When the U.S. military pushed the Lakota onto the Pine Ridge Reservation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs eventually spent hundreds of millions on hospitals, schools, homes, government buildings, roads, bridges and rations. But they never built a golf course. Maybe they should have.

Finally, according to Indian Country Today, there's an effort underway to teach Pine Ridge kids the game. Right now, they have to play at Rushville, Neb., 23 miles away, but some are thinking of building a course on the rez.

It would certainly enhance reservation medical care -- you can always find a doctor on a golf course.

Washington and Pierre have placed pages and pages of restrictions on commercial signage along our highways, but so far they haven't figured out a way to differentiate between a threshing machine and a billboard. Most of today's lawmakers don't even know which end of a threshing machine gets the oats straw, so they find it very difficult to write laws restricting where threshers and other pieces of farm equipment can be parked and what might be written on them. Consequently, we predict a surge in farm equipment with advertisements for motels, restaurants, events and perhaps even Wall Drug.

The machine above is parked near Bear Butte and is used to promote annual Black Hills Threshing Jamboree.

To find out why Santa Claus dislikes flying over South Dakota, click here. Submitted by a reader who disagrees with the new hunting season on mountain lions.

Among those around our Christmas table was Archie Vavra, an old friend and farmer from Utica who says he was told by old-timers of a little town called Harney City that was west of Lake Andes near the Missouri River. That would be near the now-flooded pioneer village of Wheeler. Archie says the story suggests that Custer avoided Harney City by 30 miles because it was such a den in iniquity. He didn't trust his soldiers to deal with its temptations.

Archie figures whatever parts of the town survived into the 20th century were probably buried under water by Fort Randall Dam in the 1950s. Anybody know anything more about Harney City in Charles Mix County?

There was also a Harney City near Harney Peak in the Black Hills. Both were named after Gen. William Harney (1800-1889) pictured above. He was a career military man with a bad-natured wife so he liked to travel and he did much exploration and work with the Lakota even as an old fellow after the Civil War. The Lakota named him Man-who-always-kept-his-word.

Delbert Beeson, who has helped us with other historical stories in Charles Mix County, has lots of old military maps and historical information so some nice spring day we'll drive up and see if he has data on The-town-that-mighta-been.

The sun is shining, the temperature is in double digits and it feels like a good day to think baseball. The news in South Dakota is that the Minnesota Twins' longtime right fielder Jacque Jones has signed with the Cubs, which just may open a slot for Jason Kubel, the kid who learned to hit and throw in Belle Fourche.

Kubel is a likable 23-year-old who was named the Minor League Player of the Year in 2004 and played sparingly for the Twins this year. He is a good fielder and an outstanding hitter. Some think he may soon become one of the greatest hitters in the game. So keep an eye on Kubel.

Belle Fourche, a ranch town, lies on the east slope of the Black Hills. Sports fans there generally cheer for the Colorado Rockies, but if Kubel stays with the Twinkies that could change in a hurry. We wonder if those F-350 one-ton trucks they drive in Belle Fourche can be maneuvered down Nicollet Avenue in uptown Minneapolis on game day?

Notice: The water line to South Dakota Magazine broke this morning as a result of the cold weather, so there will now be a surcharge added to the subscription price to pay for the damage. Subscriptions remain at $19 per year but the surcharge will be $1,287.50.

Ok, it's a voluntary surcharge then. If just one reader would pay it we could lift it.

It's probably not technically cool to point out a comment from a previous entry, but we don't know web protocol -- so please go back and read Mary Bruce Haunreiter's thoughtful comment to our Dec. 16th post titled "College Campus For Sale."

Yes, there'll be no buildings named after Bill Napoli at the State Fairgrounds in Huron. The feisty state lawmaker from Rapid City suggested this week that the state fair has outlived its usefulness and should not receive state funding any longer.

In the odd world in which we live, though, Napoli might be just what the State Fair needed. The nice thing about him is that he says what lots of others are thinking but are too timid to say -- like, "there's an elephant in the room!!!"

Everyone's wondering why Sioux Falls and Rapid City can host big, successful fairs every year. Big cities, you say? Huron's too small and too far away? Then why can Brown County and Turner County do the same? And why is Yankton Riverboat Days and the Brookings Art Festival and the Jazzfest so wildly popular?

Bill Napoli's frankness might be just what it takes to make people actually start thinking and talking about the real issue: why the State Fair isn't considered a success. And why it costs so darn much money. And why is everyone so unhappy about what should be a celebration? And why lawmakers are so insistent on fixing/closing/changing the State Fair while many of the potential fairgoers are graduating and leaving for careers in some other state. Fix the latter problem and voila, Huron might need new parking lots in late August.

But we do appreciate Bill Napoli's direct approach.