It's rare when some piece of news, whether it be a solitary incident, coverage of a national issue or politican/celebrity or a video explodes beyond the comfortable little group of western South Dakotans and West River ex-pats who regularly come to the Journal Web site to keep up with what's going on in the ol' Star of the West and the surrounding Black Hills.
It does happen on occasion, and it seems that when it does happen, it generally involves one of two things: Russell Means or mountain lions. And it seems the latter has been the most likely to reach beyond the South Dakota boundaries.
The biggest spike in readership over a one day period came in late 2007 on a story about Teen Court guru Marlene Todd's up close encounter with a cougar early one morning while she was hot tubbing it in Deadwood.
And then last week, outdoors reporter Kevin Woster had video e-mailed of him of a cougar hovering over a kill in Spearfish. The footage, captured off a field camera, is captivating. And this week, it became our most viewed video of all time, far outdistancing videos of last year's blizzards.
That is the world of the Internet. Ten seconds of raw video of a mountain lion briefly staring into a camera and then dragging his prey away into the dark of night can bring in more readers and viewers than stories and videos about a base shooting, the escalating controversy over a minimum security prison in east Rapid City, the closing of a major manufacturing business, a massive search for a pair of missing teens and any number of charges involving heinous crimes.
Here's a quick recap of the week that was.
Top Five Stories
1. The Fives: A cougar prowls the night, a school bus tragedy and readers lend a hand
It's seems a bit silly that last week's Week in Review column was this past week's most read stories. It's no reflection on the level of news over the past week, just further proof of the power of the cougar video.
2. Box Elder home shooting investigated
The report of a fatal shooting at an Airman's home in Box Elder and the subsequent identification of the Airman were the second and third most read story of the week. An investigation into the matter continues.
3. Former magazine publisher, Native American advocate charged with rape, child abuse
Ten Rapid Reply comments are tagged on to this story of Native American advocate Kevin Peniska's troubles with the law. Peniska, a well-known magazine publisher, faces multiple charges including first-degree rape and child abuse.
Scores of Rapid Reply's remain in the trash bin here at the www.raidcityjournal.com as many offered up potential punishments for Peniska, many of them rather upset with his unusual plea: not guilty by reason of insanity.
Unusual? Certainly. Effective? I guess we'll wait and see. I'm sure the Rapid Repliers will have an opinion on the matter either way.
4. Sanmina's SCI plant to close in June
It's a blow to the solar plexus. Even if you expect stories like this, the effect on the community will steal your wind away. A spiraling economy finally landed a knockout blow to Sanmina-SCI, which announced this week that it will close the doors for good at its Rapid City plant in June. One thing for certain after reading this story, though: If you didn't know whether the recession had reached us out here in Rapid City, there shouldn't be any doubt now.
5. Former Airman charged with rape and incest
More bad news from the base. A retired Airman who had since moved to California faces multiple charges of rape, sexual contact with a child younger than 16 and incest. If convicted, he faces up to life imprisonment for some of the charges.
Top Five Videos
1. Raw Video: Mountain Lion at Night in Spearfish
Did I mention that the mountain lion video at night video was real popular?
This video actually went up twice in the past week: once right after it was shot and again yesterday to coincide with the running of the story in the print edition and online of the Ultimate Cheer All-Stars. Some would argue whether or not cheerleading is a sport. I'll argue to get more videos on cheerleading on the site.
The Pet of the Week feature rarely fails to deliver. Molly Jo is no different.
4. Raw Video: Heavy Snow Hits Southern California
Rapidcityjournal.com readers like weather videos so much, they don't even care if it's their own weather. Of course, it's nice to see someone else get the big snow other than us, especially when it's sunny California.
5. Rush Shave Heads for Awareness
A heart warming story from the chilly confines of the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center's ice arena. It's exciting to see members of the Rapid City Rush get involved in a good way with the community, raising money to fight cancer through fundraisers that leaves no mullet behind.
Rapid Reply of the Day
Continuing on that whole Rush team members becoming part of the community, sports reporter Jim Holland gave us a little glimpse of that in his story "Cheering for each other" about the bond between Rush fan Nati Cox and her favorite player, Jamie VanderVekeeven. A new hockey convert, Cox is fighting breast cancer. As she's fought the disease, she likes to come to home games to escape the difficulty of her treatments. So friends Jason and Julie Beert got together with VanderVeeken to meet his No. 1 fan and her husband.
Section N Fan on 02/19/2009 07:11:47 said:
"THIS is why this team will succeed in Rapid City because they care about their fans and are becoming a part of our community.
It's a wonderful story and it means the world to those in our community to have these boys take the time to actually sit down and visit with them.
They have taken the time to get out and show themselves as wanting to be a part of this area - they've been to the BH Hills Childrens home, done numberous appearences and some may spend the summer here and be working in Rapid City.
Please get out and support them and quit all the negative blogging….this organization is become a huge asset to our community."
I agree with Section N Fan wholeheartedly.
Poll of the Week
We knew when we offered up Ronald Reagan as a gimme as the fifth face on Rushmore, there would be some consternation among our less-than-right-leaning readers. Editor Michael LeFort wrote about it on his blog.
Meanwhile, the results of the polling were nearly as predictable.
If they were to add two faces to Mount Rushmore, which president would join Ronald Reagan?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
837 votes 33 percent
John F. Kennedy
952 votes 37 percent
Dwight D. Eisenhower
416 votes 16 percent
Harry S. Truman
217 votes 9 percent
Calvin Coolidge
129 votes 5 percent
Editor's Pick
I've got a new cohort in the efforts to enhance rapidcityjournal.com. Sports ace Jeff Budlong has taken over efforts in the sports department to keep the Journal the top source of local sports news in the region.
One of his primary duties will be to maintaining and expanding the new and improved rapidcityjournal.com sports page. If you haven't seen it yet, you should really check it out.
