Being Miss USD Will Take You Places

By Warren Egebo

This past Sunday was the 60th Anniversary of the Miss University (of South Dakota) Scholarship Pageant (there was no pageant in 1980 or 2004). Last January at the Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas, I met Morgan Peck, the reigning Miss South Dakota and last year’s Miss USD. I am a 1972 graduate of USD and eighth graduate from my family (my wife, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, and several nieces and nephews have all attended USD over the years). Currently a board member for the Miss Philadelphia Pageant, I have been involved with pageants in the Miss America system for over 30 years, and that all began with Miss University.

It all started in the summer of 1957 when my sister, Sylvia, brought home from Vermillion the USD annual: THE COYOTE. I immediately noticed the “GLAMOUR” section that had full page head shots of Miss Vanity Fair (the yearbook queen), fraternity queens, Miss Dakota, Honorary Cadet Colonel, and the queen of queens on the USD campus – Miss University.
When my sister Hazel attended USD in the 60′s, she gave me a copy of the 1963 Miss University Pageant program that had Tom Brokaw as the emcee of the pageant. As many USD alums know his wife Meredith Auld won Miss South Dakota in 1959 as Miss Yankton. During those years when it was held annually at Slagle Auditorium each of the five sororities and the four girls’ dormitories fielded a candidate.

When I arrived at the USD campus in 1968 there were 20 or more candidates each year. Oh, how I remember Cecilee Streetman with her long chestnut hair winning the title in 1973 after singing the song “Killing Me Softly with Your Eyes”! She went on to be the first runner-up to Miss South Dakota that June.

The very first Miss University (1948), Carol Quinn, won Miss South Dakota in 1949. Then in 1950 Irene O’Connor not only won Miss University and Miss South Dakota, but in September in Atlantic City she became the first runner-up to
Miss America 1950. Other Miss University/USD titleholders who then captured the state crown and went on to the Miss America Pageant were 1957- Pat Miller, 1966 – Deborah Molitor , 1975 – Gina Campbell, 1995 – Kimberlee McKay and now Morgan Peck, Miss South Dakota 2009. Many a Miss South Dakota competed in the Miss University/USD pageant, but won the state crown with another title; some that come to mind are June Delbridge, Ann McKay, Sara Frankenstein, and Nikki Grandpre.

I congratulate the candidates for Miss USD this weekend. You are a part of a great tradition on the USD campus. And good luck to this year’s winner Valerie Menning as she competes for the state title in Hot Springs in June! Bring home another state crown to Vermillion!

Warren Egebo
Miss Philadelphia Pageant Committee member
Hegins, PA
USD grad 1972, BS in speech education

Monopoly Money

By Thomas Emanuel

I am a dietary ethicist. I don’t eat meat and only drink milk rarely (hurrah for soy protein); I buy organic and/or local whenever possible and try to avoid brand names. I don’t eat junk food, and I refuse flat-out to eat fast food or shop at Wal-Mart.

I do this because I don’t like the means by which big companies produce their food – paying immigrants 30 cents an hour to pick tomatoes, for instance, or razing the rainforest in order to make room for cattle so McDonald’s can get cheap hamburgers.

Therefore, I alter my shopping habits, withdrawing my support from objectionable companies and throwing it instead behind brands and products that I can feel good about buying. In my own small way, I use the laws of economics against the likes of Chiquita.

By forcing me to pay $650 a semester for a meal plan, however, Aramark and USD have robbed me of my choice to eat ethically. U.Dining offers commercial, brand-name products: enriched macaroni product and bleached white bread, Frito Lay and Sara Lee. Don’t eat meat? Hope you like salad and… salad. If I had my druthers, I would never eat any of the food offered at the MUC.

Theoretically, I could still choose not to eat there. But that would be wasteful – they’ve already got my money. I might as well get some use out of it.

The problem is, I don’t even get that much bang for my buck. Not only purchase a meal plan for mass-produced, unhealthy meals; we are also made to pay exorbitant prices for them. A cup of cantaloupe costs $3. I could buy a whole cantaloupe for less than that!

It could be argued that we’re paying for the convenience, but we should be able to choose to pay for the convenience. For my part, I’d rather make the walk to Jones. Furthermore, it’s not as if we can force prices down by refusing to buy, because we are required to pay in the $650 or $1,000 in order to live in the dorms – it’s either use it or lose it. It gives new meaning to the term “Monopoly money.”

I am not advocating USD get rid of meal plans altogether. Many students have no problem with having a meal plan; it certainly makes life simpler when you live at North Complex to walk downstairs and have an all-you-can-eat buffet at your fingertips. Then again, it makes life simpler not to think about where your food comes from too.

Perhaps USD could make meal plans default, but not mandatory. That is, they could offer students the possibility of opting out of meal plans, with the understanding that if a student does not actively opt out, she will automatically be charged for one. This way, most students would probably still end up paying for a meal plan, while those of us who don’t want to have to choose between eating at the MUC every night and wasting our money would be left with other options.

Of course, I should be thankful – and trust me, I am – that I’m even in a position to complain about meal plans; my life could be much worse. But despite my great good fortune, it would still be nice not to have to pay too much money for food that I neither want nor feel comfortable purchasing.

CORPORATE INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

By Senator Jason Gant (R-Sioux Falls)

On January 2, 2010, the United States Supreme Court, issued a historic ruling in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission with regard to political communications by corporations. The Justices stated that because the First Amendment applies to corporations they should not be completely prohibited from being involved in political campaigns. This decision does a lot to change the political landscape in South Dakota.

Although the State of South Dakota won’t now have the ability to decide whether a corporation should be allowed political speech, we have retained the responsibility of ensuring openness and transparency in this new time. To that end, I authored an amendment to House Bill 1053 and current South Dakota law to clarify this emerging campaign finance issue during the 2010 legislative session.

I have long believed that the residents of South Dakota should be keenly aware of where political contributions come from. With the Supreme Court’s ruling as guidance, I was determined to ensure that the public knew who was funding corporate political speech. I started drafting with the premise that all corporate political speech would include the language of disclosure that has become commonplace throughout the states: “Paid for by . . . “. South Dakotans are comfortable with this language and it was important to me to keep that disclosure.

My amendment also ensured corporations are held to the same open and transparent standards as candidate campaign committees or political action committees or even political parties. It only makes sense that these groups should be treated equitably.

In order to avoid the mistakes of our past, I also included language addressing the ownership of corporations paying for political speech. I wanted to be as sure as possible that all owners were listed with the Secretary of State, but I wanted to keep the process least onerous on South Dakota corporations. The result is a simple filing requirement for our domestic corporations since they are already required to file their articles of incorporation and annual reports with the Secretary of State.

Further, I required that if another corporation or LLC was an owner of the corporation paying for the political speech, that their corporate information would be filed with the Secretary of State. This helps to keep closed loopholes that might have been opened and helps ensure that different corporations or LLCs or LLPs aren’t created to try and hide their true intentions. Foreign corporations would also be required to comply with the same type of disclosures, although they would have stricter time and financial requirements.

The final result of all this work is that South Dakota will comply with federal precedent and allow corporations to be involved in political activities, but that those corporations will be held to the same standard as all other groups involved in political campaigns.

I believe it is paramount to ensure that political campaigns in South Dakota are open and transparent. I trust that this new law on corporate political speech will do just that.

Note: Senator Gant’s House Bill 1053 of the 2010 Legislative Session passed the Senate and House of Representatives unanimously and the Governor signed the bill into law on March 29, 2010.