Rapid
City Seminar
THURSDAY APRIL 10, 2003
Session five was another phenomenal learning experience that was held in Rapid City April 10-12. The main topics focused on rural and urban economic development, national issues forum, Native American relations, and communication between genders.
The opening session began at the Windmill Restaurant with a meal as we eagerly awaited Dan Gee’s announcement of the overseas session. Dan announced that the destination of the overseas trip will be Europe. As a group, we are so excited about this opportunity to experience how our European neighbor’s agriculture, as well as culture, differs or parallels ours. Penny Dye put her leadership skills to work and acted as general manager for the entire session, doing an awesome job.
The next stop was at the Chiesman Foundation for Democracy. Directors, Dr. John Usera, and Helen Jenkins, (soon to be Dr. Helen Jenkins) greeted us with open hospitality and warmth. Dr. Usera enlightened us on the interesting history of Chiesman Foundation and the purpose of the foundation, which is to serve as a forum and channel to provide greater awareness of the meanings and practices of democracy while encouraging all citizens to actively participate in the democratic process.
Dr. Usera and Ms. Jenkins then put us to work in a practice forum that explored three different approaches on terrorism. Dr. Usera explained the process of being a moderator as we discussed our opinions on how terrorism should be handled. Dr. Usera and Ms. Jenkins interchanged roles as moderator and reporter, teaching us by example how to remain neutral but encouraging individual reflection and positive reinforcement when implementing a forum in our own communities. They went on to explain that it is very important to have a diverse group, lay ground rules, remain neutral while acting as a moderator, encouraging individual reflections, and giving positive reinforcement when conducting a forum.
We then conducted our own forum on public schools. In this practice session we did role playing by taking turns as acting as the moderator, recorder, and observers. The skills we learned from this will help us in our own communities to take a leadership role when conducting forums to help reach a consensus on a topic of differing points of view.
FRIDAY APRIL 11, 2003
The next day began at the West River Ag Center with Martin Beutler giving us an overview of the economic impact of agriculture in South Dakota. Dr. Buetler explained the economic effect that the drought has had on South Dakota. His estimations are that it cost the state $1.4 billion in lost revenues. He also explained that South Dakota is an exporter of raw natural materials and it imports finished goods and economically speaking we are selling low and buying high. Dr. Buetler is a proponent of value added ag and he feels the continued emphasis on stabilizing agricultural production and in seeking new ways to add value to our raw agricultural products will help protect the state’s economy from economic downturns and help its people move forward the future.
We had the pleasure of Debra Dodson and Dan Oedekoven meeting with our group again. They educated us on differences between communication styles between genders. We watched an excellent video by Dr. Patricia Heim on gender differences. Male power structure is hierarchy, they know who is in charge and direct commands are given. Female power structure tends to be flat, they focus on the process and generally like to talk things over and develop a relationship rather than give direct commands. Dan and Deb enlightened us to communication and leadership differences between genders this will help us in our personal as well as professional lives.
Next on the agenda was Luke Yellow Robe, Cultural Relations Director for Children’s Home Society. Mr. Yellow Robe told us about his background as a former Rapid City Policeman and a graduate of the FBI academy. He got to Children’s Home Society as a result of much of the work he did in child protection, while with the police force. Mr. Yellow Robe delivered a powerful message “we cannot solve today’s problems by yesterdays way of thinking.” He went on to explain different types of relationships. Transactional relationships are ones without trust and transitional relationships are with trust and have open communication. He also explained that communication is primarily a function of trust not of techniques and in order to bridge the cultural differences in our state it will require communication and trust from all sides. Mr. Yellow Robe, a great example to all people, he explained that you can live your life by position and not be design.
Dr. Patrick Zimmerman was the last speaker for the day and he covered a complicated topic of carbon sequestration. Dr. Zimmerman is the Director and Chair Institute of Atmospheric Sciences with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He explained the global mandate, Kyoto, which is a global mandate to help prevent global warming and reduce the amount of carbon by 7%. The US has voluntarily agreed to reduce carbon by 18% and soil is the only feasible place to store carbon at this time. Carbon credits are available to farmers that change their farming practices and Dr. Zimmerman has developed a program called C-Lock that will calculate the credits available on tracks of land when the farming practices are changed, for example, from minimum till to no till. He feel that these credit will become more valuable around the year 2007 when the companies have to be compliant with the reduction of carbon emitted from their plants.
SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2002
The final seminar speaker was Monte Lucas, President, of First Western Bank. Monte discussed bank charters, FDIC insurance, and bank ownership. He also explained the taxing structure of banks compared to credit unions and Farm Credit Services. He also explained the capital requirement for banks and the new regulations that they must stay in compliance with. Our thanks go out to the owners of the bank, Donna and Paul Christen of Huron, SD and Monte Lucas for their hospitality and generosity.