Murdo, SD

Pictures of the “Paint SD” house that we did in Murdo.  The first/last picture is of the house before we started the project.  The middle pictures are of various volunteers working on the house.  The last picture is the house upon completion of the project! (Click on the captions for description of picture)

The Murdo Chamber of Commerce spearheaded the “Paint South Dakota” project by helping community members fill out applications.   The home of Claude and Betty Baker was chosen from the applicants and the paint was ordered.  We did have a bit of struggle finding the time and volunteers to begin scraping, taping windows and putting on a coat of primer and paint but we were able to complete the project before the final “extended” date of August 15th and finished the house the first weekend of August!!  Thank you to ALL the volunteers for your hard work on completing this project.  A special “Thank You” goes out to Lori W. for everything she did to help make this project a success!    

After many hours of volunteer work and diligence, we graduated from the Horizon II project.  We celebrated by having a potluck meal at our city park along with delicious cake for dessert.  After the meal, Dr. Gary Lemme, Dean of the SDSU’s College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, offered his congratulations to our community for completing the 20-month Horizon project.  Next, several of our community Horizon members spoke and gave updates on the projects/goals that have been started here in the Murdo Area. 

We saved the best for last and had Dan O. and Kari F. share their perspectives of our accomplishments throughout the project.  Several awards were earned for the community through our work in Horizons II.  A digital camera was earned in the first stages of the Horizon II project for work that was initially done on our blog.  Throughout the past 20 months we fulfilled the requirements for the blog and earned the laptop computer and printer.  All of these items are being kept at the city office and can be checked out to use by anyone in the community.  Two metal signs stating that Murdo is a Horizon Community were given to the community.  These signs will be placed at the east and west edges of town for people to see as they first come into Murdo.  The final award was the HUGE check for $8,500, which is the rest of the funds offered by the Northwest Area Foundation for participating in the Horizons II Project.  The Murdo Area has gained so much from this partnership with Horizons, SDSU, and the Northwest Area Foundation. Many citizens have gained a wealth of knowledge through leadership plenty trainings and other trainings that have been held over the past 20 months!  GOOD JOB FOLKS!!

Here are some pictures of our 2008 Community Garden!  So far we have gotten lots of leaf lettuce and some radishes from our Community Garden that we have shared with several of the Murdo Area residents.  There has also been a poster up on our community board, located at the post office, letting people know that they are welcome to come to the Community Garden and cut some lettuce and/or pull a few radishes.  Not sure if you can see them, but there are “blossoms” (or whatever they are called) on the peas and there are also a few beans on the bean plants.  As you might be able to see, I took these pictures of the garden on Sunday evening while the corn, radishes, peas and lettuce were being watered, and I was getting eaten alive by all those pesky mosquitoes!!  :-) 

I would just like to thank Michele for all of the hard work she has been putting into this Blog. It is greatly appreciated. I hope we can get more bloggers after the Training next week.

Thanks again Michele.

I was not aware of this site until I saw it posted on the SD Horizon home page blog, so I put a link to the directory here on the Murdo blog to share with you all. 

It is a searchable database of grants available in our area, and nationwide. The database is managed by the South Dakota State Library. If looking at finding grants, you can search by specific grants, fields of interest, keywords or specific grantor. Click on the underlined words to follow the link to the website. 

Once at the site, I clicked on the “List/Search by Name” and on that page I clicked on “All Foundations/Grantmakers to start searching alphabetically for grants. 

Horizons project to host marketing seminars in three towns

BROOKINGS, S.D. ­ The SDSU Horizons project will host marketing seminars in Armour, Philip, and Conde.

Each event begins at 5:30 p.m. with supper. The seminars will be held from 6 to 9:15 p.m. The dates and locations include March 25, Blue Moon Lounge, 708 Second St., Armour; March 26, 73 Lounge, 207 E. Oak St., Philip; March 27, Conde Community Center, 125 Broadway St., S.E., Conde.

The events are free and open to the public and will focus on “Marketing Your Area” topics. Call Kari Fruechte at (605) 688-4946 to register for the supper, or e-mail her at Fruechte.Kari@ces.sdstate.edu.

Milan Wall, co-director of the Heartland Center for Leadership Development, will be the featured speaker at each event. Wall is a nationally recognized management and communications expert. He will help participants develop strategies for marketing their areas to future residents and businesses.

The Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul funds the Horizons project. It is a 20-month grant project aimed at reducing poverty and building leadership in rural communities. The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service has organized and facilitated the project.

 Here are the questions for February. 

Please choose one or two questions in EACH category to address on your blog: 

Category 3: Taking action on poverty

What kinds of concrete steps are being taken by your community to address poverty?

How did your community make choices about the actions most likely to have an impact on poverty?

How are low income involved?

How does your plan for poverty reduction link with existing leaders, groups and organizations?

What other partnership will help your community carry out its poverty reduction plan?

Category 7: Taking action on leadership

 How has your community leadership expanded? 

 What changes have been made in who is now involved in leadership positions? 

 Are more people participating in leadership?

 Are different kinds of people (representing more sectors or parts of the community)    now participating in community leadership?

Does the community leadership reflect the community’s demographic profile?

Are more low income people participating in community leadership?

What changes have been made in the way your community recruits and trains new leaders?  Sustains existing leaders?       

CHECK OUT THE PICTURES THAT WERE ADDED TO THE JONES COUNTY TURNER YOUTH FOUNDATION POST!! (pictures above and further in the post)  Thanks!! 

Following is the Jones County Turner Youth Foundation update that I prepared and presented to the Murdo Lions Club on Jan. 21st. The big Highlight is our current Movie Theater Renovation Project. I am very interested in any suggestions on how to obtain more funding to complete our project. (more…)

Wonder what he is looking for??  Is he worried and afraid of not being able to find what he is looking for, or is he worried and afraid he WILL find what he is looking for??  HHhmmmmmm

If he follows these arrows, I think he will find what he is looking for. 

Bygosh, bygolley, I think he sees what he is looking for!!  Right there under the pages heading. 

THERE IT IS…..THE MURDO AREA STRATEGIC PLAN!! 

WOOHOO!!!! He found it!!  I sure hope he lets us know what he thinks about our strategic plans and goals!!  Please let us know what YOU think!!! 

**Please double click on the pictures above to see a larger picture.  

Here are a few pictures that Jim M. took with our community digital camera that we earned through the Horizon program.  Ray E. also took some of these pictures with his own digital camera.  There were 57 people on the sign-up sheet, which is a good turn out since the weather that night was cold and VERY windy.  We did have several people place their names on the sign-up sheets for the goals that we presented.  Our next step is to get those people together to begin our action plans to meet the goals we have currently set.