The highlight for me was watching Todd County's distance runners participate in the 1600. The ninth grade girl, in particular, was awesome. She finished fifth in her heat, picking up the pace and passing a number of runners during her final lap.
Up in the stands, it was fun to listen to where the spectators had traveled from to watch the races. The older man in front of me spurred many of the inquiries, asking where I was from soon after I arrived. But that was one of many similar conversations that followed a familiar back-and-forth:
"Where are you from?"
"Small Town, South Dakota."
"Oh... And where is that?"
It was a veritable South Dakota geography lesson.
Runners and their times were posted on the scoreboard. There was only so much room, so the school names were abbreviated. That led to some more geographical banter:
Old man in front of me: ORR. What school is that?
Me: I have no clue.
Woman behind me, eavesdropping: Did he just ask where ORR is?
Me: Yes.
Woman: Oldham-Ramona/Rutland.
Me: Wait, what? (There were too many towns in there. And I still had to pass the information along to my new hard-of-hearing friend in front of me.)
Woman: Oldham-Ramona/Rutland. (She was obviously up on her high horse for possessing information so valuable to humanity.)
Man next to her, also eavesdropping: It's near Madison.
The thing about the rural schools here is, outside of those located on the reservations, the number of students attending is dropping. That makes sense given the overall population of the state's rural areas - a large portion of South Dakota - is aging and decreasing. The solution for many districts is consolidation. And when it comes to sports, you often have nearby schools combine programs, which is the case for "ORR":
Oldham-Ramona School + Rutland School. = Oldham-Ramona/Rutland
The 2008 Census Bureau population estimates for these three towns are:
- Oldham, population 181
- Ramona, population 191
- Rutland (unincorporated), population 236
All told, I was at a track meet when a geography lesson broke out. And now, I pass my newly acquired knowledge on to you, dear reader.
2 comments:
You are one of the few people that would look up their census information as well. (I believe we know the 10 people in Alaska that would do this as well.) Can you believe you used to get paid for writing like this?
I really don't need much of a prod to go digging on the Census Bureau's website to look for that certain statistic to compliment a blog post.
I kind of get paid to use these same data with my current job (grant applications, for example). I use the word "paid" loosely here, of course.
Next, I'll be pimping out my mad data analysis skills in grad school.
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