Iroquois, SD

The Iroquois Area Community Club is sponsoring a fund raiser for the electronic sign that will be installed along Highway 14 this spring. On saturday, April 5th at 6 pm there will be a fun night of food and coed basketball and volleyball games. the 4th,5th & 6th grade teams will pair up and play a game, followed by the high school teams. The cheerleaders will perform at half time.
Concessions will be served.
come and enjoy a night and help support the community sign.

The elementary children have been busy saving, gathering, and contributing coins in support of the new electronic sign that will soon be placed along Highway 14.  Our first milk jug is filled.  The preschool and first grade classes will take the change to the bank on Thursday.  I wonder what the total will be for this first jug?  Our second jug is almost full!  Which classes will be the next to go to the bank?  We’ll let you know! 

Saturday, February 9, the Iroquois Horizons group held their celebration.  The group came together to discuss and distribute the community’s strategic plan.  The extreme cold hindered attendance, but the evening provided much opportunity to share ideas and visit.  Piano and vocal entertainment was provided by music director, Rod Ulrich and middle school student, Phyllis.  Cheryl Jacobs, SDSU Extension coordinator, attended our meeting. 

At our recent Horizons meeting, we decided to merge the Iroquois Area Community club and the Horizons group together as one. We are working hard on fulfilling what we set as goals in our strategic plan. Different committees have been formed to see that our different projects get completed. I think as a result of joining the two groups, we will be a much stronger group.

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 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! 

As I compare our town with how we were 2 years ago, I can see great changes in leadership capabilities.
One example would be planning our annual sports day held every summer. It used to be left up to the city council. Now each organization in town is represented as a committee to plan the event. A lot of ideas are forming because of that. while some people do not want to be leaders, if asked they will do what needs to be done.
I think each separate organization in town now compliments the other and is willing to give credit where do.
We are currently working on fund raisers to help defray the cost of our electronic sign that will be installed along Highway 14.It is many minds working together to benefit our town.

Since our study of povery in Iroquois through the Horizons Study Circles, I see some emerging trends in leadership. Citizens who I had never seen take positions of leadership are now doing so. In some instances, I am of the opinion that these people do not realize they are assuming leadership positions. And that sometimes makes the best leaders because they are just doing things they are interested in and leadership is just happening!
The blogging sessions are one example. A person who may be shy in public can express themselves through the anonymity of the computer blog and yet that is still leadership. Thus many more people are participating in leadership than might be normally possible. This also means different kinds of people are involved. I think it is great that some of our elementary kids have done some blogging and hope there is more of that in the future.
I’m not sure that the “new” leadership completly represents the demographic profile of our town, but it certainly comes closer to it than we have ever been before.
In conclusion, citizens of Iroquois, keep up the good work and only good things will come of our new leadership!!!!

The Sports Day Planning committee met Monday night at city hall.  The upcoming summer celebration will be held July 12 and 13, 2008.  Activities discussed were the parade, bed races, mud drags, kids’ movie and scavenger hunt, living history activities at the museum, street dance Saturday night, lawn mower poker run, softball, sand volleyball, and horseshoe tournaments, town & country market, and community church service Sunday morning, and more! 

The next meeting will be held jointly with the Iroquois Area Community Club on Monday, April 7, at 7:00 p.m.  The meeting will be held in city hall.  All interested individuals are invited to attend. 

It takes a united effort to accomplish great things!  Let’s make Sports Day 2008 an event to remember!