PLACEMAKING // DESTINATIONS // SUPPORTING ENTREPRENEURS // SERVICE // MESSAGE FOR GRADS

Plus:RESIDENTS

BUILD CONNECTIONS

IN CORSICA See page 40

MAY/JUNE 2015

Dakotafire Media, LLC

$4.95US

REIMAGINING MAIN STREETEven small towns can have great places.Communities share their stories. Page 5

2 From the Editor: Graduating into the community

5 PRAIRIE IDEA EXCHANGE: Focus on Main Street

6 Why Main Street Matters

8 Main Street: What’s happening

10 Main Street can be an awesome ‘place’

11 Infographic: What makes a great place?

13 Where is a great Main Street?

14 Highway or Main Street? Towns need both

17 Empty places on Main are an opportunity

20 Shops cooperate to create antique circuit

21 Store draws fabric lovers from a distance

22 Bringing clientele to backroads retailers, via the information superhighway

24 Customer service is vital in rural areas

25 What does it take to have a successful business in a small town?

26 Business owners band together to bring women to Britton’s Main Street

28 New effort to support startups

Volume 4, Number 3 MAY/JUNE 2015CONTENTSFacebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .ai Facebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .ai

DakotafireMedia @DakotafireMedia

Armour ChronicleBritton JournalClark County CourierCorsica GlobeDelmont RecordDickey County Leader

(Ellendale)Faulk County Record

Groton IndependentIpswich TribuneKulm MessengerLangford BugleRoscoe-Hosmer

IndependentTri-County News (Gackle)

PARTNERING NEWSPAPERS

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEFHeidi Marttila-Losure, heidi@dakotafire.netSTAFF WRITERWendy Royston, wendy@dakotafire.net

CONTRIBUTORSDoug Card, Peter Carrels, Jeff Glover, Liz Hannum, Paula Jensen, Bill Krikac, Laura Melius, Jason Uphoff

SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR Laura Ptacek, laura@dakotafire.net EDITORIAL OFFICE P.O. Box 603, Frederick, SD 57441 605-290-3335

SPONSORS OF THE PRAIRIE IDEA EXCHANGE

Dakotafire is sparking a revival in rural communities of the Dakotas and beyond by encouraging conversations that help rural residents rethink what’s happening and what’s possible. Learn more at www.dakotafire.net.

Dakotafire magazine is published six times per year and owned by Dakotafire Media, LLC.

All content is copyright ©2015 Dakotafire Media. All rights reserved. Content in this magazine should not be copied in any way without written permission from the publisher. PRINTED IN THE USA.

DISTRIBUTION SPONSORSArlington Community Development Corporation

Beadle and Spink Enterprise Community

Kulm Economic Development Corporation

30 Supported businesses support communities

33 Prairie Idea Exchange sponsors

34 Seeds of Wisdom: Land ethic grows from hard lessons

38 Community Spotlight: Building connections in Corsica

48 Postcard: A new view of a prairie river

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COVER: This sketch was created as part of Design South Dakota’s visit to Hill City, S.D., in 2009. It was intended to help Hill City residents reimagine what their downtown could look like if it was done on a more pedestrian scale—in a way that made it more enjoyable to spend time being on Main Street, instead of parking to visit a business and departing when the transaction was done. Image courtesy Design South Dakota (designsd.wordpress.com)

NEXT ISSUE: Soil / Agriculture / Food018002-00347 4/15

STICKING WITH ITHow Sanford helped one new mom achieve her birth and breastfeeding goals

Pregnancy gives you nine months to prepare for your baby. From what name to pick to the kind of crib to buy, there are lots of decisions to make. You also have time to decide what kind of labor would be the best fit for you. And while the labor process can sometimes be unpredictable, many women arrive at the hospital with an ideal birth plan in place.

“ If all went according to plan, I wanted to try for a medication-free birth,” says Amber Beckham. “I told the doctors and my husband they could ask me if I wanted an epidural once. And if I said no, to please not ask me again.”

Those in the delivery room listened to the 28-year-old first-time mom, and Amber was able to stick to her birth plan.

“ It was really important to me to try and do it without medication,” remembers Amber. “And I’m so glad I did. Having a natural birth was empowering and I am so thankful

they respected my decision and only asked me that one time. And yes, it was very painful, but wonderful at the same time.”

Try and try againAmber and her husband welcomed their daughter Emmy into the world on April 25, 2014. Amber had decided to breastfeed her little one and began soon after Emmy arrived.

“ It was a struggle,” recalls Amber. “Emmy had colic, so here was this little, helpless baby crying all the time. She wouldn’t latch on properly and I really didn’t know what to do.”

Amber ended up calling Sanford Aberdeen in search of help. Soon she was on the phone receiving advice, help and support.

“ I was in tears when I called,” says Amber. “But they were just amazing and it was so nice to talk to someone who cared and wanted you to succeed. So with some help, Emmy and I got the hang of it.”

Emmy is now approaching her 1st birthday and is still breastfeeding, which Amber credits to the team at Sanford Aberdeen.

“ I’m positive we wouldn’t have continued breastfeeding for this long without them,” says Amber. “The experience we’ve had there has been indescribable. It was not what we were expecting at all, but they just surprised us with their compassion. If we had a question, they would get back to us almost right away. And having that sort of support while you are going through childbirth for the first time is amazing. I can’t imagine going anywhere else for care.”

To schedule an appointment with an OB/GYN physician at Sanford Aberdeen, call (605) 725-1700.

018002-00347 4/15

STICKING WITH ITHow Sanford helped one new mom achieve her birth and breastfeeding goals

Pregnancy gives you nine months to prepare for your baby. From what name to pick to the kind of crib to buy, there are lots of decisions to make. You also have time to decide what kind of labor would be the best fit for you. And while the labor process can sometimes be unpredictable, many women arrive at the hospital with an ideal birth plan in place.

“ If all went according to plan, I wanted to try for a medication-free birth,” says Amber Beckham. “I told the doctors and my husband they could ask me if I wanted an epidural once. And if I said no, to please not ask me again.”

Those in the delivery room listened to the 28-year-old first-time mom, and Amber was able to stick to her birth plan.

“ It was really important to me to try and do it without medication,” remembers Amber. “And I’m so glad I did. Having a natural birth was empowering and I am so thankful

they respected my decision and only asked me that one time. And yes, it was very painful, but wonderful at the same time.”

Try and try againAmber and her husband welcomed their daughter Emmy into the world on April 25, 2014. Amber had decided to breastfeed her little one and began soon after Emmy arrived.

“ It was a struggle,” recalls Amber. “Emmy had colic, so here was this little, helpless baby crying all the time. She wouldn’t latch on properly and I really didn’t know what to do.”

Amber ended up calling Sanford Aberdeen in search of help. Soon she was on the phone receiving advice, help and support.

“ I was in tears when I called,” says Amber. “But they were just amazing and it was so nice to talk to someone who cared and wanted you to succeed. So with some help, Emmy and I got the hang of it.”

Emmy is now approaching her 1st birthday and is still breastfeeding, which Amber credits to the team at Sanford Aberdeen.

“ I’m positive we wouldn’t have continued breastfeeding for this long without them,” says Amber. “The experience we’ve had there has been indescribable. It was not what we were expecting at all, but they just surprised us with their compassion. If we had a question, they would get back to us almost right away. And having that sort of support while you are going through childbirth for the first time is amazing. I can’t imagine going anywhere else for care.”

To schedule an appointment with an OB/GYN physician at Sanford Aberdeen, call (605) 725-1700.

Having a commencement speaker has become less fashionable for high school graduations—perhaps because one too many

speakers continued past the point of polite patience for the elderly grandparents, the barely restrained toddlers, and—most antsy of all—the eager graduates waiting for their turn to smile with their diploma.

Graduating into the communityFROM THE EDITOR

by HEID

I MA

RTTILA

-LOSU

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Editor Heidi Marttila-Losure can be reached at heidi@dakotafire.net.

But maybe it’s OK to give a commencement address that doesn’t have to be heard while sitting on hard gym bleachers. I’m going to give it a try.

Class of 2015, here’s my message to you: Congratulations on getting to this point—seated in front

of your family, your teachers, your friends, your community, wearing a cap and gown. Not everyone gets here, and it’s a measure of your ability and perseverance, yes, but also a mea-sure of the support of people who care about you that you are here today. The fact that you are here shows that someone—probably many “someones,” actually—believes in you.

Some of you may receive a suitcase today as a gift. It’s a great gift, a symbol that it’s time to depart on a new leg of the adventure we call life. But you may also take it as a sym-bol that you are leaving the community—and that would be incorrect. No matter the compass direction you take departing from here today, you are not actually leaving the community.

Instead, you are becoming a full-fledged member of it. Until this point, your family, your teachers, your commu-

nity have made a lot of decisions for you. You’ve been guided. You’ve been coached. You’ve been corrected if you did wrong and cheered if you did right. If you were guided well, you followed a path that has prepared you well for what comes next—but much of that path was not of your own choosing.

From here on—maybe not immediately, but soon—you will be making those decisions for yourself.

You’ll have the right to go to college—or not. The right to go to work—or not. You can sleep all day and stay up all night, if that suits you.

��������������������������������������������

THE ART OF DIALOGUE

Here’s an idea from Dakotafire’s Winter 2012 issue: Each graduate from Faulkton High School receives a mailbox filled with letters from leaders in the community, letting them know that they are valued and welcome to come back to Faulk County after they have gone out to see the world. “We’re trying to get the message out,” said Superintendent Joel Price: “‘We really want you to come back.’” Photo by Troy McQuillen

2 dakotafire.net

Graduating into the communityBut you’ll also have responsibilities. Soon

you’ll have to have money for your life—where you live, what you wear and what you eat. Whether you choose more schooling or work, people will expect things from you.

And as a member of the community, you also have rights and responsibilities. You have the right to vote, but you have the responsibility to inform yourself beforehand. You have the right to complain about the potholes on local roads, the lack of shopping options for someone like yourself in the community, how there’s “noth-ing to do” in town, or whatever doesn’t work for you in your community. But you are a member now. You are just as responsible as your neigh-bor or the superintendent or the mayor to make sure the community is just as awesome as it should be. If the community is a wonderful, wel-coming place, or if it’s dilapidated and dying—from here on out, you are partly responsible.

This responsibility is yours, whether you are staying to settle in right away or are leav-ing to pursue educational or career opportuni-ties. This is your hometown. Whenever some-one asks you, “Where did you grow up?”, this town will be your answer. Your membership in this community won’t change, no matter how long you’re gone.

And if you haven’t decided what you’re going to do next: Go. Go now, as far as you dare.

What, you thought I was going to tell you to stay here? Nope. I am all for planting your roots in one place, because that provides us with enough time to truly learn what it takes to build a successful life in a place—to see the long-term results of our decisions, and ideally work to make better ones. But there is a time—which, for you, is right now—when it’s best to get away.

The world is a big, amazing, terrifying, fas-cinating place. If you never see any of it, you’ll never know if there’s a better way to do things, a better way to be. So now, before tethers of work or significant others or children start to keep you in place, go. Experience as much as you dare to.

And then, when you’ve widened your view of the world with college, work or other expe-ditions, bring your changed, informed self back to the Dakotas. We’ll benefit from your learn-ing and your successes (and even your failures, which will be their own education). And you will benefit from coming home to a place where your roots will sink in easily.

You’ll notice I did not tell you to pursue hap-piness. I think that’s terrible advice, especially for your age. In my experience, you can’t get to happy and fulfilled by pursuing happiness directly. Happiness is a side effect of living a life of meaning and purpose. Find the thing that you can do that makes the world a better place, that you can do well, that the world appre-ciates enough to pay you to do—and that you enjoy doing, but get the other three in place first. Pursue meaning, and happiness will find you.

And here’s the thing: There is meaningful work to be done in your hometown. How can it be better? How can you make it better? Those questions can provide a lifetime of interesting, meaningful work.

Yes, you can find meaningful work else-where also. And some of you will. But know that your hometown would also welcome your efforts.

Who knows—maybe someday those efforts will include supporting an eager young per-son, working toward his or her turn to hold a diploma as a full member of our community. í

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Tri-County News

Kulm Messenger

Dickey County Leader

Britton Journal

Langford Bugle

Groton IndependentIpswich Tribune

Faulk County Record

Clark County Courier

Roscoe-HosmerIndependent

Corsica GlobeArmour Chronicle

Delmont Record

EllendaleHettinger

Lincoln

Washburn

Garrison

Watford City

New Town

StanleyTioga

Kenmare

Rolla

(BASEC area)

Dakotafire coverage area and points of interest from this issue.

dakotafire.net 3

Real-world training for aworld of opportunity.

Learn the skills that are in demand with state-of-the-art training and map out a future you’ll love.

Visit lakeareatech.edu and start your journey.

Watertown, SD

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dakotafire.net 5

MAIN STREETFOCUS ON

HOW CAN WE HELP MAIN STREETS THRIVE? • MARCH 18, 2015

For the March gathering of economic developers for the Prairie Idea Exchange project, we dove into the topic of Main Street.

The actual topic suggestion, which came from one of the developers in a brainstorming session, was “Revitalizing Main Street when it’s off the beaten path.”

For each of the topics in the PIE project, we ask three basic questions to direct the conversation:

• Why does this matter?• What’s happening?• What’s possible?

What follows are the stories that resulted from that con-versation. Read. Consider. Then join in the conversation at www.pie4.us. Ideas from that online forum will appear in the July/August issue. Turn the page and enjoy a slice of PIE!

Prairie Idea Exchange is a way to share fruitful, community-

building ideas across northeastern South Dakota and beyond through

conversations among economic development professionals,

community journalists and the region’s residents in person, in print and online.

Read more about the PIE project at www.pie4.us.

Illustration by Joe BartmannJoin us for a conversation about Main Street! You’re invited to a Dakotafire Café event in Arlington, S.D., in May. More details to be announced. See www.pie4.us for details.

MAIN STREET: Why does this matter?

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WHY MAIN STREET MATTERSstory and illustration by PAULA JENSEN

Main Streets of our past bring a flood of nostalgic memories. These places were designed to be centers of activity—where we gathered to conduct business, but also to see neighbors and to experience art and culture.

“Our Main Streets tell us who we are and who we were, and how the past has shaped us,” according to an article by the National Main Street Center. “We do not go to bland suburbs or enclosed shopping malls to learn about our past, explore our culture, or discover our identity.”

Main Streets also tell us who we are today. It is still a place where the commu-nity can come together.

Our Main Streets are real places doing real work. Some are thriving, and some are struggling. But in almost all of them, there is untapped potential.

Just like all things in our small commu-nities, we cannot wait for Superman to fly in and save the day. The only way to revitalize our communities and preserve the character that has been passed down for generations is to come together and make it happen.

Main Streets will always be changing; they will forever be a work in progress if they are to be successful. But Main Streets will also forever be the center of our commu-nities if we come together and do the hard work to preserve and revitalize them.

Main Street is the front porch of the community.Main Street can serve as a positive and welcoming gathering place that renews

community pride and reinforces a community’s connections and relationships. HOW TO BUILD IT:

• Plan special events, live entertainment and community gatherings to drive traffic to Main Street.

• Make customer service a priority. Consistent hospitality from store to store makes customers want to return and bring friends.

• Have a consistent brand and promote it. Communities must stress what makes their Main Street different from other places of business and Main Streets in other communities.

• Create or enhance “third spaces.” These are the comfortable gathering places outside of home and work, such as coffee shops and libraries.

We all know the few blocks that make up our rural Main Streets like the back of our hands, but we may not often stop to think about the purposes they serve in our communities.

During a conversation about revitalizing our rural Main Streets at the March Prairie Idea Exchange gathering, a group of regional economic developers came up with a list of reasons Why Main Street Matters. In no particular order, here are their top five:

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To read more about an idea, go to the page

number in the dot:

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MAIN STREET: Why does this matter?

dakotafire.net 7

Main Street is the community’s identity and history.

Main Street was often the most carefully designed part of a town, and many structures were built to last. Communities can take advantage of those existing assets and build on them. HOW TO BUILD IT:

• Enhance the visuals: architecture, storefronts, signs, public spaces, parking areas, street furniture, public art, merchandising and window displays.

• Establish partnerships among business owners so they can work collaboratively on special promotions, maintaining similar store hours, beautification, signage and more.

Main Street is a source of revenue.A multipurpose business district that responds to the needs of today’s residents and

visitors can create financial stability for business owners and the community.HOW TO BUILD IT:

• Develop empty spaces. Many communities are welcoming entrepreneurs of all types to see vacant buildings as a strategic opportunity that will revitalize Main Street.

• Develop housing. Using existing spaces on our Main Streets for residential living can help solve rural housing issues as well as bring vitality to downtown.

• Buy local. These efforts can go beyond retail—they should include a broader view of local business such as ag-based businesses, repair shops, restaurants, insurance agents, health care, and other services that provide local jobs and self-employ-ment opportunities.

Main Street is often the first impression of a community.

Visitors will see how the community views itself as they pass through Main Street.HOW TO BUILD IT:• Rehabilitate. Begin the conversation of property responsibilities by partner-ing with local building owners to support the improvement of buildings. Leaving a downtown building sitting empty and deteriorating is pilfering money from the

building and business owners next door.• Beautify. Create visual appeal with flowers, shrubs, signage, trees,

outdoor furniture, or a fresh coat of paint. It all makes a big difference.

Main Street is a place of opportunity.If the old way of doing business on Main Street has faded in your

community, there is an opening to reinvent that space. A community mindset that is welcoming to new business and open to new opportunities will help the community thrive. HOW TO BUILD IT:• Find your niche. Communities can recruit to fill a niche attractive to

a target market, or create a wide variety of businesses to serve the general public. These areas may have appealing opportunities:• Entrepreneurship• Arts & entertainment• Workforce education• Small industry

• Pop-up shops featuring handmade items

• Tourism

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MAIN STREET: What’s happening?

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This is the question that started the group gath-ered at the March Prairie Idea Exchange event talk-ing. The conversations ranged widely, and what people had noticed sometimes contradicted the observations of others—not surprising, considering participants came from different places and had dif-ferent experiences.

Here are some of the trends that seemed to be common threads in the group’s conversations. Most of these ideas are not unique to our region; national groups working on downtown revitalization have noted many of these trends as well.

1 Many businesses are closing or have closed.In the 1980s and ‘90s, the big threat to Main Street

businesses was the shopping mall and the big-box stores often located near it. Malls proliferated after the construction of better roads, including the interstate highway system, which changed how people viewed how far they could drive for daily needs, according to the National Main Street Center.

“With improved transporta-tion routes, people found it eas-ier to travel longer distances to work or shop,” according to an article by the National Main Street Center. “Downtown businesses closed or moved to the mall, shoppers dwindled, (and) property values and sales tax revenues dropped.”

In smaller towns, Main Streets were also affected by the ups and downs of the ag

economy and the depopula-tion of rural communities.

Some of the types of busi-nesses that have struggled in area communities include gro-cery stores, hardware stores, restaurants, shoe and clothing stores, and furniture and appliance stores.

More recently, rural Main Streets have been affected by Internet competition. People can get exactly what they want online, and UPS and FedEx deliver even to the most rural of addresses.

Don Schumaker of Schumaker Home Furnishings in Britton, S.D., has seen people come into his store to shop then go home to order the items online—what’s called “showrooming.”

“It’s becoming common practice in the indus-try and getting bigger,” Schumaker said in a 2012 Dakotafire article.

According to the Bloomberg Intelligence 2015 Outlook for the Retail Industry, released in January, the increase in online shopping may mean fewer

brick-and-mortar stores overall, with a number of store closings expected this year.

There is, however, also an opportunity for rural businesses through the Internet, as online shoppers can provide an important supplement to their local business.

“We’ve learned that the most interesting things going on with Main Street businesses are not some-times what’s going on on the retail floor—it’s what they’re doing in the backroom or on the Internet,” said Craig Schroeder, senior fellow with the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, Neb.

Schroeder tells the story of visiting two phar-macists in Orton, Neb., about a decade ago. The pharmacists gave him the standard tour of the retail facility, then told him, “but what’s really interesting is what we’re doing in the basement.”

That’s where they had seven licensed phar-macists compounding drugs for doctors all over the Midwest who had allergies to standard medications.

“Even the economic development director didn’t know that was going on,” Schroeder said.

2 There are many empty lots on Main Streets, and second stories

are unused or underutilized.As businesses closed or moved, they were not

replaced as quickly with new or relocat-ing businesses. This left empty spaces and sometimes entire buildings on Main Street.

Sometimes those buildings—especially their second stories—are used as storage, some of the PIE participants noted.

“When you think about your own experience, what are you noticing about small-town Main Streets/downtowns?”

From left: Melissa Waldner, Webster; Wanda Jundt, Eureka; Joan Sacrison, Deuel Area; and Connie Larson, Milbank Chamber of Commerce.

MAIN STREET: What’s happening?

dakotafire.net 9

Buildings that aren’t used often aren’t maintained, which meant eventu-ally some of those buildings were dilap-idated and beyond saving.

In some communities, it seems like the whole of downtown is gone.

“There’s just nothing left” in some small communities, said Margot Gillette, the executive director of Beadle and Spink Enterprise Community.

3Appearances often aren’t inviting. Main Street often doesn’t look as

good as it could, PIE participants agreed.Some businesses in “survival” mode

think they have more important things to worry about, or businesses that are doing OK might think there’s no point in investing in appearances or upgrades when they don’t see a return on investment.

Carla Burns of the Small Business Development Center in Aberdeen said she’s seen the outsides of buildings being renovated but little work done inside.

Linda Salmonson of East River Electric said she’s noticed the opposite.

“The insides of businesses are being renovated, and they are welcoming and well displayed ... but you wouldn’t know that from the outside,” Salmonson said. “So for somebody who isn’t from town, they are going to drive right through and say there can’t be much in there because it’s really an old building. But for someone from town, they don’t even see any-thing wrong with it. They go there and know it’s nice inside. They look past it.”

4“Main Street versus the highway” is a dilemma in many communities.

In communities with both a Main Street and a highway that has any measure of passing traffic, deciding where to invest their money and energy is a difficult decision.

Main Street is the traditional business center, but fewer

people are detouring to do their business there. The highway (obvi-ously) has lots more traffic, but it has not been built to be a gathering place in the same way that Main Street traditionally has been.

Both businesses and economic development groups have to weigh those factors in their decisions, PIE participants said.

5 Customer and business relationships are not always strong.

There’s room for improvement in all the relation-ships on Main Street, PIE participants suggested.

Small-town businesses often have a reputation for being friendly, but not always. Sometimes Midwestern

shyness gets in the way, and some business owners place no value on service at all, thinking just being here keep-ing the doors open is enough, one participant said.

Customers aren’t always prioritizing a relationship with local businesses, thinking “I can get it cheaper at Walmart.”

And businesses are not working with one another as much as they could be, often seeing one another as com-petitors instead of collaborators.

“In most downtowns today are areas you have a lot of vacant buildings ... You have an opportunity then

to build something or to rehab something.

There’s an opportunity for businesses to locate there, an opportunity to

create a Main Street atmosphere that may

not currently exist ... an opportunity

for communities to re-create a charm of the past but by doing things in a new way.”

—Margot Gillette, executive director of the Beadle and Spink

Enterprise Community

YOUR TURNWhat are you seeing happening to Main Street in your community? Share your thoughts at www.pie4.us.

From left: Trevor Cramer, Faulkton; Bobbie Bohlen, Milbank; and Paula Jensen, Grow South Dakota.

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

10 dakotafire.net

People come to Main Street for far more than business

transactions. If communities want their Main Streets to be vibrant and bustling, national organizations suggest, com-munities should draw people in a variety of ways, beyond conducting business.

In essence, make Main Street more than an address—make it a “place.”

The idea of “placemak-ing” has been around since the 1960s, when placemaking innovators advocated “design-ing cities for people, not just cars and shopping centers.”

The principles involved in placemaking have gained a lot of traction since then, mov-ing into design discussions for communities of all sizes. (Even small towns in the Dakotas.)

Here are 11 placemaking principles from the Project for Public Spaces.

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

Main Street can be an awesome ‘place’by THE PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES

1 The community is the expert. The important starting point in developing a concept

for any public space is to identify the talents and assets within the community. In any community there are peo-ple who can provide a historical perspective, valuable insights into how the area functions, and an understand-ing of the critical issues and what is meaningful to people. Tapping this information at the beginning of the process will help to create a sense of community ownership in the project that can be of great benefit to both the project sponsor and the community.

2 Create a place, not a design. If your goal is to create a place, a design will not be

enough. To make an underperforming space into a vital “place,” physical elements must be introduced that would make people welcome and comfortable, such as seat-ing and new landscaping, and also through “manage-ment” changes in the pedestrian circulation pattern and by developing more effective relationships between the surrounding retail and the activities going on in the pub-lic spaces. The goal is to create a place that has both a strong sense of community and a comfortable image, as well as a setting and activities and uses that collectively add up to something more than the sum of its often sim-ple parts. This is easy to say, but difficult to accomplish.

3 Look for partners. Partners are critical to the success and image of a pub-

lic space improvement project. Whether you want part-ners at the beginning to plan for the project or you want to brainstorm and develop scenarios with a dozen partners who might participate in the future, they are invaluable in providing support and getting a project off the ground. They can be local institutions, schools and others.

4 You can see a lot just by observing. We can all learn a great deal from others’ successes

and failures. By looking at how people are using (or not using) public spaces and finding out what they like and don’t like about them, it is possible to assess what makes them work or not work. Through these observations, it will be clear what kinds of activities are missing and what might be incorporated. And when the spaces are built, continuing to observe them will teach even more about how to evolve and manage them over time.

5 Have a vision.The vision needs to come out of each individual com-

munity. However, essential to a vision for any public space is an idea of what kinds of activities might be happening in the space, a view that the space should be comfortable and have a good image, and that it should be an important place where people want to be. It should instill a sense of pride in the people who live and work in the area.

6 Start with the petunias: lighter, quicker, cheaper.

The complexity of public spaces is such that you cannot expect to do everything right initially. The best spaces experiment with short-term improvements that can be tested and refined over many years! Seating, outdoor cafes, public art, striping of crosswalks and pedestrian havens, community gardens and murals are examples of improvements that can be accomplished in a short time.

7 Triangulate. “Triangulation is the process by which some external

stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each

ELEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR CREATING GREAT COMMUNITY PLACES

Continued on page 12

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 11

Great public spaces are those places where celebrations are

held, social and economic exchanges occur, friends run into each other, and cultures mix. They are the “front porches” of our public institutions—libraries, field houses, schools—where we interact with each other and government. When theses spaces work well, they serve as the stage for our public lives.

What makes some places succeed while others fail?In evaluating thousands of public spaces around the world, PPS has found that to be successful, they generally share the following four qualities: They are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; the space is comfortable and has a good image; and finally, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit. PPS developed The Place Diagram as a tool to help people in judging any place, good or bad.

—Text above and graphic at right reprinted from “What Makes a Successful Place” on the Project for Public Spaces website (http://www.pps.org/reference/grplacefeat/)Go to the link above to read more about how to use this graphic as a tool for evaluating public spaces.

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

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other,” according to placemaking inno-vator Holly Whyte. In a public space, the choice and arrangement of different elements in relation to each other can put the triangulation process in motion (or not). For example, if a bench, a wastebasket and a telephone are placed with no connection to each other, each may receive a very limited use, but when they are arranged together along with other ame-nities such as a coffee cart, they will naturally bring people together (or triangulate!). On a broader level, if a children’s reading room in a new library is located so that it is next to a children’s playground in a park and a food kiosk is added, more activity will occur than if these facilities were located separately.

8 They always say “it can’t be done.”Creating good public spaces is inevitably about

encountering obstacles, because no one in either the public or private sectors has the job or responsibility to “create places.” For example, professionals such

as traffic engineers, transit operators, urban plan-ners and architects all have narrow definitions of their jobs—facilitating traffic or making trains run on time or creating long-term schemes for building cit-ies or designing buildings. Their job is not to create “places.” Starting with small-scale community-nur-turing improvements can demonstrate the impor-tance of “places” and help to overcome obstacles.

9 Form supports function.The input from the community and potential

partners, the understanding of how other spaces function, the experimentation, and overcoming the obstacles and naysayers provides the concept for the space. Although design is important, these other elements tell you what “form” you need to accom-plish the future vision for the space.

10 Money is not the issue.This statement can apply in a number of

ways. For example, once you’ve put in the basic

infrastructure of the public spaces, the elements that are added that will make it work (e.g., vendors, cafes, flowers and seating) will not be expensive. In addition, if the community and other partners are involved in programming and other activities, this can also reduce costs. More important is that by fol-lowing these steps, people will have so much enthu-siasm for the project that the cost is viewed much more broadly and consequently as not significant when compared with the benefits.

11 You are never finished.By nature, good public spaces that respond to

the needs, the opinions and the ongoing changes of the community require attention. Amenities wear out, needs change and other things happen. Being open to the need for change and having the manage-ment flexibility to enact that change is what builds great public spaces. í

Reprinted with permission from www.pps.org/reference/11steps/.

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WHERE IS A GREAT MAIN STREET, AND WHAT MAKES IT AWESOME?

YOUR TURN

We know this isn’t a complete list! Share your favor-ite Main Street at www.pie4.us.

Here’s a list of great Main Streets compiled by Prairie Idea Exchange participants:

• Aberdeen, S.D.• Fort Collins, Colo.• Sioux Falls, S.D.• Brookings, S.D.• Boulder, Colo.• Hill City, S.D.• Pipestone, S.D.• Dawson, Minn.• St. Joseph, Minn.• New Ulm, Minn.• Faulkton, S.D.• Seattle• Britton, S.D.• Denver (mall)• Madison, Wis.• Jenna, Germany

“One of my favorite destinations in Connecticut was the little town of Madison situated a few

miles from Hamonasset beach on the Long Island Sound. RJ Julia, an awesome independent book-store café, was in the center of downtown. We loved book browsing, stopping in the small coffee shops, and attending the Saturday afternoon wine tastings at Rick’s Madison Wine Shop. The clean white clapboard and red brick streetscape reflected the town’s New England heritage. We were always finding excuses to visit Madison because we enjoyed strolling down Main Street.”

—Elizabeth Theiss Smith, associate professor at the University of South Dakota

“Parkston, S.D., has a wealth of business variety: banks, insurance agents, and normal mom-and-

pop variety stores. All storefronts are filled and very welcoming. Also, they have a large park/sitting area on the west side, toward the end of one city block, that is a very inviting/calming area to sit down and relax.”

—Kim Easland, finance director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development

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MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

14 dakotafire.net

Highway or Main Street? Towns need bothby WENDY ROYSTON

In many small Dakota towns, when a business is ready to open

or expand, it faces a dilemma: Go to Main Street, or the highway?

The answer for businesses depends on the kind of customer they want to reach, according to local experts. And the answer for communities as they plan their development, since they want to reach more than one type of customer, is probably “both.”

Communities’ outskirts and downtowns serve distinctly different purposes, according to Dick Brink, mayor of Corsica, S.D., which sits along U.S. Highway 281, 20 miles south of Interstate 90, in southeastern South Dakota.

“A major highway brings people to town, and Main Street gives them a reason to stay,” Brink said. “You need both.”

Matt Fridell, a landscape architect with Tallgrass Landscape Architecture in Custer, S.D., agreed.

“Highways are all about traveling and getting to your destinations, and because of that, people who are traveling through are seeing what’s on the highway,” Fridell said. “Your downtown is about your community. It’s where you see people at the post office … and that’s where you see your neighbors. … It’s not about travel-ing to your next destination.”

As a result, certain types of businesses tend to fare well in each part of town—in the heart of town, service-type businesses such as salons and banks,

As architects participating in a Design South Dakota event in Webster, S.D., learned about the community last September, they had community members take part in an exercise that highlighted the places they frequented in the community (which they marked on the map) and the places where visitors stopped (marked on the map in a different color). That map (not pictured) led to an interesting observation: In Webster, visitors and residents often spent time in different places. Visitors were more likely to stop along U.S. Highway 12, while locals did their business on Main Street (also Highway 25). Some suggestions of the Design:SD team came from that observation. • A one-mile stretch of Highway 12 could be enhanced to tell visitors they have arrived in the Webster community. • Welcome signs and perhaps a fountain were suggested as options to add interest and a sense of arrival. • And an obvious spot for a visitor center would be at the intersection of Highway 12 and Highway 25, since it is also

the intersection of the paths traveled by visitors and residents.The illustration above was created as part of Design:SD’s presentation of ideas and vision to the Webster community.

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 15

Continued on page 16

coffee shops, boutiques and other niche shops; on the highway, businesses better-suited to easy access, such as auto dealers, farm implements, gas stations and mechanics.

“Context is really important, and an evaluation of your business’s purpose and value is important, too,” when choosing a location, according to Fridell. “If your business is a destination business—like a winery … you will have a very hard time succeeding on the highway. … You want to be in a place where people want to get out, look around and poten-tially lose a little time.”

Such niche businesses, grouped together, have a special place in towns.

“If you have the opportunity to add to a commu-nity by placing your business downtown, you and your fellow entrepreneurs can make that place great together,” Fridell said. “The highway is kind of a lonely proposition.”

In addition to the travelling Fridell has done pro-fessionally, Fridell has volunteered in several small towns as part of Design:SD, which helps communi-ties plan and create a vision. He said there is often an innate tension between the highways and Main Streets within communities.

“Every small town with a highway grapples with how to efficiently get traffic through their small town, but also use that traffic to best serve their com-munity,” Fridell said.

Part of this, he said, is linked to the purpose of each type of roadway.

“Communities aren’t concerned about how long it takes someone to drive through their town. They want it to take a longer time, so that people” notice the local businesses, he said. Conversely, “the (Department of Transportation) wants to move

How does location affect business? Business owners in Clark, S.D., share their perspectives.

Heather Johannsen moved her business, Heather’s Bistro, into a new location, an old building along U.S. Highway 212 in Clark, last summer. Photo by Bill Krikac/Clark County Courier

RANDY GRUENWALD, owner of DAKOTA BUTCHER, about one block off of U. S. Highway 212 in Clark: “We’re not far off of the main highway, but we do try to put a sign on the highway to point to our direction. ... I don’t think it matters so much in a small town as it does in a bigger town. Our customers know where we are. People will find you if they want to patronize your store.”HEATHER JOHANNSEN of HEATHER’S BISTRO AND MORE, which moved last summer into a large brick structure along U. S. Highway 212: “This is where the building was located that I wanted. I love old buildings. It was more the building, rather than the location, that influenced my moving here. But it does help being on the highway for those driving through. My new signage has helped immensely. I’m not crazy about the parking though.”KRIS FLOREY, a hairstylist/cosmetologist at the HAIR-N-STUFF salon along the highway: “I think it does help to be on the highway and maybe makes a difference being next to a gas station. We get the coffee drinkers and the truck drivers,

people coming through. We get a lot of people stopping in as they go through.”LINDA SEEFELDT, co-owner of CLARK FLOWER AND GIFT SHOP on Clark’s ‘Main Street’ (Commercial Street), located one building away from U. S. Highway 212: “I think it depends on the kind of business you are and the size of the town. We would be dead meat if we moved away from Main Street. I think you need to be where the people are if you rely on people casually coming in. People out on their lunch hour, for example, would probably not drive out on the highway to shop.“If you are a destination store, specializing in items such as guns or sporting goods, customers will come to where you are, I think.“We are lucky in Clark that our main-street businesses are so close to the highway. A lot of customers see our window as they are driving by and will stop in.”

—Bill Krikac, Clark County Courier

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people through efficiently and quickly, (so traffic isn’t) backed up. … The highway is there for the vehi-cle, not the person.”

Communities thrive on highway traffic, accord-ing to Fridell, but must work to find a reason for out-siders to venture beyond the highway.

“Whatever (they) have going on downtown needs to come out to the highway, so that people can see it,” he said. “You don’t want how wonderful your town is to be the world’s best-kept secret. … You need to send signals through your physical environment that there is a destination over there, and there is a fun, friendly place to be.”

Providing a reason to turn“Communities need to have a branding discus-

sion, and then guide the things that happen in their communities toward that brand as much as they can,” he said. “A true brand is not what you say, it’s what people say when they leave. … Your brand can be something you don’t necessarily want it to be.”

Examples, he said, include Deadwood’s billing as a “Wild West” town and Pierre’s as “the Capital City.”

“Main Street really needs to reflect the best of the community, because (for) the people who do turn off of the highway, that’s the place where they’ll go,” Fridell said.

In September, when Design:SD visited Webster, S.D., which markets itself “a place for all seasons” in homage to its year-round hunting and fishing oppor-tunities, a visual invitation into town was one of many suggestions.

“As big as they might be, (our signs) might not be as noticeable as we want them to be,” said Melissa Waldner, Webster Area Development Corp. execu-tive director, adding that a recommended pond and fountain at the intersection of highways 12 and 25 would “really make it noticeable that ‘we’ve arrived somewhere. We’re here in Webster.’”

Highway 25 runs north and south through the town in northeastern South Dakota and doubles as its Main Street, while Highway 12 brushes the north-ern edge and does not necessarily lead travelers to explore the town.

“The DOT estimates 2,500 cars drive through on Highway 12 every day. That’s a lot of people driv-ing through, but they … really can’t see that there is more” to the town because of a hill, Waldner said.

Actualizing Design:SD conceptsGateways, a team of people set up after Design:SD

visited, is working on prioritizing the ideas to get people off of Highway 12, and to pause when travel-ing Highway 25/Main Street.

Another team, the Main Street Vision Team, is working on ideas to make the business district, which Waldner describes as “doing well, compared to a lot of small towns,” even stronger. Suggestions from Design:SD include offering incentives for Main Street businesses to spruce up their exteriors.

The Gateways group will explore working with the DOT to install signs for the town’s business district and to direct traffic off the beaten path to Webster’s $2.3 million pool with a “waterpark-like feel.”

“Unless you’ve been there, you probably don’t know where it is,” Waldner said.

Even before Design:SD, Webster residents were working on gateway-type projects. A stoplight was installed at the intersection of the town’s two high-ways last year.

“The community had really wanted it for a long time, because there had been a lot of traffic incidents. … Putting that in … really helps, because if you need to stop, you might look around. … (It’s a way to) make people stop and think (about) what else is (happening in) Webster,” Waldner said.

While Waldner said some of the ideas brought to town by Design:SD may seem pretty big for a town of 1,800, big is what’s needed.

“Development is hard. … You just really have to have a big vision, and you have to be ready to work for it.” í

Continued from page 15

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 17

by WENDY ROYSTON

If Main Street is the face of a com-munity and the first impres-

sion it gives visitors, an active and lively downtown is key to telling an upbeat story.

“A black hole on your Main Street will suck the energy right out of your town,” said Matt Fridell, a landscape architect with Tallgrass Landscape Architecture in Custer, S.D. “It’s really impor-tant to address blank spaces and derelict places in downtown.”

Adding life to downtown can be as simple as adding planter baskets and fresh paint, or it can mean replacing broken windows and products of dilapidation.

“Any building that you have that looks empty … really impacts the positive perception of your Main Street, so making sure … everything seems like it’s really being taken care of (is important),” Fridell said. “Those are really important indicators that your com-munity is healthy and vibrant.”

Rehabbing for residences in MillerIn Miller, S.D., filling in empty spaces on Main

Street also filled in the need for additional housing.“(When) we did the housing study, there were zero

apartments available,” said Amy Howard, executive director of On-Hand Development. “We had employ-ers that were trying to hire people that couldn’t come to Miller because they couldn’t find a place to live. That’s a real problem. … We’re fairly isolated. We’re the biggest town for 45 miles in a couple of directions, and 70 miles in another,” so commuting from another

community is difficult.Miller pharmacist Travis Anderberg and his busi-

ness partner, Trent Merkwan, saw that they could be part of the solution to Miller’s housing crunch. Seven apartments in the second story of their Rexall Drug building had sat empty since a pipe leak flooded the pharmacy about a decade prior.

“Based on our location and helping out the life of our building, (we realized) it might be a good thing to have good renters upstairs. There’s always the risk that we have to face of flooding, fire and everything else … but it’s also a business. We have income from

it,” Anderberg said. “In about three years, we’ll start seeing a return on our investment.”

Although Anderberg said business owners must be selective when choosing renters, the presence of a good renter is insurance for the business.

“When we have people parked out front and out back and people living upstairs, I think it kind of helps deter (mischief). They watch over the building. I know everybody who lives up there,” he said. ”That helps.”

Empty spaces on Main are an opportunity

Continued on page 18

Pharmacists Trent Merkwan, left, and Travis Anderberg stand outside the Rexall Drug they jointly own in Miller, S.D. The men began renovating second-story apartments after a 2013 housing study revealed the community had no available rentals. Photo by Deidra Schlechter

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

18 dakotafire.net

Howard agreed. “It’s always nice to have …

a main street that has cars on it. There is a benefit there, to having activity on Main Street, because the more activity you have on Main Street, the more attention you’re going to draw, so it’s good for the businesses.”

Initially, four single-bedroom apartments were remodeled. They currently are combining an apart-ment and a half into two-bedroom dwelling, and one of the singles will be combined with the other half-apartment for a second two-bedroom. The remain-ing original apartment will continue to be a storage space. Anderberg said the venture has benefited the community in multiple ways.

“We’ve definitely made the right choice,” he said. “We’ve filled a housing need in the community that certainly helped a lot of people, (and) we brought in a new professional to our hospital … before they (closed) on their house.”

Howard said housing still is limited in town, but the additional apartments have helped. One fam-ily even lived in a camper in nearby Highmore, S.D., for a while, because the homes available when they first moved to town were not suitable for a child with asthma. After a while, the wife and children moved back to Mitchell, S.D. (95 miles away), until a home came available recently.

The housing study also revealed another problem.“There were no expansion lots in Miller, but there

were a lot of junk properties that no one could move into,” Howard said. “We have had quite a number of properties that needed to come down that have … and that’s allowed the neighbors to add value to their homes by adding a garage on, or we’ve had (several)

The apartments above Rexall Drug in Miller have helped to alleviate Miller’s housing crunch. Photo by Deidra Schlechter

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Open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. • Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Extended Lounge Hours

Friday Night Buffet 5 to 9 p.m. • Sunday Buffet 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

dakotafire.net 19

new houses go up on lots where a property was removed.”

In mid-April, a handful of homes were available for rent or sale in Miller.

“The ones that were for rent won’t last long, and … a good solid home doesn’t take long to sell in Miller,” Howard said, adding that homes typically sell for above their actual value, due to the shortage.

Dreaming together in AberdeenA new Aberdeen project is working toward fill-

ing empty commercial spaces with businesses. The Empty Spaces Project is a collaboration effort between StartHUB, a group focused on promoting entrepreneurship in the Hub City, and the Aberdeen Downtown Association.

StartHUB is creating a website of available prop-erties and providing as many details as possible, much like a realty site, but with a twist: It is inviting people to weigh in on each building post, suggesting possible uses for the building.

“This is essential proof of concept,” StartHUB organizer Liz Hannum said. “If your idea gets hun-dreds of votes, you have customers asking you to start your business today.”

The group is looking at ways of helping fund great ideas, too, through crowdsource funding, waived rental fees, and “pop-up” or temporary business ven-tures. (See the story on SmartHUB on p. 28.)

At the same time, the Aberdeen Downtown Association will do its part to help people dream, too, by setting up three-dimensional displays in empty Main Street buildings’ windows.

“When you drive by or walk by, it will look like there’s a business inside,” said Aberdeen Downtown Association Economic Director Heidi Appel. “It will encourage people to stop, look and think. … It would encourage them to dream.”

Appel said Main Street often is the best place to start a new business.

“The great thing about downtown is ... whatever you want to happen is usually accepted,” she said.

“(Consumers) don’t want the same as they can buy at a Target or a Walmart or a J.C. Penney. They’re looking for some-thing different, so really, the sky is the limit with options and ideas.”

Appel said that, while six or seven empty build-ings in a six-block area may not seem like many voids, it is too many.

“We don’t want our buildings to look empty, and that’s kind of why the window project makes sense. We all like to walk by something and think that there’s life and energy and all of those things that go with a downtown,” she said. “When you start to see empty buildings, people have the exact opposite impression. … Each one of those (empty buildings) displays a loss of life and energy.” í

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

Want to hear more about this “co-opetition” idea? Go to: http://dakotafire.net/?p=821720 dakotafire.net

by JASON UPHOFF

“Am I foolish for trying to open an antique shop in Arlington,

S.D.?” That was the question that led Randy Bullis on the path to starting Bits of Yesterday seven years ago.

“No, by all means, it will work,” was the reply from Randy’s mentor Patty Kratochvill, an Arlington native and owner of Threads of Memories in Brookings.

Bits of Yesterday was born of Bullis’ 30-plus years of experience restoring furniture and 20-some years of antique sales as a consignee.

But what keeps Bits of Yesterday alive after seven years? It’s not location: Bits is off the highway, 20 min-utes from Brookings and 78 from Sioux Falls. It’s not marketing: Bullis has one billboard that he shares, and three print ads per year—no digital marketing of any kind.

Bullis provides his customers with a niche service centered on a unique customer experience, “co-opeti-tion” (i.e., cooperation between people who might oth-erwise be competitors) and a close-knit value “net” (a value chain with more connections) that encompasses much of eastern South Dakota. Those three aspects combine to create a word-of-mouth juggernaut.

Antique enthusiasts are day-trippers who revel in the scavenger-hunt-like adventure of ambling down memory lane as they make their way from Sioux Falls, over to Mitchell, up to Madison, stopping in Arlington and Watertown before checking down-town Brookings on their way back home. Randy isn’t in the antiques business; he sells nostalgia. He sells little bits of yesterday.

All those shops that form a figure-eight around little Arlington also form an integral part of Bullis’ supply chain. Each shop has its own niche within a niche, something special it is known for. Bullis’ niche is “guy stuff.” He takes advantage of the more than 20 lakes around Arlington and the increased male traf-fic to offer plenty of items for the “man cave.”

Bullis makes the circuit too. Every month he tries to travel to each of the surrounding shops, pick up on antiques gossip and trending sales, and buy some stuff for his own store. Enterprises technically com-peting for market share are actually made stronger by competitive partners and geographic dispersion.

“If I had my way, I would have 10 antique stores in Arlington, and then it would be a destination,” Bullis

said.It doesn’t end there. Shoppers don’t stop for only

one shop. What completes the niche trifecta are the complementary experiences available in Arlington. When the customer is done with Bullis he sends them on to Betsy Lingbeck.

“Betsy is actually how I got into Arlington,” Bullis said. “I had put some consignment furniture in her shop. I asked her if she knew of any buildings for sale on Main Street.”

Flowers by Betsy is a boutique, half a block west of Bits. Lingbeck does flowers, yes, but most of her busi-ness these days is from trendy jewelry, clothes and gifts that she advertises on Facebook and Instagram. “It works great,” Lingbeck said. “Randy acts as a linchpin, sending folks to me and to Gaylene up the street.”

Gaylene Christensen started The Prairie Porch boutique a few years ago in a house she renovated one block off Main, and she specializes in consign-ment, vintage home décor and repurposed furni-ture. She is also the largest advertiser of the three; she has a website, does billboards, radio spots and more. “Together the three of us are stronger, making Arlington a fun, spontaneous daytrip,” she said.

“I love that I am able to bring back happy memo-ries for people,” Bullis said. “My favorite story is of a gentleman who had lost his brother in the war (World War II), coming in here and finding an old high-school annual with a bunch of pictures of his brother in it—it was very touching, emotional and I am glad I was able to provide that to him.” í

Visit Bits of Yesterday on Main Street Arlington or call Bullis at 605-695-6967. Flowers by Betsy can be liked on Facebook, and The Prairie Porch website is prairieporchphotography.com.Jason Uphoff is executive director of the Arlington Community Development Corporation.

Shops cooperate to create antique circuit

Randy Bullis stands next to his prized procession: a 1930s-era manual gas pump. Photo by Jason Uphoff

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

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“There aren’t enough quilters in Faulk County. ... They say it typically takes about five years to get your roots. It grew rapidly, but it took about five years to establish the clientele. Quilters are destination shoppers. They’ll get out the map and find out where the different quilt shops are and plan their vacation accordingly.”

Quilter’s Corner has moved to four different locations in Faulkton over the years. Now, once again located on a cor-ner, the quilt shop offers more services and sewing needs than ever before. Holt and her business partner, Stacy Hadrick, have added in-house retreats, a long-arm quilter, sewing machines, sewing machine service and sewing furniture to their store in recent years.

The co-owners say personalized service is what sets their store apart. Holt and Hadrick strive to create a wel-coming, creative, and beautiful envi-ronment for all who walk through the door. Their door does not list “Store Hours,” but rather “Fabric Touching Hours.”

“We encourage people to come in, play, and create,” Hadrick said. “It visually makes you happy.”

“We always say there’s no ‘quilt police,’” Holt said. “If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.”

Classes are held at least once a week, teaching skills from beginning sew-ing to techniques for more advanced quilters. A recent class focused on “Learning Your Sewing Machine Feet” to encourage participants to use more of their sewing machine’s features.

Many of the Quilter’s Corner clien-tele use modern technology to “visit” their favorite quilt shop. The store’s Block of the Month Club reaches cus-tomers all over the U.S. through its Facebook page and website, www.quilterscornersd.com.

Holt and Hadrick are constantly looking for ways to improve their busi-ness and services to customers. They strive to offer both nonintimidating and challenging projects.

“It’s basically seven days a week because when you’re not here, you’re planning your next activity,” Holt said. “The quilt world, we are kind of a cruise ship entertainment when you constantly have to have your next spe-cial event going.”

“You can’t rest and get complacent,”

Hadrick added. “You just have to push and reach for what’s next. You can set those goals and dreams and know that that’s where you want to reach. We’re pushing ourselves harder than we pushed ourselves 12 months ago.”

A small-town business comes with the unique challenge of find-ing employees with specific skill sets, Hadrick said. “I think that’s one of our biggest challenges. In a rural area,

that’s probably your hardest thing. It’s not necessarily the wages you can pay ... It’s just the skill set of the people available,” she added.

Quilter’s Corner has reached an even broader audience with the addi-tion of The Weathered Door, a refur-bished furniture business owned by Holt’s daughter-in-law, Lora Holt. The Weathered Door also offers the Paint Couture line of paint.

“We want people to know we’re worth the trip. You will walk in here and be excited,” Hadrick said. í

Laura Melius is a Cresbard, S.D., area multitasking farm wife and mom of four who sneaks in freelance copy editing and writing whenever possible.

Store draws fabric lovers from a distance

Lori Holt and Stacy Hadrick of Quilter’s Corner in Faulkton have added a variety of products and services in recent years. Photo by Laura Melius

by LAURA MELIUS

When Lori Holt first opened Quilter’s Corner in Faulkton in 1998, she knew one key that her busi-

ness would need to thrive. “I knew it had to be a destination,” Holt said.

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

22 dakotafire.net

“I think there are a lot of people who like to travel the backroads—they may cut through South Dakota on their way to Omaha or Minneapolis—and I think that they would like to know these places,” said Joan Sacrison, creator of the Facebook page Backroads Dakota—Rural Retail on the Backroads.

Sacrison created the page after reminiscing about places she and her husband had visited while cruis-ing backroads and exploring the heartland. In just over three months, the page has featured seven busi-nesses and has generated a following of more than 1,100 people.

“I’ve already had someone tell me that they whiz through on Highway 14, and they stopped at one of the shops that I posted. So, people are watching and reading, and they want that little diversion, I think,” Sacrison said. “Immediately, it caught on. I (posted about) the Prairie Porch, a little shop in Arlington … and it immediately had like 3,000 views. …

Ardy’s Bakery (in Clear Lake, S.D.) had like 80,000 reaches. It’s been phenomenal.”

In order for a business to be featured on her Facebook page, fans—not owners—of the business must contact Sacrison with photos and a paragraph or two explaining the business and what makes it unique.

“This isn’t really an advertisement (venue),” she said, adding that she’s not looking to explore each of the businesses and post information exclusively from her own experiences, either. “It’s not up to me to find these places. You do it! You’re traveling that back-road, and you love it.”

Sacrison said her page is for big-deal businesses in small towns—not small businesses in big towns.

“They usually have money—they have customers or clients,” she said. “I didn’t just do ‘favorite places.’ It’s rural. … I’m looking at small places.”

Although the page aims to feature the unique “destination” shops of the rural Dakotas and along their borders, Sacrison said she is not trying to min-imize the importance of other businesses in rural communities.

“There are some gems that will pull people off the main highway (to visit),” she said. “Then, maybe they’ll go to other businesses. … Any tax dollars will

help build our infrastructure. … Maybe it’s that one place that will spark them to visit the rest.”

Sacrison, who is the executive director for Deuel Area Development, Inc., said business patronage is especially important to the livelihood of Smalltown, U.S.A.

“The bigger cities get more—they get more atten-tion from the government (and) they get more from our state, but these rural towns are the ones that are just struggling to keep going,” she said. “They are some special places, (and) these little towns need business. … It’s my mission to at least pull people off the highway and have them come look at us.”

Sacrison, herself, “pulled off the highway” when she transitioned to rural living 32 years ago.

“I grew up in a city, and all of my adult years, I have lived rural,” she said. “I have grown to love it. I’ve seen the struggles of trying to keep businesses going (and) starting businesses. There are some great little spots on the backroads that entrepreneurs … have taken a risk to step out, go into the unknown and start these businesses. … I love them, and I love to take those backroads, and I love to find the shops, the eateries. … It may even be something as simple as cinnamon rolls or … a gift shop … that only the locals really support, because nobody knows about it unless they’ve been there before.”

Facebook seemed like the “loudest” word-of-mouth marketing Sacrison could provide for these businesses, she said. And the page has helped her fulfill a personal goal while promoting rural Dakota businesses: Sacrison said she’s always yearned to own her own business, and the Backroads Dakota page and her work in economic development are the next best thing.

“Part of my job is helping people see a vision and spark a fire and bring it to fruition,” she said. “This page was something I can contribute.” í

Bringing clientele to backroads retailers, via the information superhighway by WENDY ROYSTON

It’s been said that the best advertising is word-of-mouth. One social media outlet is aiming to give “word-of-mouth” about businesses in the

rural Dakotas a louder voice.

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

dakotafire.net 23

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MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

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GLAD has developed a system of customer ser-vice training for use in the Glacial Lakes area of South Dakota—greater Marshall County—and pres-ents that to businesses in that area and elsewhere, focusing on frontline employees such as waitresses, hotel clerks and gas station attendants.

“One bad experience can trickle down and really have a poor effect on the overall business and their bottom line,” Amundson said. “It costs seven times more to attract a new cus-tomer than it does to train your employees and keep your current customers happy and coming back and telling other people. The disgruntled ones are the ones who tell five or 10 other people and have the loudest voices. The happy, content customers typically don’t tell very many people, and you can’t afford to slip in a small town and get a bad reputation.”

The friendly nature of small towns increases cus-tomers’ expectations of good service, according to Amundson, and so should be equally important to business owners.

In the event that a customer becomes dissatisfied, Amundson said good service is even more important.

“You don’t get too many second chances in this day and age, and if you blow it, you want to be

sincere and apologize and fix it,” he said. “Hopefully you’ll fix it and get a second chance, but some-times you can’t.”

Amundson said businesses that value positive customer experiences will make that evident to employees early on.

“(Customer ser-vice) is part of a busi-ness’s culture. If it’s important to them, they’ll see that it’s

important to their employees when they hire them, when they train them, and (in how) they retain them. Once people are hired, and in the interview process, it needs to be known that customer service is the top priority and part of our culture, and this is what we do,” he said.

Investing in customer service training—espe-cially for the youngest employees—is more impor-tant now than ever before, and that “customer ser-vice” is necessary in more than just employment.

“With the conventions of social media and tex-ting and Facebooking and emoticons, it’s hard to get

a complete sentence out of a teenager anymore, let alone a professional, polite sentence,” he said, adding that many are incapable of visiting with friends or family, or even sleeping, without being immediately accessible to text messaging and social media. “I just think it’s taken over some of our quality of life and we need to get back to the basics, know how to have a conversation, shake a hand, appreciate a veteran and assist a single mother by open-ing a door or not always parking in the spot closest to the door. ... Common courtesy trickles over into so many parts of your life and helps you to become successful.”

Amundson stressed the importance of all individ-uals working in a service-oriented job at some point in their careers—preferably early on.

“If you can teach the basics—especially to high school and college students and those who don’t have a lot of experience—that can really transfer over to many different careers,” Amundson said. “It could be how you interact with your boss or interact with your customers or your suppliers. All of those are very important, to build positive and professional relationships.”

In fact, learning positive customer service skills as a young worker can help build up a future entrepreneur.

He added that the skills learned while working in the service industry spill over to all facets of life.

“You have to be able to show your values and what’s important to you and be able to communicate effectively and professionally,” he said. “It’s a big part of small-business success, whether you’re in the big city or the small town, but it has a bigger impact in a small town, because you know everybody.” í

Customer service is vital in rural areasby WENDY ROYSTON

In small businesses—as in small towns—healthy relationships are key.“We feel that customer service is the backbone to small-town entre-

preneurship,” said Scott Amundson, executive director of Glacial Lakes Area Development, Inc. “It’s critical to retaining customers.”

Scott Amundson gives customer service training around the Glacial Lakes region of South Dakota. Dakotafire file photo

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 25

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IN A SMALL TOWN?Starting a new business in a small town is a leap of

faith, but a leap backed with lots of research, planning and amazing community support! Some of the best advice we received was to be open to change and growth. The business model that you start with will change monthly and year to year. Personal life experiences and previous jobs are assets, but don’t rely solely on them. Draw on the expertise of other successful business owners. Find people who are willing to share and mentor you! A warm and welcoming atmosphere in your business is vital to success. It really isn’t just about making a sale, it is also about leaving an impression. If the experience in your business is pleasant and fun, then the word will spread. Reaching out to the larger community with advertising and social media is equally important. Out-of-town cus-tomers help to spread the word of your town as well. Above all, have fun and learn something new every day!

—Paulette Kelsey Dissell and Melinda Nelson, owners of Zinnias, an antique and collectibles shop in Britton, S.D.

Service is always key to growing a strong business, and know that how you serve those customers may

change over time. When we purchased South Dakota Baskets Unlimited 20 years ago we moved it in with our other established business, which helped bring in cus-tomers. At this time the brick and mortar was the way to build a business. As time went on we knew that we had to change our ways and expand into the Internet to keep up with the trends. Five years ago we were able to move our business to our home, which cut our basic expenses. Now we depend on the Internet for most of our orders. This means keeping up with the trends and joining social

media and keeping in touch with our customers. This is a new phase in growing our business and a learning experience for me. Communication and provid-ing the very best service that you can give is the key to growing any business.—Jan and Lorren Weber, owners of South Dakota Baskets Unlimited, a custom gift business specializing in South Dakota-made products, in Mina, S.D.

Building relationships with consumers, families, and potential consumers is key in sustaining a success-

ful business in the Ellendale area. Communicating with the community on the services that we provide, changes that are taking place, and areas we are work-ing to improve establishes a trusting and open relation-ship with people who are living here, their families, and future potential consumers. Treating our employees with respect and justice results in less employee turn-over. Demonstrating hospitality and steward-ship to those who walk in our doors and mak-ing an investment in the Ellendale community as a whole brings success to our business while allowing us to give back in a meaningful way. —Kyla Kinzer, of Prince of Peace Care Center and Evergreen Place, providing skilled services and assisted living in Ellendale, N.D.

It takes a lot of long hours and dedication along with loyal customers. In a small town with limited work

force, finding good help is a challenge at times, but we also have a good work ethic, being a small farming community. —Peggy Gilbert, owner of Fireside Restaurant and Lounge, specializing in home cooking in Ellendale, N.D.

We have enjoyed being business owners in our small community. But when it comes to business, we

don’t think small. We like to think that if we can keep things fresh and new it keeps interest. Jim is the “green thumb” around here. He loves his plants and believes very much in the product that he grows and provides for people. I must say he does do a great job! To be suc-cessful, we believe in treating our customers as fam-ily. Laughter is often heard around here as we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but our busi-ness is serious business.—Brenda (and Jim) Johnston, owners of Harvest Gardens, a greenhouse and new snack shop in Ellendale, N.D.

Our success comes from several areas: having custom-ers who support us, are loyal, and show us that they

appreciate doing business with us; having knowledgable employees that dedicate themselves to the business and the customers; offering quality materials that we can stand behind; being involved and giving back to the communities we are a part of; shopping at home as best we can—supporting our fellow community businesses; keeping up-to-date with new products, fresh ideas and a well-kept store. We also keep in mind that we can’t offer everything and still be competitive and stay in business. We have to find what we do well and focus on those aspects. As owners, we also know we need to be involved and “put in the hours” to have a successful business—and that never stops!—Garry and Monica Mertz, owners of Mertz Lumber & Supply, and lumber and building products supplier in Ellendale and Oakes, N.D.

Here are some words of wisdom from area business owners.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

These women business owners are all part of Britton’s Ladies’

Night Out promotion, which attracts shoppers from around

the region. Pictured are, from left, front row: Jodi Meyer, Kelsi

Heer, Jeani Amacher, and Melinda Nelson; and back row, Paulette

Kelsey, Tyra Gefroh, Cyndy Grandpre, and Kelsey Waletich.

Photos by Doug Card

26 dakotafire.net

Make it fun and they will come.That’s the mantra adopted by

a group of Britton Main Street busi-nesses, and the result has been an event that women from miles around mark on their calendars each year.

Ladies’ Night Out had its beginnings in 2007 when the local chiropractic clinic had a night when it offered massages, facials, and pedicures, and some local businesses donated 20 percent of their sales to raise money for the local American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

“They did that for two years, and when they quit we decided that we still needed to do this,” said Kelsey Heer, who operates Dizzy Blondz with her mother, Jeani Amacher.

Dizzy Blondz held the promotion for several years on its own, but as new retail stores opened on Britton’s Main Street, Heer and her mother decided to invite others to the party.

“We got the idea that we should make it a Main Street kind of thing and invited everyone down for a meeting,” said Heer.

Four businesses—Zinnias (antiques), The Painted Past (re-purposed furniture), Flowers & Fudge On Main, and Dizzy Blondz (boutique)—joined forces in the fall of 2013. Last fall Hardware Hank joined the group, and this summer Tyra Gefroh Photography & Boutique will join as well.

Business owners band together to bring women to Britton's Main Street by DOUG CARD, BRITTON JOURNAL

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

This redhead from Zinnias in Britton is wearing the T-shirt promoting Britton’s Ladies’ Night Out.

dakotafire.net 27

Plans are in full swing for the next event slated for Thursday, June 25. For most of the stores, Ladies’ Night Out has turned into one of their biggest business days of the year.

“It’s probably my biggest night of the year,” said Kelsey Waletich of The Painted Past. “We think we all offer something that women want and just make it a lot of fun. A lot of people set that time aside and come in groups. It’s something for women to look forward to, and they just make a whole night of

it.”“Everybody does a sale, and

everybody does some sort of food and refreshments,” Heer

said. “Main Street is just lined with cars, and you see peo-ple walking up and down the

street laughing and having fun. Everybody is in a good mood, and they don’t even care if they have to wait 20 minutes in line to pay.”

The business owners all work together in promoting the

event through advertising, Facebook

posts, special T-shirts, and promotion slips in shopping bags. The message on that special T-shirt reads, “In a van, without a man, looking for stuff.”

“We’ve been very enthusiastic with advertising it and done a lot of promot-ing,” said Paulette Kelsey of Zinnias. “It’s all about what women like—food and drink and fun and sales. We have shops that women like, and I think we’ve created kind of a buzz that Britton is a fun place to come to.”

Those women have come from as far away as Sioux Falls (201 miles), Fargo, N.D. (120 miles), and Watertown (104 miles), with many others driving in from a 50-60 miles radius.

“I think what attracts peo-ple from out of town is that we have such unique shops for such a small town and have so much to offer,” said Cyndy Grandpre of Flowers & Fudge On Main. “We all work together on it, and have all come up

with input and ideas.”

“We’re so diversified, and everybody has something a little bit different and original—stuff you can’t really find anywhere else,” added Waletich. “And we all help each other.”

Heer admits she has been a little sur-prised with how the event has grown.

“We thought when we added every-body that we might just end up with the normal group of customers that would be more spread out. But every store we’ve added brings in a whole new customer base. I never expected it to grow like it has.”

The event also helps the Britton busi-ness community year-round.

“It’s great advertising,” concluded Heer. “If people have a good experi-ence they go back and tell people about it. Even if they are not back for ladies’ night, they might come back to shop another time.” í

SERVICE

Show the region how YOUR business is helping to build a better community!

Advertise in Dakotafire and reach thousands of community-minded folks in North and South Dakota.

For details, go to www.dakotafire.net/advertiseOr drop Sales & Marketing Director Laura Ptacek a line!605-380-8141 or laura@dakotafire.net

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

28 dakotafire.net

I’ve read a lot of articles recently about the death of small towns and the death of downtowns and the leadership gap and generational issues. All of these are real concerns, but what these articles don’t have is a call to action. I believe in taking an active role in creating the community I want to live in and am excited to let you know what we’ve started in Aberdeen and to give you the opportunity to par-ticipate in creating that vibrant small town or downtown where leaders are everywhere and of every age. It’s called StartHUB.

I moved to Aberdeen, S.D., for a job in May 2013 from a city after nearly grind-ing my teeth to a bloody pulp in stand-still traffic everyday. Despite the use of the term “pop” instead of “soda,” and the lack of a Dunkin’ Donuts, I fell in love. In five months, I owned a home, which I love every inch of and would never have been able to afford back east, and adopted a dog. I’m staying put.

My job took me up to Fargo for an event called One Million Cups, or 1MC as it has become known. 1MC is a brain-child of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation—essentially a format for cel-ebrating and supporting entrepreneur-ship in cities across the country. At 9 a.m. Wednesday in 70 cities across the nation,

two entrepreneurs have six minutes to talk about their business, what’s going well, what they are struggling with, etc., and then 20 minutes each for a question- and-answer period. All of this over (free) cups of coffee.

It may have been the coffee surging through my veins, but I was hooked! There was so much passion and excite-ment in this one hourlong session in a community very much like Aberdeen. Just to give you an idea of how passionate this group is, I’m stealing a line from Scott Meyer’s speech at TedX Fargo: “When you participate in your com-munity, you make it a bet-ter place. Secondly, when you improve your commu-nity, it actually improves your work. And last, when you work for your commu-nity, you have the greatest impact in the world.”

Since then, Fargo has gone on to hold the record for largest attendance (365 people) for a 1MC city, and it averages 150 attendees every week! Now, this is a big commitment, every week to get

New effort aims to support startupsby LIZ HANNUM

Don’t ask for permission to create the city you want to live in from your mayor or a developer. Just do it.

StartHUB sponsors a weekly meeting every Thursday night. Photo by Liz Hannum

Successful Main Streets could be built on:

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 29

two speakers, but my travel buddy and I were determined to find a way to make this work in Aberdeen. I should mention that my travel buddy was a Northern State University junior business student and the goal for this road trip was to find a way to get more of our university students to stay in Aberdeen after they graduate.

Unfortunately, many local college gradu-ates don’t see a lot of opportunity in Aberdeen. I took cues from Fargo, Brookings, Sioux Falls, Yankton, and the latest organization to pop up in Watertown, to let young people, especially students, know that they don’t have to move away to larger cities to implement their great ideas. They can create what they want in their own backyard.

So we founded StartHUB. The purpose of StartHUB is to knock down barriers to entry for entrepreneurs of any age and skill. We want peo-ple to test their ideas and feel like they have their community’s support in success and failure, and if we can help them avoid that failure, even better.

Our kick-off event in September was a Midnight Brunch. At 10 p.m. on a Thursday, we got 50+ entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial sup-porters in a room with free food and wine and mingled with no agenda until a toast at midnight.

Some of the people in the room were seasoned investors with 30+ years of experience and were just interested in what the next generation was interested in creating. Some were service pro-viders who work on economic development and

could provide entrepreneurs with professional help in getting their idea off the ground, and there were plenty of people in the room in one stage or another of a startup—some were even college students who just knew they wanted to start something but didn’t have an idea what they were passionate about yet. So no agenda; the only rule was talk to as many people as you could.

With the success of the Midnight Brunch, StartHUB now holds weekly meetings at a bar in downtown Aberdeen at 8 p.m. on Thursdays—just late enough to get the kids to bed, but still early enough to catch the “early to bed” crowd. Many of the meetings have a speaker talk about their business. We’ve had a game developer, a photog-rapher, a gun safety educator, a custom motorcy-cle builder, and even a guy who created ski bikes.

The best part of the evening is always the question-and-answer portion. Many times, the entrepreneur has been heads down working out of the metaphorical basement for months or even years and hasn’t had an opportunity to get some much-needed feedback. That’s what StartHUB Drinks is all about: a chance to see your industry or your product from the customer’s perspective and build some great relationships in the process.

We’ve seen marked improvement and success from many speakers, and all of them have praised the experience. Recently, two of our regulars have even decided to go into business together and open a café/wine bar on Main Street. (One of them is me.)

This is StartHUB’s version of economic devel-opment: unauthorized!

So do I miss the big city? Not at all! I’ve got plenty to keep me busy here, and I’m excited and enthusiastic about creating a cool place to live. í

Liz Hannum is coordinator for the Center for Excellence in International Business and Entrepreneurship at Northern State University.Learn more about StartHUB at www.StartHUBSD.com.

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

30 dakotafire.net

Know whose job it is to support entrepreneurs. (Hint: You’re included.)

Economic development is everyone’s responsi-bility in rural America, said Davis, who helped to engineer a program called Dakota Rising, which helps communities support their entrepreneurs.

“This isn’t just the work of the development corporation or the chamber, but it’s really every-body’s business to make sure local businesses are not just sur-viving, but thriving,” she said. “That means shopping local—maybe you spend a few extra dollars, but do you want that product or ser-vice available close to home or not?”

The Dakota Rising program has two parts: bringing what Davis describes as “high-growth entrepreneurs” together, and helping the com-munity support its entrepreneurs. The program works with a core team of community residents who believe a community’s development efforts could improve. Initial discussions center on the importance of supporting local businesses. Next, a community gathering is held to help others in the community understand the importance of sup-porting local businesses and the various roles peo-ple can play in bringing about necessary changes.

Davis said one reason the entrepreneurship fellowship program works is that it empow-ers the people already within Dakota communi-ties to make the changes they see fit to their own economies.

“It relies on the talent and the passion of people in the local communities. We aren’t coming in as experts and doing it for (them),” she said. “We’re creating the force that allows the … people and the systems that are closest to the businesses to support those businesses.”

Do your research: What do businesses need?

If you want to know how to build your busi-ness community, ask your business owners.

“Local entrepreneurs (are) your primary eco-nomic development engine,” said Craig Schroeder, who provides business coaching services through the Hometown Competitiveness program of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. “These are the folks who are creating the wealth in your commu-nity, creating jobs in your community, creating the goods and services in your community, and they’re extremely valuable to the communities and to the people they serve.”

Discovering the needs of entrepreneurs is one of the four major focus areas of the Hometown Competitiveness program. The others are engag-ing youths and young adults, developing future leaders and building philanthropy.

“It’s not essential that all four of those things

Supported businesses support communities

Do you want better economic pros-pects for your rural community?

Support your entrepreneurs, two experts say.

Some small towns have their sights set on attracting “the magic manufac-turer”—the one entity that will provide lots of jobs and tax revenue. That’s pos-sible for rural communities, but it won’t happen without creating the right kind of environment far in advance, accord-ing to Beth Davis, president of Dakota Resources.

“It’s going to happen in a small, rural community that is already intentional about supporting its existing business communities,” she said.

Here are some ideas on how com-munities can help their entrepreneurs—who can, in turn, create the kind of energy that can revitalize rural places.

Editor’s note: Dakota Resources is a sponsor of the Prairie Idea Exchange.

by WENDY ROYSTON

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

dakotafire.net 31

move simultaneously. Actually, in most communi-ties, they don’t,” Schroeder said, adding that each “pillar” often affects all of the others. “They’re all kind of interconnected.”

Schroeder said the key to long-term economic planning comes in asking entrepreneurs their five-year business goals, and presenting projected needs to school guidance counselors and area colleges.

“Give them real-time, concrete information, in terms of what kinds of jobs are going to be needed in the short term,” Schroeder said, so when a high school student says he or she wants to stay in the region, the advice the community can give this young person is based on solid research.

In this way, economic developers work with entre-preneurs as sort of business partners, according to Schroeder. He added that it’s important to recognize entrepreneurs in all stages of business formation.

“As we look at communities, there are literally dozens—if not hundreds” of entrepreneurs at differ-ent stages, he said, ranging from aspiring, startup,

growth, retiring and expansion entrepreneurs. “Identify that talent, and then focus in on whether you believe your community has talent that you want to (foster) and … identify how the community can best support those entrepreneurs … and match their efforts up with the community’s economic develop-ment goals.”

One of the strategies of Dakota Rising is encour-aging conversations among entrepreneurs, as well as between entrepreneurs and the community. Entrepreneurs need this conversation space more than they need training, Davis said.

“People engaged in entrepreneurial activities are really isolated and focused, because they’re work-ing (all) day on their enterprises, and it’s hard to look up and look out,” Davis said. “(We need to) bring the business community together for conversation (and) networking opportunities … just putting business people in the same room and maybe posing a simple question like, ‘What’s going well, and what could be better?’”

So, what happens when what a business needs to succeed is a little extra capital?

Schroeder said time is of the essence, and waiting for things like certifications and program approvals can means a business—and the community—could lose out on a major development.

“If they need to put $250,000 into expanding their facility to expand their contract into a new market, they need to have an answer fairly quickly. They don’t have a lot of time to go through a lot of steps”—which means program-based economic develop-ment, which can take months, doesn’t address their needs.

“Entrepreneurs (are) part of a globally competi-tive, fast-paced environment,” Schroeder said. “Each of them has unique abilities and resources, and (com-munities need) to create a framework around them, to support that entrepreneurial talent.”

Include young people in the plan, and in creating the plan.

Convincing youths that small towns are a big deal isn’t nearly as difficult as many adults may think.

“Young people appreciate their community because it’s small,” Schroeder said. “They know each other, they care about each other, they live in a safe community with small class sizes and teachers who care about them. At the same time, they’re frustrated by a lack of jobs and a lack of investment in things for the young people to do beyond school and sports. Those are consistent themes.”

But some themes in small towns are inconsistent.“Our growth entrepreneurs are struggling to

find folks to run their businesses, (while) our young people say, ‘I love this community, but there are no jobs here,’” Schroeder said. “Isn’t it amazing that in one small community, I’ll get those two stories? It’s because we aren’t talking to each other. … We just need a way to have this dialogue.”

Continued on page 32

Members of the Faulkton community gathered in December 2013 to celebrate the community’s development efforts, including supporting their entrepreneurs participating in the Dakota Rising program. Photo from a Dakota Resources video

MAIN STREET: What’s possible?

32 dakotafire.net

Schroeder said adults may be sur-prised by the ideas the youths would

bring to the table, if they were given the chance.“Young people talk about their communities every

day … but in many cases, they’ve never thought of having a role in community planning,” he said. “These young people have really insightful thoughts on how to create a successful community.”

Those thoughts, he said, essentially include logical locations for schools and residential areas, entertain-ment ideas, and ideas for preserving the safety and support of a small community.

“The No. 1 reason that young adults say they want to move to a rural community—whether it’s their hometown or another community—is that they want to make a difference,” Schroeder said. “They want to be in a community where they can contribute something and make it a better community. ... We want to help make them be part of the solution. … Especially in this younger gen-eration, that call to something greater than them-selves and helping others is so important.”

Make personal connections to show entrepreneurs the community’s opportunities.

Schroeder said communities and youths can work hand-in-hand to create the jobs that help the youths fulfill their dreams of growing old in their home-towns, while protecting hometown businesses and communities alike.

“The ‘job’ that a person wants may not exist in our communities, but we can help create that job through entrepreneurship and having discussions with our young people. … We need to connect young people’s aspirations and excitement with the older

generation’s experience and wisdom,” he said. “If we invest in those young people, we can come up with some creative, new ventures for our communities.”

Schroeder added that some adults are living else-where and yearning to return home, but don’t know how to do so and still meet their professional or financial goals.

“There are people living in urban environments who would love to live in a small town. … Maybe they want to come back and start a business, or maybe they need to come back, to take care of Mom and Dad, but (they) have to figure out a way to come back and make a living,” he said.

Like youths looking to stay, adults looking to return can work remotely.

“Maybe they’re going to telecommute. There are a variety of ways to do that, and we need to be more intentional about making these connections,” he said. “Some of this is very simple.”

A great way to make those connections, Schroeder said, is at communities’ annual summer festivals and celebrations, when alumni and others visit.

“In our small towns, everybody is so busy on the day of the festival, getting things ready … that there’s nobody to talk to, so you have this (nostalgic) experi-ence, and you get in the car and you go back home … and the opportunity is missed,” he said.

He suggested that at least one person sit at a booth at these events, visiting with potential returners about what they would desire in a move home.

“It’s an entirely new day, in terms of what’s possi-ble,” Schroeder said, due to a shift from factory work to entrepreneurial ventures. “People are choosing where they want to live first and figuring out how to make a living there. Where better to have a great quality of life than in our little communities in the heartland of the country? We’re offering outstanding opportunities to people, and that’s how we need to see this. We’re offering the privilege to live in a small community with this outstanding quality of life that we love and not thinking about this being a second choice, but being the best choice.”

Think beyond city limits.One of the ideas suggested in the March Prairie

Idea Exchange was “what we need isn’t that far away.” What’s needed, in fact, may be in the next town over.

For example, “communities” in the Dakota Rising program actually are groups of towns determined by their “geographic footprint,” Davis said.

“Some of the most important learning that hap-pens is between communities, sharing … their suc-cesses and failures, what they’ve tried, what works and what hasn’t worked,” she said. “It’s … creating a network with Dakota Resources at the center of that network, connecting communities to communities. Then, within the communities, it’s a network of sup-port, connecting businesses and people in the com-munity who have passion for supporting local com-munities to each other.”

Regional groupings for Dakota Rising “commu-nity sites” offer more opportunities, Davis said.

“The more (entities) you have involved, the more wisdom is present and available … to share experi-ences, share knowledge and wisdom, and strengthen the question,” she said. “South Dakota is one community. What’s good for Lake Andes is good for Wagner. What’s good for Faulkton is good for Ipswich. We have got to move beyond these parochial attitudes of scarcity and recognize that our abundance is grounded in our capacity to share.” í

Continued from page 31

YOUR TURNWhat is possible on the Main Street in your community? How can it be better, and how can you help make it better? Share your thoughts at www.pie4.us.

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FARMERS A ND R A NCHERS ON FARMING A ND

R A NCHINGby PETER CARRELS

Smith started his farming-ranching career practicing conventional land-use methods that emphasized annual grain production and the ample application of chemicals, before he experienced an epiphany that led to a land management approach that highlights soil health and ecological conservation.

Smith was raised on the place he now owns and manages, in rural Hamlin County, in northeast South Dakota. The landscape there is mostly gently roll-ing, but it also includes a sizable length of lakefront shoreline and some erod-ible, steep-sloped topography character-istic of the coteau country he calls home.

His dad planted corn and grains, and had some hay and grazing ground. He also raised hogs and cattle.

Smith is not a young man, but he proj-ects youthful exuberance while recount-ing his history of learning how to prac-tice conservation agriculture.

Smith was studying agricultural engi-neering at South Dakota State University when his father died, and with that unex-pected passing, he began running the family farm.

“When I started farming in the early ’70s, I did things like they’d always been done on our place and on most other farms,” Smith said. That meant following

a monoculture menu, which had him planting about 75 percent of his 1,000-acre operation with annual grains, espe-cially corn. Smith faithfully continued the grain cycle for many years, and when prices for corn rose to an especially lucra-tive level, he destroyed some of the grass-land his dad had restored. “I’m not proud of it,” he said, “but I actually did plow under grasses established by my dad in order to grow more corn.”

That decision—and the regret he now feels—illustrates Smith’s profound, per-sonal journey as a farmer.

“Back then, many farmers—me included—didn’t think about things like soil biology, moisture retention, water quality, and biodi-versity like I do now,” Smith said.

Land ethic grows from hard lessonsThe evolution of Rick Smith’s land ethic can be summed

up as a series of discoveries, with lots of trial and error.

Smith grows grass on 500 acres of his 600-acre farm. All plants—grains and grasses—are used to

feed his own livestock. Photo by Rick Smith

34 dakotafire.net

“Just about everybody thought that as long as there was some type of cash crop growing on the land that was the right way to man-age your land. We all viewed farms as land to be used, and we were all following the quickest route to making money without thinking about the environment. There are still too many farmers who do that.”

Smith also practiced fall plowing in fields where small grains were harvested, though he abandoned that practice many years ago.

“I shake my head at having to admit I did that,” he said. It troubles him that other farmers continue to plow in the fall, exposing soils to severe erosion, evi-dent in the blackened snow in roadside ditches.

Conversations with stewards like Smith typi-cally reveal they possess a hungry intellect, and that includes an appetite to read, study, and learn. They are also willing to investigate new ideas and to pon-der unfamiliar approaches, even when those new approaches to managing their land contradict their own way of thinking. It takes a special sense of inde-pendence to break free from following long-held farm practices.

The ’80s brought low crop prices, high input costs, and lots of bankruptcies in eastern South Dakota and across farm country. Smith learned frugality, and he started to transition some land from annual grains to perennial grasses, a move requiring fewer chemicals. He needed to reduce expenses, and he did.

In the ’90s, Smith began poring over books writ-ten by land-use pioneers Allan Savory and Stan Parsons, and he became aware of different, more sen-sitive approaches to using and protecting natural resources. He started to second-guess the grain-crop treadmill he’d been on.

He tried planting indigenous grasses like big

bluestem. Thanks to the popularity of Conservation Reserve Program enrollment, the native grass seed market proved profitable, and with new prairie to ben-efit his cattle, Smith paid close attention to Savory’s prescriptions for grazing management, especially an approach called rotational grazing. That changed Smith’s ideas about how to run cattle on his land. The emphasis of his operation began shifting to livestock.

As the new century began, Smith continued to deepen his relationship to nature.

“I came to understand that I’d been farming for a quarter-century, and I had never before paid suf-ficiently close attention to the ground, to the soils,” he said. “I had overlooked for all those years that the soil is the essential building block for all that lives in and on the land.”

He was disappointed at how little information was available to farmers who were interested in protect-ing and enhancing soils. “When I approached peo-ple studying and teaching agronomy I was surprised when they admitted there wasn’t much available,” Smith said. “It seemed that just about everything being taught was geared toward grain production, and very little of what was being taught considered healthy soils.”

He also embraced diversity, shedding the final vestiges of monoculture and pursuing diverse plant production. “Mono-anything is asking for trouble,” he advised. “The more plant species, the more poten-tial for production in all weather conditions. Diversity also removes the boom/bust scenario that creates disaster for those who don’t practice diversity.”

After a couple decades of carefully re-working his agricultural practices, Smith experienced what he described as his greatest awakening. He’d been exploring remedies for improving soils he’d con-verted from grain to grass, but was unhappy with his level of success. Then he met Ray Archuleta, an agronomist with the federal government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Archuleta had jus-tifiably built a national reputation as an expert on soils, and he tirelessly championed a concept known as conservation agriculture, with an emphasis on soil health and agricultural ecology.

Smith discovered that Archuleta not only pre-sented a philosophical basis for soil protection, he also described in detail useful hands-on practices landowners could implement.

“Soils became the foundation of my operation,” Smith explained. He learned how to use “litter” to protect soil and add biology to the soil. Synthetic

Allan Savory, left, visited Rick Smith, right, at Smith’s farm in 2014, as part of a tour of farming operations practicing exemplary conservation agriculture. Savory, a world-renowned expert on grassland systems and holistic management, resides in South Africa. He was honored in 2010 as a recipient of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Award for his work solving agricultural and land use problems. Photo courtesy the South Dakota Grasslands Coalition

Continued on page 36

dakotafire.net 35

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fertilizers and biocides were rarely used. As he walked prairie he had created he closely examined and monitored the biological content of the soils, and he realized that the more microbes, worms and bee-tles that resided in the soil the more productive the soils were.

Smith also paid close attention to how effectively his land could hold water, and he noticed his careful soil management practices dramatically improved his land in that regard. After large rains in the area

some of his grain-growing neighbors saw runoff col-lect in roadside ditches and low spots, while Smith’s land absorbed the rainfall and showed no pool-

ing or erosion. “How can you identify a specific economic value associ-ated with retaining rainfall on your land?” asked Smith. “You cannot. But I assure you it is worthwhile and cost-effective.”

These days Rick Smith’s farm functions in a com-pletely different manner than the farm he took over as a young man. He no longer rents any land, and of the 600 acres on the place 500 of them are planted in perennial grasses; only 40 of them are planted to corn. The commercial component of the enterprise now revolves around plant diversity, and feeding and selling livestock. Smith runs about 100 cattle, as his dad did, but he has added 150 ewe sheep, and up to a couple hundred lambs each year.

“Our farm income now comes from animals,” said Smith. “Everything I grow on the farm—and

Left: The protection of surface and ground water is an important part of Rick Smith’s agricultural plan. Right: Smith resisted the temptation to grow corn during the recent corn boom. He does plant 40 acres of corn using no till with field litter, and all the corn is used to feed his livestock. Photos by Rick Smith

Continued from page 35

36 dakotafire.net

it’s a diverse mixture of plants, particularly on the grasslands—is used to feed our animals.” Smith also learned to invest farm profits in non-farm investments. “Diversity,” he explained, “is an applicable principle not only for how I farm and what I grow but also how I manage and grow our money.”

Smith resisted the recent temptation to grow lots of corn: “I’ve seen how that kind of market can ramp up in hurry, and then what? It’s fleeting, and that makes me nervous.” He noted the potent influence of corporate agriculture dictating farm-ing practices. “Corporate agriculture has its goals, but unfortunately those goals don’t always match what the earth can endure.”

He is optimistic about the future of conserva-tion agriculture and grassland farming. “There’s not many of us right now,” Smith observed. “It’s hard for someone to admit that they’ve been doing it wrong for many years, but that’s what I did. Once you start paying close attention to how your farming practices affect your soils and water resources, you can recognize that you need to adjust and change.”

“I’m still studying, still looking for better ideas. My evolution as a farmer is far from over,” Smith said. “I’ll keep learning new things and keep improving my operation. My goal is simple. Not only do I want to pursue what’s profitable, I want to do what’s best for my land, and for the planet.” í

The evolution of Rick Smith’s farm philosophy has flipped his growing choices. When he started in the 1970s his farm was dominated by corn. Now it’s dominated by grass. Photo by Rick Smith

dakotafire.net 37

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CORSICACOMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Building connections in

story and photos by WENDY ROYSTON

38 dakotafire.net

At right: Corsica Mayor Dick Brink describes the community’s business climate as flourishing. More than 60 businesses for a

community of just 600 leaves very few residential and commercial properties available, but new construction, too, is booming.

dakotafire.net 39

The town has two main business districts—Main Street and Highway 281.

“Along (Highway) 281, you see a number of new buildings. They’ve all

been built in the last several years,” Brink said. “And if you wanted to rent a building on Main Street,

you couldn’t find one.”

Often, the same is true for housing.“The workers have to live some-

where, and they bring in new people and new money, and they spend a cer-tain amount of money in town,” Brink said. “Houses are gone about as fast as they become available.”

Just last year, three elderly couples joined together to build a triplex, and three new houses were built.

Brink said the community—which is home to two medical clinics, chi-ropractic and optometric offices, an assisted living and a nursing home facilities and a veterinarian—is a good place for families and retirees alike.

An emergency response emergency

Earlier this year, the future of Douglas County Ambulance was unclear because of a shortage of volunteers.

“We were down to four EMTs,” emergency medical technician Karen

Johnson said. “Basically, the other girl who runs during the day and I were running by ourselves. … If we didn’t get any help, the service was going to be done June 1.”

The potential closure was adver-tised widely. With such drastic mea-sures looming, seven people volun-teered, and their $500 class tuition was paid for by donations.

“It was really a relief. It gave us hope. It gave us new life,” Johnson said. “The burden is a little lighter now, because you know there’s going to be (help).”

The seven students are scheduled to take their EMT-Basic tests in May.

“I am hoping and praying that they’re all going to pass,” Johnson said, but “I’m not sure we’re going to be able

to have two EMTs every day, and if we can’t commit to do that, we can’t really get off of our hardship” status.

Now the ambulance vehicle is caus-ing further uncertainty for the ser-vice. In April, EMTs approached the Douglas County Commission, request-ing help purchasing a new ambulance. According to Johnson, commissioners had helped the Armour community, 10 miles from Corsica and home to the closest hospital, purchase an ambu-lance and indicated they would budget $20,000 annually to be used for future ambulances for the two communities, but they declined to assist with a new vehicle for Corsica, saying they had not budgeted the promised funds.

In Corsica, S.D., it seems there is business to conduct around every corner.

“We have an aggressive business community,” Mayor Dick Brink said. Situated 20 miles south of Interstate 90 on U.S. Highway 281, Corsica boasts more than 60 businesses in a community of just 600 people. With more than 10 percent of the population—man, woman and child—a business owner, it’s no surprise that everyone in town is quick to point out the thriving business community.

Continued on page 40

Corsica recently overcame the threat of losing its Douglas County Ambulance service due to lack of volunteers. Now, a new ambulance is needed, but emergency medical technician Karen Johnson said funding the purchase will be difficult.

40 dakotafire.net

Since the meeting, Johnson said she had learned that the county has

funds set aside for emergencies, and she was hopeful it could put those funds to work replacing the ambu-lance. She expects it will cost $80,000, and fundraisers are planned for National EMS Week in May.

Problems with the ambulance are numerous, according to Johnson, and range from shorted wires to a faulty fuel gauge that recently caused the service great embarrassment when it ran out of gas on the scene of a medi-cal call.

“The biggest (problem) is that when we come back from a transfer in the middle of the night … the only place that we can fuel up is closed, and it doesn’t have a (credit card reader) for the diesel pump,” Johnson said.

Areas of the ambulance’s floor also are rusted out.

“If we go down a road that’s real muddy and wet, we get water—through the wheel well—into the patient cabin, on the floor inside,” she said.

Consolidating a positive attitude

One change that could have been contentious for the community is in its final phase and is going smoothly, local officials say.

This fall, the Corsica and Stickney school districts will transition from what once was a simple sports cooper-ative into a single school district.

“We’ve done a piece at a time … and experimented a little, and now

we’re getting ready for the big experi-ment,” said high school Principal Scott Muckey, who will become superinten-dent of the consolidated school district.

When Muckey first came to the Corsica School District, there were around 80 students in the high school. Now, there are 42, and just 145 in K-12. Stickney brings about 100 students to the shared district.

The 6-year-old Corsica-Stickney sports cooperative eventually also led to sharing some staff. This year, five high school teachers travel the 12 miles between the two schools as part

Continued from page 39

Above, Corsica High School caps the end of Main Street in the town 20 miles south of Interstate 90 on U.S. Highway 281 in Douglas County. Below, Corsica High School Principal Scott Muckey (left) and Superintendent Vern DeGeest stand inside the school’s library. The men agree that consolidating with the Stickney School District next fall is a positive move for students that has been well-received by both communities.

dakotafire.net 41

of an intergovernmental agreement that allows them to combine students for some classes. The schools’ fourth-, sev-enth- and eighth-grade classes meet in Corsica; second, fifth and sixth grades meet in Stickney; and the rest of the classes remain independent.

Superintendent Vern DeGeest, who will retire this spring, said the decision to officially consolidate was supported by more than 80 percent of voters last summer.

“We wanted it, because we needed it,” he said, adding that the state no lon-ger offers financial incentives for smaller districts to merge.

The consolidated school district no longer will qualify for the small school factor, so it will lose the equivalent of seven students’ worth of imbursement that the state had been paying each dis-trict separately, but it’s still “the logical thing to do,” according to DeGeest, and in the best interest of the students.

“When you get down into your single digits in your classrooms, at less than $5,000 per student, it’s pretty hard not to do some combining of some sort,” he said. “You either com-bine (schools), or you start combining classes, and to me … educationally, this is the right thing to do.”

Next year, kindergarten through sixth grade will study in Stickney, while middle and high school students will

meet in the current Corsica High School building. Each community will have its own preschool, with the same teacher working with each group for half of the day. Corsica’s preschoolers will be located in the current Corsica Elementary building, and options for renting out the rest of the space for other uses is being explored.

“The students will basically be located in one structure, so hopefully that will be more efficient and it’s a better situation for teachers, parents, students (and) everybody concerned,” Muckey said. “We’ll try to leave (preschoolers) in their communities … to leave them closer to their homes. It’s scary enough to start the school process.”

Very little staffing change is expected.“We either already have people in

place or have plans in place to move peo-ple around so that reductions in force don’t have to happen,” Muckey said. “The staff has been wonderful; they picked up in places where we just kind of had to make things work.”

The process leading to the consolida-tion has made a once-strong rivalry all but disappear.

What keeps people in town ties them to the world

Another sort of “rivalry”—the pres-ence of one private school in city limits and another just 18 miles away—also has strengthened the Corsica commu-nity, according to Muckey.

“The (different groups) that are here … pull away from our enroll-ment,” he said, at a rate of

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42 dakotafire.net

around 10 students per grade level, “but the kids who attend (public

school) here are more likely to leave. The kids who attend (the private schools) are more likely to stay” as adults.

The Netherlands Reformed Christian School depends heavily on the community for jobs, and the com-munity relies on the school to stabilize the population that has dipped from around 650 to 600 between the last two census counts, according to mid-dle school teacher David Koedam, who teaches grades six through eight in a combined classroom.

With congregations only in South Dakota, Iowa and New Jersey, “our worship opportunities are limited,” Koedam said. “There are only two of our churches in the whole state—

here and in Sioux Falls. ... So, in order to keep our church (alive), we need to keep our young people (here), so we want them to work locally, or our church is going to decline.”

Keeping people in town isn’t the only benefit of Corsica’s Dutch

“subculture” to the local economy.“(We have) built a new church and

a new school in just a few years, which was a big undertaking,” Koedam said. “The school is not quite paid for, but the church is paid for.”

Fifty-two children from about 20 families gather at the school each day for more than just educational opportunities.

“(Our forefathers) wanted to be able to incorporate religion into all sub-jects in school,” said Koedam, who attended first through eighth grades at the school and graduated from Corsica High School in 1993. “As the public school became more secularized, they

said, ‘That’s not good—we want the Bible and religion and devotions to be a part of our kids’ education.’”

Formed in 1981, the school is con-sidered an organized home school, and only one of its six teachers is certified through the state. Until three years ago, students transferred to the public school or were home-schooled for high school level classwork. Its first seniors will graduate next spring.

The school has no principal, but operates under the direction of a five-member school board. Although the educational model at the Netherlands school has evolved to include more and more technology—which is strictly limited to “essential tasks”—the pres-ence of tradition and Christian teach-ing is evident.

“We begin the day with prayer, and we end the day with prayer, and before and after we eat, we’re praying and singing,” Koedam said. “In the public school, you can’t do that.”

But Koedam said the people of the Netherlands Reformed church and school do not view their way of life—nor their educational system—as supe-rior to those of others in town.

“I went to public school myself,” Koedam said. “I got a good education over there. But there are things that we can do here that (they) can’t do over there … religiously (and) spiritually.”

The school has never charged

Continued from page 41

David Koedam is among six teachers for the 52 students at Netherlands Reformed Christian School in Corsica.

A nod to Corsica’s Dutch heritage and the former Wooden Shoe Cheese company, this sign welcomes visitors to Dakota Tom’s Sandwiches, Inc.

dakotafire.net 43

tuition, operating on freewill donations alone. Although that structure has been difficult some years, the faith of the peo-ple is that God has provided the neces-sary funds along the way, with donations coming in from Holland and the church’s “sister congregations” here in the United States.

Planting roots, harvesting relationships

Much like the Netherlands Reformed congregation, generations-old family businesses, too, have kept many people in Corsica.

Mike and Dan Noteboom joined their father, Peter “Junior” Noteboom, in the family John Deere business in the 1980s and bought their father’s share of the business about a decade later.

“It wasn’t a good time to actually be in it, but that’s what we did,” Noteboom said. “We didn’t want to let it go.”

The family persevered through the farm crisis and eventually added two more South Dakota locations—in Chamberlain and Parkston—and three stores in Iowa, as well as a third partner, Dan’s son, Justin Noteboom. The busi-ness employs 180 people—with the larg-est chunk working in Corsica—and is constructing a corporate office addition to its Corsica building, despite an uncer-tain ag economy.

“This is where we grew up, and it’s our first location. It’s just natural (to build our headquarters here),” Noteboom said. “We went through the ’80s, and that was tough, too, but now it’s on a different scale. We were one store then, and now we’re six. That makes a difference.”

The key to making it through the slow periods, according to Mike, is simple:

“Work hard, and be honest, and everything should work out. … Once you get a reputation of not working with people, that hurts you. We need (a good reputation) in small towns, because there are only so many custom-ers out there.”

Continued on page 44

Mike Noteboom (right), and his brother, Dan Noteboom (not pictured), are the second generation of owners of Noteboom Implement, which was formerly owned by their father, Peter “Junior” Noteboom (left).

Members of the Corsica community gathered in April

for Noteboom Implement’s customer appreciation days.

44 dakotafire.net

Saving is about more than money

A few blocks away, another Corsica businessman is amazed by local interest in some of his services.

“It’s surprising how much is recy-cled,” said Rod VanRoekel, co-owner of Van’s Dray and Recycling.

Recycling started in Corsica a decade ago, at the urging of area youths.

Now, the Corsica community brings its cardboard, paper and plastic to the business, a block off of Main Street. Four years ago, with the help of a grant, the business purchased two trailers that now make their rounds through five neighboring communities for one-week stints and provide receptacles for card-board, paper and plastic waste. A third is jointly owned by nearby Armour’s city

and school and collected by the company.An average of 10 tons of recyclables

are baled each month, and although the process presently is not a money-maker, VanRoekel said it is invaluable.

“One ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees,” he said. “That is the biggest thing … you save if you don’t have to put it in the landfill. … Plastic, stays there pretty much forever, and burning it isn’t good.”

Although area youths are the biggest advocates for the program, VanRoekel said the elderly are more likely to take advantage of the service.

“They have been through tough times, and they know what it is to save, conserve and use everything,” he said. “They see what it does to a landfill—it fills up fast. Once you … see what you save in a week, it’s unreal.”

Continued from page 43

Continued on page 46

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Rod and Dwight VanRoekel began collecting recyclable materials a decade ago, at the prompting of area youths. Photo by Tina Strid

When the school district noticed its asphalt-topped track was deteriorating, they turned to the community, saying they would match up to $50,000 to fix it, but otherwise the school would go without. At first, no one came forward to help.“I hated to see us lose (it). There are people who go out there … (and) run on it (and) walk on it. It is definitely used by our community,” Gina Schrank said.Training for a half-marathon herself, Schrank said the track was becoming unsafe, so she gathered a handful of people, including some high school students and some adults, and they coordinated several fundraisers—the most successful of

which was a telethon to the school’s alumni.“The alumni really stepped up,” she said, and enough money was raised that the school not only replaced the track with a rubberized surface, but also leveled the football field and installed an underground sprinkler system. The first track meet on the new surface was held in April, and the first foot-ball game will be held in the fall.“It’s a safe place to go out and run or walk early in the morn-ing or late at night,” Schrank said. “It’s a very nice complex out there, for a small school.”

Corsica community

comes together to resurface

track

dakotafire.net 45

At right: A group of Corsica track athletes, coaches and fans raised more than $50,000 to resurface the high school track, when the school district said they would only replace it if at least half of the funds were raised by members of the community. Girls’ track coach Dennis Schrank, Micayla Bamberg, Gina Schrank, Brittany Bamberg and boys’ track coach Scott Muckey were among those who raised the funds.

46 dakotafire.net

A kitchen serving the nation

One of Corsica’s biggest cardboard contributors is a unique business that feeds people throughout the five-state region and beyond.

Each week, Dakota Tom’s Sandwiches, Inc., builds, packages and delivers an average of 10,000 to 12,000 sandwiches from its Main Street kitchen, direct-distributing them to grocery and convenience stores throughout the Dakotas, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska.

Randy Schryvers, who owns the business with two of his Corsica High School classmates, estimates the 40 sandwiches varieties are available for purchase in 400 locations throughout the country, thanks to partnerships with vending companies and other distributors.

“This product sells itself,” he said of the plastic-bagged, microwavable sandwiches. “We’ve never really had a salesman on the road.”

The sandwiches are especially pop-ular in the local area.

“We have a good workforce around here,” Schryvers said. “(Many) are jobs where sometimes you don’t have time to stop, so they can just grab a sandwich.”

Schryvers said the business is suc-cessful in Corsica because of the town’s people and location.

“You could do this business any-where, (but) we’re centrally located, just far enough off the interstate,” he said. “There are a lot of people coming

and going, and we have some real good businessmen in town that keep … people coming.”

Community riding on each other’s protection

Yet the town is small enough that leaving the doors unlocked from time to time is not uncommon, either.

For Cleone Uecker, owner of South Dakota Horse Sales, the security of small-town life makes Corsica ideal for her business.

With no full-time staff at what is affectionately called “the sale barn” locally, Uecker said local residents keep

an eye on the property and quickly alert her of anything that seems out of the ordinary.

“It’s a safe community,” Uecker said. “Everybody watches out for everybody, so I feel comfortable and don’t have to worry about break-ins. It’s a busy road that goes

by the sale

Marsha Bordewyk (left) and Cheryl Schryvers (right) pack Dakota Tom’s sandwiches sold at a local church fundraiser. The business sells an average of 10,000 to 12,000 sandwiches each month at about 400 grocery and convenience stores across the country. The two women’s husbands, Dick Bordewyk and Randy Schryvers, own the business with Dave VanRoekel. The three men were Corsica High School classmates.

Randy Schryvers

dakotafire.net 47

barn, so everybody has their eye out.”Last year, a hailstorm rolled through

town, doing major damage in Corsica and nearby Stickney while Uecker was out of town.

“The sheriff contacted me right away, because somebody was worried my horses would get away when the wind blew the fences down,” she said.

She said Corsica is a great location for South Dakota’s highest-ranked horse sale barn, mostly featuring quarter horses, paint horses and ponies.

“It’s right along 281, which is a big plus, because it runs down to Nebraska and all of the way up to North Dakota,” she said. “That highway counts for much for bringing in my customers.” í

N OW H I R I N G !Cleone Uecker, pictured with her grandson during his first horseback ride, has owned South Dakota Horse Sales in Corsica since the late 1980s.

48 dakotafire.net

POSTCARD

You get to live here.Growing up in northeastern South

Dakota I thought I was one of the unluckiest kids in the world. For me there was a wanting feeling of emptiness about the tree-less and windswept landscape. The trees that were present were obediently lined in a shel-ter belt, planted like a few rows of corn. Their attempt to protect from the God-sized wind was almost comical, which seemed to chuckle at us—the same chuckle I assumed lucky peo-ple had when they happened upon our part of the world.

For visitors, who I was sure clearly saw the lack, I had a need to point out what was missing, unappealing, just so they knew I was well aware. Not surprising, after gradua-tion I left South Dakota. My goal wasn’t to get away, though. My goal was to see and take in

as much of the world as possible. In one sense I’ve been fairly successful at that thus far—and it’s interesting how different the same world looks now.

Like wind erosion, my change was sub-tle. I’d been back to South Dakota many times over the years, breezing in and out for pheas-ant hunting, reunions, or Frederick’s Finn Fest. What I had never seen started being revealed. For me, getting perspective on the world didn’t mean the world changed; it meant that I changed.

My issue with trees had dwindled. Some of the best places I’d traveled had very few trees, and even that wind as big as God. Patagonia in Argentina, the Alti-plano in Bolivia, an

African savannah, the Dead Sea in Israel, the rolling green miles of Mongolia. It’s sort of funny, but each of those places touted their sunsets to be the most beautiful in all the world. Each time I heard that I thought, “That’s not true, we have the exact sunsets in South Dakota!” It was never missed by me—I hadn’t wanted to be from South Dakota.

Let me give an example of one treasure at your backdoor: the Maple River. A good part of my growing up included the Maple. Duck hunting, fishing off the dam in Frederick, camping in a little plot of trees we called the “North Garden.” But mostly I knew the Maple because it was so plain, like it was unfinished. Or dying. Until I saw it again for the first time. And I wanted to be in it.

There may be a big difference between kay-aking down the Maple versus the Zambezi

A new view of a prairie river by JEFF GLOVER

• SO

UT H D A K O T A

•

May/June2015

Map

le River, Brown C

o.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

—T.S. Eliot

River. For starters, one sounds a lot more exotic, if for no other reason than it’s Africa foreign. But I wanted to float amidst the plain fields and blue Maple as much as I’d wanted the Zambezi. And perspective is an odd con-cept. For instance, the summer after college I led canoe trips in the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. The kids were from boys homes in urban areas where the closest thing to a field was a parking lot. I’d never seen a moose up close. The boys had never seen a muskrat or a muskie. There was no difference between our excited faces.

Nowhere on the Maple are you likely to encounter an animal that would naturally include you on its menu. I have to concede that danger may make some adventures more alluring. But my eyes bulged at the immen-sity of wildlife on the Maple. I’d just been so used to it, it was like it was never there.

And it’s not like I didn’t encounter some danger.

When I came across a cow’s head bobbing crossing the Maple, I noticed one has just fin-ished the swim and had turned to watch the second, her calf. A third cow was still on the other side, mooing back and forth with the first. Curious, I gently back-paddled. The water was fairly swift, and I have to admit I was nervous the calf might not make it. Would I actually try to help if one was drown-ing? Could I get caught up and drown myself?

Would anyone ever know what became of the guy who kayaked the Maple? And if I saved a cow, would a farmer thank me with a grateful smile, or would he just walk away shaking his head, thinking, “What an idiot”?

Thankfully, they all made it to the other side, and I continued on my plain way. But there was long moment genuinely smiling and thinking “This is pretty damn cool.” I meant it.

And I thought, “How many people get to see this?”

Then I had another thought: “I must be one of the luckiest people in the world.” í

Jeff Glover was born and raised in Frederick and Aberdeen, where he graduated from Roncalli High School. He is now a mental health therapist in Minneapolis.

In each issue of Dakotafire, we feature a "Postcard"—an evocative, (ideally) short story about an event, person or place, written as if you were telling the story to a friend. Some ideas: outdoors stories, the highlight of a big game, or a moment in history. Story must have a photo to accompany it. Digital images (a minimum of 1000 pixels wide) are preferred; you can also send a photo by mail. E-mail submissions to heidi@dakotafire.net, or mail to Dakotafire Media, Postcard Submission, PO Box 603, Frederick, SD 57441.

SEND US YOUR POSTCARD

Above: Cows cross the Maple River in Brown County, S.D. At left and right: Scenes of the Maple from a kayak.

P.O. Box 603Frederick, SD 57441

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