A young couple from Harrisburg just happened to email us some baby pictures today. Sorry. We won't publish these too often.

Don Brosz is the Pumpkin Man around Watertown. In 1991 he and his wife grew a pumpkin patch and invited children out to pick them. Every year the number of visitors has grown, and 2007 was record-setting. Brosz, a former state senator, estimated that 2,130 people came to pick pumpkins, and they've sold 4,245 pumpkins, 1,780 gourds and 400 lbs. of squash.

They also had an exciting first in the pumpkin business. A young man bought several pumpkins and, with the help of friends, carved this unusual wedding proposal. His hard work and ingenuity paid off with a "Yes."

Congratulations to the happy couple.

Football fans are salivating over the Indianapolis Colts/New England Patriots matchup this weekend. If you haven't picked sides yet, you may want to consider that Colts receiver Dallas Clark was born in Sioux Falls. That's all we know. I don't know if he ever actually lived in South Dakota. He is basically considered an Iowa boy. But he was born here and that's worth a few points in our book. Especially since Adam Vinatieri (who was born in Yankton) is no longer with the Patriots. So go Colts!

Walt Zabel, in centennial attire.

I knew Walt Zabel was a former Republican legislator from Selby, but that's all I knew about him until I bumped into him when I spent a weekend in that little Wallworth County seat town a few years ago. (Selby is just east of Mobridge.)

Lucky towns always have an ambassador -- someone who greets newcomers with open arms. Someone who makes the local people feel like they're living in a good place. Someone who respects the history of the community. Someone who works hard to make the town prettier, cleaner, more prosperous.

It always takes a man or woman with big shoulders. Walt (at least by the time I met him) was diminutive in stature, but he carried the weight of Selby on his back and the burden looked as light as a few tail feathers from his pheasant collection.

Walt told me all about Selby, and then he insisted that he open the doors to his private museum for me. I think he "opened the doors" for dozens and dozens of people every week. He had old farm equipment, barbed wire, tools, stuffed birds, guns and enough other odds and ends to fill the Cultural Heritage Center. And he had a story for each and every item. Before we parted, he gave me a comb with his name on it.

Walt died this week at age 93. I will never think of Selby without thinking of Walt, though I only met him once. Now I wish I'd taken better care of that plastic comb.

Pat Powers of South Dakota War College has a good little piece on him today, including some memories from Watertown attorney Lee Schoenbeck who knew him better than I did.

I'm wondering what Walt will collect in heaven? And did he give St. Peter a comb?

One of northcentral Nebraska's biggest and most historic ranches will be auctioned on Wednesday, Nov. 7. And it has long and tight ties to South Dakota.

The 10,628-acre L= Ranch has had a century of ownership connected to the Lee family since it was originally acquired by Andrew Lee, the third governor of South Dakota. A family member from South Dakota (who desired to remain anonymous) left the ranch in his will to the Catholic Foundation for Eastern South Dakota. He was a fine fellow who gave generously while alive as well, yet often did so with little or no fanfare.

Here's a link for more on the auction. The ranch is in Holt County, south of Winner, S.D., near the nice little city of O'Neill with a rich Irish heritage and a great cookie shop, among other things.

Andrew Lee was born in Norway and came to America in 1867, settling in Vermillion. He was South Dakota's first and only non-Republican governor until 1926. He was elected on the Populist Ticket in 1896 and on the Fusion Ticket in 1900. It was better to be a Fusionista than a Democrat in those days. (I believe the Fusion Party actually was a blending or "fusing" of several minority groups and parties.) Though Lee was heavily involved in Nebraska ranching, he maintained his Dakota roots and died in Vermillion in 1934.

We in the news media are getting so predictable. Every time this year we all go out and find a few haunted house stories as homage to Halloween. Someone saw something, they don't know what. But they weren't the first so it must be true. And the one who saw it isn't the kind to make something up. So it must be true. And it sounds similar to other spooky reports. So it must be true. Especially because it was in the media.

Just use your head. If you were a ghost and you had the power to blow out candles and flip pictures off walls and sneak in peoples' bedrooms and look like a Will-O-the-wisp, then wouldn't you do it more often and with more reckless abandon than we've seen?

When we were kids, an abandoned farm near us was "haunted." The ghost — supposedly a fellow who took his own life many years ago — left lights on in the house. He always kept a knife on the kitchen counter. And often times, it was said that if you drove in the yard at night , mud might splash onto your windshield even though the driveway was rock dry. I did see lights on in the old house a few times but I never looked inside for a knife.

Establishments like the Bullock Hotel in Deadwood understandably promote their ghosts to good advantage, but the rest of us should just let it die.

A photo of young Ben Reifel, on the Rosebud
Reservation. It was taken by storekeeper/photographer
John Anderson who has been featured in South Dakota
Magazine. As a lad, Reifel worked for Anderson.

The South Dakota Farmers Union celebrated Ben Radcliffe Day in Brookings last Saturday night, and it was a fun evening with the grand old gentleman. Some readers may not remember Ben because he's been out of the public spotlight for awhile now. But he was a Spink County farmer who grew in stature to become one of the state's greatest farm leaders of the 20th century. He served in the state legislature in the 1950s, and then used skills honed at the capitol to lead the state Farmers Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

He was a contemporary of our first Indian congressman (1961-1971), the equally amiable Ben Reifel. One can easily see how the two worked together.

Radcliffe, though advanced in years, is as quick as ever with a quip. He noted that he and Ben Reifel were good friends. He says the congressman was related to Sitting Bull, the Indian chief whose remains were twice removed from a burial spot. First, he was moved to North Dakota; then he was moved home to South Dakota in the middle of the night by Mobridge citizens.

"I asked him exactly how he was related to Sitting Bull," said the farm leader. "And the congressman told me that Sitting Bull was his cousin, twice removed.

We just received the following plea from a reader in Virginia who remembers a dish his mom cooked in South Dakota. He's wondering if anybody might know how to make it.

One of my favorite side dishes while growing up in McCook County, was Scalloped Corn. All my family made it, and it was great. If I recall, they used to stir it on the stove top – it was actually a thickened Cream Corn, with probably some type of spice, and only took a few minutes to make.

However, every recipe that I find on the internet calls for baking in either the oven or microwave with cracker crumbs, cornmeal, or some other thickener. Can any of your readers help me out with the stove top recipe?
Franc Hershley
Norfolk, Va.