Armour, SD

Many of us take it for granted that we can read this blog that I am posting. What if it was just a bunch of shapes that you were looking at and wondering “what does that say?”. Unfortunately in our society there are too many people who are unable to read & write. Many of them go through their life without other people realizing it. Illiteracy is a growing epidemic in our nation. 42 million American adults can’t read at all - another 50 million read at only fourth or fifth grade levels. This number of functionally illiterate adults increases by approx. 2.25 million each year.  That is a scary number but with 20 percent of graduating high school senior being functionally illiterate that number is not surprising.

What does this lead too? Well 70% of all prisoners in state and federal prisons are classified as illiterate. 70% of all people entering state correctional facilities have not completed high school and 14% have no high school education at all. 85% of juvenile offenders are classified as being functionally or marginally illiterate. 43% of people with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty. WOW are those some scary statistics or what! Add to that a recent newspaper article stated that 1 in 100 people in our nation are in prison. So in a town of 800 that would figure out to 8 people in prison and with the 70% of them being illiterate that would equate to 5 of those people from our town being illiterate.

Or how about this tidbit of information. Do you know how they determine in SD how many jail cells will be needed in the future? They look at the 2nd grade reading level in our schools.

Yes reading is very important. It is the building block for a successful school experience. If you can’t read or read well all other subjects are going to suffer.

Parents, grandparents, and others one of the greatest gift and advantage you can give a child is to read to them from birth on. The knowledge they gain from that will serve them a life time. As they grow and learn to read let them read to you. It builds their skills and confidence. The next time you are buying a present for a youngster (of any age) consider purchasing a book as the gift. It opens up a whole world of imagination, information and enjoyment.

We live in a society where our youth are not competing for jobs with someone down the street or highway but with people on another continent half way around the world. We need to instill in our youth the importance of an education and the skills they will obtain to take them through life. An education is never wasted and can never be taken away from you.

We are fortunate in our small town to have a nice library and to have an organization that promotes literacy. The local Women in Action group sponsor several reading programs. One is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. This is where Dolly gives books to youth from birth to 5 years of age. The local WIA group pays for the postage. They also help sponsor the summer reading program at the library. Finally they sponsor the Prairie Readers Competition at the school. This involves not only Armour students but students from Tripp/Delmont, Lake Andes, Corsica, Stickney and Dakota Christian. The students have been working hard since before Thanksgiving reading books and practicing for the competition. This is a team of 4 students in a quiz bowl type of setting pitting their knowledge of books against teams from other schools. This competition is on March 31st at noon at the Armour School.  Come see between 250 - 300 students compete  and show their love of reading.

Those of you who know me well, know that I am not particularly political. I can pretty easily look at a political issue or candidate and see both sides. Perhaps it is from years of editorial writing–who knows? At any rate, there is a lot of controversy right now over a local zoning issue that some people say is going to impact economic development in Douglas County. Of course, there are two perspectives on what the economic development impact will be like.

The Douglas County Commissioners are proposing a change to the setback distance required for animal confinements built in the county. Currently, the setback distance for animal confinements of more than 1,000 head of cattle or 2,500 head of hogs is one-mile. In essence, this means that you can’t build a confinement unit larger than this closer than one mile to the nearest home, church or school without obtaining a special permit. To obtain the permit, the effected neighbors have to sign a waiver. Oh, one thing I should add is this: units smaller than 1,000 cattle or 2,500 hogs aren’t regulated under the current zoning ordinance. It is my understanding they can be built almost anywhere.The proposed change to the zoning ordinance would reduce the setback distance from one mile to one-half mile. That means that a confinement unit of any size could be built as close as one-half mile to a house, church or school without needing a special permit. A special permit would still be needed to build closer than a half mile.

Those in favor of the change say that it is necessary for economic development. They say large animal confinement units are more efficient, they will bring jobs to the area, grow our schools and may save our struggling rural economy. While large animal confinement facilities may provide some short-term economic benefits, based on everything I have studied since we began the Horizons project last year, I cannot find any research that show there are any sustainable benefits to local economic development.

During the past year, I have had several opportunities to hear economic development professionals from both inside and outside South Dakota speak about rural economic development. Almost every speaker said that rural communities that have invested a majority of their financial and human resources into “smokestack chasing” (or trying to attract outside industries, investors or corporations to bring in a larger number of jobs all at once) have failed. Each expert cited different reasons for the failures, such attracting blue-collar vs. white-collar industries, lack of infrastructure in communities, lack of housing, insufficient support services such as public transportation, tax incentives cost other taxpayers more, etc. While there are too many reasons to list them all here, I do want to mention the one they all agreed on: a town or a county can’t expect some outside investor, corporation or industry to “save it.” Sustainable growth must build from within a community. Small businesses owned by someone with a vested interest in the community (where they live and their kids attend school) are always more likely to be successful and are a better investment.

I read an excellent article on this subject by John Ikerd, an Agricultural Economist at the University of Missouri at Columbia. The article is long (10 pages, small type), but it details why some people have concerns about large-scale animal confinements, why some people support them and what rural communities must consider as they make their choice whether to invite them into their area. The article reminds people that sustainable economic development must be built on three cornerstones: ecological soundness, economic viability and social justice. These three cornerstones must ALL be present for long-term sustainability, not just one or two of them. The article also reminds us that we must consider the well being of the community as a whole.

If you live in Douglas County and are going to have an opportunity to vote on this issue, I would encourage you to do your own research before the March 4 election. Like we have learned through the Horizons’ project, we need to work together to plan for future development in our community. Ikerd says, ”Rural people must become activitely involved in shaping the destiny of their communities.” I think he’s right. It’s up to those of us who live here to make choices for our community based on research, reason and concern for the long-term well being of our community. We can’t base out decisions on emotion or because short term solutions are often easier.

If you are interested, here is the link to the article by Ikerd. I’m know there are many others, but I like this one because Ikerd is an academic who can afford to be a “neutral party.” So many of the articles I read are by groups or individuals directly involved in the issue, who of course, have bias toward one side or another. I also like the fact that Ikred’s article is written in layman’s terms: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/16/15444.htm 

I’ll be interested to hear what others think.

Have you checked out the Douglas County Hospital Web site lately? They’ve added a lot of new and exciting features — including information very useful to healthcare consumers. You can see the physicians available for your healthcare needs and also a great picture of Dr. Regg Hagge and Dr. Marlys Luebke with some of the babies who have been born at the hospital in the last couple years.

There is also a cost comparison link to show how much you could save by having your baby locally. DCMH offers great care and givesyou the special attention that you need when you need it. For a small hospital they have a big heart and are willing to give you the care you need. To check out all the hospital has to offer go to dcmhsd.org.

The Armour Parent Teachers Together did not meet in December. We thought we would give everyone a break so they could take care of some things in their busy schedules. The good news is the school received the paperwork on the Breakfast Program and everything is great. The Program will start after the Christmas Break. My understanding is that the first day will be Belgian Waffles so we hope there is a good turnout and sign up for the breakfast. We plan on meeting again in January and we also encourage parents and teachers to notify us if there are any special speakers or topics they want brought to the meeting. We encourage everyone to participate. There is a lot of good information out there and we are always looking for input and participation. Even just coming to the meetings for that hour is greatly appreciated. It is considered an investment in our children. Thank you to everyone and Merry Christmas!!
Nicole Neugebauer
Parent Teachers Together

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.

The Amour Community Development Corporation (ACDC) met Thursday, October 25, and discussed a variety of topics. Earlier this year the ACDC declared housing as its top priority. The group has a 96′x142′ building site that is available for new home construction. The parcel could be divided into two residential lots and a lot would be FREE to anyone willing to construct a traditional stick-built home on the site.

One of the long-term Horizons projects is to create new housing in our community. So, the oppotunity to work with the ACDC couldn’t come at a better time.

Armour has always excelled at coming together when something needs to get done. Our movie theater is a community project that has enjoyed the support of individuals and organizations for eight years now. We know the value of working together.

So, we have some land and we needs some houses … what’s next?

Armour’s movie theater has new equipment to assist customers who are hearing impaired. There are four small devices similar portable FM radios available in the Lorain box office. Each device broadcasts the soundtrack of the movie via an earpiece and has its own volume control. Anyone interested in using one of the devices can ask for one during the movie when they buy their ticket at the box office window. Theater volunteers can assist first-time users with the operation of the equipment. This service is available at no cost to Lorain customers.