Saying good-bye to a friend

It’s always difficult to face the void of a friend who is no longer there.

Bob Oehrtman died last week (7/1/09) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was 69 years old. Bob was a big man with a zest for life and a passion for learning. A loving husband, proud father, dedicated scoutmaster, outstanding teacher, and a good friend. But as with all who spend time on this earth, he was so much more than words can express.

Now he is gone, but memories of him will linger with the many of us whose lives he touched.

A native of Greenville, Ohio, Bob graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Ohio State University in 1961 and pursued an M.S. in agricultural economics at Oregon State University in 1964. But he left Oregon with more than just a degree – he had married Anne Bigelow in Coos Bay on December 19, 1965. After earning a Ph.D. in economics at Iowa State University in 1970, he joined the faculty at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater where he taught for 33 years, winning a bevy of outstanding teaching awards over the years.

It was in Stillwater in the mid-1970s that Karen and I first came to know Bob and Anne Oehrtman. Bob was on the faculty in Ag Econ, and I was managing KOSU-FM and teaching in Journalism & Broadcasting. Karen and Anne became acquainted while bowling and at meetings of the OSU Lahoma Newcomers organization. Since my memory often follows my stomach, I seem to recall that we were also members of a dinner group that explored new menus monthly in different homes.

Eventually, mutual interests in photography, sewing, computers, bluegrass music, and – of course – kids, strengthened our bonds of friendship. Even after our departure from Stillwater in 1985, we continued to share Thanksgiving dinners, meet at distant locations, and often traveled together. We shared a wonderful trip to Europe in 2000.

I recall Bob was something of a skeptic about scouting when I first knew him. But that skepticism was cast aside as he developed a keen interest in Boy Scouting. He became a most passionate advocate of scouting and served as Scoutmaster of Troop 814 for nearly three decades, earning him an Outstanding Stillwater Citizen of the Year award for 2008-2009. His contributions and accomplishments in scouting alone were remarkable achievements. But it was just one aspect of Bob Oehrtman’s life.

While there’s no way to encapsulate the story of one man’s life in a short space, his obituary in the Stillwater News-Press does a good job of sampling the many dimensions of Bob Oehrtman.

In this short Oehrtman gallery, we’ve selected a few candid photos that capture a bit of the Bob Oehrtman that we knew and loved. It’s a story that could be told even better by the thousands of students, scouts, and friends who were touched by “Mr. O.”

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At Bob's service on Tuesday (7/7/09) his nieces Pat Clark and Melanie Hogan -- along with family friend Andy Lowery -- shared a compilation of Life Lessons embraced by Bob Oehrtman. They did a splendid job capturing the spirit of this remarkable man. It provided a few chuckles, many smiles, and even a few tears.

Tough times for Gannett

Gannett Company is reportedly poised to cut more than 1,000 jobs (7/1/09) as it tries to overcome the financial woes of the current recession.

It’s not yet known how these massive cuts will impact the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, the only Gannett newspaper in South Dakota.

A decade ago, Gannett – the largest newspaper company in the United States – employed some 41,000 workers. Including the imminent round of reductions, Gannett employees will number closer to 28,000.

A half century ago, journalist Paul Miller – an Oklahoman – headed the Gannett organization and helped it become the largest newspaper chain in America. Although I never met Paul Miller (no relation), I had the privilege of serving as KOSU General Manager/Assistant Professor for a few years in the Paul Miller School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Oklahoma State University. That was in the 1970s.

It was Oklahoma A & M University back in 1931 when Miller earned his degree in Stillwater. Born in Missouri, he spent much of his youth in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Then, while attending A & M, he took a year off to work for the Okema Daily Leader. That's a young Paul Miller reviewing some copy in the photo at left.

Oklahoma State University has put together a nice collection of Paul Miller photographs/quotations. Despite his enormous success as a manager and leader in the newspaper and broadcasting business, he apparently considered himself first and foremost as a “reporter.” Reading through numerous quotes attributed to Paul Miller is inspiring. Had journalism not strayed from some of the principles embraced by Miller, I doubt that the industry would be in quite the pickle it is today.

Not that Miller – or his successor, South Dakotan Al Neuharth – could have staved off all the troubles facing the media in 2009. But I believe much of the media lost public trust long before the economic meltdown began late last year.

Miller and Neuharth are long gone from decision making at Gannett. Let’s hope that the principles advocated by Paul Miller will find followers in a new generation of journalists, motivating them to believe in and practice objectivity, fairness, and truth.

"SUBSTANCE ahead of Form;

BALANCE ahead of Speed;

COMPLETENESS ahead of Color;

ACCURACY ahead of everything. . ."

-- Paul Miller, September 18, 1965

Privacy in the Internet age

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish; she has graciously shared with us her thoughts about privacy.

Some of us got to talking about privacy the other day, wondering how much of it we have today compared to a half century or more ago, and whether privacy is as valued today as it used to be. When you hear about kids sending nude photos of themselves to their friends on cell phones, you have to wonder whether they have any concept at all of discretion, let alone privacy. And it does seem that some people are willing to put all kinds of videos of themselves on an Internet site called You Tube.

A cautionary tale of one unintended consequence of all this was reported on Yahoo News recently. An American visitor to Prague in the Czeck Republic passed a store window and was surprised to see a huge photo of a family he knew in Missouri. What was their photo doing there? He took a photo of the photo and sent it to the people back home. It turns out that this was the Christmas photo the family sent out last year and they also put it on their blog and on a few “social networking sites.”

Once something gets on the Internet, I guess, you never know where it will end up or what use someone will make of it. The storeowner in Prague said he thought it was just a computer generated image when he took it off of the Internet and had no idea it was an image of a real family. Meanwhile the Missouri folks said next time they post a photo online, they’ll do something to make it hard to reproduce the image.

Obviously, technology has moved faster than our ability to adapt to it. Our former habits of mind just don’t always take into account all of the possibilities that exist these days. Even those of us who do think about protecting our privacy may not realize how quickly we agree to give it up.

For instance, when I shop at a supermarket and use that “club member” discount card, a computer is keeping track of what I buy and how often I come to the store. The store owners probably use such information for their own marketing purposes. The receipt prints out my name so the cashier can use it in wishing me a nice day, so if I happen to lose the receipt in the parking lot, somebody finding it will know what food and beverages I buy, what ailments I may be trying to cure with over the counter medicines, and how many more sandwiches I have to buy to get a free one.

The concern about identity theft and invasion of privacy can lead some enterprising people to capitalize on this worry. Last week I got some mail from a catalog I’ve ordered things from occasionally. The mail was a check for $7.75. A refund? Did I overpay for an order? I was curious so I looked at it carefully. I saw the statement, “By cashing or depositing this check you are purchasing a membership in ‘PrivacyGuard’. Read important details on reverse.” On the reverse was a notice that by endorsing the check I would be signing up for this service, whatever it is, and that my credit card would be charged $159.99 for the first year’s service unless I called to cancel it. I decided to guard my privacy by tearing up the check.

When it comes to balancing privacy and technology, I guess it all comes down to using common sense and being aware of the age we live in, an age when an image or statement you think was uttered in privacy can circle the globe in moments. I don’t want to be paranoid about it, but I want to be sensible. Personally, I like privacy. Sometimes I keep my thoughts private. And sometimes I don’t. Like today.


Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be reached at collins1@rushmore.com.

Oahe TV: Pierre depends on it

While attending the 2009 South Dakota State Historical Society History Conference in Pierre last month, I noticed a young man videotaping the various speakers and struck up a conversation with him.

Patrick Callahan is a “one-man show” for Oahe TV, operated by the City of Pierre. It was a serendipitous meeting, since just the evening before – while sequestered in a room at the Kings Inn – I watched a Pierre City Commission meeting on Oahe TV, an “access” channel provided by the cable television franchisee.

What impressed me about the broadcast was its professionalism. This was not a one-camera, high school production (with apologies to high schools and C-SPAN, which can and do produce some outstanding material with a single camera). The City of Pierre contracts with Callahan to run Oahe TV and can be rightfully proud of this service, which provides a close-up view of city government and school board activity in the Pierre and Fort Pierre communities.

Think of it as a local C-SPAN-type service.

Callahan says the city uses part of the cable franchise fee paid by Midcontinent Communications to run Oahe TV. It’s about an $83,000 line item in the city budget, but Oahe TV also contracts out to folks like the State Historical Society convention and other events to help off-set costs.

That’s a small price to pay for the resources delivered by Oahe TV. Not only are their informational programs available on cable television, they’re archived and available on the worldwide web. Take a look at their website at www.oahetv.com. It includes a comprehensive local weather site, too.

From time-to-time, I’ve happened across a “Government Channel” on Knology Cable in Spearfish. I’ve never seen anything but Rapid City meetings televised, and many of those have been poorly produced – bad audio or video, or both. Pierre does it well, and Mayor Laurie Gill says "the community has come to depend on it."

Spearfish Ward 2 councilman Paul Young tells me there's been some discussion about such a service in Spearfish over the years, but nothing has ever come of it. It seems to me it would be a valuable tool in helping make city government more transparent and accessible.

The City of Spearfish is already pretty progressive. It has developed a great City Park, and numerous neighborhood parks provide most neighborhoods with a delightful place to picnic and let the kids play. We’re particularly fond of the five-mile bike/walking path that abuts Spearfish Creek. Perhaps the greatest testament to the wisdom of city fathers in building the path: it is used extensively.

Making city government more accessible and transparent through a service modeled after Oahe TV in Pierre would be another valuable asset for Spearfish. Like the bicycle path, it, too, would be used extensively, and we’d be a better community for it.

Lorraine Collins Remembers D-Day

Realizing that President Obama is joining other world leaders to observe the 65th anniversary of the landing of Allied forces in France on D Day on June 6th, I remembered that I had written something about that historic event 15 years ago. That was on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of D Day when I was a commentator for South Dakota Public Radio. Although a decade and a half has passed since I wrote this, nothing has happened since then to change my view. The essay mentions Rwanda, but if I were to write it today, I might mention Darfur, or Gaza, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq….

The view from D-Day beaches - SDPR , June 27, 1994:

It must be a decade ago by now that I stood on the western shore of France on a high bluff overlooking the sea and contemplated the famous beaches of the D-Day invasion of World War II. Since we’ve just observed the 50th anniversary of that tremendous and historic day, I’ve been remembering my visit and the mixture of awe and admiration I felt as I stood there.

Nearby is the great American Cemetery and visiting that brought a terrible sense of loss. The liberation of Europe was made possible only by great sacrifices by ordinary people. War always comes down to this—thousands of graves with names carved in stone. And there the bodies lie, all these years later.

There are a lot of other battlefields and military cemeteries in Europe, from several wars and I happened to visit a few of them during the time I lived in England. I followed the paths of World War I trenches in Belgium, strolled around the site of the Battle of the Bulge, stood on the hill overlooking the Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon fought Wellington and 20,000 men died in one afternoon.

I spent a night in a big, creepy old hotel in the town of Verdun, a city that seemed to be one vast mausoleum, with a huge war memorial at one end of the Main Street, topped by a glowering, helmeted figure leaning on a sword. Near Verdun, which was the site of the most brutal and continuous shelling of World War I, there is a cemetery containing the remains of 130,000 unidentifiable, unknown soldiers, both German and French.

Visiting battlefields and military cemeteries is a very sobering experience, and it should be. We should never forget what war means, never glamorize it, never romanticize it, never enter into it blindly and carelessly. Visiting military cemeteries helps us remember that.

But what I’m afraid of is that war has now evolved in such brutal new ways that such formal, well-tended, sanctified burial sites have in a sense become obsolete. Even by the end of World War II, the lives of millions of people were ended without honor and bravery on the battlefield but in concentration camps or in the firestorms of bombed cities. The dead were buried not in neat and orderly rows in hallowed ground but under heaps of rubble or in mass graves.

And now, we hear that 500,000 people have been killed in the mindless warfare in Rwanda, just in the last few weeks. It’s not possible to dig 500,000 graves.

If war was ever a sane and manageable activity, it doesn’t seem to be so now. Wars used to be fought in fields, in trenches, in fox holes, on the sea, in the air. Now wars are fought in schools and hospitals and market places and refugee camps. Now there is no distinction between being a soldier and a civilian, between men and women, adults and children. All are slaughtered without conscience or hesitation.

In an era in which whole populations are involved in war, and military cemeteries are becoming obsolete, dare we hope that one day war will be obsolete, too?

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com.

Newspapers and history

Lorraine Collins is a writer from Spearfish and has allowed us to share her thoughts about newspapers and history.

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A 100-year-old news item in the Pioneer caught my eye the other day and made me laugh. The story from 1909 in “a Peek at the Past” said that “Emil Johnson of Welcome returned a few days ago from a visit at his old home in Kansas and much to the surprise of his many old-time friends, he brought back a bride who will smooth the pathway of this energetic miner and prospector.”

The reason I laughed is that it reminded me of showing up in Canada with my new husband fifty years after Emil brought his bride home. My husband was also an “energetic miner and prospector” and had been working in Canada during the summer for several years, arriving in Alberta and British Columbia every spring to look for bentonite and barite. But one year he showed up with me. Everybody was astonished and the first time he introduced me as his wife, jaws dropped and eyes grew wide with surprise.
One fellow told me, “We assumed he had parents somewhere but he never mentioned them, or anybody or anything else. He sure kept quiet about everything.”

Well, miners and prospectors tend to do that, I guess. So it’s kind of ironic that a fellow who by temperament and training tended to say as little as possible married a person whose entire professional life was devoted to discovering facts and spreading the news as fast as possible. Since he had always operated on a “need to know” basis, and I always felt I needed to know, sometimes our conversations sounded more like a cross-examination in a court of law rather than ordinary supper table chit chat.

My delight in reading about Emil and his bride a hundred years after he brought her to the Black Hills made me think of the importance of newspapers as an accessible historical record. We’ve heard a lot lately about how many famous and important newspapers are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and how many have already vanished. Much has been said about how the public needs to know what’s going on in their communities and their states and that this information will become less available if newspapers disappear.

That’s certainly true, but what about history? That also will be lost. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years in libraries looking at microfilms of old newspapers, trying to track down information that’s really been available only in newspapers. Because newspapers record many mundane and ordinary things of life, such as Emil bringing home a bride, and also important events such as murders and scandals and political campaigns, we have an indelible historic record that I don’t think can be replicated by any other means.

When I was writing an article about the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the Black Hills in the 1920s, the microfilm archive at the E.Y. Berry library at BHSU was invaluable. But one thing I’ve always enjoyed about looking at old newspapers is examining the ads and seeing not only what people were being urged to buy, but also what those products cost. There’s no better way to get the sense of a bygone society than to look at the newspaper of that place and that time.

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Reading the hundred-year old story of Emil and his bride, I was interested that the writer optimistically predicted this nameless woman would “smooth the pathway” of her new husband. I wonder if Emil thought that’s what she was going to do, and whether she did. Unless we delve into ancient newspaper archives looking for the rest of the story, I guess we’ll never know.

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Lorraine Collins can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com

Separating the wheat from the chaff

Our e-mail Inbox was filled with a variety of missives today – and one of them was like an old friend that we really didn’t want to hear from anymore.

Labeled with the subject: “Removing pastors from television,” the e-mail was forwarded by a friend and contained a cover letter and petition that warned “an organization has been granted a federal hearing on the subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) inWashington, D.C. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of American. They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand.”

The trouble is: it’s not true. Some 30 years ago, there was a petition 2493 heard by the FCC, but its purpose was not to remove pastors from the airwaves. Rather, it sought to “disqualify all religiously-affiliated organizations and institutions from eligibility to operate on reserved channels.” Basically, it sought to protect educational broadcasters (public radio stations) from an onslaught of religious broadcasters who were proliferating the educational FM band (88-92 Mhz). In the 1970s, public radio was still not fully developed in many places – including South Dakota.

It necessitated lots of technical and legal expenses in efforts to find other available frequencies. That’s why you’ll find two South Dakota Public Radio stations in western South Dakota at 97.1 (Faith) and 102.5 (Martin) on commercial station frequencies, rather than down in the “reserved” educational band between 88-92 Mhz with most other public radio stations.

In any event, the petition was denied by the FCC. Read more about it at Snopes.com.

Nonetheless, largely due to the seemingly endless capacity of the internet to perpetuate myths, this topic seems to continue. Many kind and well-intended folks get caught up in this scam, driven by people who see bogeymen behind too many trees and feel far too comfortable serving as embattled "victims." Their time and energy is often mis-spent. And that’s too bad, when there are so many worthwhile and important local issues that deserve their attention.

The news is all about the news

We've been on the road for the past fews weeks, so postings to the Black Hills Monitor have been scarce. Below, we're pleased to share with you a "guest editorial," penned a few weeks ago by Bill Kunerth, publisher of the Idaho State Journal and used here with his permission.

Last week’s announcement that the Rocky Mountain News was closing its doors put the newspaper business front and center in the media spotlight. In somewhat of a turnaround, the news was all about the news.

But while it’s a shame to see one of our brethren newspapers fall, especially one with such a storied past, it’s not the death knell of newspapers that some may think or predict. While large metropolitan newspapers are the most vulnerable due to large debt from recent acquisitions or challenges from competing in two newspaper cities, the community papers such as ours continue to be strong and steady.

At the Idaho State Journal, for example, our core circulation has actually increased the last five years.

We’re proud of this accomplishment and feel that a key to our success and circulation growth is our primary focus on local news. Look through our newspaper, and you’ll see that close to 70 percent of our news is locally generated. These stories run the gamut from bond elections to Boy Scout awards; our award-winning photographers capture everyday life in southeast Idaho; and our Opinion page provides an engaging and lively forum for our community.

Our niche is local news and we feel that no one covers southeast Idaho better than we do. And, we do it 365 days of the year.

What has changed, however is that we are continually devoting increased time and resources to producing a viable and engaging website. In a strategic decision made several years ago, we divided our website into two offerings. Instead of giving away the entire product, we decided to offer a free site and a paid site. The paid site offers readers the opportunity to subscribe to our online edition, which is an exact replication of the newspaper. The free site, www.idahostatejournal.com, offers expanded news coverage through breaking news, photo galleries, community calendar, videos, blogs and reader comments. We also carry complete online state, national and international news and videos provided by the Associated Press.

Because readers know they can turn to our website for credible and continually updated information, we have become one of the most popular websites in eastern Idaho. And with the combination of print and online, we are actually reaching more people through both mediums than we ever did through just print.

So, yes our business is changing and due to the present economy some newspapers are going to fail, just like other types of media or businesses will, too.

But the newspapers that have positioned themselves as the source of local information and have viable print and online products will not only survive this recession, but will actually thrive.

That is why you, our reader, can have tremendous confidence that your hometown newspaper, the Idaho State Journal, will always be an important and integral part of your daily life.

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Bill Kunerth is publisher of the Idaho State Journal.

How I learned a new word

Lorraine Collins is a writer from Spearfish
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Except for working crossword puzzles, I don’t come across exotic and arcane words much any more and I can usually figure out what a word new to me means. A teacher once scolded me for looking up words in the dictionary all the time, and said I should figure them out by finding their roots and thinking of similar words. This often works, but a couple of weeks ago I had to look up a word in the dictionary.

This was a word I encountered in House Bill 1138 in the current legislative session. The Bill passed both houses of the Legislature and was sent to the governor for his signature. It was “An Act to provide for the defeasance of the Commission on the Status of Women.” Defeasance? Anybody ever heard of defeasance?

I’ve heard of malfeasance, this being what happens when elected or appointed officials embezzle or misspend public funds, but I’d never heard of defeasance. I couldn’t quite figure out what it meant, so I looked it up. What it means is eliminating or terminating an entity.

So this House Bill 1138 was eliminating the South Dakota Commission on the Status of Women as being a governmental entity. That’s understandable. The CSW has not been funded for 28 years. It effectively ceased to exist when Governor Janklow appointed three extremely conservative women to the commission who had campaigned to eliminate the very body they’d been appointed to. No funds were appropriated. The Commission on the Status of Women has been defunct for about a generation.

Still, as one who once headed the Commission, I’m sorry to see that it has been erased from the state of South Dakota. The Commission on the Status of Women was created in 1973 as a statutory body with obligations to report to the Legislature. The 12-member Commission could not have more than seven members of any party. Since Governor Kneip was a Democrat, the Commission had seven Democrats of course. I became one of five Republican members. Due to circumstances too complicated to explain here, the governor eventually appointed me Chairperson of the Commission despite my political affiliation.

When an editorial in a newspaper subsequently objected to the new gender-neutral language and complained about the term “chairperson”, it said that I couldn’t possibly be such a thing. I said yes I could and I had a certificate signed by the governor to prove it.

An article by Dr. Ruth Alexander published twenty years ago in South Dakota History magazine gives us an idea of what the Commission was up to in the 1970’s.

She wrote, “We became a clearing house for problems affecting women’s lives that demanded action---day care for children, sex role stereotyping in the public schools, job discrimination, difficulties in getting credit, teenage mothers, rape, battered women, displaced homemakers, inheritance laws, nontraditional students.”

We held meetings at various locations around the state, published a newsletter and created educational materials of various kinds. I used to fly from Rapid City to Pierre to testify before legislative committees about problems women faced. There was a lot of work to do in those days and I received calls from women all across the state asking for help because they didn’t know where else to turn. Remembering that heady time, I was sad to learn of the defeasance of the Commission on the Status of Women but I suppose it’s best not to pretend such an entity exists in South Dakota when it doesn’t.

Most of the problems we dealt with thirty years ago remain, and some have gotten worse. So I was pleased to learn that President Obama has instituted a White House Council on Women and Girls. If we can’t look to Pierre to take women’s concerns seriously, at least we can look to Washington.

Lorraine Collins can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com

A change of direction

Since we've been something of a rabble rouser when it comes to open government in South Dakota, we should give credit where credit is due. This is not in any priority order -- in fact, it basically starts with the late comers first.

God bless Governor Mike Rounds for seeing the light and accepting a philosophical change of direction for the state. His signing of a new open records law yesterday (3/19/09) was something of a turnaround for the governor, who has claimed previous versions were not strong enough in protecting individual rights. The new law, which takes effect July 1, importantly contains a presumption that government documents should be open to the public, unless there are good reasons for keeping them under wraps.

The new law is far from perfect, but it's lightyears ahead of what exists right now -- basically allowing bureaucrats at any government level to make decisions about what should and should not be open to the public. In other words, it generally presumed that only documents required to be kept by government would be made available -- if officials wanted to make them available.

I don't know what motivated Republican State Senator Dave Knudson to get behind and push for a new open records law. Perhaps he saw it as a good resume-builder for would-be gubernatorial candidates. Maybe he simply believed South Dakota was due for more open government. Whatever the incentive, he did his homework and navigated his SB-147 handily through the legislature. Thanks, Dave.

Democratic Senator Nancy Turbak Berry should certainly be acknowledged for giving high visibility to open government last year, when she introduced a similar open records law -- but without a lot of the politically-worded baggage necessary to get it through the legislature. Her early spadework, along with that of several others legislators, was critically important.

And, of course, a multitude of candidates last election thought it was important enough to publicly speak out and advocate a stronger open records law. Near the head of that list of folks was Nyla Griffith of Deadwood, a Democrat whose campaign last year for a seat in the State Senate fell short.

Certainly, South Dakota newspapers played a role in pushing through the new law, and they deserve recognition. However, this was NOT just a media deal. It was a citizen movement, and it was growing significantly. I suspect that had as much to do with final approval of the new law as anything. Politicians seem to sense such groundswells --- at least the good ones do.