B2 January 27, 2020 reporterandfarmer.com Reporter & Farmer, Webster, South Dakota

Pickup pulling fifth wheel camper goes through iceby Amanda Fangerreporter@reporterandfarmer.com

Last week, a heavy-du-ty pickup pulling a fifth-wheel ice house was par-tially sunk when it got stuck in a snow drift on the frozen lake over top of a slush pocket.

Austin Norton with the Game, Fish & Parks said the incident happened sometime during the night of Jan. 16. He said a heavy-duty Chevy pickup, either a three-quarter- or one-ton, was pulling a fifth-wheel Ice Castle fishing camper onto Bitter Lake west of Bitter Lake Lodge south of Waubay when the vehicle became stuck in a snow drift. Over time, the pickup began to sink into the slush pocket that was beneath the snow, Norton said. According to Norton, the slush pocket where the

pickup went in was about 300-400 yards from shore and he wasn’t sure of the exact depth of the lake at that point but said, “It’s not shallow, I know that.”

Three individuals in-side the pickup escaped without injury, according to Norton. He said the an-glers are from Nebraska.

As of Jan. 22, Norton said the pickup was still only partially submerged. The owners were working to unhitch the camper – which had not sunk – so they could save that and then hopefully pull the pickup out.

This is the third motor-ized vehicle to fall through the ice this season, accord-ing to Norton. He said no citations are typically is-sued when a vehicle falls through the ice if the own-er is making attempts to

have it removed as soon as they can. He said the GFP works with individu-als and understands that sometimes it’s not possible to safely remove the vehi-cle until spring.

Norton said anglers are encouraged to drill holes in the ice every 20-30 yards if they are not sure how the ice is. He said, “The ice can change that quickly in that short of a distance.”

Norton also cautioned anglers to be mindful of the weather. He said fish-ermen should also heed the warnings of local emergency personnel.

“This happened right before (the weekend) storm,” Norton noted. “If you get stranded out there – if you have no heat source, if you’re not wear-ing enough clothes to keep you warm... hypothermia

could set in real quick.”During a winter storm

event, Norton said there’s also the danger of becom-ing disoriented and lost on large lakes like Waubay and Bitter. He said while emergency personnel can have a cell phone pinged in order to locate a stranded person, he said that doesn’t work if the cell phone is dead or at the bottom of the lake inside a vehicle that just went through.

“Everyone’s been lucky on these incidents. It could be a 180... I tell people, ‘re-spect the ice.’ Use common sense. If you don’t know, test it,” he said. “There could be 12 inches of phe-nomenal ice, or it could be two feet of bad ice. At the end of the day, no ice is safe ice.”

Reporter & Farmer | Subscriber snapshotA heavy-duty pickup pulling a fifth-wheel ice fishing camper hit a slush pocket and partially sank on Bitter Lake Jan. 16 after becoming stuck in a snow drift. As of last week, the vehicle had not sunk all the way and the out-of-state owners were attempting to detach the camper and pull both out of the frozen lake.

Recent visitors

Butch and Carol Flattum, Glenn and Ju-lie Flattum visited Vera Sunne, Watertown. Vera broke her hip and is recu-perating in swing bed.

Donna Nolte spent some time with Lar-ry and Marylin Beers, Sioux Falls. They attend-ed many programs and sporting events of her great-grandchildren.

Glenn Flattum fur-nished treats for the But-ler coffee group on his birthday.

Coffee party held

Judy Tobin enter-tained guests Jeanne Reints, Cheryl Dwight, Mona Nickelson, Sheila Olson, Langford; Linda Bieber, Dorothy Benson and Barbara Anderson for an afternoon coffee party.

Ilene Stave, Harlan and Karen Olson and son Brent, LeRoy and Mar-lene Nelson, Langford attended the lutefisk sup-per at American Luther-an Church, Webster.

Judy Tobin and her sister Kathy Fosheim, Webster enjoyed lunch and shopping in Aber-deen.

Cheryl Rye and her granddaughter Evaline Johnson, Pierpont and Rita Bloom, Webster vis-ited their mother Lillian Nielsen, Roslyn.

A private family fu-neral will be held for Je-rome “Jerry” Peterson, Sykeston, ND formerly of Pierpont. Spring in-terment will be in Homer Cemetery, Pierpont.

Langford Area boys basketball team lost to Warner 49-46 and defeat-ed Britton-Hecla 41-37. Langford Area girls bas-ketball team had their season’s first loss to Bridgewater-Emery 66-48 in the Hanson Classic in Mitchell. They defeat-ed Britton-Hecla 46-18 at Britton and are now 8-1.

Langford announces their second quarter honor roll

Langford Area School released the second quar-ter honor roll.

4.0 honor rollSeniors – Nicolas Al-

varez, Adyson Dwight, Ashley Gustafson, Brook-lin Kreger, Chesney Ol-son.

Juniors – Colin Frey, Zander Widener.

Sophomores – Olivia Dwight, Benjamin Gus-tafson, Brayden Peter-son.

Eighth – Megan Gus-tafson.

Seventh – Eliana Dar-ling, Jordis Jenner.

SuperiorSeniors – Elizabeth

Olson, Jacob Punt, Tim Wika.

Juniors – Kathryn Aman, Liberty Hermes, Alyssa Keough, Dasan Mathison, Bryce Peter-son, Cooper Smith, Eliza-beth Strand.

Sophomores – Morgan Glines, Rebecca Hanson, Hanna MIller, Jennaka

Nelson.Freshmen – Jesse Ke-

ough, Montana Marlow, Avery West, Laney Wid-ener.

Eighth – Cali Vander Vorst.

Seventh – Daniel Per-son, Jacob Samson.

ExcellentSeniors – Jeremiah

Hurst, Bailey Widener.Juniors – Tayson

Aadland, Olivia Ewalt, Sara Hoops, Emily Palm-er, Hayden Reints, Kla-sandra Sattler, Connor Smith.

Sophomore – Kather-ine Jensen.

Freshmen – Nickolas Aadland, Braven Hanse, Parker Holler, Mallory Miller.

Eighth – Emily Hill, Anne Jensen, Emily Jen-sen, Tawnee Nelson, Bry-anna Peterson.

Seventh – Danielle Hoops, Elizabeth Sander-son, Ryder Smith.

Butler(605) 492-3556

by Lorraine Anderson

PierPont(605) 325-3307

by Ilene Stave

Changes sought in football classifications, soccer seasonby Dana HessSD Newspaper Association

PIERRE — The state’s high school athletic di-rectors will discuss a pos-sible change in football classifications and the soccer season when they meet in late March.

The South Dakota High School Activities Association board of di-rectors found out about the proposed changes Wednesday as they re-viewed a report from the football advisory com-mittee.

At its last meeting, the football advisory com-mittee voted unanimous-ly to propose changing to five football classifica-tions, down from seven. According to the com-mittee report, there have been multiple schools asking for some sort of change in the classifica-tion structure.

The proposal calls for: Class 11AA—to in-

clude the nine largest schools by male-only av-erage daily membership and Sioux Falls O’Gor-man. O’Gorman was in-cluded because it always goes up a division to compete with the largest schools. Teams in this class would play a nine game schedule and have an eight team postseason.

Class 11A—to in-clude the next 16 largest schools by male-only ADM. Teams in this class would play a nine game schedule and have an eight team postseason.

Class 11B—to in-clude all remaining schools with a 56.001 male-only ADM and greater. Teams in this division would play an eight game schedule and have a 16 team postsea-son.

Class 9A—to in-clude the top half of all nine-man teams by male-only ADM. Teams in this division would play an eight game sched-ule and have a 16 team postseason.

Class 9B—to in-clude the bottom half of all nine-man teams by male-only ADM which would play an eight game schedule and have a 16 team postseason.

Currently there are seven divisions, four for 11-man football and three for nine-man football.

The change must be approved by the athletic directors and then by the SDHSAA board. It would take effect in 2021.

Athletic directors will also consider a proposal from the soccer advisory committee that calls for changing the sport from a fall activity to a spring activity.

SDHSAA Assistant Executive Director John Krogstrand said with football and volleyball in the fall, some schools have a tough time field-ing soccer teams.

“A spring season, po-tentially allows those athletes to participate,” Krogstrand said.

SDHSAA seeking bids for broadcast rightsby Dana HessSD Newspaper Association

PIERRE — For the first time in 15 years, the South Dakota High School Activities Association is seeking bids on the broad-cast rights for its cham-pionship games. Those rights are currently held by South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

At its meeting Wednes-day, the SDHSAA board of directors approved a request for proposals that

outlines what broadcast-ers will have to provide in order to get the winning bid.

According to the RFP, broadcasters must of-fer live telecasts of state events that include foot-ball, girls and boys basket-ball, volleyball, wrestling, chorus and orchestra and track and field. The broad-caster must specify if oth-er events will be broadcast live, on the internet or tape delayed.

SDHSAA Executive Di-rector Dan Swartos said that the language in the RFP had to be updated to reflect changes in the me-dia world. The contract would allow the high bid-der to resell a broadcast on the internet to outlets that wanted to show an event.

Swartos noted that newspapers and radio sta-tions have changed in the past 15 years, with some of them offering the live stream of events on their

websites. “Media has changed,”

Swartos said. “Radio sta-tions and newspapers do webcasts.”

Swartos said the bid documents will be sent out this week. The bids are due back at the SDHSAA office on April 9. They will be opened on April 14 and the bid letting will take place at the SDHSAA an-nual meeting on April 21.

Board refuses to consider Sunday activitiesby Dana HessSD Newspaper Association

PIERRE — Events sanctioned by the South Dakota High School Ac-tivities Association aren’t held on Sundays. And that isn’t about to change if the SDHSAA board of direc-tors has its way.

At the board’s meeting on Wednesday, SDHSAA staff presented an amend-ment to the association’s constitution that would allow fine arts events on Sundays. SDHSAA Exec-utive Director Dan Swar-tos explained that some national debate events are held on a Thursday through Monday schedule. If South Dakota students attend those events, he

said, they can’t compete on Sundays because of a rule in the association’s consti-tution.

Board member Brian Maher of Sioux Falls said each school district has a calendar that is jammed with activities. He often gets asked if an activity can be held on Sunday since no other day of the week is available.

Maher said he tells them, “There’s a reason that day’s unavailable.” Maher also noted that there are debate events that don’t include Sunday participation.

“I wonder why we would endorse having our students gone on Sunday,” Maher said.

Board member Craig Cassens of Faulkton was also skeptical of the amendment.

“It’s going to be setting that precedent for future requests,” Cassens said.

By passing the first reading of the amendment, the board wouldn’t be en-dorsing the idea, Swartos said, but rather passing it along to the membership.

If the board doesn’t

approve the first reading, Swartos said, 30 member schools would need to sub-mit a petition asking for the amendment 30 days prior to the association’s annual meeting in April.

That’s what will have to happen as none of the board members would make a motion to pass the first reading of the amend-ment.

Knights tame Mustangs in 72-51 winby John Suhrsuhrs@reporterandfarmer.com

The Waubay-Summit boys met up on the hard court for a battle with Ab-erdeen Christian Jan. 20 and saw the Knights take the 72-51 win. The Mus-tangs trailed 9-16 after the first quarter and 26-37 go-ing into the locker room. The Knights rode to a 56-35 third quarter stop.

Damon Opdahl paced

his club with nine points, Colby Rumpza eight Seth Gaikowski knocked down seven points.

The Mustangs were 18 of 52 from two point range and sank just four of 24 threes. The Stangs managed to connect on 11 of 17 charity tosses in the game.

The Knights made 29 two pointers on 68 at-tempts while dropping in

nine of 26 threes and only five of 12 at the stripe.

Waubay-Summit man-aged 33 rebounds to AC’s 38 boards. The Mustangs came away with five steals to the Knights one. It was the locals who struggled controlling the ball as they had 11 turnovers to three.

Leading the rebound game for the Mustangs were Joey Johnston

pulling in eight boards while Rumpza and Matt Amdahl had five rebounds apiece.

Florence-HenryThe Mustangs lost

45-47 to Florence-Henry on Jan. 23, but no results were provided by press time.

Next contestsThe Mustang boys host

Wilmot in Waubay Jan. 28 and Warner Jan. 31.

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