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!!  :-) 

Another Murdo Area Horizons project is becoming a reality as the Murdo Area Volunteers are in the process of getting their program off the ground.  Michele M. and Cheryl M. have volunteered to coordinate and organize this program.  The idea behind the program is to help people with projects they can’t do on their own.  Once they know what your needs are, they can then match those needs/jobs to the list of volunteers.  Here are some examples of tasks that a person might need help with:

INSIDE EXAMPLES:  Minor house cleaning, changing light bulbs, moving or arranging furniture.

OUTSIDE EXAMPLES:  Cleaning out gutters, changing storm windows, mowing yards, shoveling snow from sidewalk, etc.

 OTHER EXAMPLES:  Rides to places in town, groceries picked up, rides to personal appointments, etc. 

The community is asked to spread the news about the Murdo Area Volunteer Program to everyone in the community.  They will be placing posters around town as a reminder that the volunteers are only a phone call away.  Please call Michele M. at 669-2553 (anytime) or Cheryl M. (evenings) at 669-2674 with your volunteer needs. 

One of the first projects include volunteers to give rides on June 3 to vote in the primary election.  Give them a call if you would like a ride!

If you would like to be one of the volunteers in the program, they will certainly take your help.  Give Michele or Cheryl a call to get your name on the list. 

 We had a VERY successful evening of training for our Murdo Area blog on Tuesday evening.  There were a total of nine people there for the training, and we were able to help each of them register as new users.  Since the training on Tuesday—there has already been one comment and one post done by the new users!   

I would like to thank all of the new users for coming to our blog training open house.  The training would not have been a success without each of you.  I would also like to thank those who helped with the details to make this training session possible.  A big thank you goes to Gary and the Jones County school for allowing us to use the tech room and their internet access.  A HUGE thank you to Kit for setting up the laptops along with making sure we had the correct connection to the school’s internet service.  Also, a big thank you to Jewell for getting the computers to use for the evening along with a thank you to Dan O. for taking them back to Rapid City for us.  Thank you to those who were there to help with the training, which included Kevin, Anita, Kit, Lori and Jim. 

Last but not forgotten is a big THANK YOU to those who baked cookies, Lori who provided water, Dan O. for the Horizon tablets and to the Murdo Area Horizon group for donating the “big” door prize of $20.00 in Murdo Bucks. 

You can help our school kids by saving your trash. Save Box Tops for Education from General Mills cereals, Betty Crocker products, Klenex Tissue, Ziploc bags, and many more products. Also collect Campbell’s soup UPC’s. These are the bar codes that can be scanned. We can no longer send in the front labels. The third thing to save are the UPC’s from Our Family products. These UPC’s all start with the numbers 70253. Please save these UPC’s separate from the Campbell’s UPC’s which start with 51000. The fourth thing to save are the milk lids from Land O Lakes gallons that have the words “savefiveforschools.“  Here is the link to their website:    http://www.savefiveforschools.com/ i f you would like to know about their program.  All these things can be turned into the school, Murdo Family Foods, Senior Citizens Center, or Classic Service.

Please save all these items and help our school.

I am also looking for volunteers to help cut and count all these items to send in. Any one willing to help please call Elaine Roghair at 669-2819. We could have a work day sometime if a group would like to do this. I’ve been working on the Box Tops for Education since 1997. I really think we could collect more if everyone saves.

Thanks for your help.
Elaine Roghair

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.

Hello……….Hello………HELLO!     Now that I have your attention……..What does GOED mean?? 

I started thinking that maybe it was someone trying to “GOAD” me into doing something and maybe didn’t spell the word right?  Then I thought….perhaps this is a cheer for someone named “ED”……..GO….ED, GO…ED!!  :-)  Okay, Okay, Okay I will tell you what GOED really means. 

GOED stands for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development!!  I was fortunate enough to attend the GOED Conference in Pierre on April 8 & 9.  I listened to several speakers on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  They all shared ideas and suggestions that I will be sharing with those in the Murdo Area that are working to see the Murdo Area prosper and grow. 

I attended the Tuesday afternoon session, which was presented by Audrey Taylor , President, Chabin Concepts, of Chino, California.  The session was titled, “SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A COMPANY’S SHORTLIST, HUH?  Audrey explained the why’s and how’s behind a company’s site selection questions and requests for information.  She also explained what information we need to have “out there” (on a website) to even be contacted in the first place by a site selector or expanding company. 

We then heard from the GOED staff on how they put together a RFI (Request for Information) and how they coordinate with the communities to get the best information out to the company requesting the RFI.  They encouraged each of us there to go visit www.sdreadytowork.com and let them know what you think of this website. 

First thing Wednesday morning, Audrey presented the seminar on “MARKETING CHALLENGES AND HOW YOU CAN OVERCOME THEM.” 

As stated in the conference agenda, “Her dynamic personality and breadth of knowledge make Audrey a highly regarded presenter on marketing, websites and strategic planning.  Her frank appraisals of community strengths and weaknesses are well-received because she always focuses on “how can we turn this around.”  One of the key words she mentioned several times for use on websites was MAPS, MAPS, MAPS.  The use of maps of your community website are VERY important to someone who is thinking about moving to your community.  On your community website, you only have about 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention and this is where we would also want the top 3 things that make our site (community) attractive to businesses.  (more…)