february 21, 2013 yankton daily ress forkfl y...

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Snow, Breezy At Times9 a.m.: 17 | 3 p.m.: 20 | DETAILS: PAGE 2

YA N K T O N D A I LY

VOLUME 138NUMBER 253

Thursday n February 21, 2013

The Dakotas’ Oldest Newspaper | 14 PAGES | www.yankton.net

PRESS&DAKOTAN

REGION 2 | OBITUARIES 3 | VIEWS 4 | LIFE 5 | SPORTS 8 | WORLD 10 | CLASSIFIEDS 11 | MIDWEST 14

TOMORROW: Yankton Set To Host State Hockey Tournament Print

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Yankton Elks Lodge Yankton’s 2012 Citizens of the Year Dr. Brooks & Vi Ranney Co-Sponsored by:

P RESS & D AKOTAN Y ANKTON D AILY

BY NATHAN JOHNSONnathan.johnson@yankton.net

Even though the Yankton County Commis-sion has been conducting business as usual,taxpayers have not been updated on its activ-ity through the publication of official meetingminutes for a couple months.

Commissioners took steps to correct thatduring their Wednesday meeting.

The problems began before Yankton CountyAuditor Paula Jones took a leave of absencefrom her position for medical reasons earlierthis month.

As the auditor, she was tasked with takingmeeting minutes and getting them published inthe county’s official newspapers, which in-clude the Press & Dakotan.

According to state statute, “It shall be theduty of the county auditor to make a full andcomplete report of the proceedings of eachregular and special meeting of the board, andto transmit the same to the publishers of theofficial newspapers. Such report shall be madeout and transmitted within one week from thetime such meeting is held.”

Usually, the minutes of a regular meetingare approved by the commission for publica-tion at the following meeting.

However, Jones was not getting the minutesdone.

Since she took a leave from the office,Yankton County Register of Deeds Brian Hun-

BY DEREK BARTOSderek.bartos@yankton.net

With hay cupboards nearly bare across the coun-try, area producers are searching for solutions todeal with the shortage.

According to the annual crop production reportsreleased by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S.production of all dry hay in 2012 was estimated at120 million tons, down 9 percent from 2011 and thelowest production level since 1964. South Dakotaproduced 4 million tons last year, a decrease of 53percent compared to the previous year.

As of Dec. 1, 2012, all hay stored on U.S. farms to-taled 76.5 million tons, down 16 percent from theyear before and the lowest level since 1957. SouthDakota’s hay stocks sat at 4.3 million, a decrease of49 percent compared to the same time in 2011.

Larry Wagner, SDSU Extension agronomy cropsfield specialist, said it’s difficult to quantify the haysupply in southeastern South Dakota, but the area is

certainly seeing a shortage like the rest of the state.“It basically started last summer when the pas-

tures started giving out and some people had tostart feeding early in the fall,” he said. “It’s almostlike adding a month or two to a winter feedingprogram.”

Wagner said that the combination of the earlyfeeding and a poor growing season last year causedby the drought depleted hay supplies in the area. Healso speculated that the hay shortage in Texas twoyears ago could have contributed to the loweramount.

“The drought hit there a year or so before us,” hesaid. “There was a pretty good price for hay, andpeople might have sold some of what they had onhand and shorted the carryover of surplus hay.”

As hay supplies have gone down, prices haveincreased.

“It’s going to be costly bringing it in from otherparts of the country,” Wagner said. “You look at themarkets, and it’s as much as $300 per ton for good

alfalfa hay. It wasn’t long ago you could get that for$150 or $175. Now, it’s quite expensive.”

Wagner said many area beef cattle producershave been able to manage the shortage this winterby utilizing other crops left over from last summer.

“There was a lot of corn that wasn’t doing well,and that all got harvested for silage and chopped forforages,” he said. “So there’s quite a bit of that outthere, and they’re living off that.”

Many cattle owners also sold off part of theirherds last year in anticipation of the low feedsupplies.

“They’re pretty sharp on what they need tohave,” Wagner said. “They knew what they had andthat hay was short across the country, so they knewit wouldn’t be profitable to keep too many cattlearound. They cut back to where they knew theycould manage with what they had.”

BY ANDREW ATWALandrew.atwal@yankton.net

The Yankton Children’s TheatreCompany (YCTC) has been rehearingin the old Elks building, in the 400block of Walnut, for several years,knowing that the facility could be soldat any time.

That time has come.“The Old Elks building has been our

home base for several years, so havingto move at this point is certainly a chal-lenge,” said Jill Paulson, president ofYCTC. “However, we plan to do every-thing we can to work towards the con-tinued progress of the organization,despite this bump in the road.”

The YCTC has been informed thatthe building will be sold after May 1,

but they must be out by that date.Paulson added that since the build-

ing has been for sale before, it was al-ways a possibility that they would haveto move out at some point.

“On a few occasions, we havereached out, or attempted to reach out,to property owners in the communitythat we felt might have empty or un-derutilized buildings that could fit ourneeds,” Paulson said. “Unfortunately,we have not been able to find, or con-nect with, the right opportunity at theright time. Through connections on ourcurrent board, we do have a few possi-bilities to explore, but we certainly donot have anything definitive in theworks at this time.”

From P&D and AP Reports

ST. LOUIS — Snow plows and salt spreaderstook to highways in the nation’s heartlandWednesday, preparing for a deadly winterstorm that promised to dump up to a foot ofsnow in some areas and bring freezing rain andsleet to others.

The storm appeared to spare the Yanktonarea. The winter storm watches that were is-sued Tuesday were downgraded to winterweather advisories for the entire area from mid-day Thursday through early Friday. Snowfall for

the area was predicted to be in the range of 3-6inches. Winds were expected to be about 10-20miles per hour.

Winter storm warnings were issued fromColorado through Illinois. By midday Wednes-day, heavy snow was already falling in Coloradoand western Kansas. In Oklahoma, roads werecovered with a slushy mix of snow and ice thatofficials blamed for a crash that killed an 18-year-old man.

National Weather Service meteorologistJayson Gosselin said parts of Colorado, Kansasand northern Missouri could get 10 to 12 inches

of snow. Dodge City, Kan., was bracing for up to16 inches of snow. Further south, freezing rainand sleet were already making drivingtreacherous.

Cody Alexander, 18, of Alex, Okla., died whenthe pickup truck he was driving skidded out ofcontrol in slush on State Highway 19, crossedinto oncoming traffic and was hit by a truck, theOklahoma Highway Patrol said. The otherdriver was not seriously injured.

Officials feared the winter storm would bethe worst in the Midwest since the GroundhogDay blizzard in 2011. A two-day storm that

YANKTON RECYCLING THIS WEEK:

NORTHOF 15TH STREET

Powerful Storm Moves Across PlainsYankton Area Spared From Full Brunt Of Snowstorm

MIKE HUTMACHER/WICHITA EAGLE

Wichita Police work an accident on west Kellogg during the snow-packed morning commute in Wichita, Kansas, Wednesday.STORM | PAGE 13

P&D ARCHIVE PHOTO

It wasn’t so long ago that the local supply of hay was bountiful, as this 2010 photo taken in Yankton County illustrates. However, the current drought is straining haysupplies across the county. U.S. hay production declined 9 percent in 2012, while production in South Dakota decreased 53 percent.

Hay Shortage Forces Producers To Search For Solutions

HAY | PAGE 13

YCTC Seeks New Home

YCTC | PAGE 13

KELLY HERTZ/P&D

This 1969 Yankton High School class ringwas found below the Gavins Point DamMonday. The initials indicate it could belongto Gloria Jean Watt.

A Lost Piece Of Yankton HighSchool History Found In RiverBY NATHAN JOHNSONnathan.johnson@yankton.net

If Gloria Jean Watt is out there, shemay have a ring waiting for her.

She is the best guess for who theowner is of a Yankton High Schoolclass of 1969 ring that was found Mon-day morning near Gavins Point Dam.

Al Hotzel, a diver from Wisconsinwho works for a company cleaning de-bris off the dam’s apron, said thesmall object was moments away fromgoing to a landfill.

“Once our pump is going, it’s

screaming and sucking in a lot of ma-terial,” he stated. “It was almost gone.This was a one-in-a-million shot.”

Hotzel said he had stopped thepump to clear away some large rocksthat threatened to lock up the device.

As he moved the rocks, he noticedsomething glistening. Investigatingfurther, Hotzel discovered it was aring.

“We had to clean it up a little bitbecause there was so much calciumbuild-up on it,” he said. “We saw the

RING | PAGE 7

MMC Women’s SeasonEnds With Loss ToNorthwestern n 8

COUNTY | PAGE 7

CountyCatches UpOn OfficialRecord