Much like the rest of South Dakota, the Black Hills region is no stranger to the droughts that routinely come through the area, turning an already semi-arid climate into an almost desert-like one.  The current drought of 2012 is much like past ones, although the current episode is hitting as the forests of the Hills are extremely vulnerable due to the infestation of the mountain pine beetle and the hundreds of thousands of acres of dead trees they have left in their wake.

This is the brochure that lists the events of the 40th anniversary commemoration of the Flood of 1972. It begins with a poem of the disasterous night, lists those who perished, and includes stories from that terrible night along with a list of the events happening this anniversary weekend.  To view the commemeration article, follow this link.

A move towards more transparency is helping the U.S. Federal Reserve and will continue to improve monetary policy decisions, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota told the audience attending the Black Hills Knowledge Network’s Data Matters Forum on the Economy in Rapid City on May 23.

"It used to be that the Fed would act and not tell anybody what they did for 90 days," Kocherlakota said. "Now they release a report, statements that everybody takes for granted."

Statistics drive how South Dakota deals with health and disease, top state health officials told Rapid City healthcare leaders. The South Dakota Department of Health uses a variety of surveys and vital records to implement public health policies and campaigns, Health Secretary Doneen Hollingsworth told the crowd May 16 at a Data Matters forum sponsored by the Black Hills Knowledge Network.

Former South Dakota Education Secretary Rick Melmer speaks at the Black Hills Knowledge Network's Data Matters forum on education April 27 in Rapid City. Melmer predicts more complex assessment tests coming soon for K-12 students.

Data should help us understand the world. Often, it can help us recognize problems and opportunities. Sometimes, it can lead us to solutions. But it has to be available, and it has to make sense.

On the Black Hills Knowledge Network, we work to provide access to data and statistics that help you understand what’s going on in our region. Is unemployment rising or falling. What about wages? Are we winning the fight against obesity and diabetes? Are we increasing the percentage of students who graduate from high school?

Where do we get this data?

Photo courtesy of Tom Warner

Maybe it happens at dinner one night. Someone asks a question. No one knows for sure. Someone else tries Google. Maybe you have your answer in seconds. Or maybe not. If it’s a question about your neighborhood or your community, you might not find anything at all. In the age of Google, the most elusive information is local.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation collected data for 49 of the counties in South Dakota on variables such as mortality rates, smoking, obesity, healthcare coverage, number of primary physicians and more to rank each county as to how healthy its citizens are. The county with the highest ranking in South Dakota is Brookings County. For the counties in the Black Hills Knowledge Network area, Lawrence County ranked the highest as the 18th healthiest in South Dakota.

The Black Hills Knowledge Network will make it easier to find data about our region thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Bush Foundation. To find out more about this grant, watch the video of the March 26 KNBN broadcast and interview of Eric Abrahamson.