By John Andrews

Like many South Dakotans, John Meyer is a Minnesota Twins fan. He's been down in the dumps since the baseball season ended earlier this month and is looking for something to fill the sporting void.

That's where you come in. Meyer wants the masses to help pick his new favorite hockey team. Meyer is the co-founder of 9 Clouds, a social media and marketing firm in Sioux Falls. He dislikes the NBA and has always wanted to follow the National Hockey League, but he doesn't know much about the sport.

Meyer plans to post a video on each of NHL's 30 teams on his Web site, Twitter and Facebook pages and YouTube through Dec 31. Any comment, tweet or Facebook post counts as a vote for that team. The Anaheim Ducks have a comfortable lead with 103 votes compared to 51 for the Colorado Avalanche.

Knowing that our readers split into two camps — those who LOVE lutefisk and those who would walk a mile to avoid the scent — we take on the responsibility of alerting you to upcoming lutefisk feeds.

The next that we know about is Alice's Restaurant's Lutefisk & Ham Feed in Stockholm, to be served at the Stockholm Community Center. Reserved seating only. $15 per plate (under 12, $5.50 and under 6, free). Don't the child abuse statutes address lutefisk feeds? Apparently not.

The menu includes lutefisk, baked ham, potato sausage, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, cranberries, lefse, dinner rolls, pumpkin bars, etc.

Call (605) 676-2307 for reservations.

Longtime Yankton printer Don Modereger recently loaned me a history of the 147th Field Artillery Regiment that was assembled in 1990 by Robert G. Webb. It mostly focuses on the unit's WWII adventures.

One of the early anecdotes is about Capt. Theodore A. Arndt, adjutant of the 2nd Battalian (and later the Adjutant General of South Dakota). It reads like this:

Arndt had an experience that demonstrated how tough South Dakotans could be. One day he was standing behind a heavily loaded kitchen truck, one of the new two and one-half ton models, when it backed up without warning, knocking Arndt down and running over him full length. At this point a bystander informed the driver that he had just run over someone. So the driver drove the truck forward, again passing over Arndt with the full length of the 6x6. The ground was the typical Fort Ord sand, and Arndt was pushed down into it, which undoubtedly saved his life. He was hospitalized for a considerable length of time after the incident but recovered sufficiently to rejoin the regiment prior to its sailing overseas. Arndt may be the only person in military annals to have been run over twice by a two and one-half ton truck and to have survived.

The 147th's troops saw a lot of violent action in four years of service. General MacNider, commander of the 158th RCT, called the 147th the best gunners he ever saw. "No infantry ws better served by any group of gunners in any army. It was a privilege to be associated with that magnificentgroup fo South Dakotans who brought honor to their state and nation and to everyone who fought along side of them."

Even higher praise came from PFC Carl Thrum of Indiana, who told a Chicago Tribune reporter about the precision of good artillery. "Maybe you don't know artillery," he told the writer. "Take a look at the best artillery outfit in the world — that's the 147th. We love those boys. They are so good we let them fire 40 yards ahead of us."

Thrum then yawned and stretched lazily. "I'm getting drowsy," he said. "When the 147th gets going, I can sleep like a baby."

Of course, when the 147th was de-activated after WWII and then re-activated as the South Dakota National Guard in 1947. "Coyote" soldiers are once again overseas, defending the USA in the Middle East.

South Dakota's senior journalist is Phyllis Justice, longtime editor of Milbank's Grant County Review.

In her recent column, Phyllis reported on a the fascinating rescue of a big whitetail buck from the pond at Big Stone Power Plant east of town.

She reports that the call for help came at 8 a.m. to two local conservation officers, Jamie Pekelder and Dean Schultz. Only his head was above the water when officers arrived. They surmised that he had already been in the water all night.

"Getting him out proved to be a real challenge since the pond was lined with plastic," wrote Phyllis. "When wet it was so slipper the buck could not get any footing. The two officers decided that they would need a 40-foot length of wooden snow fencing to make a walk way for the animal. It soon proved to be too short. The buck could not get hi rear legs on it. They then added additional fencing and eventually the buck was able to climb out of the water. Once freed,the buck was so exhausted that it was at least two hours before he moved from the edge of the pond."

Corn is getting some bad PR, according to the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council's November newsletter which just arrived at our publishing office.

"The corn industry is under attack right now in the media from all corners including television shows liek CSI Miami and Martha Stewart, movies King Corn and Food, Inc., various newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Time Magazine, just to name a few," wrote Jesse Johnson, the council's social media director.

Jesse says she received well over 100 emails filled with negativity toward the corn industry in her first week on the job. So she's fighting back, in part, with Twitter and Facebook pages and she wants South Dakotans to join her efforts. You can become a corn fan at facebook.com/southdakotacorn or twitter.com/sdcorn.

They've got a nice page going already, with some links to good articles, photo-sharing, yield reports, etc. So join in but keep it clean, please. No smut.

Yankton author Bob Karolevitz, in his "Writer at Large" humor column for South Dakota weeklies, notes that "If you eat an apple every day for a hundred years you're sure to live a long, long time."

By Bernie Hunhoff

Col. Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame came to Sioux Falls last night to speak at Gene Abdallah's amazing Wild Game Feed, which benefits children's charities.

The crowd of 1,200-plus enjoyed pheasant, antelope, tilapia and prime rib (supposedly from a wild Angus steer) — all seasoned with Ollie's enthusiastic patriotism. It was a fine evening and everyone appreciated the aging war horse's views. A young TV reporter asked him if he'd ever been to South Dakota and he replied, "not for three weeks ..." Turns out that he is a frequent pheasant hunter, and also was mentored by our late great Gov. Joe Foss who went on to lead the AFL and the NRA.

Ollie North's love for America is admirable. The only sour note we heard is that he sometimes seems to find it necessary to diminish other countries in an effort to make America shine brighter. And it seems unnecessary. For example, he claimed that when you call for a policeman in other countries you can expect to be brutalized rather than protected — and if you go to a hospital in a country other than America you can't expect to survive.

We're proud of our health care and law enforcement professionals, but it hardly seems dignified to praise them by maligning others; it would be very provincial to think that we are the only country with good cops and good docs.

North's best point of the night was that American troops are known for the kindnesses. He showed pictures of one of our soldiers carrying a badly wounded Iraqi Republican Guard soldier to safety. Most anyone who gets acquainted with our military men and women in war zones has similar stories.

One of the greatest testimonials came from Kathrina Redlin (who recently died). She was the young widow of a Nazi officer when American, British and French troops stormed into Munich. She was sure the great and evil Americans would kill her and her young son. Instead, they brought groceries and assurances of her safety — and later they encouraged her to find a better life in America. She ended up as the wife of Summit farmer (and Hereford breeder) Alfred Redlin — and often on Memorial Day or Veterans Day she would call into David J. Law's Watertown radio show and praise the kindness of American soldiers.

Ollie was good enough last night that he reminded me of Katharina.

By John Andrews

The Rapid City Journal reports that 23 bison from Wind Cave National Park have been relocated to northern Mexico. It's part of a joint U.S.-Mexican project to reintroduce bison to their native range in northern Mexico.

We can only hope no one is planning another showdown between an ornery Mexican fighting bull and a South Dakota buffalo. We all remember what happened the first time.

Legendary West River cattleman and buffalo rancher Scotty Philip was in Texas when a couple men from Juarez began bragging about the fighting spirit of their native bulls. When Philip replied than any bull from his South Dakota buffalo herd would clean house in a fight, they politely asked him to prove it.

Philip sent his nephew, two ranch hands and two buffalo bulls to Mexico by train. On the appointed day, the older bull (named Pierre) sauntered into Juarez arena and promptly flopped down on the ground, presumably tired from all the travel. The Mexican bull, enraged by darts stuck in his shoulder to boost his fight, entered and the crowd roared. He immediately charged Pierre, who scrambled to his feet in time to meet the blow head on. When the dust settled there was Pierre, looking quizzically at the bull he'd just knocked over. The bull charged Pierre a few more times, but eventually cowered near the wall when his attempt to climb over proved fruitless.

The Mexicans tried a fresh bull but got the same result. By the end of the day they had gone through four bulls, and Pierre just rolled around on his back in the center of the arena as if he was home on the Stanley County prairie.

Pierre probably deserved a victory party back home, but to save travel costs the buffalo were sold in Mexico. We like to think they added some toughness to the bull gene pool, but locals more likely feasted on bison burritos for a time.

Wind Cave buffalo photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism