Although there has been no surge in COVID-19 cases in Custer County — or any cases for that matter — that has not stopped a group of first responders and other city and county officials and stakeholders to begin to plan for the worst while hoping for the best.
April 16, 1993, was three days before the airplane crash on April 19, which was a tragic date in South Dakota history.
The South Dakota governor and a group of civic and business leaders were in Cincinnati, Ohio, the days before a unbelievable tragedy struck the state of South Dakota on April 19, 1993. The governor, George Mickelson, along with the pilots and a group of civic and business leaders, were killed in a plane crash in Iowa.
1:20 a.m.: A deputy checked on a suspicious vehicle in a downtown Custer parking lot. The vehicle turned out to contain a sleeping traveler.
5:19 a.m. A deputy helped a rancher contain a herd of cows that had infected…er, wandered onto the roadway east of Hermosa.
6:26 a.m.: A blazing and apparently abandoned vehicle on Sidney Park Road led to an accident investigation and an arrest of the driver, a 45-year-old Custer female, for DUI and several other charges, including an active warrant.
10 years ago, 2010 — The historic Kleemann House in Custer was spared the fate of the wrecking ball. Clifford and Christine Mumm purchased the building and planned to renovate it ... The Custer County Chronicle set a record by winning 27 awards at the S.D. Newspaper Convention ... Custer’s Purple Pie Place had new owners in Bob and Kathie Yehle of San Clemente, Calif.
When this year’s Custer High School senior class gathers in 2045 for its 25th class reunion, there’s little doubt what the main topic of conversation will be. Possibly no other graduating class in the history of the school has had its senior year end two months early with no senior prom, no state basketball tournament, no spring track season and no May graduation exercises — at least not in the traditional sense.
Pastor Matt Furse had been considering doing a video recording of preaching for a while. However, two things stopped him: he never really had a sense of urgency to do it and he knew very little about video recording.
Fast-forward to the middle of April and the pastor at Mountainview Baptist Church of Custer has gone a bit viral, thanks to a camcorder, “cheap tripod,” his sons and a message he believes people truly need and want to hear in this time of uncertainty.
3:44 a.m.: A deputy checked on a suspicious vehicle on Gordon Street in Custer. It turned out to be full of miners waiting for a carpool buddy to show up.
2:46 p.m.: 911 calls came in from an unknown source on Hwy. 16A in Custer State Park. A deputy checked the area but found no emergencies in progress there.
3:47 p.m.: Other 911 calls came from an unknown number on Hwy. 36 near Hermosa. Again, no emergencies were found there.
3:50 p.m.: The false 911 fun continued in the Hermosa area.
Italy has been in the news these past few weeks because of it becoming a so-called hot spot for the dreaded COVID-19 virus.
Virus activity seems to be slowing down there now after 128,948 cases and 15,887 deaths from the virus being recorded in that country of 60 million people since the start of the worldwide pandemic.
Compare those figures to the USA where 337,737 cases and a little over 10,000 virus deaths have been recorded as of last Monday in a country of 331 million.
