wow

Signs of the Pamida to Shopko Hometown transition

For a few months, the story of the management company holding both Pamida and Shopko merging the two into varietes of Shopko and Shopko Hometown has kind of been hanging.

Scotsmen in the community have been waiting for the closeouts and huge discounts.  Not sure if the discounts will be all that great ..zero, ten, twenty percent, or even apply to every department the Winner Pamida store, but the signs are up starting the change of inventory.

Click on image for a slightly larger version.

This "liquidation" may take a few months, but if you are looking for bargains or more junk to clutter your houses, your opportunities are coming starting Sunday May 20, 2012.

---- Doug Wiken

*** Looking out the Winner back Window...Scad Voss Obituary

Those who now and then check this blog for news on Winner may be old enough to remember the good high school bands Winner had around 1960.  The bandmaster from those day recently died.  You can read the obituary of Orville "Scad" Voss at the link to my Notebook blog below.

Orville "Scad" Voss, 1925-2012 Obituary

A memorial service of some kind may be here in Winner, SD when Voss's ashes will be buried in the family plot at Winner Cemetery.  I think that will be around May 26, 2012.

 

Mathis Implement Free Lunch and Bullnanza

Winner South Dakota offered Bullnanza at the Tripp County 4-H grounds today, Friday Feb 10, 2012.  Compared to a few days ago, today was a bit on the chilly and windy side.  More than a few area farmers and ranchers dropped into Mathis Implement for some good steak sandwiches.  It was a free lunch.  A rarity around this area and it attracted a good crowd.

 

This is the crowd after another hour of eaters made it through the line.  By the time I got there with a camera, the crowd had shrunk.  There are fast talkers and fast eaters. The steak hotpan was starting to run on empty.  Down to the last of the 200 to 300 steaks and hoagie buns.   Some guys ate a couple of them, so the steak numbers are only an estimate of the number of eager eaters. The air was filled with smoke . Probably from broiling the steak, cooking the beans, and heating the tater tots.

 

  Click on images for larger versions. 

  Like many of these dinners, it gave friends and neighbors a chance to talk and socialize a bit.

 It also gave the Mathis family a chance to talk to some of their customers.  James Mathis and a customer were in a deep discussion when I was fishing the ladle out of the beans and heading for the cake and softdrinks.

This year Mathis Implement has been selling farm equipment here for about 53 years in Winner.  They started off in Yankton, SD for a few years and then got out west.

Equipment has changed a lot in that time.  Just as has farming and ranching.  Single bulls at Bullnanza probably sold for more than a quarter of land 53 years ago.   Combines were a lot smaller then too.  My father bought an Allis Chalmers with a big wide five foot wide header and a 22 bushel grain tank.  Farm ground was available in Clay County South Dakota for around eighty dollars an acre then.  

That was then, this is now.  Below is one of the tractors and loaders and some other equipment on the Mathis lotl

The Mathis business building has been expanded over the years.  It now has a larger shop area which today served as a lunchroom and two separate truck areas and buildings.  Below is the front of the business.  From the image, it looks like the business phone numbers  are 605-842-3110 and 800-658-3494.

 And a bit of a disclaimer:  James Mathis and Mathis Bros. have been renting some of our farmland for several years, so even if you enjoyed the food and conversation today, I won't be too offended if you don't take all of this too seriously.

 

*** Probably best corn in Tripp County History

Country Pride Coop is building a new facility on the  east side of Winner, SD. on part of the economic development area.  But, it looks like the local Tripp County corn crop got a headstart on them.  The photo below was taken from a hill nearly 2 miles away.  I don't know how many bushels for sure by the time you read this, but, on Nov 11, 3011 comments suggest something like 1.2 Million bushels of corn om the piles.

I have lived in this area for about 40 years.  I don't think I have ever seen corn crops like this before in Tripp County

Click on image for a larger view.

--- Doug Wiken

Check the first of the WOW "pages"

In the right column is a new feature, the WOW Pages.  The first is a convenient phone list of semi-categorized businesses of Winner, SD in a useful single page format.  Download the version for Open Office Writer or for Adobe Acrobat Reader.  Both should print out to the correct size to slip into the plastic sleeves distributed with ad covers for the Winner regional phone directory.  Hope you find it useful and also that I can find some more ideas for other fixed useful pages.

---- Doug Wiken