Armour, SD

Have you ever felt like your job is “unimportant?” Let me be among the first to remind you, it’s not. Horizons has taught us that everyone who lives in Armour is a leader in this community. Let me explain.

If a visitor comes into town and stops at three local businesses and is greeted warmly at each stop, he or she is likely to return. Giving that warm greeting is really a form of “leadership.” Each day, each of us who live in Armour have the opportunity to help lead this community. Maybe that leadership takes a direct form–serving on a volunteer organization, for instance. But leadership can also be indirect.

Just this week we were discussing how a person who answers the phone for a company can provide a positive or negative impression of an ENTIRE ORGANIZATION.  Think about that! The person who is answering the phone may have never thought about it before, but truly he or she holds a leadership position in their organization. They provide the “first-impression,” and we all know how important those are!

Horizons has truly raised awareness about how many people in our community have wonderful, useful leadership skills. When I think the fact that about 80 people ACTIVELY participated in our circle groups–now that is leadership! And think of how many great projects have resulted in our community as a response to that call (the parent teachers group, reorganizing the Armour Community Foundation, etc., etc.!) Wow! We couldn’t have done all that with only one or two people leading the efforts.

During this holiday season, please think about the gift that you can provide the Armour community: the gift of leadership. It is something that we all can–and need–to do for our community in BOTH indirect and direct ways.

Each of us is unique. And each of our unique talents is needed by Armour. Have you ever thought about that? YOU fill a niche in our community that no one else can fill. And if you don’t fill that niche–it remains empty. Always be mindful of the fact that all of us are leaders, whether by choice or by default.

We recently completed our Strategic Plan for Phase II of the Horizons Project. We’ll be celebrating the completion of this document on Saturday, December 1st during the Christmas in Armour event.

If you’d like to read the document, please click here to download the PDF file. And watch the blog for updates about the plan and our goals. This is a very exciting time for Armour. There is lots of information to share, so please check this blog frequently.

Armour-area residents are invited to attend to a “Village” gathering at 7 p.m. Monday, December 3, at the Douglas County Courthouse.

Presenters include the Douglas County States Attorney, Douglas County Child Protection Team and the First Circuit Court Appoint Special Advocate (CASA) program.

Topics for the evening will be: What is child abuse? Inappropriate forms of discipline. Services available for families.

Call the CASA program for more information — 605-996-1212.

The annual Community Club Holiday Celebration will be held Saturday, December 1st.

Events include:

• Vendor Booths in the Armour Development Corporation Building next to the daycare.
• Residential Lighting contest.
• Letters to Santa / Food Drive — children of all ages may leave a letter for Santa along with items for the food pantry. Santa will answer the letters and send each participant an “Armour Buck” that can be spent at an Armour business.
• Music on Main Street by the “Pretty Good Little Band.”
• Drawings for Armour Bucks — Radio station Q107.3 will be in Armour to broadcast live during the celebration. Armour Buck drawings will be held at 3, 4 and 5 p.m. Entries for the drawings may be made with each purchase at an Armour business.
• Bingo — 3 to 5 p.m.
• Santa will be in town after the parade at the Armour Development Corporation building.
• Parade of Lights at 5:30 p.m. on Main Street.
• Lighting of the ree on Main Street at 6 p.m.
• Lorain Theatre movie — “Fred Claus” at 7:30 p.m. Receive a coupon for $1 off your concession purchase when you shop at a local business during the Christmas Promotion.

Check it out! The Horizons group in Whitewood has made national news with an effort to change the name of one of the streets in town.

Here’s a mock-up of plans to install two cabins in Armour’s Lions Park. These are the cabins built by inmates of the prison in Springfield and installed in many state parks and public areas across the state. Our Horizons group is working with the City of Armour and the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks to purchase two cabins that would be placed near the existing bathhouse in Lions Park.

The idea here is to provide additional amenities to the park and also provide low-cost accommodations for visitors and local families who want an inexpensive source of recreation. We’ll be completing fundraising soon to determine whether we can purchase one or two cabins. Volunteer labor will be used to prepare the cabin sites in the park.

This project is a great example of local organizations working together. That’s one of the themes we constantly drew upon during our Study Circles and Leadership Plenty training — working together. We can accomplish a lot more in a small town when we join forces with other groups. Thus the partnership between the Horizons group and the Lions.

If you are interested in making a donation to assist with the purchase of the cabins, please contact Bob Goodnow at 724-2105 or Todd Vogt at 724-2400.

Before we started our Horizons work, I’d be willing to bet most people in Armour didn’t spend that much time thinking about poverty. Sure, we’re a community that is pretty focused on helping others and doing the right thing … but the term “poverty” didn’t come to mind often.

Since working through our Study Circles and LeadershipPlenty (the first two phases of Horizons), I think attitudes have changed. Poverty isn’t as simple as having a low income level, being unemployed or living on a very fixed income. It has many forms. And reducing poverty isn’t a simple task. You can’t just throw money at it and fix it.

During our Study Circles especially, I think our knowledge about poverty changed a lot. We shared ideas and information and learned things like many of our senior citizens live on Social Security checks that are $500, or less, each month. We received demographic data on wages that shows that many of our residents have to work two or three jobs to support their families. And people here rely on a number of programs to improve their quality of life … things like our local food pantry and the CHIPS program, which provides health insurance for children of families whose income levels are too high for Medicaid, but not high enough to pay for private health insurance.

Reducing proverty can take many forms. Making our community a cleaner, safer place helps and we’ve been working on that this year. We’ve also been promoting efforts to shop locally. If our retailers prosper, our community does, too. If local stores have strong sales, they may need to hire more employees, which translates into more income flowing through the community.

One specific example that comes to mind is the Horizons presentation given by Doug Cunningham. Doug is a a former Nebraska State Senator from Wausau and the Consultant-Director for the Hometown Merchants Association. He shared information about big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and the negative effects they have on small towns. After Doug’s talk, I heard several people talk about how they never realized how shopping out of town impacts our local economy. More than one person shared how they’ve now made a conscious effort to avoid those shopping trips to bigger towns like Mitchell and Sioux Falls.

We’ve got people thinking, which is a good start.

What else? Horizons participants please add your comments and share your opinions on ways Armour’s knowledge about poverty has changed. What evidence do you have of this?

The Douglas County Food Pantry needs donations of staple food and non-food items during this holiday season. Items needed include sugar, flour, cereal and paper products such as toilet paper. Local school children recently held a canned food drive, so there is an abundance of canned vegetables in the food pantry at this time.

The Food Pantry also accepts cash donations, which are used to supplement the pantry for items needed when reserves of donated items get low.

Contact Ron Morrow at 724-2681 to make a donation. The Douglas County Food Pantry is located in the Armour Senior Citizens’ Center.

Remember those “FUN” pre and post surveys that the Horizons Staff had you take during Study Circles and LeadershipPLENTY?

Believe it or not - it was for a purpose!  Those pre and post surveys help us to understand how much your community learned about poverty and about leadership by your participation in those specified curriculums.

As a result, we have assembled a community profile with the results of the pre and post surveys for both Study Circles and LeadershipPLENTY.  Check out your community results by clicking on the links found under “Survey Data” on the right hand side of your community blog.

November 7, 2007
The Armour PTT met at the Fire Hall at 7pm. Alyssa Larson, School Psychologist from Mid-Central COOP was our speaker. The topic was on child Depression and Suicide. Some of the highlights from this presentation were: Disorders (mood, anxiety, psychotic, behavioral, eating, obsessive compulsive, and conduct) to name an few. Statistics and treatments were presented for these disorders. Teacher/Student/Counselor/Parent involvement were discussed and ideas given on how to detect and manage these disorders. One very good suggestion was to have parents and teachers work as a team and be positive. Early detection is the best treatment. Various cartoons and television shows influence a lot of how our children learn and what they learn about today’s society. Another influence is video games and information overload. Alyssa also discussed Depression signs and symptoms. This diagnosis is becoming more common in younger children. They can detect some of these symptoms in preschool children all the way through adolescence and adults. Discussion involved what we can do as parents and teachers to get involved and detect these areas of concern in our children. Suicide was also talked about and statistics given including various risk factors, warning signs, prevention, and protective factors. They now have a committee called S.O.S. Signs of Suicide, which was formed to assist in early detection and prevention of suicidal students.

Remember that November 12-16 is Education Appreciation Week. Please remember to THANK our teachers and ancillary staff for all they do to educate our children on a daily basis. We have a wonderful teacher student ratio and the support shown by our teachers for our school is beyond what many parents can expect. Thank you to all our educational staff!!

Armour School will be starting their Breakfast Program soon. Start date is tentatively set for November 19. We are just waiting to get all the menus out to the parents to get a head count of the students that wish to participate in the Breakfast Program. The first day will be Belgian Waffles for all of those students that wish to get a warm meal at the school before your day begins. Parents should be looking for those forms to fill out and get back to dietary just so we can have an average count of how many to cook for. Breakfast will be served from 7:45-8:15 daily. We are hoping the schedule will work out to have town kids there and about done eating by the time the bus kids get in so there is not such a waiting line. Things are subject to change and we are open to suggestions. The menus for breakfast will be sent home and posted on the school website if you lose your copy.
Nicole