By Gayla Piroutek This is part three of a three part

series. The manager of the bull ring

told the Dakotans. "I’ll bet you $500 El Cuco (the matador) kills your buffalo." Bob Yokum, who was a sport, retorted, “I’ll give you a better bet than that. I’ll bet you $5OO the buffalo kills Cuco.''

Next Sunday’s program was to begin with four bull fights, and then the younger buffalo would be fought by the matador in reg-ular bull fighting procedure. Word of the fight spread quickly, sending Mexican elites and rich Americans to Juarez. Once again, the bull ring sold out, netting $8,000 in ticket sales. The Gover-nor of Chihuahua would attend. Although he wouldn't be travel-ing to Juarez, President Theodore Roosevelt learned of the showdown when the El Paso Humane Society asked him to stop the contest.

George Philip, knowing how thick the hair was around the buffalo's heart, was sure the younger buffalo would do well. El Cuco, brave and skillful, the top matador of the Juarez bull ring, was the Mexican given the honor of opposing the buffalo. The matador’s job is to entice a bull with a cape, sashay out of the way when charged, plant barbs into the animal’s shoulders, and finish off the bull with a sword to the heart. How would this work with a buffalo?

Highly popular and coura-geous, El Cuco knew everything a bull could be expected to do in ring, and it never occurred to him that a buffalo might not be bound by the rules of mere bulls. A bull charges straight, while a buffalo is likely to go into battle jabbing with those dangerous horns in the manner of a skillful boxer. While a bull pivots on his hind feet, the buffalo snakes his swing on his front feet. A bull does not

kick, while a buffalo seems to de-light in damage done by those outstandingly capable hind feet. That hump on the buffalo is not caused by curvature of the spine, for his spine is just as straight as that of any bull. The upper prongs of the vertebrae are elon-gated to about a foot at the height of the hump, filled in with mus-cle. Nature has placed a tough hide about an inch or more in thickness over most of his body. Over that thick skin is placed an almost impervious blanket of matted, curly, woolen hair, six inches or more through.

The big day arrived. After salutes were given, the first bull was let into the arena. Who should he be, but that beautiful, red fighting bull that had first fought the buffalo Pierre on the preceding Sunday. (In order to save money, the manager used the same bulls from the previous week.) No amount of coaxing could get that bull to believe that his adversary of the week before was not somewhere in that ring. There wasn't an ounce of fight in that prize bull. All he wanted to do was escape. He was finally run back through the chutes, and an-other bull sent to take his place. Three other bulls were succes-

sively let in, and each, in his turn, refused to fight, and could not be made to charge toward the matador. Four bull fights had been advertised and the crowd was getting restless and cries of "gyp" could be heard.

Finally, the younger buffalo was admitted to the ring. Having had a week's rest in the warm cli-mate, he came into the ring look-ing for trouble, yet not understanding what lay before him. When El Cuco began waving his cape in the hopes of angering Pierre Jr., the animal just stared. Whereas fighting bulls charge when they see the motion of a matador cape, nature and breed-ing had not instilled such an in-stinct in buffalo. Young Pierre didn’t know what he was sup-posed to do.

Pierre Jr. hadn't ever faced combat in the ring. Having been raised on Scotty Philip 's ranch, this young buffalo had nothing to fear from humans, no reason to go after the matador. Finally, El Cuco ordered a mounted picador to poke the buffalo with a metal pole. The prodding discomforted Pierre Jr. and the animal half-heartedly ran at El Cuco, but he

By Reed Ohrtman For the first time ever, FFA

Chapters from across the state traveled to a location other than the South Dakota State Univer-sity at Brookings. Rapid City was chosen as the alternative site for the 93rd Annual State FFA Convention. Many Covid protocols were implemented to make it possible for the large gathering. Stricter qualifications for teams eligible to participate reduced the student numbers from the usual 2200 to 1500.

The Career Fair had many col-leges, agribusiness companies and potential employers vying for the students’ attention. Most of the events were at Western Dakota College and the Kjerstad Events Center.

Our first Contest on April 12th was Range I.D. We had been win-ning the local contests by a con-siderable margin, so we made the decision to split our aces and try for first and second place teams. This contest which is sponsored by the SDSU Range Club is the only contest were two teams from the same chapter can be entered.

Farynn Knutson and Emily Zickrick had been trading places

winning the local contests, so we added a couple of old hands at range judging and were be able to fill both teams. It worked out just right. The Kadoka FFA Team Number Two earned re-serve state champion status with Farynn Knutson winning the State Championship, Kash Block 3rd, T.J. Hamar and Maxwell Zickrick also kicked in valuable points.

The Kadoka FFA Number One earned the State championship and was led by Emily Zickrick in second, Dawson Reckling 5th, Reed Ohrtman 7th and Abbi Roghair came out of retirement for insurance.

This is the first time in the Kadoka FFA history that we were deep enough to pull in the double win.

The Natural Resources Team overthrew Rapid City last week and went into state with serious potential. The experienced team came in only second to a tough West Central team from Sioux Falls and were name the 2021 Reserve State Champions. Abi-gail Roghair, distanced herself from the pack and was also named the Reserve State Cham-pion in second place. This is the

largest FFA Contest in the state and normal 230 student were trimmed down to 132 though dis-trict eliminations. T.J. Hamar was also a medal winner in 7th place. Victoria Madsen and Madison Brown pushed the team to the stage as well.

The perennial favorite for Kadoka FFA is the most grueling event, the Ag Business Contest, students are tested on the fu-tures markets, financial state-ments and terms, and applied accounting principles. Junior, Tyler Ring who went undefeated in all local contests made the stage in fifth place, not to be out-done classmate Maxwell Zickrick also medaled in 10th place. Freshman Alexandria Madsen and Mason Stilwell held up their end to bring the team to a fifth in state finish.

While certainly a different State Convention than most, the fact that it was held in person, versus virtual, was appreciated by all.

$1.00 includes tax KADOKA PRESS

The official newspaper of Jackson County, South Dakota

Volume 114 Number 42

April 22, 2021

In this week’s Kadoka Press…

Opinion Page 2

Area News Page 3

Kougar Pride Pages 5 & 6

Community Page 7

Classifieds Page 9

Agriculture Page 10

Faith Page 4

Legals Page 8

Check out Legals on Page 8• City of Kadoka - 4/12/21 Minutes

• Larson Law PC - Notice to creditors • Rosebud Sioux Tribal Court - Summons

• WRWDD - 3/18/21 Minutes

See page 5 for more pictures!

continued on 6

Kadoka FFA place at the 93rd Annual State FFA Convention

1st and 2nd place Range I.D. Teams in the state both from Kadoka sharing the stage. Shown Left to Right: Maxwell Zickrick, TJ Hamar, Farynn Knutson, Kash Block, Brandy Knutson, Abigail Roghair, Emily Zickrick, Dawson Reckling and Reed Ohrtman.

Photo Courtesy of Kassidy Ferguson

American Buffalo vs. Mexican Fighting Bulls

Salt Lake Telegram Advertisement for fight between matador and buffalo.

By Elizabeth “Liz” Meighen The Kadoka City Council con-

ducted its monthly meeting on April 12 at the Kadoka City Fi-nance Office. Council members at-tending the meeting included Chris Grillo, Tim Huffman, Rusty Olney, Eileen Stolley, Tia Stout, Harry Weller and Ryan Willert.

Mayor Weller promptly called the meeting to order. The Council approved the agenda for the meet-ing and the minutes from the regu-lar monthly meeting on March 8 and a special meeting for the Board of Equalization on March 15.

LaTasha Buchholz, finance offi-cer, submitted invoices for review by the members of the City Coun-cil. She presented March financial reports, including departmental revenues, departmental expenses and bank account balances as of March 31. The Council approved the invoices and financial state-ments for March 2021.

At each meeting, the Council pro-vides residents with the opportu-nity to present matters of concern to the Council. The Council takes no action on matters presented by residents. For individuals seeking action, one must request placement on the upcoming meeting agenda, which requires a minimum 24-hour notice prior to the publication of the agenda. At this meeting, no one ap-peared to present input and the meeting progressed to matters re-lating to updating and improving the infrastructure including sewer and water lines and repairing road-ways.

The Council reviewed three bids received for the 2021 street project from Bituminous Paving, Inc., Odessa, Minnesota; The Road Guys

Construction Co., Inc., Yankton, South Dakota; Simon Contractors of South Dakota, Inc., Rapid City, South Dakota. The City requested bids to “furnish materials, equip-ment and labor” to apply a chip seal surface onto Maple and Main Streets and some side avenues in a process referred to as asphaltic sur-face treatment. The Council re-viewed the bids received for the project and voted to accept the bid from Simons in the amount of $133,726.30. The Council did not select the lowest offer, as they con-sidered which contractor followed the specific requirements set forth in the advertisement for the proj-ect. Simon has previously com-pleted paving and sealing projects for the City. The bid advertised that the project would consist of apply-ing 56,030 square yards of product, a “1B modified chip or 2A cover ag-gregate.”

In addition to the paving project, the City plans to install new water lines under Second Avenue be-tween Maple and Poplar Streets. The project would consist of trench-ing, selective boring and installing a six-inch water main, curb stops and one fire hydrant. The City re-ceived and reviewed bids from H & W Contracting, LLC, Sioux Falls and West River Excavation, LLC, Kadoka. The Council voted to ac-cept the lesser bid from West River—a local, family owned busi-ness.

In the first matter of new busi-ness on the agenda, Gerard Magelky, a member of the Board of the Jackson County Commission-ers, and Denny Lottman, superin-tendent of the Jackson County Highway Department, met with

the Council for the purpose of exe-cuting a real estate exchange. The documents included two agree-ments and two quick claim deeds. The newly hired city attorney, Stephanie Trask, reviewed the doc-uments prepared by the Jackson County South Dakota state’s attor-ney, Daniel Van Gorp. Trask deter-mined the language of the documents needed revision before the City executed the agreement and deeds. Trask revised and pre-pared new agreements to be pre-sented to the County. The modified Real Estate Exchange Agreement A proposes sites one and two, prop-erty owned by Jackson County, to be evenly exchanged for site three, owned by the City of Kadoka. The second agreement, Agreement B, stipulates terms for the exchange of site two wherein the County shall “choose and complete one of the fol-lowing three options,” which in-cludes demolishing the current building, selling the site or retain-ing the parcel of property. Action in the first option includes razing the current building and “transfer the remaining bare land to the City.” The second option indicates the “City is entitled to 50% of the net sale proceeds from the “Site Two” property, or Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), whichever is greater.” The third option proposes the County shall retain the property with the caveat that the “County will make upgrades, reasonably satisfactory to the City, to improve the appearance of the “Site Two” property and to pay $10,000 to the City for the property.

Sandy Eischenbacher, a repre-sentative of the Kadoka Commu-nity Betterment Association

(KCBA), addressed the Council and presented “an idea for signage” by the Kadoka Area School Gym. She indicated the KCBA Facebook page along with other travel links have been installed on the city’s website at www.kadokasd.com.

The Council proceeded to depart-mental reports and received a re-quest from Code Enforcement Specialists, LLC (CES), a contrac-tual enforcement service, to mail approximately 20 letters to prop-erty owners in violation of city or-dinances. The Council moved to approve the request from Joel Johnson, president of CES.

The Council received reports

from the public works department employees Nathan Riggins and Patrick Solon. Riggins informed the city of plans to flush fire hy-drants and to place septic lagoon treatment into the city sewage la-goon. Solon plans to install culverts in various locations throughout the city. During the month of May, the Kadoka Transfer Station will waive fees for items to dispose of at the rubble site. The fee waiver does not include household trash or tires.

The Kadoka City Bar reported that security cameras have been in-stalled and the feed from the video is stored if the need arises to review the video later as needed. The bar

expanded the system to include varying views throughout the bar after a recent incident where van-dals broke into the bar and stole al-cohol.

The Council moved to enter exec-utive session to discuss personnel matters. The Council reconvened to the regular session and hired sea-sonal maintenance workers and lifeguard staff for the 2021 summer season for the Kadoka City Pool.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Kadoka City Council is at 7 p.m. at the Kadoka City Fi-nance Office on May 10, 2021. The public is invited and encouraged to attend the meetings.

Jenny Leibel

During an April 12th Kadoka city council meeting, the Kadoka public works department informed the coun-cil of plans to place septic lagoon treatment into the city sewage lagoon, install culverts throughout town and flush fire hydrants. For the full meeting minutes, please refer to the Legals section on page 8.

City Accepts Bids For Improvements—Sealing Streets, Installing Water Lines

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