Packed meeting at Rapid City Central, with surprises

The RC Weekly News was quick on the draw to publish information about the meeting today. It was packed.

Photo: RC Weekly News [click on it to go there]


One of the big thrills of the day (for me) was to see Ethel Rounds there supporting elementary school music. Ethel was teaching little kids strings in RC back in the 1960s, driving from school to school in a VW. She's more than 85 now and still a tireless supporter of teaching kids instrumental music. You can find her at almost all band and orchestra concerts in town (for the last 40 years)!

Ethel showed up along with a huge crowd, to urge the school board to find some other way to squeeze through the coming school year.

Stan Adelstein wandered into the room about 4:15 pm, waited his turn behind the mike, and announced 1) he will give $160,000 to the RCAS in 2007-08 to preserve elementary music no matter what and 2) promised to fight (if elected) in Pierre to fix school funding. We're still kind of dealing with the shock; at the time he got a huge standing ovation. The question is, will good feeling toward Stan for his support of school music translate into votes from District 32 to put him back in the state Senate? His opponent, incumbent Sen. Tom Katus was also there and spoke to the root of the problem in Pierre and urged everyone to take a broad view and consider all options to get us out of this mess.

I'm sure we'll have opportunities to comment as we careen toward November 2. The school funding apocalypse in Rapid City will certainly be coloring the campaign...