Architects of  Rapid City.

The board gave approval to sending out letters of engagement to financial firms who want to present information to the school district on financing of the auxiliary gym project.

In other business, the school board hired Roxann Heinzman as an elementary special education aide and Sam Novotny as an assistant competitive cheer coach.

Carrier was named as representative for all federal programs for the 2015-2016 school year.

Business manager Laura Root was authorized to publish the 2015-2016 school district budget and a public hearing on the budget was set for July 13.

An addendum was approved for the lease agreement with the city of Winner. The city plans to rent an additional room in the former middle school building. The city will pay an additional $495.60 per month on the lease.

The lease agreement also says the city will provide exterior landscaping maintenance and mowing for the entire facility.

The board approved the bid for Frontier Motors of Winner for $19, 956 for a new seven passenger mini van. This price included trade-in of a vehicle.

The vote on the bid was split 4-2 with board members Dr. Tom Covey and Rusty Blare voting no. Board member Joe Hockett was not at the meeting.

Also submitting a bid was Harry K Ford at $21,312 without trade in and $18,250 with trade in for a used Dodge Grand Caravan.

Harry K Ford also submitted a bid on a Ford Transit Connect at $25,989 and $20,000 with trade-in.

Kim DeMers, curriculum coordinator, presented changes made to the wellness/nutrition policy.

The Winner School District has a wellness committee that meets yearly to review progress and update the wellness policy as needed.

One of the changes in the policy was that recess will be included for fifth graders. At the present time, fifth graders do not have recess.

Added to the policy was that elementary students receive fresh fruit and vegetables three times a week through the fresh fruit and vegetable grant. The board approved the policy.

Several items were declared as surplus and a school sale will be held at  10 a.m. July 2 at the middle school auditorium.

The board voted on run off ballot for persons to serve on the South Dakota High School Activities Association board of control. Upon the recommendation of activities director Dan Aaker, the board voted for Moe Ruesink of Sioux Valley High School as the East River at-large member and Bryan Skinner of West Central School District for the small school group board of education.

A special school board meeting will be held on June 30 at 7 p.m. in the former middle school library.

Visitors to the school board presented information for the board to consider.
Chuck Noble told the board taxpayers  expect the school board to be open, competent, transparent, good stewardship and due process to uphold South Dakota laws.

He told the board that material and information provided to the board must be available to the public in compliance with open meeting laws.

He added school records must be open to the public.

He said  any school building purchase or contract must be in accordance with state law.

Noble explained there are state laws that deal with vocational and technical education.

Noble sees the proposed $2 auxiliary gym as a luxury.

Doug Wiken also talked about the importance of technical education. He said both Gov. Dennis Daugaard and President Obama are pushing for technical education.

Wiken present the board with several handouts including a graph showing the trend of Winner High School graduation from 1913 to 2015. He also presented the board with a story that said stadiums have no positive economic impact.

The school board met in executive session to discuss a contract. After the executive session, the school board voted to reject all concrete bids and authorized the business manager to re-advertise for bids.

Outdoor Day Set for June 13

bartels and mathis fishing meet

 

The Winner Youth Outdoor Day will be held June 13 at the Winner bass pond.

Open fishing will start at 10 a.m. Lunch for the kids will start at noon.

Starting at 1 p.m. and going until 3:30 p.m. there will be several fun activities for the kids. There will be archery, bow fishing, bb gun shooting, water safety and a few other fun activities.

From 3:30-4:30 p.m. trap shooting will be offered at the Rosebud Arrow, Rod and Gun Club. This event is free and open to all youth.

Persons who have questions can contact wildlife conservation officer Chris Dekker at 842-0894 or e mail   christopher.dekker@state.sd.us