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Timothy Eric Ishmael, 60, of Gallup, NM died unexpectedly Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup, New Mexico. A Celebration of Life will be held Saturday, October 21 at the Wagner Christian Church in Wagner. Inurnment will be in the Wagner Cemetery.
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President Becky Brunsing gave a warm welcome to a club room full of Rotary members and visitors on Wednesday, October 11th at the Clubhouse on Main Street Wagner. Pastor/Rotarian Bill Heermann gave a prayer of thankfulness for the food, the beautiful day, and our Senior Class members. We did a pretty good job of singing “Smile” as our Song Leaders were not present for the meeting.
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Wagner Oral Interp has kicked off their season, continuing a tradition of excellence rooted in experienced speakers and performers. Libby Renbarger is in her second year coaching, joined this year by assistant coach Megan Fischer. The program has grown this year to fourteen students from 8th grade to seniors. The first meet was held on October 14th in Brandon Valley, where nine students competed and Reader’s Theatre brought home first place and junior Jackson Rolston made it to the finals round, placing 5th overall for his non-original piece, “The Prison of Your Mind” by Sean Stephenson. Reader’s Theatre consists of senior Trenton Rolston, juniors Presley Slaba, Macee Stimpson, and Jackson Rolston, and 8th grader Taya Stone, as they performed comedy “Bobby Wilson Can Eat His Own Face” by Don Zolidis. Senior Jennifer Barnett was also able to perform her serious piece “Casualties” by Sandrea Dempsy, and poetry pieces by Joe Brainard, Walt Whitman, Emelia Ruth, and Edmund Vance Cooke. Jessica Barnett, a freshman, competed with “The Elephant Man” by Christine Sparks in the serious category and “The Outsider” by HP Lovecraft in storytelling. Presley Slaba also performed in storytelling with her piece “Verity” by Colleen Hoover. Samuel Kafka and Aubrey Kazena also did their Duet “Crisis: My Brothers Ugly Shirt” by Bradley Walton.
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Having heard some of the rumors concerning the Wagner Helping Hands backpack program, I would like to inform you that we are still serving the kindergarten and first grade children of the Wagner Community School. This is entirely separate and not like the food boxes that come once a month. We give food to needy children and families every week for the week-end. Contrary to the Feeding South Dakota Food Box program, we have to buy all the food. It comes mostly from Feeding South Dakota because it is more economical and has to be shelf stable. We try to give two sources of protein, a vegetable, two small cereal boxes, two milks, and a snack or two. Sometimes it works out to feed a family, such as a box of mac and cheese, or a large can of spaghetti and meatballs. We do not know what is available until we see the list for the month.
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Aristotle is said to have referred to the female as a mutilated male, and this philosophy seems to have carried forward into much more modern times.
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The East River Smoke Men’s FastPitch Team won the 2023 Rosebud Fair & Wacipi Tournament. The tournament was held in Rosebud during the weekend of August 24-27. The tournament was comprised of 16 teams. The East River Smoke played against Redwood, Native Express, Red Leaf and Top Gunz to make it to the championship game. In the championship game, the East River Smoke faced The Tribe to win the tournament. Teams entered in the Rosebud Tournament were from all over South Dakota including Sioux Falls and as far as Oklahoma. The team was made up of mostly Yankton Sioux Tribe members from the Lake Andes and Wagner area, but also had three members from Sioux Falls and two from Wisconsin. The team was assembled rather quickly for the tournament by Terry Bruguier (pitcher), Harry Medicine Bear (second baseman) and Christian Hart (outfielder). The team with some additional players also attended the ISC World Tournament in Denmark, WI this year. Though they did not place, the experience was invaluable to the team and players. Even though getting a team together was done in short notice, they received great support from local businesses including Apparel Worx, Bouza’s Construction, Ruthies, the Yankton Sioux Tribe and The Fort Randall Casino & Hotel.
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The Wagner Community, Wagner Community School and Avon Student Council collected pop tabs for the Wince family from September 15th through October 4th. Tabs for Talia was an idea started by WCS teacher Pam Roth. The WCS elementary had a competition to see which grade could collect the most pop tabs. The 1st grade won the contest bringing in three boxes of tabs. The 2nd grade was a close second bringing in two and a half boxes of tabs. The 1st graders won a movie party in the school theater for winning the contest. All together the Wagner community, WCS and the Avon Student Council collected 11 boxes of pop tabs all together. After the pop tabs were collected WCS teacher, Sam Bialas sent them with her aunt to Denver to be donated to the Ronald McDonald house in Denver in honor of the Wince family.
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