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Freeman Courier / May 9, 2012 / page 4

EDITORIAL Freeman Community Foundation a good example of building community

T welve years ago, the Freeman Community Foundation reached a milestone as it sur- passed its initial $100,000 fundraising goal. Established three years earlier to provide an ongo- ing funding source for local projects, organizers set out to solicit contributions totaling $100,000 by July 1, 2000. That campaign was successful and earned the local foundation a $50,000 matching grant from the South Dakota Community Foundation. This year the Freeman Community Foundation anticipates another milestone as it expects to sur- pass the $100,000 mark in grants and scholarships awarded to local projects during the past 12 years. The latest round of recipients was announced as the FCF held its annual spring banquet at the Prairie Arboretum Interpretive Center May 3. The $12,200 awarded for five different projects and two scholar-

The foundation wasn’t structured to reflect church, school or business loyalties; it was structured to focus on the larger community in a way that had never been done before. Generosity The fundraising effort to establish the founda- tion was successful because it gained the support of the larger community. People saw the merit of

The success of the foundation over these 15 years is a tribute to the community that took on the chal- lenge of establishing a foundation and then imple- menting it successfully. But in addition to the important financial impact the foundation has had on the community, the foun- dation also reflects the attributes that have enabled the Freeman community to remain vital over the The foundation, launched in the late 1990s by a small group of committed individuals, built on the rich community tradition of generosity and sup- port. But this was a new idea. By having a broad, inclusive community base and mission, it not only established an endowment as a funding source, it also bridged the divisions that often separate us. decades. Vision

Execution The success of the foundation is reflected in the diversity of projects that have been funded by the foundation. Ongoing leadership has provided wisdom, balance and focus on how the funds are allocated. From major bricks and mortar — the library and community center — to smaller proj- ects — equipment for our first responders and play- ground equipment for our youth — the foundation has strengthened the quality of life for virtually ev- ery resident in the community. The foundation has gained community-wide respect and acceptance. Obviously, it’s great to celebrate what the foun- dation has become and done to help build and strengthen our community. But it would be a mis- take to stop there. The foundation can and should grow and that will happen only if people continue to support it with contributions. The example of John R. Walz’s generosity is one that should be both an inspiration and a challenge. More information about the foundation is avail- able on it’s website or by visiting with any of the foundation board members. Freeman Courier editorials reflect the opinion of news editor Jeremy Waltner and publisher Tim L. Waltner.

the goals and objectives of the foundation and responded with contri- butions that moved it from concept to real- ity. And while the ini- tial contributions were critical to that success, a significant gift in the spring of 2008 from the John R. Walz estate, to- taling over $333,000, in- creased the endowment of the FCF and dramati- cally expanded what it can do for our commu- nity.

Freeman Community Foundation Board of Directors Nathan Walter President Jill Weber Aanenson Vice-President Emily Hofer Secretary Wade Lager Treasurer

ships brings the total amount of mon- ey awarded to support local projects since 2000 to $85,600. Two rounds of grants will be awarded in 2012 and foundation officials believe that will swell the amount of money provided to assist local community projects above the $100,000 mark.

Barry Uecker Ruth Strasser Stewart Hofer Glenn Roth

freemancommunityfoundation.org

VIEWS FROM OUR COLLEAGUES The truth about postal reform and efforts underway in Congress Reed Anfinson, Swift County (Minn.) Monitor News and president of the National Newspaper Association

EDITOR’S NOTE: Reed Anfinson, who publishes a weekly newspaper in Minnesota, is the president of the National Newspaper Association. NNA, of which the Courier is a member, has been instrumental in efforts to maintain and strengthen the United States Postal Service. South Dakota’s senators split their votes on S1789, which NNA strongly supported. Sen. Tim Johnson voted yes and Sen. John Thune voted no. Now that US Senate has passed a bill, S1789, to reform the ailing US Postal Service, critics are trying to disable the bill on its way to the House of Representatives. Business Week recently catalogued unhappy stakehold- ers, including postal unions, postal manage- ment and some Republicans who wrongly think the bill burdens taxpayers. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, whose own bill awaits action in the House, blasted “special interests.” But Business Week says, “Consid- ering how many people are unhappy with the bill, it isn’t clear which special interests Issa is referring to.” Some see the Senate bill as the inevitable product of the sausage machine. But it is nei- ther a budget buster nor processed meat. It is the expression of a better vision of the Postal Service. If you consider that survival of the service means maintaining the circulatory system for a $1.1 trillion mailing industry - or in other words, making sure cash, greeting cards, packages and newspapers and magazines ar- rive on time, the Senate bill is good medicine. Consider some of the alternative fixes. Issa’s bill would let USPS immediately end Saturday mail, close half the mail pro- cessing centers and thousands of post offices, and put a new board of political appointees in

308 S Main - Box 950 • Freeman, SD, 57029-0950 605-925-7033 • courier@gwtc.net Independent Newspaper TIM L. WALTNER, PUBLISHER Gordon Gross. ..................................................... Driver/Mail Erik Kaufman. ......................................... Contributing Writer S. Roy Kaufman................................................. Proofreader Kathy Kleinsasser..............Asst. Office Manager/Typesetter Jason Scharberg.................................. Advertising Manager Jeremy Waltner..................................................News Editor Linda Von Eye.............................Office Manager/Typesetter about as much as he listens to country western — hardly at all. But MCA and the other Beastie Boys — Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad- Rock” Horozitz — brought a different brand of rap to the turntable, and their heavy punk influence could be heard loud and clear on their first major commercial release, License to Ill, in 1986. In many regards, Ill was the right album at the right time for a hip hop scene that had been dominated by a largely misunderstood black culture. The Beastie Boys not only proved that white boys could rap well, it contradicted the notion that hip hop was nothing more than drug-induced noise created by heavy-packing thugs. Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D brought a play- ful culture to the scene that would have been laughable had it not been done so well, and critics and listeners alike lauded the Beastie Boys’ debut. Licence to Ill , the first full-length hip hop record ever to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, is Columbia Records’ fastest-selling al- bum of all time and has topped 9 million in album sales since its release 26 years ago — a number I suspect will climb in light of MCA’s death. Particularly in their early years, the Beastie Boys were undisputedly a party band, a label charge. The new board would be expected to trim workers’ benefits and maybe wages, and direct the Postmaster General to favor profit over service. At the other extreme might be Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, who wanted to keep every- thing open. Labor unions backing him say that USPS will heal as the economy heals. Then there is the White House’s notion: to raise postage rates. For Sens. Susan Collins, R-ME, and Joe Lieberman, I-CT, neither extreme is suited to long-term survival of USPS. To many experts, Issa’s approach is likely to frighten away businesses that mail. The Lieberman-Collins bill agrees that USPS needs a more flexible, less costly workforce. It keeps mail flowing through today’s network while cost-cutting is underway. For example, they would end Saturday mail delivery in two years, but only if USPS has taken other big steps toward financial viability. They would allow the closing of postal plants now, if USPS preserves local mail delivery speed. Is their bill the product of compromise, or of a different vision? Consider: • The Postal Service’s plant-closing plan is based on a desire to amass more mail at auto- mated urban centers, where costly machines sit idle much of the day. To optimize ma- chines, USPS would haul mail much farther. But the hauling would slow the mailstream, particularly in small towns and rural areas that are far from mail plants and create a set of second-class citizens who get and send mail more slowly than urban dwellers. It will also hamper smaller communities’ quests for eco- nomic development. • Many Americans say they wouldn’t miss Saturday mail. But USPS builds its system around senders, not receivers. Who would

on how they see USPS. Is it a corporation? Is it a government agency responsible for bind- ing the nation together? Fact: it is a Government-Sponsored En- terprise or GSE, more like Fannie Mae than like IBM or the Defense Department. It has to use business tools, but carry out a public mission. And it has enormous power in the marketplace. Consider, for example, its new Every Door Direct Mail program, which di- rectly competes with many private businesses. Members of Congress who mistakenly see postal reform as an exercise in deregulating a company may actually unleash a powerful federal agency, while those who look to rais- ing postage so generous worker benefits can continue could pull the plug on the economic engine that keeps jobs alive. It isn’t compromise that is needed, but a clear-eyed vision based on a full understand- ing of the needs of all who the Postal Service serves. Postal management today has an im- possible task, expected to accomplish busi- ness goals without the cost-controlling tools businesses have, and expected to achieve government ends without federal support. Congress owns this confusion. Only Congress can fix it and it will continue to need to fine- tune its solutions as communications cultures change. No bill passed today will avoid the need for legislation in the future. Neither “de- regulating” it nor hiking rates will get USPS to stability. Nor will abrupt and disruptive ap- proaches to labor costs. Senators Collins and Lieberman, along with co-sponsors Tom Carper, D-DE, and Scott Brown, R-MA, have devoted endless hours to understanding the challenge and to crafting the next steps toward fixing it. Their approach deserves considerably more respect than it is getting. last week. Since his death Friday, a host of news or- ganizations on television, in print and online have devoted considerable time and space to MCA, which says an awful lot about the kind of impact Adam Yauch and the Beastie Boys have had in many different circles. Musicians around the world, and no doubt the people of Tibet, continue to pay their re- spects. I spent part of my weekend paying my re- spect by clicking through my collection of Beastie Boys albums, and became struck by a lyric from “Bodhisattva Vow,” a cut off Ill Com- munication , released around the time MCA latched onto the teachings of Buddhism: “For the sake of all beings I seek/The en- lightened mind that I know I’ll reap/I give thanks for this world as a place to learn/And for this human body that I’m glad to have earned.” Rest in peace, MCA. And long love the Beastie Boys. Jeremy Waltner is news editor of the Courier and strongly encourages readers to check out Coldplay’s moving and classy tribute to MCA — a rewrite of “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party).” You’ll have no trouble finding it online.

be hurt by a 5-day delivery regime? Anyone who depends on timely mail delivery. Shut- ting down the system two days a week — three when Monday holidays occur — would create delay, according to the Postal Regula- tory Commission. Then there are those who need prescriptions delivered when they are at home; small-town citizens who get the news- paper by mail and businesses needing 6-day cash flows. • Closing small post offices seems a no- brainer to city dwellers who spot those one- room POs at the roadside on the way to the beach. Surely not all are needed. But rather

than closing them entirely, USPS could have circuit-rider postmasters to open them a few hours a day. That is affordable if worker ben- efits are brought into line with the private sector. For those communities, a circuit rider could continue their links to the world. • The Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill would cost $33.6 billion, add- ing to the federal deficit. But postage-payers, not taxpayers, carry that burden. Taxpayers face a liability as the funder-of-last resort only if postage revenues dry up — which is more likely to happen if the mail slows to a crawl. Finally, members of Congress may differ

KALEIDOSCOPE MCA, the Beastie Boys and a greater influence Jeremy Waltner, Courier News Editor

but surely, as albums multiplied, the layers of that image were shed and new ones emerged; creativity, artistry and influence from genera to genera — largely thanks to the talents given to MCA — came to define the Beastie Boys above anything else. And Yauch, widely considered the soul of the hip hop trio, became known for something far more important: political activism. Yauch, who adopted Buddhism after a trip to Nepal and Kathmandu in the early 1990s, became a champion for the Tibetan indepen- dence movement, which seeks political sepa- ration from the People’s Republic of China. He co-founded the Milarepa Fund, which raises money for and promotes awareness of the effort for Tibetan freedom, and organized a number of benefit concerts for the cause. Those concerts included the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a series of rock festivals in North America, Europe and Asia from 1996 to 2001 featuring some of the world’s biggest acts in music, including R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Pep- pers, U2, Pearl Jam and Radiohead. That set the course for MCA’s final decade of life; his last years were spent in meditation central to his faith, promotion central to his cause, love central to his family, and — yes — music central to his soul. What is presumably the final album ever to be made by the Beastie Boys, the Hot Sauce Committee , was released

they encouraged and embraced through songs like “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)” and “No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn” from License to Ill . But a more grounded and artistic side emerged on their sophomore effort, Paul’s Boutique released in 1988 — incidentally my favorite of their seven-album resume. This sampling-heavy recording further showcased the artistic mastery of the trio and has only gotten better with age. The same holds true of those that came after Paul’s Boutique , includ- ing Check Your Head, Ill Communication, Hello Nasty, and releases of the later years — To The 5 Boroughs, The Mix-Up and, finally, The Hot Sauce Committee . They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on April 14 of this year — 3 ½ weeks prior to MCA’s death. But it’s not the Beastie Boys’ impressive resume that, in the wake of MCA’s death, has me reflecting on the gift they have been to music the past quarter-century, but rather their growth as a band and contribution to the larger community. That is particularly true of Yauch. For many who see things in black and white, the Beastie Boys are defined by a party boy im- age they developed early on; that is, after all, where they started. But it’s far from who they became. Slowly

“Get up and groove with the rhythm in your soul.” – MCA, from ‘Pass the Mic’ I learned of the news

last Friday morning in six letters that jumped off my Facebook news feed like an Adam Yauch lyric busting out of the speak- ers: “RIP MCA.” A double take followed. Then I scrolled down the page and found another post: “MCA, RIP. Dang.” Then another: “Beasties forever.”

Adam Yauch, known as MCA in the pio- neering rap trio Beastie Boys, was dead at the age of 47, a victim presumably of parotid salivary gland cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2009. Facebook told me first of MCA’s death, and a host of Internet sites — including cnn.com — confirmed the sad news shortly thereafter. To say I felt like I had lost a friend would be overly and unnecessarily dramatic, but it’s sort of true. I have long considered the Beastie Boys top- shelf entertainment and groundbreaking mu- sic, and this from a guy who listens to hip hop

Just Curious A Weekly Courier Q&A Last week we asked: Are you registered to vote? Your answer: Yes - 21, 88%; No - 3, 12%; No, but I will be registering - 0, 0%. This week we’re asking: Have you ever been inside the Turkey Ridge Store? To vote, go to www. freemansd.com. Look here weekly for the previous week’s results. ______________________________________________ Just Curious is a weekly feature that seeks an online answer. A new question will be posted every Monday at 10 p.m.

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