Iroquois, SD

With just a few months left of school the calendar becomes very busy.

Congratulations to Jerrad Hopper for breaking the 3 point record by making 9 3 pointers against Lake Preston on February 22.  This breaks the old record of 8 that was held by Brady Gross and Jerrad.

Winter sports have wrapped up with both basketball teams being eliminated from District play. A first for Iroquois,  Senior, Ben Bishop, brought home an 8th place finish in the 171 pound division from the State Wrestling Meet.  With the sun shining and snow melting can track practice be far away?

Parent-teacher conferences will be held from 2:30-8:00 pm on Thursday, March 13th.  School will be dismissed at 2:00 pm that day. 

Mark your calendars for the following dates:

The Drama Department proudly presents “A Wing and Prayer” on April 4.  Join us for a night of fun for the annual dinner theater. 

Children’s Theatre Company of South Dakota will be holding auditions for “You Look Marvelous!” on April 7 after school in the gym for grades K-5.  This is a week long after school program with the production being presented at the end of the week.

Monday, May 5th the Music Department will be holding their spring concert.  The band and chorus groups from Preschool - 12th grade will be performing. 

Iroquois school had a new experience this year with the addition of Wrestling. We had a boy transfer here from Custer for his Senior year that was a wrestler. After doing the paper work and getting a coach, Sherman Gose, a new sport was born. This year, in addition to Ben Bishop, 3 other wrestlers joined the team. they were: Sophomore: Eric Haarstad, Freshman: Dale Rounds, and 7th grader: Reagan Francom.
The boys really learned alot this year. Ben was already a great wrestler, so his experience really helped the younger boys get started.
Ben made it to state and finished in 8th place. We are so proud of him and the whole team.

The Iroquois school invites the Senior Citizens to holiday meals at the school three times a year. thirty to thirty five people from the Iroquois area attend these meals. Several classes from the Iroquois School take part in the day. The FACS students set the tables & serve drinks & dessert. The Elementary Students make the nut cups and placemats. Students provide the entertainment. The Easter Meal will be on March 20 at 12:30 PM. All area residents are welcome to partake of the meal for $2.75. If interested call 2426 at the school or Marge Blue at 546-2522. See you there …

20+ Iroquois Elementary children attending the Sonshine Gang at the Trinity United Methodist Church, spread Valentine cheer last week by delivering Valentine goodie baskets to area residents.  The baskets were filled with fruits, vegetables, popcorn, candy, juice, and notepads.  Money to purchase items to fill the baskets was donated by church members.  Volunteers drove the children around town to help with the Valentine delivery. 

Iroqouis Elementary is helping the community raise funds for the electronic sign by bringing in spare change from home and filling milk jugs.  Our goal is to fill seven jugs by the end of the school year.  Each time a jug is filled a class will be chosen to take it to the bank to watch it go through the electronic counter.  With seven classes in our school we are hoping that each class will get a turn to make the trip to the bank.

After a week of collecting we are finding that it takes a lot of change to fill a jug and that it gets HEAVY very fast.   

This activity gets our students involved in making our community a better place to live.  We can’t wait to see the sign and think it will be fun to see our birthday announced!

The 3rd graders performed their play, “The Old Woodcutter and the Bear” for the elementary students in preschool through 5th grade.  They performed on stage with back drops which they had made by cutting and taping together cardboard boxes and painting them.  They borrowed play kitchen appliances from the preschool room.  The children also helped make their own costumes.  They had so much fun, that as soon as the play was over, they had already started talking about doing another one! 

Along with two others from Iroquois and a representative of BASEC from Yale, I attended the Housing Seminar in Howard on February 19. We started off the evening with a delicious meal and then moved into a presentation from the Rural Learning Center in Howard. That Center is studying rural ways of living and in particular for this seminar, the need to re-think rural housing.The next section of the seminar focused on agencies and people who are available to help with housing needs in our area. Represented were USDA Rural Development, Iroquois Housing, BASEC of Yale, SD, Rural Learning Center of Howard, HUD (Housing and Urban Development), SDHDA (South Dakota Housing Development Authority), NESDCAP (Northeast South Dakota Community Action Project)and the planning districts were also mentioned as resources. Each agency spoke briefly on progams available from them. The programs available are too long to list here but are extensive from fix-up projects to new homes with attractive loan rates. If you have housing needs contact any of these agencies or Iroquois Housing and we’ll try to help steer you in the right direction. I have contact information for the agencies listed. This seminar was a prime example of a word we’ve heard many times since beginning our Horizons study, “networking”. Here we had the chance to talk to people in charge of administering programs as well as talk to people from other towns in our area who all have the exact concerns we here in Iroquois do; how do we expand affordable housing to all who wish it? The ideas were many, the problems are many, but none are so overwhelming that the hurdles cannot be overcome. Let’s all keep working together to make rural South Dakota a great place to live!

I believe our community’s first step toward addressing poverty was to work together to become a Horizon Community.  Through this process, we have joined together to establish goals to address poverty. 

Being a small town, we lack many resources that larger communities can offer.  One resource we lack is opportunity for entertainment.  The steps we have taken to address this are creating a sand volleyball pit, and horseshoe pit in the city park, forming walking/exercise groups at the school, establishing a “Town and Country” showcase in the summer to promote local artisans and entrepreneurs, and erecting an electronic sign (to be in place in the near future) along Highway 14, to keep our community informed of upcoming events. 

Iroquois Housing has also taken steps to address proverty.  They have purchased lots, and have removed old buildings in the community.  This has greatly improved the appearance of our town.  They have built many new homes, providing affordable housing to current citizens as well as welcoming new ones. 

The area Fellowship of Christian Atheletes group is currently holding a fundraiser to help students raise money for their upcoming trip to  Tulsa, Oklahoma for this year’s Acquire the Fire event April 11-13.  Students are selling candles, lotions, and reed diffusers.  Contact the school if you are interested in ordering one of these items.  Thanks! 

In the “good ol days” every Wednesday night there was a band concert in town that was held in the band shell. this band shell was on wheels and was hauled to the middle of main street and the local musicians would preform. I remember the excitement in town that night, as people from the country would come to town to do their “trading” and visit with friends and listen to music. cars would park all around the band shell, and would honk their horns after each song was played. It was a great time to live in a small town.
the band shell is still stored in the weeds, and hasn’t been thought of for years. This past Christmas, we had the city maintenance man pull it out, and we decorated it with lights and an inflatable snowman for the annual tour of lights.
We are now going to try to raise money to have this band shell fixed up to it’s original condition.
we are hoping to use it and once again have summer band concerts