•Rebecca Kartak of Colome has been named to the dean’s honor roll at Eastern Wyoming College.
•Named to the dean’s list for the spring semester at University of Nebraska at Lincoln are Jordyn Heinle and Lexie Heinle, both of Hamill.
•Named to the dean’s list for the spring semester at the University of Sioux Falls are Haley DeMers, Winner, nursing major; Dayna Diez, Winner, nursing major and Ashleigh Tuttle, Winner, criminal justice and psychology major.
Clint Sargent of Sioux Falls was presented with the annual South Dakota Trial Lawyers Association Trial Lawyer of the Year Award during the Association’s annual meeting in Rapid City on June 18.
The award is based on service to the trial bar and the South Dakota Trial Lawyers Association. The Association noted Mr. Sargent’s achievements in trial and appellate practice throughout his career. His efforts to educate the public concerning the need to preserve the integrity of the civil justice system and other public service were noted by the panel.
By Dan Bechtold, Editor
Ideas on how to promote Winner and attract more people here were expressed at a town hall meeting June 18.
The meeting is part of a project by the South Central Development Corporation. Conducting a community survey and serving as moderators at the meeting were Jamie Halverson, Jacob Naasz and Clay Hoffman. All are graduates of Winner High School with Hoffman and Halverson recent college graduates and Naasz with one year left of college.
Halverson said the goal of the survey is to understand the feelings and views of those in Tripp County in order to better move forward in improving the community and region.
By Dan Merritt, Advocate reporter
“Jurassic World” movie, recently released, shows gigantic reptiles lumbering around the countryside.
In town, in Winner, there are gigantic rose plants 15-feet tall and probably higher at the David and Pat Lenker home, southwest Winner.
The rose blooms tower high, nestled among the foliage of cedar evergreens. The trees support the rose plants as they stretch upward.
“They want to climb to the sky! We’ll stand back and see,” Pat observed.
When she and her husband put five “little shrub” plants, they said, into the soil at the back of their lot near a neighbor’s cedar trees in 2001, it wasn’t known they were climbing roses.
But the plants kept getting taller. “When they met the trees, they went up,” Pat commented.
Through 14 winters. Normally, other flowering rose plants on their place have to be covered in winter to protect against freezing.
But the Lenkers’ towering bavily (or possibly baffin) rose plants can’t be covered.
For some reason, exposed to winter cold, they have continued to survive. And thrive in the summers.
“We’ve never done anything, they just stay alive. That’s an unusual trait,” Pat noted.
The freakishly tall plants sport numerous blooms — in the hundreds, maybe thousands, said Dave.
The former owner of a crop spraying business in Winner died Monday, June 8, in a plane crash outside of Kadoka.
Joseph Schneller, 49, Keystone, owned Semper Fi Aviation in Winner for a couple of years.
Schneller was a former Rapid City police officer and a U.S. Marine.
According to a story in the Rapid City Journal, Schneller had just taken off from the Kadoka Municipal Airport at 4:18 p.m. in his alfalfa crop dusting plane when the aircraft apparently had a mechanical failure said Jackson County sheriff Ray Clements Jr.
Witnesses saw the plane rising, then saw the right wing dip suddenly.
The plane crashed across the road from the airport along a sports field fence on the east side of town.
Federal investigators reviewed the crash site June 8 to determine the cause of the crash.
By Dan Merritt, Advocate reporter
April’s over and it’s into a new year for brothers Lane and Troy Bartels — the former of Sioux Falls and the latter at Los Angeles, Calif.
They know that at some point in the coming year it will be time again for THE PHOTO. A shot of them together, probably at Christmas at the home of their folks Ray and Judy Bartels, rural Winner.
The photo must be taken by their mother, according to the two men now ages 33 and 43 respectively. No “selfie” — a phone-photograph taken by either one of them as they stand side by side and then e-mailed to mom.
“It’s kind of like the first day of school picture,” Troy noted. Something that only a mother can do, when she takes a photo of her school-age children heading-out to their nearest educational centers.
Yes, it’s definitely a mom photo to take, Lane agreed. “It’s what she does.”
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.
Two Winner students graduated from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, on May 23. The graduates include Kirby Bertram and Jayd Docken.
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.
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.
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