WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - State Facts: South Dakota

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Nate is joined by Mara Seeley to talk all about South Dakota.

You're listening to State Facts on Radio for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Nate Gallagher, and I'm joined by Hillsdale's resident South Dakota, Mara Sili. How you doing today, Mara? You know what, Gallagher? I'm doing real good. I'm really excited to be here and talk about South Dakota. Where are you from in South Dakota? I'm from a tiny little town called Chester. It's great.

It's like 45 minutes from the Minnesota border, so it's like a short four-hour drive over to Minneapolis, so it's real accessible. What is the capital of South Dakota? Pier. So everyone says Pierre here, which is wrong because they're not smart. It's spelled Pierre like the French name for Rock, but it's it's it's it's pier. It's it's peer like a boat. Pier like a boat pier. Yeah, just ignore the second RE.

It's also in the middle of nowhere. It's three hours from where I live. When was South Dakota admitted to the union? 1889 Yes we were actually So South Dakota and North Dakota Were admitted to be states on the same day So I think official records say that South Dakota's 40th

And North Dakota's 39th But that's stupid because we're better than North Dakota So we should be We should have been admitted first The next question is actually what number South Dakota is 40 39 No really? You beat them

And when you said that I was like like, oh, she's going to love this. Oh, that makes me feel so much better about myself. Yeah. What is the population of South Dakota? Less than a million. What, like 800,000? 900. I think I'll give it to you. Yeah, thank you. How about the nickname of the state? So it's the Mount Rushmore state because, you know, most people, that's all they know South Dakota from. But I know. But we also have Crazy Horse, the new memorial, but that's not done yet. But we used to be known by a couple different things. So we used to be like the coyote state.

The sunshine state, actually, believe it or not, and the blizzard state, which honestly, we still probably should be the blizzard state. Because like one time, I think I was in like third grade in Rapid City. We got a blizzard in October and we got like seven feet of snow. I could jump off the second story deck like straight into the snow. We had two weeks off of school. It was amazing. How about the state bird? It's, oh my gosh, I know this.

It's not a quail even though you think it's a pheasant. the ringneck pheasant, which actually was native to Asia and then was introduced to South Dakota in like the early 1900s. But now, it's like a primarily not just South Dakota, but it's like a huge part of South Dakota's economy because people will come to South Dakota just to hunt pheasant. Like my great, my great-grandfather would like rent out his land. People would pay him tons of money to just go shoot pheasants on his land. It was insane. estate jewelry. Oh my gosh. Black Hills gold. A Frenchman found it, but it's mined and made only in the Black Hills, like in the mines there, which you can go to the Black Hills and they have like

gold mines you can tour through and visit. It's amazing. We used to go there all the time for field trips and you could sift through gold. So I have a little tube in my room with a little kernel of gold that I found. Like fourth grade, it's incredible. And they're so pretty. They're like special because their whole insignia is like they use three different colors. It's like pink, green, and yellow. Gorgeous. Gorgeous jewelry. When you said it's made there, like the jewelry or the gold?

Both. So there's like there's one singular jewelry shop in South Dakota that's like it's called Black Hills Gold. It's in a tiny, I think it's in lead. Lead. I don't remember how to say it. But I think it's in lead. But it's a beautiful, it's tiny, but it's the only place you can find it. I think they make it all there.

How about the state sport? Rodeo, obviously. South Dakota doesn't have anything else going for it. Football, none. None. Hockey, none. Soccer, none. Rodeo, though.

We got that. There's a rodeo all over. All the time, there's rodeos. I used to go to one every year. My mom grew up doing barrel racing. On horse. Yeah, my, yes. So my mom grew up on a farm where, like, they had pigs.

but they also had horses. And so my mom had a horse. I forget his name, but she loved him. And so she used to ride him in barrel racing in rodeos, maybe just for fun. But I think she did rodeos. But we would go every year to the rodeo. Well, I think that's all the time we have today.

No. Thanks for coming on the show, Mara. Anytime, Gallagher. I've been Nate Gallagher with State Facts on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. See you next time.