It’s June 5 – Happy South Dakota Day!

By: 
Tom A. Savage, Contributing writer

Tom A. Savage/BV Journal 

June 5 is Happy South Dakota Day.

 

It’s June 5, or 6/05.

605 is South Dakota’s area code, our unique way of separating us from the rest of the country’s phone numbers. 

California has the most area codes at 38. Palm Springs is 760 – those poor folks don’t get to celebrate anytime of the year. Unless, of course, there’s a July 60 out there. California’s a little strange, so maybe.

But today is our day. June 5 -–Happy South Dakota Day!

As I was planning on writing something about our special day, I did a little Google search about South Dakota.

“Why are people from South Dakota proud of their state?”

That was my search.

There were some interesting answers. Most of them I knew, but there were a couple of things that stuck out for me. Like, did you know that Pierre is the only state capital that doesn’t share at least one alphabet letter with its state name? I’m not entirely sure that’s something we’re proud of, but still pretty interesting.

How about this one? Did you know South Dakota is the 17th largest state in the country in terms of landmass size? We sit between Nebraska and Washington.

Our nickname is The Mount Rushmore State. Makes sense. But did you know that we used to be known as both The Sunshine State, and The Blizzard State? Those two seem counterproductive. But, I suppose. Living here long enough, and I guess a blizzard with clear skies is a possibility.

After seeing it at first, I thought there was no way this was possible, but did you know there are four cows for every human in South Dakota, the highest ratio of any U.S. state? That seemed odd, so I went for a drive last Sunday and really took a look at some of the pastures surrounding the Sioux Falls area. After a quick drive, I concur. There are a lot of cows out there that you normally don’t see unless you’re looking for them. Could they take over some day? They’re strong in numbers, but I’m confident we’ll be OK.

South Dakota produces more sunflowers than any other state, and that includes Kansas, nicknamed “The Sunflower State.” And yet, trying to buy sunflower seeds at an outdoor sporting event in our area is taboo indeed.

And then there were a couple of things that I found on my Google search that were actual head-scratchers when I saw them. 

Like this one, “S.D. is the abbreviation for South Dakota.”

Shocker. They went out on a limb on that one to advise the masses who were interested in mailing something to our fine state.

But the crack research staff wasn’t done there. “People from South Dakota are known as South Dakotans.”

Fascinating. Not sure how anyone would get stumped on that one, but the research staff absolutely set everyone straight.

But you know what else people from South Dakota are called? 

Cold. They’re called cold.

Especially in January when the average temperature in southeastern South Dakota is 23.4 degrees. Because, you know, January is in the middle of winter and is the coldest month.

Just had to make that clear because I didn’t want anyone making assumptions about January and winter. Sort of like “S.D.” being our abbreviation.

So, Happy South Dakota day, my fellow South Dakotans! I think that’s what you call us.

 

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The Brandon Valley Journal

 

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