Rapid City Journal from Rapid City, South Dakota • 11

Local FRIDAY Rapid City Journal Juno 4, 1993 Court pots hold oo extradition Classified, B3-12 Obituaries, B2 1 1 1 I murder of the Catossa, police chief during a robbery. Smith has said he did not fire a sbol during the robbery and was forced to partinpa'e il by a second man. Smith was a trusty al the Oklahoma State Penitentiary when he escaped in October 19H5. Smith and his wife, Jo Beth, had been living in the northern Black Hills until he was recognized after his case was reported in March on the television program "Unsolved Mysteries The touple had been living in the Black Hills sirxe IW. At the extradition hearing.

Smith's attorney Bruce Ellison of Rapid City argued Smith's life would fie in danger if he was returned to Oklahoma. Smith will remain in the County Jail at Deadwood pending the Supreme Court's review of his case. State Supreme Court to review case of convicted killer David Gordon Smith. PIERRE The South Dakota Supreme Court Thursday temporarily halted the extradition of convicted killer David Gordon Smith to Oklahoma. The Supreme Court ordered a stay in the extradition process pending a review of the case by the court.

"That could be could be weeks," a spokesman for the Lawrence County State's Attorney's office said Thursday. last month, a circuit court judge in Deadwood signed an extradition order clearing the way for Smith to be returned to Oklahoma, where he escaped from prison in 1985. Smith was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the 1978 Journal photo by Steve McEnroe Friends welcome biker on cross country tour Rapid Valley Elementary School third-grade year in the classroom with a get-together with teacher Darlene Worland winds up her first her students. High hopes alive and well By George Ledbetter Journal Correspondent Teacher, students find much to celebrate at completion of the school year. Editor's note: Staff Writer Erin Andersen spent the first day of school last fall with first-year teacher Darlene Worland at Rapid Valley Elementary School.

On Thursday, Andersen spent the last day of school with her. some teachers said she was overly optimistic and idealistic. Thursday, she left much the same way. "If I was idealistic, 1 still am and 1 plan on staying that way," said Worland, the 37-year-old wife and mother of two, turned teacher. "I've been told one good thing about new teachers is that they have ideals and high hopes, and I am going to hang on to those with my teeth for as long as I possibly can.

And if 1 ever feel that slipping, 1 hope some teacher, new or old, steps in to tell me to get it back and don't lose it." Her enthusiasm and desire have not changed from day one. "My expectations of what this was going to he like were extremely high, and what I've gotten is higher," Worland said "I've gotten more than I expected. It's been magnificent." By Erin Andersen Journal Staff Writer SPEAKFISH Banners, applause and a cake doughnut proclaiming "1,373 miles so far" were a warmer welcome than the windy, cool weather as former Spearfish resident Taz Sears returned to his hometown Thursday afternoon Sears, a 1989 graduate of Spearfish High School and now a quartermaster in the U.S. Coast Guard, won't be staying long, though. He has 1,851 miles left to complete a cross-country bicycle trip from Tacoma, to his duty station at Alexandria, and just 20 days before he is due back at work The nearly 100-mile-per-day average needed to complete the journey didn't seem to daunt the athletic 22-year-old, however.

He plans "one or two" rest days visiting family and friends here before continuing on his long-distance trek. Sears said an encounter in Spearfish Canyon in 1988 with a couple who were thoroughly enjoying a cross-country bicycle trip inspired him to attempt the same feat. His only previous long-distance bike trip a 1989 trek across South Dakota with a friend whetted the desire to pedal from coast to coast. A duty assignment in Tacoma, and enough accumulated leave time to make the journey, provided Sears the opportunity to realize his dream. Six months of planning and training culminated May 21 when he hit the road on the trip he has titled the "1993 Tour of the Promised Land Aside from two cold, wet days in Wyoming, Sears said he had enjoyed good weather on the trek.

"I'm glad I went from west to east." he added "I've had a lot of tail winds." Not all the winds have been favorable, though. Sears and Jason Thorsun, a Spearfish friend who rode with him from Buffalo, got a ride in a pickup truck from Sundance to Spearfish because of Thursday's cold, gusty winds. Sears said he would go back to Sundance today Academically there were many successes, with more than half the students finishing the year wiih As and Us. Kven those who struggled left with solid Cs And all but two mastered their multiplication tables up to multiplying by 12 well beyond the required 5. But there also were successes not reflected on report cards.

Tor Worland, one of the biggest highlights was watching her students' self-confidence grow "If anyone learned with me the confidence within themselves, then this year was a success," Worland said. "The academic part, I just put it in front of them, and Ihey just lake it in. But if they don't feel like they are worth anything, then they are going to shut down, whatever it is. I had some students shut down for one or two weeks, but then they opened up, we built them up and we moved on." In spite of the memories, there were some serious questions to be answered before the students left for the summer. "In fourth-grade, if we see you down the hall, can we still say hi and hug you?" asked Jennifer "You better," Worland said.

"We are going to be buds (buddies) for life." Adding reassurance was Worland's familiar hug and whispered words of encouragement as each student walked out the door A second-grader poked her head in and said she would be in Worland's class next year. "You're lucky," exclaimed one of Worland's third-graders. "She's the best teacher." It seems like just yesterday Darlene Worland was pulling up colorful bulletin hoards welcoming 26 third-graders to her Rapid Valley Elementary classroom. That sentiment was echoed by her stu Thursday, with the boards stripped to dents, some of whom recalled how fright-Vened they were the day they first walked the cork and the classroom lloor littered into her classroom. thursdnv.

with five minutes left in the Journal photo by Johnny Sundby Taz Sears smiles to a hometown crowd of friends as he receives a welcome home cake. Sears is in the process of bicycling across the country and stopped in Spearfish Thursday. and cycle the 40 miles he missed The trip so far has fulfilled Sears expectations. "I'm loving it. It's great.

I'm i aving a great time," he said. Good enough, it seems, to lead to dreams of another long-distance ride. "I'd like to try to go from Alaska to Seattle," said Sears. "That's my goa1 in the future." with popcorn from an end-of-the-year party, Worland's eyes welled with tears. "I don't like it here anymore," she said, looking around he quiet classroom.

"I hale this The school year officially ended at 11:30 a.m. It also marked the end of Worland's first year of teaching. It was a yea-marked with many successes including being named the Rapid City School District's nominee for the national Sallie Mae First Year Teacher Award. Winners will be announced in September. When Worland started Sept.

8, 1992, school year, Worland and her students sat on the floor and reminisced about the best things that had happened over the past year "You," shouted Adam llanig. Others mentioned the colorful rainbow made of footprints, field trips to Crazy Horse Memorial and Storm Mountain, and the never-to-be-forgotten liig Mac Cookie business adventure in which the students constructed more than 3,000 Big Mac Cookies made of vanilla wafers, Oreos, frosting and green coconut. State hopes to cull deer herds Perot coming to visit Rapid City By Bob Mercer Capital Bureau By Hugh O'Gara Journal Staff Writer deer on private land The East River proposal, to be considered today, calls for running the season Nov. 20-Dec. 5, adding an extra week.

The commission also slashed fees for two-tag antlerless licenses, dropping them from $30 to $20 for resident hunters and from $150 to $100 for nonresidents. "What we're asking hunters to do is harvest more than one deer," Van-del said. "I hope they realize there's no shame in shooting an antlerless deer. They're doing the landow ner a favor. It might open some doors that might otherwise not be there." At a glance attempt to do some good." In a Farm Bureau survey of seven eastern South Dakota counties, one-fourth of the participants estimated they had suffered wildlife damage exceeding $500.

A similar survey in seven West River counties is planned this fall. While deer populations continued to rise, the number of resident deer hunters appears to have peaked. So the goal now is for those hunters to take more deer. South Dakota offers one-tag and two-tag licenses. The state commission in May approved a West River ptairie season that features an II.

IHIO increase in tags, including nearly doubling the number of two-tag licenses. See accompanying stones Commissioners meet today at Fort Sisseion, where they will put final approval on plans to also sharply increase the number of tags for the Black Hills special and East River seasons Most of the increases involve offering more two-tag licenses so there is a higher kill of antlerless deer, primarily does. Several other special steps are planned, such as issuing 2,500 permits for antelope hunters to take antlerless deer during antelope season in a half dozen West River counties. Thai special deer season for antelope hunters was tried as an experiment last fall in Harding County Antelope hunters still can qualify for deer permits for the normal deer seasons, which start later in the fall than antelope season. Another move calls for extending the West River and East River seasons.

The main West River hunt runs Nov. 13-28, with now an additional week Dec. 4-12 for antlerless organization. The new executive director of the state's United We Stand chapter is a Wagner native who served in the Air Force until his retirement in 1972. Larson then joined the faculty at National College in Rapid City, where he taught business courses.

Currently, he is one of seven directors of the West Dakota Water Development District. Larson is opening an office in Rapid City in the 500 block of Kansas City Street and will be traveling across the state to organize United We Stand America groups. Once the state is organized, 1 said a general membership meeting would be held to elect a state Perot chairman and a board of directors. According to a United We Stand America press release, Ltrson "will act as a liaison between the state and national headquarters in Dallas, Texas." The former head of the state's United We Stand chapter during the 1992 Perot campaign, Becky Borland of Dell Rapids, said that direct link to the Dallas organization was a problem during the campaign and one reason she will not become involved with the state's United We Stand chapter. The Perot organization tried to control everything through its Dallas staff during the campaign and continues the practice, Borland said.

"Even though they would say, "Hands off they wouldn't," she said. Borland said she remained a Perot supporter. "i believe he is on the right track shaking up the system," Borland said. PIERRE Deer hunters in South Dakota might put much more venison in their freezers and sausage racks this fall. That's the goal of the state Game, Fish Parks Commission, which plans to offer more deer tags for this fall's three major firearms seasons.

That's a 29 percent increase. If the strategy works, South Dakota's deer herds should be considerably smaller in 1991. Thai means landowners might face less damage to luy stacks and crops Motorists also might have fewer collisions with deer crossing highways. And the big push for more licenses this year also might mean fewer tags for hunters in 1991, if the stale's big-game managers succeed in reducing whiletail and mule deer populations "It's the old gauntlet we have to run," said George Vandel, an assistant director for the state Wildlife Division. "When we have Ux many deer, we have happy hunters and mail landowners.

When we knock down the numbers, the hunters get mad and the landowners feel better. We try to strike a balance between the two Several years of favorable weather and good habitat have allowed South Dakota deer populations to increase, reaching the point in some spots where the animals are taking a heavy toll on agriculture production "They're starting to realize there's a problem out there," Rick Vallery, a South Dakota Farm Bureau spokesman, said about the commission's strategy "They are making an Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire and on-again, off-again 1992 presidential candidate, will visit the state this summer, according to the newly appointed stale executive director of Perot's citizen action group. (ierald "Swede" Larson of Rapid City has been selected as executive director of South Dakota's chapter of United We Stand America the grassroots organization formed from Perot's independent presidential race. Uuson said Perot would make appearances in Rapid City and Sioux alls sometime this summer, probably in July. "It's not a matter of it's 'when'," I said Despite a badly splintered state oigamzalion, Perot proved a popular candidate with South Dakota voters.

Nationally, Perot captured 18.86 percent of 'the popular vote, but in South Dakota he received 218 percent of the vole. And in the six Black Hills counties (Pennington, Custer, Fall River. Liwrence, Meade and Butte) the Peiot John Stockdale ticket got voles or 21 percent of the vole. However, the Perot campaign in South Dakota was a disjointed one with two groups backing the Texan: South Dakotans for Perot and South Dakota United We Stand, America. South Dakota United We Stand was the group that began collecting signatures on nominating petitions once Perot said he would run if volunteers could get his name on all of the slates' presidential ballots.

South Dakotans For Perot was a separate Tags up statewide PIERRE The state Game, Fish Parks Commission intends to significantly increase the number of licenses and tags available for South Dakota's three major firearms seasons for hunting deer this fall. The goal is to reduce the deer populations For the Black Hills season, the number of one tag licenses foi antlerless whitetails is proposed al 4. 100, an increase of 1,900 over last year. Two-tag licenses for antlerless whitetails would be 200, up lull Buck-only licenses would continue to be available in unlimited number. For the West River prairie season, there will be 22,890 licenses, an increase of 3.820.

There will also be a major shift to more two-tag licenses Last vear there were 11,630 one-tag and 7,140 two-tag licenses This season there will be 8,270 one-tag and 14,020 two-tag licenses The net effect is 37,510 tags will be available, an increase of 1 1.000. For the East River season, the proposal is 29,230 one-tag and 5,450 two-tag licenses. That's a change from last year's 28.130 one-tag and 3,350 two-tag licenses. The bottom line is 3,200 more licenses and 5,300 more tags total 1992 success rates Harvest figures from the 1992 major firearms seasons showed roughly the same success rates as the previous year Here are summaries from the 1992 seasons: Black Hills huniers took 5,309 deer in the buck-only hunt for a 36 percent success rate. Another 1,918 deer were taken in the special antlerless hunting units for a 76 percent success rate West River prairie hunters had 73 percent success, harvesting 23,446 deer (13,294 bucks and 10.152 does).

East River hunters had 71 percent success, harvesting 25,542 deer (12,409 bucks and 13,133 does). i-.