By John Andrews

In our current issue's calendar of events we wrote about Primal Quest, the world's most challenging endurance race which is coming to the Badlands in August. Teams of four will run, bike, swim, paddle, climb and spelunk through 600 miles in 10 days.

So far 38 teams have signed up, and they are coming from around the world: the United States, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Spain. As the host state South Dakota gets a team in the race too, but today we learned that one team member is withdrawing for personal reasons.

If you're interested in filling the vacancy, I'm sure the team would love to hear from you. But there are a few things you should know, first: No host team has ever finished a Primal Quest race (though we wouldn't be surprised if the South Dakotans became the first). In fact, many teams don't finish in 10 days, if at all. And the Badlands earned their name for a reason. It's going to be really hot and probably really dry out there in the middle of August.

Still, if it sounds like your cup of tea, go for it. The South Dakota team has a Web site and a blog, where you can learn about the race, the team members and see videos of their training. And good luck to Team South Dakota. We'll be cheering you on from our air conditioned headquarters.

By Bernie Hunhoff

Most of the 45,000 magazines we print are mailed directly to subscribers, and a few thousand are shipped to magazine distributors who parcel them out to gas stations, grocery stores, cheap-marts and other such establishments

But in the early days of the magazine (24-plus years ago), we had just a few dozen paying readers and the big magazine distributors wouldn't even answer our phone calls, so we created our own route across South Dakota. We set up racks in coffee shops, airports, small town grocery stores, bakeries and anywhere else where intelligent South Dakotans gathered.

We quickly learned that a spot on the counter near the cash register of a good restaurant is golden. But it was tough to compete with the Certs salesman, the local Little League coach's donation jar and the weekly newspaper. Still, thousands and thousands of our readers discovered the magazine at places like that.

Sadly, many of the ma and pa shops and stores have closed, replaced by chain stores that don't employ anyone with enough authority to even visit with a local magazine publisher about a news rack. So our 1980s model for starting a magazine would be tougher today.

However -- perhaps largely from habit and nostalgia -- we still have a small route of places that have sold the magazine for years. I like to do the route myself whenever I can because it gives you time to think (I'm slow at it) and also because you can learn a lot about South Dakota from a day on the road.

What i learned from delivering the July/August issue this week is that there seems to be an underlying strength to South Dakota's economy, and it continues to separate us from much of the country. We found store owners who are tending to business as if they'd never heard of a housing crisis, $4 gas, Madoff and other craziness.

Not that sales are good everywhere -- some shopkeepers said business is somewhat slow -- but there's no panic. They seem to a) think it will be better soon, b) be confident they can adjust their operations to cope with a downturn, and c) be too busy making omelets, planning their 2009 Christmas orders and figuring out the Fourth of July work schedule to really worry about what's happening on Wall Street.

The summer mood in South Dakota is good. That suggests that the economy can't be much worse.

Our newest staff member at the magazine is Steven Hunhoff. At the tender age of 16 months, he's already a well-traveled South Dakotan. He is our cheapest traveler — instead of bar tabs and expensive steakhouse receipts, the only cost is Cheerios. And he gets at least 100 miles to the diaper.

To help justify the Cheerios budget, we now launch a new contest: "Guess Where Steven Is In South Dakota?"

Be the first to guess (just click comments below) and we'll send you an autographed copy of our best-seller South Dakota Photographed, a full-color exploration of life in Steven's favorite state.

So take a guess.

There's big news in the little town of Stockholm in Grant County. According to Phyllis Justice, the able editor of the Grant County Review, Alex Thompson has come home from the city to restore the old hotel and cafe building.

In her column "Ain't It Awful," Phyllis writes that Thompson's son, Chris, has also joined the operation. "I love to cook and I love it here," says Chris, who just came for a visit and decided to become a partner. They are running a cafe and B&B.

by Bernie Hunhoff

I came upon this grain bin with a massive hole in the frontside while driving some backroads in Roberts County, southwest of Sisseton.

There must be a story here. I hope it wasn't a sad story. It appears that somebody decided they needed to get inside this grain bin in a big hurry. Hopefully no one was trapped inside. Maybe some over-heated corn just started smoking.

Any other ideas on what might have caused this?

By John Andrews

There's a story in the Brookings Register about an effort to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the locally-legendary "Whip to White" by inviting all South Dakota State University students who took part to ride on a float at this year's Pioneer Days parade, which is doubling as White's 125th birthday party.

I heard plenty of stories about the Whip to White when I was a student at SDSU. Probably the best account is in Amy Dunkle and V.J. Smith's The College on the Hill, an anecdotal history of SDSU.

It happened May 17, 1969. Students Dennis Ludwig and Jeff Chicoine led about 1,000 of their schoolmates to White, 15 miles northeast of Brookings, to "drink the town dry." Many thought it was modeled after the Zip to Zap in North Dakota, organized by North Dakota State students and held a week earlier, but Ludwig says planning was under way long before North Dakota's Zip.

North Dakota's version turned riotous, and to prevent that from happening here Gov. Frank Farrar put the National Guard on alert. But by most accounts the party never got out of hand. Students arrived Saturday afternoon, congregated on Main Street, rocked with a local band that was recruited at the last minute and left. "Happiness wasn't a dry martini, but usually a six-pack of beer commonly attached and carried on their belts," reported SDSU's student newspaper the next week.

Many remember it as a fun time, but there are some who still resent what the students did. About a month ago a gentleman who lives in southern Deuel County called and talked to me about the Whip to White. At the time he was a farmer and part of a group of citizens who volunteered to help local law enforcement should it be needed in White. He said they were told to "grab a baseball bat or whatever you had" and be ready if the call came for help. He wasn't needed, but he doesn't agree with the people who say the event was harmless.

Interestingly I found another story online about a copycat Whip to White at Broadland, north of Huron. A couple hundred people flocked to Herb's Place and planned to "drink Herb dry." But owner Herb Hickle was apparently one step ahead. He filled a stock tank with ice and cans of beer.

Humorist Jim Woster is as funny as ever. He was master of ceremonies at a farm gala in Yankton last night, and told a "story" of when he first graduated from SDSU and sought a job.

We can't write it nearly as well as he said it, but you'll like the story — which we'll say from the start is either greatly embellished or totally false. Take your pick.

Woster said he figured he could get a job quite easily with his diploma from the big ag school, especially since — after a heart-to-heart from his dad — he'd raised his grades considerably into the Cs and Ds territory.

But surprisingly he wasn't having much luck until he heard of an opening for an assistant county agent in Winner. He called and was told to drive down for an interview. When he got there he was even more confident because the only other applicant was a USD grad. Certainly they'd hire an SDSU "ag school" grad over a USD liberal arts grad.

Both young men interviewed and the county agent told them they were very equal in every way. So the agent called to SDSU and asked what he should do next. An SDSU administrator gave the agent a 10-question written test to administer to the two applicants. So they sat alongside each other and quickly wrote their answers to the 10 questions.

The agent studied their answers and quickly settled on the USD grad over Woster. "How could you hire him!" Woster says he said. "I graduated from the ag school! Why would you hire him over me!"

"Well," said the agent, "You were equal in the oral interviews. And on the written test, you had the very same answers on the first nine questions. But on the tenth question, he wrote, "I don't know the answer." And you wrote, "I don't either."

By Bernie Hunhoff

Nobody likes fish and birds better than the crew at South Dakota Magazine, but sometimes it just seems silly how l) man messes with Mother Nature, 2) unintended consequences develop (that often affect the birds and fishes), and 3) man messes with Mother Nature even more to try to fix things.

A classic example is occurring on the Missouri River southeast of Yankton, where the U.S. Corps of Engineers is trying to replicate pre-dam conditions to provide habitat for several endangered species, especially the pallid sturgeon.

The multi-state islands (or sandbars) project may eventually cost $70 million, and the islands seem to last for only a very short time. Biologists say that's how the river acted before the dams, when the sturgeon were thriving. The Corps is acting because of a mandate from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting endangered species.

We're totally in favor of the pallid sturgeon, but we wonder what unintended consequences are now being created by the bulldozers?

Click on Dave Tunge's aerial photo to see a muddy ring of silt building up around the disappearing and expensive island near Meckling.