Iroquois, SD

Iroquois Elementary kicked off the school year with a celebration for those students who participated in the summer reading challenge. We had all kinds of water activities for the kids including a dunk tank that was probably the hit of the celebration!

As the school year progressed, the teachers got the children interested in the new Prairie Bud and Prairie Pasque books by taking turns giving a little summary of their book and then drawing a student’s name out of a basket for a cool door prize that had something to do with the book that was just introduced.

We celebrated the 100^th day of school by exercising our bodies with 100 exercises and then we went on to read 100 books. The students had fun reporting each book they read until we tallied 100 books and then some.

Our latest elementary literacy activity was celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday. The teachers got to pick out their favorite book and dress up like a character from their book. The students were divided into groups and rotated among the teachers to hear a new story every 10 minutes. When we were finished, Mrs. Geyer-Fuhrman introduced our snack of “blue goo” and “pink ink” by reading an excerpt from a Dr. Seuss favorite called One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

As the elementary begins to wrap things up for the school year and begin planning for this summer’s reading challenge, we are planning a fundraiser for the Elementary Literacy Fund. Each classroom is going to come up with a theme and put together a literacy basket which may include anything from books to fun things you might enjoy this summer or while reading. These baskets will be displayed on awards night, Tuesday, April 29^th and at the spring concert on Monday, May 5^th. Raffle tickets will be sold at these times for a chance to win the basket of your choice. The drawing will be held on the last day of school. We invite everyone to come and browse our literacy baskets and purchase a chance to win!

I was going out my back door, to do some birdwatching, when I spotted a Cardinal in my backyard. Standing next to him, were two priest, and a bishop. I yelled, ” Hey!! Get out of my yard, your scaring the birds away.”

The I roquois High School Drama Club competeted in Huron Jan. 23 for the region contest.  Although the play didn’t go on to state competition, the students did very well.  Emily Lynch earned a best actress award.

Today, Sarah, a middle school student at Iroquois, visited the third grade classroom and played her violin.  Musical selections included concert pieces as well as many favorite children’s song, including “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”  The children had fun guessing the titles and singing along with the songs they knew.  Sarah answered many questions about her violin and learning to play an instrument.  The third graders are getting ready to celebrate Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday Thursday, and it was a great experience to hear songs as they would have been played on Pa’s fiddle. 

The city of Iroquois is getting an electronic sign to be placed on Highway 14 near the Country Store. This is a joint effort of the Horizons group, city of Iroquois, Community Club and many citizens of the town. Hopefully we’ll be erecting the sign as soon as the weather moderates. It will be a two (2) line display facing both directions and will be an attractive light orange in color.

Iroquois, like most small towns wishes for building activity, not only to attract more people to town but to make the town more attractive. Iroquois Housing is doing just that. In the 60’s and 70’s a group of foreword looking citizens organized an Iroquois housing organization to build new houses in town. They built 3 new houses and then later built an apartment building, which were all sold. The money from those sales sat unused for a period of time until 2006 when the need for additional housing was realized and a group of citizens, some of them from the original housing group, began talks on how to get going again. The idea of offering incentives to build in town was tossed around and finally it was agreed to offer 5 $4000 gifts to anyone building a new home in Iroquois. That original $20,000 is now gone and we have more new homes than that in town.
Some of the new homes are “Governors” homes, which are built by inmates of the Springfield Correctional Facility and purchased by Iroquois Housing from the South Dakota Housing Authority. Iroquois Housing then places the homes on a basement and in most cases builds a garage onto them and then sells them to interested parties. Some of the new homes are built by individual contractors and one home was built by the vocational department at Huron High School.
But more has happened in our town than just getting new homes. In the process many individuals have decided to upgrade their own homes and some vacant, damaged, unoccupied homes have been torn down to make the area much more attractive. This makes a very favorable impression upon those considering settling here. The city of Iroquois issued 14 building permits in 2007; 9 of these were for new construction and the others were for major improvments. We don’t require permits for things like re-shingling, re-siding or new windows so those sort of fix-up projects don’t get reflected in the building permits but many were doing those sort of things to their homes.
My purpose in writing this is to show that towns that want to change for the better can do so. Iroquois is so much better for the things happening here and those from other communities reading this can be encouraged that great things can be done if only they will work together.
Very soon I hope to get some pictures of our new homes up on this blog site so everyone can see the great things that we have done here in Iroquois.

Hello, I am a student at Iroquois High School and I would like to talk about Martin Luther King Day.  Let me begin by saying that I am all for this holiday and any other holiday that gets me out of school but I do have a problem.  The reason I’m picking on Martin Luther King and his day is because it will be here soon.  This could also work for any other holiday, not just Martin Luther King Day.  Now back to the topic at hand, my problem is that we get this day off but we don’t get Veteran’s Day.  I can see why we would get a day off to honor  a man who changed America but why can’t we get a day off for all the people who helped build it and keep it safe.  In my opinion we should honor the people who sacrificed their lives for us before we honor a man who did great things for us.  Thank you for letting me speak my mind and I really don’t mean to offend anybody.

The third grade class took a walking field trip around our community to identify current businesses, recreational areas, and buildings of opportunity.  After taking photos, the children were asked to generate ideas to make our community a better place to live.  They created a poster with their photos and ideas which was displayed at one of our Horizon gatherings.  Here are some of their ideas:

1. More trees and flowers would make Iroquois a nicer place to live.  Each home and business could work harder to look nicer and cleaner.  Maybe we could become known as the “nicest little town on the prairie.” 
2. We think crossing lights at each rail road intersection would be safer.
3. Everyone likes to go to a lake.  We could go fishing, boating, tubing, or ride on jet skis at Iroquois Lake.
4. The grass should be cut and some trees cut down to make space for campers at the Iroquois Camp Ground.  We could put nice picnic tables, grills, and restrooms there.  Maybe there could be some cabins built there.  It would be fun to have a minature golf course, swimming pool, and park.  There could be a wildlife resort, with a wildlife path along the way. 
5. The Old Bank building could be fixed up to have businesses and offices inside.  Or it could be a bed and breakfast business.
6. We should have new sidewalks in town.  Then we wouldn’t have to walk in the street or through the grass.  People wouldn’t trip on the old cracked cement.
7. A new sign on highway 14 would let more people know we have a museum.  After visiting the museum, we think the stairs should be fixed.  It would nice to have workers to help clean the museum and greet the visitor.
8. We think the old blacksmith shop should be fixed up and made into a museum.  Maybe somebody could show us how a blacksmith did his work.
9. The old beauty shop building could be fixed up and turned into a gift shop or dollar store.

Q: In what ways has your communities knowledge about leadership changed? how do you know?

A: Prior to my involvement in the Horizons project, I did not view myself as a community leader. Now, I understand that we are all leaders and our community needs each one of us to become involved. Each community member has unique ideas and talents to contribute to the development and improvement of our town.
I can see evidence of this by the things that are getting done, that never happened before. Although we would like to see more people in the community take an active role, they are still aware of things that are happening. An example of this would be when the city council recently decided to purchase an electronic sign for the city, they came to our Horizons group for ideas and help in their plan.

Check all the current Iroquois happenings by checking our website.