“Deadly Medicine,” a Holocaust exhibit, recently opened at the USD University Library located on 414 E. Clark, Vermillion. The exhibit details scientists and doctors of the Holocaust period and how they wanted to create the “perfect race.”

“More than a year ago, the United States Holocaust Museum had contacted us and said that South Dakota has been one of the only states in the country that one of their exhibits had not been to,” said Danielle Loftus, an assistant professor and technology and fine arts librarian at USD. “They have had four exhibits going around the country for the past several years, and they wanted to know if we would be interested in bringing an exhibit here.”

At first, USD officials said the “Nazi Book Burning” exhibit would come to campus but a time could not be worked out. So, they decided to apply for the “Deadly Medicine” exhibit.

“We felt it was a good choice for the population we have here in the area,” she said.

With the application, officials had to document the structure of the library and the space available for the exhibit.

The primary focus of this exhibit is on the doctors and scientists who were responsible for the eugenics of the Holocaust and their version of a perfect human. The exhibit also documents the euthanasia program and what scientists described as an “imperfect human.”

“This exhibit has a lot of primary documents, footage from the Holocaust, film and news clips, propaganda films, and there are several different videos you can watch as you walk through the exhibit,” Loftus said. “There are countless examples of primary information that people can look at in the exhibit.”

She added that because a lot of the information in the exhibit is very sensitive, she recommends the exhibit for those in sixth grade and older.

“We really wanted to try to fit this exhibit into the school year so we know college students can come see it,” Loftus noted. “We also wanted to have it during a time of the year that people from the public would be available to come in and take a look at it.”

So far, she says there has been a very positive reception with the exhibit and said that she has seen a lot of school groups come through already, with more planning to attend.

“It’s been really amazing to watch all these people coming through and looking at the exhibit,” Loftus said. “I come up here a lot to check on things, and I always see people walking through to check it out.”

She estimates that it would take someone about 45 minutes to go through the exhibit, but it could take much longer for a large group of people.

She added that the exhibit is important for people to see, despite how sensitive some of the material is.

“Even though the subject matter is emotional, it is important for people to look at our history,” Loftus said. “Something a lot of people mentioned to me has been that there is a lot of information in here they didn’t know about with the Holocaust.”

One of those pieces of information is how the Holocaust is tied into World War II, information that Loftus says “everyone needs to know about their history.”

She added that this is a unique exhibit and is very professionally done.

“The people that put this together are some of the top notch in their fields and are all scholars as well,” Loftus said. “The materials and videos in the exhibit are all very well done.”

She said that the language and dialogue is all easy to read and understand.

“Even if you come in and only have a few minutes to look around, it’s easy to go around and look at all the photos and digest all the information you might want to get out of it,” Loftus said. “You don’t have to read every single word — you can get a lot of information just by looking at the photos.”

Throughout the exhibit, there will be lectures that take place on various aspects of the Holocaust.

Carol Leibiger will speak about children’s literature during the Holocaust at 7-8 p.m. on Nov. 6 and 3-4 p.m. Nov. 8 on the second floor of the library. Dr. David Burrow will lecture on eugenics and the Nazi conscience at 3-4 p.m. Nov. 13 and 11 a.m.-noon and 7-8 p.m. Nov. 15 on the second floor of the library.

The free exhibit runs through Jan. 6 and is open Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. until 2 a.m. On Fridays the exhibit is open from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m., on Saturdays the exhibit hours are 10 a.m. until 11 p.m., and on Sundays the exhibit is held from 10 a.m. until 2 a.m.

“What I think is really awesome about this exhibit is that it’s full of facts,” Loftus said. “It’s not ‘This is what I think and you should think this way, too.’ It’s all factual documentation of what happened during that time.”

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

SHARE is a non-profit organization that offers people that volunteer doing any number of different things for just two hours a month grocery packages that add up to a savings of about 50 percent.

“Times are tough and people need to be able to rely on each other for a lot of different things,” said Sam Mason, site coordinator for SHARE in Yankton. “SHARE is a reward through reduced-cost groceries for volunteering and helping other people out in the community.

“Right now we don’t have very many volunteers so we’re hoping to find ways on how we can keep this group going,” she said . “We have about six people volunteering now, but we’ve had anywhere between 10-12 active volunteers in the past.”

Mason added that most of the current volunteers are based out of the Peace Presbyterian Church in Yankton, but she said SHARE is not a church group.

“This is more of a community project, not a church project, because it benefits the whole community,” she said.

It takes about six people to package the food one Saturday a month for about an hour. It also takes another person to handle the ordering of the grocery package, one person to call in the orders, and drivers are always needed to pick the food up in Sioux City. Mason added that drivers are compensated $40 for their gas. Right now, there are two drivers that have been rotating. Drivers should have a pickup truck or mini van that can accommodate all of the food orders.

SHARE was started about 20 years ago to benefit community members for volunteering.

“It’s just a reward for people to volunteer helping others,” Mason said. “Volunteering can be a lot of different things, including helping a neighbor, babysitting or structured volunteering.”

She added that a lot of people may believe SHARE is a food bank when in fact it is not. The group does not take donations from other people, there are no membership fees or dues and the program is not based on income.

Mason said the food used in the program “comes from Iowa and is bought by vendors and they try to keep the food local to the Midwest. They distribute throughout the Midwest and it’s really just to help the community out.”

Most of the food that is purchased is fresh, though sometimes fruit comes frozen.

“Our mission is really to reach out to the community to benefit other people,” said Laurie Peterson, distribution coordinator. “We’re trying to create a network of people helping one another.”

Members of the group are trying to get other volunteers by going out to radio stations in the area, talking to other people and distributing flyers throughout businesses in town.

“The last few years have really been tough times for people all over. There is a lot of division within the country now and this is an opportunity not to have that,” Mason said. “The organization is primarily volunteer-driven and it would be great if other people came to volunteer.”

SHARE began again in Yankton a few years ago, following a hiatus, when volunteers agreed to start it back up because of the benefits it can offer the community.

“For a lot of volunteers, it won’t be a situation where they have to come every month. It would be more like you telling us when you can be there to help out,” Peterson said. “If we have a long list of backups, it will really help.”

Mason and Peterson noted that there are no restrictions on the type of volunteering you can do to meet the two-hour guideline each month.

“A lot of people really don’t know about the group in Yankton,” Mason said. “I volunteered at the clinic a few months ago and they didn’t know about it, so I went and printed some information off for them.”

The group in Yankton typically has about 35 food orders each month, which is down from the 50 orders a month it had in the past. Mason and Peterson hope to expand the program so they can have a truck deliver the food to Yankton from Sioux City.

Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Sam Mason at 605-661-7378 or Laurie Peterson at 605-665-5541 for more information.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

The Yankton High School (YHS) senior had a strong finishing at the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) regional competition, which was held at the end of September in Rapid City. She was the reserve grand champion in the hunter under saddle event at regionals, which is a competition that involves exhibitors from five other states that all come together for this one show.

“They give different awards at the show, but it’s more of a prestige type event,” Jade’s mother, Heidi, said. “Awards are given on a point system and they give some pretty cool awards. Jade ended up winning a professionals choice hunt seat pad and a horse blanket.”

Jade also performed well in the halter horse showing at regionals, which is essentially a “beauty competition” for horses. She also showed in the showmanship class where judges see how well the exhibitor presents the horse with a set pattern, which exhibitors have a limited time to learn and execute before performing it individually in front of five judges.

“She also performed well in hunt seat equitation, which is an English style of riding with an English saddle on the horse,” Heidi said. “They have a set course and they put the horse through a number of different paces throughout the pattern, which is difficult, so it was a big deal for her to do well in that category.”

Jade said she and her horse, Rosie, typically excel in the hunter under saddle and hunt seat equitation patterns during competition.

“Rosie really likes those types of classes and she was always bred to be an English horse, so I also learned to really like those categories and we always work well in them,” she said.

Jade said she has always found horse riding to be gratifying and rewarding.

“(It’s) an event that you can see all of your hard work paying off,” she said. “You practice so hard all summer and can really see your improvements by the end of the summer. Horse riding is not such a team sport, so all the pressure is on you. You get to decide how you want it to go.”

During the summer, Jade typically trains 5-6 days a week in Norfolk for several hours each day.

“With it being an hour and a half drive down there, it gets hard driving all that way,” she said, “and in the summer, sometimes the commitment gets a little difficult as well. Some of those days this summer were so hot, so the days got really long.”

While balancing her senior year course work at YHS, Jade attended several horse shows around the region in September. Not only did she do the AQHA regionals, she also performed in the Aksarben show in Lincoln, Neb., which featured more than 2,000 exhibitors from 11 different states, making it the largest 4H horse show in the nation. Jade performed well at that competition, taking grand champion in hunt seat equitation and senior English showmanship after coming in second in those categories a year ago.

“That was so huge to win it all after coming in second last year,” she said.

In addition to those shows, she also was in the Silver Classic and Preclassic shows in Lincoln.

In the process, she had to sacrifice her senior-year homecoming activities.

“At first I didn’t think I would miss homecoming, then a competition ended up landing that weekend. Since it is my senior year, it was hard but it came down to what was more important,” Jade said. “I knew there would be plenty more football games I could go to. These were the big horse shows that were so important to me all summer and I wasn’t going to give them up for a football game.”

One of the biggest goals Jade had for herself this summer was to start doing reining patterns on a horse.

“Through the course of the year we were able to find her a reining horse,” Heidi said. “Reining is an Olympic sport and an AQHA sport. The horse goes through maneuvers including sliding stops, spins and large circles — it’s like figure skating on a horse.”

Jade added that reining is more fast-paced, with longer patterns that typically are about four minutes long.

“I’m really excited to start reining,” she said. “It’s a huge change from the previous events I’ve competed in and it will really make me a more well-rounded rider, but is also a big transition.”

She added that her training for the reining events has been going well so far and she plans on competing in her first reining competition in Rapid City in January. Despite a big change from her other events, she said she’s not nervous for the new horse riding style she is taking on.

“I’ve kind of gotten over being scared because horses are animals that can go off your actions. If you are nervous, they get nervous,” Jade said. “Both of my horses are young, so they see that if I’m confident out there, they’ll be more confident. I try not to get nervous but they only thing I do get nervous about is when I look at the patterns and try to memorize them. I don’t really get nervous when I’m out there riding.”

One of the things she focused on this summer was getting down the various concepts involved with reining events, which is a completely different type of riding then she is used to.

“I’m blessed to be able to have good coaches teach me the different concepts and riding styles,” she said.

Jade said horse riding has been a big part of her life ever since she began competing when she was 3 years old.

“Horse riding has taught me to be a lot more social because you meet people from all over the world that you wouldn’t normally meet,” she said. “It’s also taught me a lot of patience and responsibility.”

After her senior year at YHS Jade hopes she can participate in an equestrian program in college. The only school to offer one in the state is South Dakota State University. Other schools in the region that she has looked at include Kansas State, Iowa State and University of Nebraska Lincoln.

“My heart is in South Dakota,” she said.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

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The 2012 South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GF&P) Seasonal Employee of the Year award was recently given to a local worker.

Brian Odens has spent the last two summers working at the Lewis and Clark Recreation Area near Yankton. He has been involved both in management and maintenance in his two seasons working at Lewis and Clark.

“The State of South Dakota has a seasonal employee award they give out each year,” Odens said. “Last year I worked on the maintenance side of the internship. I worked with the custodial guys and maintenance crews to fix anything that needed to be fixed and tending to those issues on the grounds that needed work.”

This past summer, Odens saw a different side to working at Lewis and Clark when he worked as the park manager intern.

“I dealt more with management issues like dealing with the public and helping to delegate jobs to park rangers and other staff members,” he said. “One of the favorite parts of the job that I like most is working outdoors and working with people. It’s just a blast.”

Despite being an aspiring park manager, Odens said he enjoyed both internships a lot.

“I’m a really hands-on person, so I really enjoyed the maintenance side of the internship,” he said. “However, the management side was great just because it’s more of a challenge I saw and benefited me with learning in life.”

Odens is currently a student at Mount Marty College in Yankton where he is studying recreation management with a minor in business. He is slated to graduate in May 2013.

He said when he found out he got the award at the South Dakota Parks and Recreation (SDPRA) meeting in September in Huron, he was in a state of shock.

“I was taken aback when I found out that I got the award. I wasn’t expecting it at all and was very surprised by it,” he said. “I was so shocked when I got the award and appreciative that people recognize you for the work you’ve done. I was also caught off guard big time because I’m the type of person that likes to stay low-key, and to get such high recognition threw me off.”

Other awards that were given out at the conference included employee recognition awards and volunteer of the year awards.

Odens said this was the first year that he has attended the conference and he may have been invited partly because of the award he received. However, he decided to go — not knowing about the recognition — in order to network with other employees around the state.

Shane Bertsch, who is the district park supervisor for the South Dakota GF&P and was also Odens’ supervisor for his internships, said there are a number of traits that helped Odens stand out.

“His demeanor really separates him from all other seasonal employees here,” he said. “He is business-like, yet cordial to the public. He also kept me well informed of things he ran into and always asked if he had any questions or problems.”

Bertsch added that Odens has a lot of the skills that a park manager needs to possess when they go to run their own park.

“He has a really well-rounded background that has prepared him well with the experience he has from his other jobs and schooling,” Bertsch said. “He’s a good guy to have on your staff. He rubs off well on other staff members and people really like working with him.”

Bertsch noted that there are about 400 seasonal employees in the state park system and the director takes nominations from several different categories, one of which is the seasonal award that Odens won.

“I really think he has a future with the GF&P,” Bertsch said. “He will be applying as positions open up and I think he will be a good manager at some point.”

“I want to be a park manager and work my way through the ranks up to a district or regional manager,” Odens said. “I want to put my time in and work my way up and am currently applying for open park manager positions.”

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

So far, there have been more than 50 cases of the whooping cough reported in South Dakota as of Oct. 3. However, neighboring states have experienced outbreaks far worse than South Dakota has seen.

So far this year there have been more than 4,000 cases of the cough in Minnesota and Iowa has seen around 1,000 cases. As of late August there were about 120 confirmed cases in Nebraska.

“Based on these numbers, we know we’re seeing a lot of the disease across the region,” said Colleen Winter, director of Health and Medical Services for the South Dakota Department of Health (DOH). “There are a variety of reasons we’ve seen an outbreak. There is more awareness and better testing, more circulation of the disease and some people are building up an immunity to the vaccine.”

The whooping cough vaccine, which is recommended for children, is said to be about 90 percent effective for those that get all the required doses. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is working to discover why the protection seems to decline over time.

“We want to make sure that people get the full course of the vaccine to make sure they are adequately protected,” Winter said. “We want to protect our most vulnerable population, which are babies and infants.”

Winter added that people who are most exposed to the unimmunized population should also be vaccinated. The schedule for children to get vaccinated is recommended at 2 months old, 4 months, 6 months, 15-18 months, then again at 4-6 years old with a booster at 11 or 12.

The DOH provides both the vaccine and the booster free of charge

“The vaccination is the best protection against the cough,” she said. “However, if you get sick, make sure to cover your cough or stay home from work or school.”

Symptoms of the whooping cough include cold-like symptoms at first, but after a week or two they become more severe, including vomiting, fatigue and uncontrollable coughing. When infants are infected with the cough, it can lead to pneumonia, children becoming slow to stop breathing and even death.

Jan Johnson, who works with infection control at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, said she recommends that adults get the whooping cough booster.

“We have not seen many hospitalizations here because of the whooping cough,” she said. “We also have not seen very many cases through our emergency department or the pediatric department here.”

Winter recommends that if you or your child exhibits any symptoms of the cough to call your healthcare provider.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

The forum was aimed at cancer issues and helped raise money for the All Women Count program, which helps women in South Dakota cover the cost of breast and cervical cancer screenings. Women who meet the age (30-64) and income guidelines (200 percent federal poverty guidelines) are eligible under the All Women Count program.

Since the program started screenings in 1997, it has paid for more than 80,000 Pap tests, clinical breast exams and mammograms and diagnosing more than 200 women with breast cancer and 27 with cervical cancer.

This year the featured speakers were Amy Miner, a YHS teacher and breast cancer survivor and Dr. Jill Sternquist, who works at Yankton Medical Clinic as an OBGYN.

“Many of you in the room today have been my go-to girls for things,” Miner said. “I just passed my eight-year mark of breast cancer survivorship, which is pretty   exciting.”

Miner, who now works as a teacher at Yankton High School (YHS) was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. She was teaching at YHS around that time, but was set to move to Hawaii for a teaching fellowship.

“During the course of some last-minute exams before I moved to Hawaii, this anomaly came up,” she said.

She added that when people go through challenges like breast cancer or another disease or hardship, things seem to become so sudden, overwhelming and may seem insurmountable at times.

Miner said once she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she made the process proceed as quickly as possible. She was diagnosed in September 2004, then had an ultrasound performed in Hawaii on Sept. 13 and she was home in Yankton a few days later. She had her mastectomy performed Sept. 27.

“After that, I really just sat around and ate a lot,” she said, laughing.

Miner returned to her classes in Hawaii by the middle of October.

“It was an adventure, to say the least,” she said. “I always had someone there for me right from the beginning of the process.”

She said that her diagnosis with breast cancer changed her life in many ways.

“Whatever the challenges are that you might be facing, they allow you to look at life through a different lens,” Miner said. “Instead of thinking about decisions I would make in terms of life or death, I began to think of things based on life and life. It really taught me to keep all things in perspective.”

Before Miner took the stage, Sternquist offered the audience facts and tips about cancer, risk factors and how women can protect themselves against various forms of cancer.

“Screenings really help to find the disease before symptoms arise,” she said. “It’s important to keep going for regular follow ups.”

She added that 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with some sort of cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 5 women will die from that cancer.

Dr. Mary Milroy, who served as the emcee for the event and is also on the committee that plans the forum, talked about how important events like this are for the community.

“One of the nice things about the forum is that it helps raise awareness about cancer,” she said. “It’s about pulling together and being aware about the types of cancers out there.”

She said such events help cancer patients and survivors through the emotional trials of dealing with cancer. She added that the event is powerful and important for the healing process.

“The event shows survivors and people diagnosed with breast cancer that they have support from the community,” Milroy said. “We’re also raising funds for a great cause.”

Last year the forum raised about $1,500 and organizers are hoping that number is even higher this year.

Organizers also sell raffle tickets which provide a large amount of the donation money.

“This event is really about a community coming together to make a difference,” Milroy added. “People are coming together to raise awareness and show the importance of the issue. The forum provides tremendous support and helps women with breast cancer see that they are not alone.”

Cancer numbers are statistics and numbers but those statistics are people.”

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal