Few Westerners have done more to promote the beauty of the Black Hills than artist Jon Crane. His landscapes of rural mountain scenes hang in offices and living rooms across the USA. His paintings give meaning and confirmation to places that might otherwise be out of sight, out of mind.

"So many of those places have disappeared in recent years," Crane told me today, and one in particular is in dire danger. The U.S. Forest Service recently acquired the Meeker Ranch, a historic old place that borders the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve near Custer. Forest Service officials apparently fail to see the value of the old buildings, and they may burn them to the ground yet this winter.

Crane says he recently hiked up to the ranch to take a set of pictures for a painting. "We were totally blown away by what we found," he said. "Sitting on top of a little rise in this pristine valley was the most beautiful ranch that I have ever seen. It is my idea of the classic Black Hills ranch ... I have not been this excited about a painting subject since I found the farm that was the inspiration for my Heartland Series in 1985."

Crane says the issue with the Forest Service seems to be about safety and money; it sees the buildings as a potential hazard, and there are no funds to maintain them. He says he'll help raise funds by painting a picture of the ranch and donating much of the proceeds to the ranch. South Dakota Magazine will also be happy to advertise the project at no cost.

If you agree with Jon that the buildings should be preserved, call the Forest Service at (605) 673-4853 or 673-9200 and ask our public officials to give the Cranes and others time to help them preserve the place. We'll do a larger article on this in our March/April issue, but we thought we should let you know now .... because maybe you can prevent these century-old barns from becoming ashes.

Here's an interesting issue that hasn't received much media attention in East River, South Dakota. Some Lakota leaders are advocating a withdrawal from 33 treaties that date back 150 years.

The Fox News story suggests that the agreements haven't worked very well for the Lakota, who are mostly based from the Pine Ridge in southwest South Dakota but also in four surrounding states. Statistics for the Lakota are alarming: high teen suicide rates, high infant mortality, low life expectancy (only 44 years for males ... so says the story?), etc.

The story did get some attention in West River, and has been discussed on some of the state's political blogs. Nobody seems to know exactly what a retreat from the treaties would mean. But one thing is for certain; the Lakota would stop paying income taxes to the IRS.

Russell Means, the graying AIM leader, is part of the effort. If he and his friends are successful we'll have a "foreign" country within the borders of South Dakota. On second thought, since the Lakota were here before us, maybe it's more accurate to say that we'll be the foreign country surrounding them.

Either way, and regardless of what happens, the "us" and "them" vernacular has always been part of the problem. And us and them are all to blame.

The best names just happen without planning. When we were in the little Roberts County town of Peever last month, we were told that Peever Pie Day just grew on its own. There was no contest, no naming, no advertising. Probably the best names in history happened that way: Babe Ruth, the Muddy Mo, Elvis "The King" Presley, and so on.

Do you think a government committee decided to split South Dakota into East River and West River? No ... it happened in a bar fight in Chamberlain.

Merchants in downtown Watertown have been trying to promote their district as Uptown for a long time; correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard anyone utter Uptown but the downtown store owners.

Still, Sioux Falls city government is leaving nothing to chance. They think the developing section of the city just west of Downtown needs an official name — and it's risky to wait around for a few guys in a bar to name it — so a bunch of names have been proposed: Central Heights, Hillcrest, Old Town, Historic Heights, Pettigrew Heights, etc.

You can go to a city web page and cast your vote for those and a few others.

I'm not opposed to democracy when it comes to naming something, but I'm not sure it works. No matter how much signage the city buys (or how many ads in South Dakota Magazine) people will call it what they want. Like Downtown.

The only name better is Peever Pie Day and that's already taken.

A flood of tributes have accumulated since Floyd Westerman, the well-liked Indian leader and actor, died on Dec. 13. We'd never had the privilege of meeting Floyd and knew him only by reputation ... but still it has been interesting to read the accolades. Some of the best remembrances were written even before he died by Jose Barreiro, and now reprinted in Indian Country Today. Here's just a sample:

One is Floyd showing up unexpectedly in camps along the Longest Walk to Washington in 1978, when it seemed Indians from all over the country converged into a river of humanity to protest anti-Indian legislation. No matter how out-of-the-way the place, suddenly there was Floyd with his guitar to entertain the Indian troops. He would travel and sleep in the back of pickup trucks; he would eat what there was for the camp, no privilege expected.

I have a brother in law enforcement who recently came upon this highway statistic: 98.3 percent of Americans say "Oh SH**" when they skid off an icy road and head for the ditch. The other l.7 percent are South Dakotans, and they say, "Hey, honey, watch this!"

We have a two-page article coming up in our Jan/Feb 2008 issue on Herman Raschke, known as the Gentle Giant from Goodwin. He died several decades ago, but they still tell stories about the 6'-10" fellow who could lift a car out of the mud with his bare hands. He was athletic, and even boxed Jack Dempsey in a Sioux Falls exhibition match.

When in Watertown last week for a book signing, David J. Law and I talked about him on David's "What's Up" radio show on KWAT and later that day several people came by who knew Raschke. One was a cousin who recalled a family story of the day Herman was born. Supposedly his mother, a rugged young pioneer, was plowing a field with horses on that day in 1896. As the story goes, she gave birth out in the field and wrapped Herman in a blanket she'd brought along "just in case." She finished her plowing, and then late in the day she gathered the newborn and took him to the house to clean him up and show him to daddy.

Paul Bunyan couldn't ask for a better beginning.

We drove to Sioux City (Iowa, that is) on Monday night to see Barack Obama. A number of South Dakotans were there, and we couldn't help but commisserate that we don't get many presidential candidates in South Dakota. Not since we ended our early primary back in the 1990s.

As I recall, we did have an early primary for one or two presidential elections. The counties absorbed the cost, but were expecting to be repaid by the legislature and governor. When the state refused to belly-up for the cost, county commissioners raised a ruckus and the next legislature killed the early primary as a favor.

The early primary provided an inexpensive civics lesson for the kids. It energized the political process. Newspapers, radio stations, television stations, printers, restaurants and other businesses made some fat profits on the campaigns.

A thousand people convened in Sioux City last night to see Barack Obama. That in itself wasn't a bad little bit of economic development for the city; we know Chambers of Commerce that go to a lot of work to get a few dozen people to visit their town.

By the time we get around to voting on the presidential candidates in June, Barack and John McCain will be on vacation somewhere .... making plans for the general election. Maybe we could convince them to vacation in the Black Hills?

We were honored to be invited to sell books Saturday afternoon at the stately McGovern Library on the DWU campus in Mitchell. Lots of our readers came by to say hello, and to buy books for gifts. It was fun to see everybody, and it's amazing what you learn in three or four such hours.

These things may not mean much to most people, but I find them entertaining ...

Lake Cochrane: Deuel County's little Lake Cochrane is one of the cleanest, prettiest of waters in the West. The first pioneer there, according to author Carl Edeburn of Brookings, was B.J. Cochrane, who came West when a doctor told him that the weather would be better for his health. Carl suspects that doctors told their sick patients to "go West" as a way of getting sickly people off their patient list. As it turned out, B.J. outlived all his doctors and lived to a ripe old age. B.J.'s son, Maynard, was an innovative farmer who tried to capture the genetics of twin births in his cow herd. Whenever he heard of twin beef calves born in South Dakota, he tried to buy the heifer twin. Carl wasn't sure how successful he was at producing twins.

Sacred Cows: Boyd Blumer, another author at the signing, was a country preacher who taught theology at DWU and also helps out the maintenance staff on campus. How can you help but like a theologian/handyman? Boyd shared this quote with me from Virgil Herriot, a longtime REA leader in South Dakota: "If you're going to keep sacred cows, find the hay to feed them." I'm still pondering the meaning of that.

Jon Lauck, the author of the new book on the Daschle/Thune senate race, was also at the McGovern Library. Jon says to watch for a new book coming soon on the AIM movement in South Dakota, from the perspective of an FBI agent.

Holabird Advocate. Jerry Hinkle, the enterprising editor of the Holabird Advocate web site also came by the library. Jerry is now a student at DWU, but he continues to write the Holabird Advocate ... which you might remember was featured in the magazine last year. Blogging has thus far been dominated by politicos, but Jerry uses the medium to create a zany little community "newspaper" for a town that no longer can support a dead-tree paper. Every community, large and small, should have an "Advocate" like Jerry's.

Keepin' em on the farm. Years ago, an old veterinarian was lamenting the exodus of young people from our farms, and he blamed it on five gallon buckets. "If the dads would throw away those blasted buckets and modernize so it would be a little less tedious, we could keep some of those young boys," he said.

Wayne Edinger came by to get a book and he noted that two of his sons are farming with him. How'd he keep them home? He had the same philosophy as the old vet: "Dont work them so hard. Let them have a little fun. And give them a good piece of the action," he said.

The smartest people at a book signing are often not the writers.