What is the uniform for a South Dakota Hula Girl? We found out today when two staff-members couldn't come up with any other costume idea and somehow thought of these crazy outfits. Alma Korslund (left) and Ruth Steil dressed in snowboots, grass skirts, earmuffs, flowers and long underwear. One advantage: South Dakota hula girls never need to spend a nickel on suntan lotion.

ESPN Outdoors has an online article on the Fish Car that has returned to the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery in Spearfish. Yes, they once hauled fish by rail car. There were 10 fish cars in the U.S. and they were big attractions. One was prominently displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Now we have a permanent Fish Car in South Dakota.

One wonders if the train's engineers were just a tad more cautious when they had a box car full of fish?

The old hatchery, established in 1896, still raises trout for stocking in Black Hills streams. However, the place is also a historic and cultural landmark in the mountains of South Dakota. If you haven't seen the hatchery, be sure to stop the next time you visit the northern Hills. The stone walls, historic buildings, hungry fish (even though they are fed six tons of food a year!), and the adjacent Spearfish Creek and its wildlife make it a very pleasant place to spend some hours. All this within walking distance of downtown Spearfish.

We appreciate preserving the past here at South Dakota Magazine. So, it's rewarding to hear of old buildings being renovated for new uses. Aberdeen leaders are working to renovate the old Central High School now home to the parks and recreation department and the Recreation and Cultural Center. The $6.5 million renovation project will convert the school facilities into offices, art galleries, dance studios, classrooms and a community center. It sounds like a scaled-down version of the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls. What a great story of recycling and renewal.

The renovation is revealing a number of historic features – original ceilings, beams and stained glass windows.

High Schoolers in Aberdeen moved into a new $28 million school last year. I graduated from the old school in 1985. The original school built in 1911 was joined by more recent additions that caused new students a good dose of panic as they contemplated passing between classes in three minutes or less. I'm sure today's high-schoolers will have fine memories of their shiny, new school, but I'll take my memories of the possibility of being "booked" in the "tunnel" by an upperclassman any day.

– Susan Hoffmann

You might think KELO-TVs Steve Hemmingsen is just a funny wiseacre who knows his South Dakota history and politics. Maybe, but read this on KELO TV's web site about the dreaded issue of elderly parents who must bury their middle-aged "kids". Steve can think and write when he's not joking around.

Here is a picture that accurately represents Utica, the true birthplace of the urbane, sophisticated, high-brow and cultured South Dakota Magazine. I found this picture of a Utica Fireman's Feed in the wood filing cabinet that I bought for $5 at the Smith auction (see yesterday's post). This is where my family first learned to love South Dakota. Utica is a tiny town just outside Yankton. The Hunhoffs came here in 1885 ... "a day late and a dollar short" as always because all the land was already homesteaded. We had to buy a place. But we stayed, and we might get it paid for someday. Utica still has a fire department, but now we play bingo to make money for hoses and fuel. Looks like they had better fundraisers in the old days.

The 2005 mountain lion season is now history, but it continues to draw controversy in the Black Hills as the GF&P hunts for the orphaned kittens of the female lions that were shot. Even hunter/journalist Kevin Woster is catching hell on the Rapid City Journal's popular Mount Blogmore. Scroll down to Kevin's article, and then read the Comments. Here's a sampling:

I feel that because there was such a strong opposition to the lion season, that when there were lactating lions killed, and it was know publicly, they had to search for the kittens, and it was damn good of them to do it. I am stongly for the lion season, and I am for searching for the orphaned kittens of these lactating females. It sounds to me that you are just another anti-hunting moron putting your nose where it don’t belong.

And other bargains found at the Chalkstone House auction



You all missed a great auction last Sunday. It was at the (locally) famous Chalkstone House that sits above the Missouri River on the west side of Yankton. It was built in the late 1930s by kindly physician Art Smith, partly as a way to keep people busy during the depression. The Bowyers, masons who built the South Dakota Magazine buildings, provided the expertise.

The Smith family, who have their roots in my hometown of nearby Utica, have finally sold the house and an auction was held Sunday. I always wanted a big buzz saw blade to hang in the barn. I have very scary childhood memories of the big circular blades because we used to help elderly neighbors cut their firewood in winter. Anybody who ever was close to one would know why they got the name "buzz" saws. They buzzed furiously when powered by a big wide belt hooked to a tractor pulley. OSHA would have had a heart attack, but we never lost any limbs or even fingers.

So I got the buzz saw blade. It was used to cut the chalkstone into blocks for the house. The yellow dust is still in the saw's crevices. Plus I got a four-foot handsaw, a six-family birdhouse, a German-made nativity scene, some Egyptian-looking cornises that must have not fit onto the Chalkstone House, rabbit traps, two antique chairs, a wood filing cabinet and other necessities of life.

Some people would say, "well, now you'll have to have an auction." But I can't. I like it all too much. So in about 50 years, they'll probably have my auction and everyone will be wondering what that big round blade is for, and why it has yellow dust in the teeth.

A reader wrote to tell us that their son looked forward to seeing the Petrified Trees in the park on Lemmon's main street, but when they arrived he was visibly disappointed.

"They don't look very scared to me," he told his parents.