Week four of the legislative session has come to a close, and the education bills we have been waiting for have finally been introduced. Education reform will likely become even more of the center focus from now until the end of Session. Three bills were filed this week that would implement the Governor’s proposal from the State of the State Address.
HB 1182 would increase the sales tax by a half-penny, which $40 million would then be dedicated for property tax relief. This new revenue would give local school districts added funds to increase South Dakota’s average teacher salary from $40,000 to a target average of $48,500.
SB 131 would establish the new funding formula and require that 90 percent of new funding go specifically to teacher pay. New caps on school general reserve funds and on the growth of capital outlay levies are also outlined. SB 131 leaves the capital outlay flexibility at 45 percent.
Finally, SB 133 includes a number of proposals that would help to recruit and retain more teachers and to create new opportunities for school efficiency, which include the expansion of the e-Learning center at NSU, teacher mentoring programs, innovation grants for school districts, and reciprocity for teachers coming from other states. This new formula will create the expectation that schools will use these new funds for salaries, and that school districts will make significant progress toward the $48,500 target salary.
Even though education is stealing the show in regards to time and energy spent on communication and finding an effective reform solution, there are many other pieces of legislation working their way through the chambers.
SB 2, which I have mentioned earlier, has passed the Senate 28-5 and also the House Local Government 13-0. This bill would give counties a much needed 25 percent share ($3.8 million) of the alcohol beverages fund that is currently split between the state and cities.
We had extensive debate in my Health and Human Services Committee in regards to SB 28, the addition of meningitis to the list of immunizations children must have to enter school. This bill still allows exemption via certification or religious beliefs. It passed the Senate 23-10 and our committee 7-6. I would expect a lengthy floor debate.
Finally, I had the privilege of addressing 80 or more Madison residents in Pierre this previous week for Madison Hosts the Legislature Day. As always, it was a great opportunity to bring my Madison family together with me in Pierre and discuss their feelings on how the legislative session is operating. Thank you to all of you that could attend and I hope your visit to your capitol was memorable. Please, as always, if you have any comments or questions, email me at Rep.Wollmann@state.sd.us. I look forward to the challenges ahead and continuing to represent District 8.

Conversation Killers
I love to live in a small town where friends will stop in the middle of the street to roll down their windows and chat with you with absolutely no fear of being rear-ended. Keith Wolf (affectionately known to all as Brother Wolf) was that friend last week. We agreed to meet and toss back a couple of beers. I sat down and found myself between Wolfie and Letcherite Dick Heinzmann.  The blizzard had been the day before, and I was surprised to find him wearing shorts.
I said, “Hello, Dick. You’re showing a lot of leg.” Dick replied, “Well, I only have that one to show.” Then we laughed at my poor choice of words. Those unfamiliar with Dick don’t know he had the misfortune of forfeiting his other leg to diabetes. I applaud Dick’s ability to maintain his humor. The only thing worse I suppose, Dick, is if I had said I put my foot in my mouth.
I do have a history of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. One that sticks out in my mind is in school literature class and there was a poem whose hero was named Roland. I said out loud, “Who in the hell would name their kid Roland?” My classmate, Suzanne Amick, turned around and said, “My dad’s name is Roland.” (I wanted to eat my words.)
Gay maintains that so far I haven’t had any cooking failures. She threatens to chain me to the stove so I can’t leave in the spring. (Kinda reminiscent of Kathy Bates torturing James Caan in the movie “Misery”.) I did have to remind her of the night I made short ribs for a meal. (I prefer long country ribs.) They were fatty, which Kent mentioned tactfully, but Gay just blurted right out, “Geez, they are kinda like chewing on dog bones.” Cole replied, “That’s kind of an appetite killer.”
Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease, but still people told the joke about if you have it, you always make new friends. Of course, I was foolish enough once to repeat such a tasteless phrase. The guy next to me said, “My mom has Alzheimer’s.” These are the moments when I want to crawl in a hole.
Pregnancy is a touchy subject at any time, and woe to the person who makes the mistake of commenting on weight gain. Thankfully, it wasn’t me in this incident. Esther ran across an acquaintance and asked when her baby was due. That woman replied, “Two weeks ago.” In Esther’s defense, she said there was a rack of clothes they were talking across. So a word to the wise—never, ever, ever comment if you’re not absolutely sure.
I made a salad recently that was labeled “Amish Salad”. After his second helping, Kent declared it should have been called “Mormon Salad”. I asked, “Why do you say that?” Kent replied, “Because I have two wives now—one to cook and one to clean!”
I attended a Super Bowl party at Terry Hill’s shed. Georgia was busy inviting people and instead of saying that Dick Regynski would be making mountain oysters, she called them “oyster nuts”. (Georgia is an assassin of language and grammar.) I inquired, “Just how big are those?”
I actually want to do physical harm to people who pronounce the town of Huron as “urine”.
When parents attempt the “birds and bees” talk—awkward conversations. My mom sat Gay and I down for lunch and started the conversation with the phrase, “Girls, I want to ask you something.” Immediately, your stomach takes a high dive. She calmly asked, “Have you two girls ever run across anyone who likes to French kiss?” Gay primly said, “No, Mom.” (I was thinking, “Liar, liar!”) I remained silent, but Mom persisted and said,  “Dee Ann?” I solemnly said, “Yes.” Mom, with a shocked look on her face, said, “Who?” I replied, “Me.” We never had a sex talk ever again. End of conversation.
Dee Baby

Is there a noun such as “idiocity” in the English language? I taught grammar for a while, but I don’t recall that one. It would derive from “idiot” if it can be logically identified. Whatever the case, I’m trying to recall the mindset afflicting the writer when he was a 15-year-old junior in Forestburg High School. I’ve been writing about the 22-year-old beauty, who became our commercial teacher. The problem arose when I became a member of her Typing I class. I was beginning to realize females were a lot less pestiferous and useless than I had previously thought.
We called her Miss Koehn (kane), a vision of loveliness to whom several of us sophomore and junior boys were giving undue attention. “Undue”, I call it, because an experienced teacher would have soon put a stop to a bunch of young puppies waltzing into her room every morning before the first bell. But she was young, in her first year of teaching, and likely not accustomed to such concerted masculine attention, especially from young bucks not yet dry behind the ears. And to be popular was an anomaly to be enjoyed.
Miss Koehn and I hit it off in admirable fashion. I didn’t call her by her first name, was always cooperative and polite, nor did I try to take advantage of my “inner circle” friendship before school called. But from my starry-eyed viewpoint, we seemed to become good friends. That was a first for me, and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle infatuation (I call it now) and schoolwork at the same time. Then one day well along into the school year, she confided in me that she was considering not returning to FHS another year. I was devastated at the thought and perhaps hypocritically so, because I had another iron in the fire myself regarding returning to FHS my senior year. A cousin had been pestering me to come to Wessington Springs Junior College High School for my final high school year. I really wanted to join him. Except for fondness for a certain teacher, I had no undying loyalty to the local high school.
However, in the absence of my parents’ yielding to my request to change schools, I entreated Miss Koehn more than once to “please, please, please come back next year!”. Then in a few weeks, quite unexpectedly, my parents said it would be OK for me to change schools for my senior year. Elated, I realized my prayers had been answered, but just as quickly, a jolting thought slammed into my consciousness. I had been pestering Miss Koehn to sign her second contract for the very school year I would be leaving Forestburg myself! What a dilemma! What a hypocrite! I knew I would have to tell her and then watch my emotional house of cards collapse around my feet.
Tell her I did; I’ll not forget the chastising she gave me for it appeared then that she must have already signed her contract to return. An old saying “feeling lower than a snake’s belly” epitomized my feelings for a few days. I don’t recall all the ensuing details, but in a short while, we were friends again. I can well imagine now that her decision to return to FHS had less to do with the Thomas kid than it was simply her practical decision regarding employment and eventual returning to college. But what fanciful dreams a then 16-year-old can spin! I may have been a master spinner!
Truth be told, however, Miss Koehn and I had a respectable, appropriate teacher/student relationship the rest of the year. I was learning to type and was second fastest typist immediately behind classmate Bob Ellingson. However, just before the last day of school, I was still climbing what my mother sometimes described as “fool’s hill”. I remarked to Miss Koehn that since we’d be going separate ways the next year, I would like something by which to remember her. In a day or two she called me into the typing room and handed to me an object neatly stapled to a 3 inch by 3 inch piece of cardboard. Lo and behold, there lay a dark-brown curl of her shoulder-length hair of sufficient abundance that it must have required re-doing her hair styling!
I was greatly surprised, vastly pleased and completely dumbfounded. I took my treasure home (Mother was still in the dark), placed it somewhere for safekeeping, and, believe it or not, forgot about it in a few weeks. A month or so ago (70 years later), I was digging around in an old steamer trunk in our attic looking for some old artifact. Among other objects from high school and college days I found, you guessed it, a lock of dark-brown hair! When I showed it to my ever-loving, permanent-choice wife of 64 years, she steam-rolled all my precious memories when, in a very practical, unemotional voice, she asked, “What are you keeping that thing for?”
Oh, the cruelty of unthinking people! But high school, college, teaching, a year in Korea all came and went and with them infatuating puppy love. Another dark-haired girl, this one from Michigan, then marriage, and later two sons, all came to bless me with permanent status. But now, I’ve filled quite enough space with memories of what occurred in typing class. However, at a later time, I may come back to the saga of Miss Koehn. She’s not a front burner item, but she never disappeared completely from the pages of my life. A week ago, she told me she was 92!