The weather was wet, wet, wet and even wetter than that during the calendar year of 2019. And this mostly on, sometimes off moisture pattern continued throughout the year of 2019, now including portions of December. This all made the fall row crop harvest a real ordeal in many cases and possibly even impossible in a few instances.

Enuff said about that!

JANUARY

Those occasional winter storms sometimes made traveling somewhat of a hazard as well. But there was one area annual event that was able to indeed be held -- the South Dakota Snow Queen festival. And that theme was obviously very appropriate this year.

Yes, a major highlight of the month was that Ipswich's own Aleah Steger was crowned the 2019 State Snow Queen early in January in Aberdeen and she wore her crown at many events throughout the year. But she will soon be relinquishing that crown to the new 2020 South Dakota Snow Queen. (The Ipswich Junior Snow Queen candidate last January was Emily DeRaad and the 2020 Snow Queen candidate from Ipswich will be Avery Sylte along with the Junior candidate Ashley Ptacek.)

The Ipswich Commercial Club sponsors the local Snow Queen Contest and they held a January 31 reception for the Senior Snow Queen Aleah and our junior representative Emily.

And speaking of Aleah Steger, she was one of the Ipswich senior girls' basketball stalwarts, who led their post-holiday stretch run on the road to the early-in-March State B in Huron. The other IHS seniors on the State-B qualifying team included Kamryn Heinz (All-Tourney and later to be named All-State), Olivia Gohl, Abby Grabowska, Bailey Hammrich, Sydney Loken and Ashlee Thorson. The Lady Tigers would finish seventh at the B after winning a SoDak 16 state-qualification game over Bridgewater-Emery shortly after edging Sully Buttes for a piece of the Region 2B crown. The Lady Tigers concluded their season at 19-5.

The other indoor sports in Ipswich also resumed for the New Year. Carter Heinz was a lone State B wrestling contender for the Ipswich Area Tigers and he claimed an eighth-place finish at the B as a junior. The Tiger boys' basketball team would meanwhile eventually finish their season at 11-10, after eventually dropping a Region 2B outing to Potter County. Their new coach was Tyler Severson.

A Watertown optometrist Melanie Weiss shared her personal story of her opiod addiction during a January 17 program in the Ipswich School Theater.

FEM hosted its annual pancake breakfast on January 25. It would later hold its annual meeting on June 25 in the Ipswich School.

Ipswich resident Marv Seyer has been promoting and selling a book that he recently wrote, featuring the history of the high-school athletic Yellowstone Trail Conference.

Ipswich would host a kids' wrestling invite in January, plus a later AAU district wrestling event which would be the first stepping stone for would-be state tournament hopefuls. And the local area would eventually do quite well in that department at the State AAU tourney in mid-March at Brookings.

FEBRUARY

The Edmunds County Conservation Department's annual Soil Health Clinic was held in the School Theater on February 4.

Judy Steen was named the Ipswich Betterment Award recipient, an honor that is annually sponsored by the Ipswich Commercial Club and chosen by the Ipswich Development Corporation.

The Wein Gallery on the campus of Presentation College in Aberdeen hosted an art show during the entire month of February that featured various Ipswich School artists. (The IHS art department would also collect a ton of ribbons for their showings at an art show in Faulkton a little later in the school year.

The School's musicians would also do well during their annual contests in Aberdeen.

The Ipswich School hosted its Middle-School Science Fair in the School Theater on February 13 and those place-winners would later attend the annual regional science fair on the NSU campus in Aberdeen and also do well, led by first-place trophies awarded to both Katie Bierman and Jailey Hutson.

The nursing home in Ipswich crowned their residents' Valentine Day Royalty, Queen Marge Hettick and King Jack Heyd.

Ipswich merchants hosted their annual Hatchet Days promotion in February again this year.

An Ipswich alum Buzz Stevenson was inducted into the South Dakota Cross Country and Track and Field Coaches Association's Hall of Fame on February 23 in Sioux Falls. He is also a member of several other coaching related Halls of Fame. Another IHS alum Julie (Heinz) Johnson had received many similar types of honors for her lengthy coaching tenure at Ripon College in Wisconsin. (She has passed away later this year.)

A fund drive for a new Tiger Post facility has been underway. The estimated cost for the building was some $450,000 and a planning committee was put in place to spearhead the project.

MARCH

An IHS eighth-grader Gavin Wollman has won the local area Geo Bee at the NSU campus, which qualified him for the state geography bee also to be hosted by NSU.

The Ipswich Middle-School and High School music departments hosted their annual spring concert on March 12.

A USAF Brass Ensemble from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska also performed a March 25 concert in the Ipswich School Theater. And it was free!

Guess what, a sign of spring would definitely be the annual Edmunds County Yard and Garden Clinic scheduled for March 30 in the 4-H Building in Ipswich.

But another sign of spring was the runoff from snow melt, that created some flooding problems for both rural and city residents . Edmunds County was declared a disaster area due to those issues and even more snow would be in store for April with a return to winter-like temperatures and resulting late-spring snow storms.

And track and field runners and golfers from IHS would certainly have loved to see more of spring and that would indeed extend into April. The runners made do with indoor meets, much better than nothing. Or you could venture far enough south. The golfers actually got to attend an early outdoors meet in Mitchell, the Class B Classic and the tracksters would be able to attend a later in April meet in Eureka!

APRIL

Ipswich's prom night was April 6.

Local winners in the Catholic Daughters of the Americas Court St. Katharine Drexel #2516 of Roscoe/Hosmer/Bowdle were Bridget Fuhrmann, Xavier Kadlec and Gracyn Kadlec. Their essay or art projects were sent to the state competition for judging. Later Bridget was honored as a state winner.

The Ipswich School play production of "Pop Goes the Weasel" was postponed until April 12 and then again to April 28, as cast members would most likely appreciate the extra time for some last-minute brush-ups on their lines, due to lack of weather-created practice opportunities.

The nursing home hosted an Easter Egg hunt on April 13.

Ipswich track and field and cross country coach Todd Thorson was one of 10 Aberdeen Central graduates to be inducted into that school's Hall of Fame this year.

Ipswich Superintendent Trent Osborne also received quite an honor, being selected as the Region V Superintendent of the Year. There are 21 schools in this particular region. While on the subject of these types of honors, Ipswich girls' basketball coach Brian Hogie was named as the Aberdeen American News area girls' basketball coach of the year, along with three of his players on the all-AAN area team, Kamryn Heinz, Abby Grabowska and Halle Heinz.

And the Ipswich FBLA really raked in their share of awards and honors at their state's Spring Leadership Conference on April 15-16. Some were even qualified to attend the national meet later in the year.

The Ipswich Elementary School's Spring Concert was scheduled for April 25. They also presented an educational musical about our U.S. currency entitled "Show Me the Money".

FEM Electric staff assisted the Sioux Valley Energy in Colman after Winter Storm Wesley damaged the electric coops infrastructure. Electric cooperatives in areas hardest hit by the winter storm.

On April 28 there was a goundbreaking ceremony for the new Louis and Helen Thares Youth Center in Ipswich, the new home for the Tiger Post. They were major donors for the project and were able to attend the event along with members of their family.

The Northeastern Literacy Association held their Children's Celebration on April 29 in the IHS School Theater and Starr Chief Eagle was the guest performer with her hoops demonstration.

MAY

The Ipswich School hosted its spring Pops Concert on May 2. The Middle-School additionally put on their performance of the classic musical "Fiddler on the Roof", held on May 17 and both events were held in the School Theater.

May 9 was the date for the Academic/Athletic Awards Night at the Ipswich School and the senior athletes were Kamryn Heinz and Ben Kulesa.

Twenty-nine IHS seniors received their diplomas on May 11 in the IHS gym. The class valedictorian was Myr Toennies and the salutatorian was Abigail Grabowska.

Four IHS juniors were selected to attend the 2019 Girls State, alphabetically, Tessa Kilber, Jayna Sanborn, Lexi Stafford and Avery Sylte.

Several of the local area 4-H Shooting Sports participants, as well as some Special Olympians all did well in their various respective local and state events.

Meanwhile, the varsity track and field season came to a conclusion with Ipswich winning the coveted girls/boys combined State B team championship held in Sioux Falls. The girls were second only to Deubrook in their team standings and the boys improved to fourth in their team point race, led by Maxwell Geditz with Ipswich's lone event win -- a 6-4 high jump. Needless to say as you might suspect, the IHS girls and boys both swept their regional team-point chases.

Ipswich would also qualify five golfers for the State B which had to be moved to Yankton due to poor course conditions in Mitchell. The boys finished eighth as a team. They were Ethan Gilbert, Matthew Jaenisch, Chet Peterson and Luke Peterson, alphabetically and the lone girl is Halie Feldman. And they are all looking forward to the upcoming season.

JUNE

There was a reception for Ipswich native Fr. Roger Geditz, a long time Catholic priest, and this was held on June 2 at Fr. Bormann Hall in Ipswich.

Deanne Hoyle of Ipswich is the new State President of the PEO, after being sworn in during their state convention on June 8.

What can you say about June? This year featured Trail Days of course and Frankie Ballard provided the headline concert music with Jacked Up as the openers. The event as usual featured Bulls and Broncs, though delayed a bit by a rain storm. The parade marshal was Corinne Jameson and its theme was "A Salute to the Volunteers". And as usual there were all types of things to do downtown.

There were a number of outdoor summer activities launched in June, especially in sports, but the Marcus P. Beebe Library sponsored a month-long Arts Show in June, as well and you could definite read in the summer with a library-loaned book in the shade of a tall cottonwood tree or two.

There was also a 4-H Cloverbud Camp in Ipswich in June for the youngsters.

The Agtegra Cooperative announced that it had recently acquired North Star Energy.

Edmunds County and local communities received grants to fund mosquito control this summer.

Local youth participated in the Get Outdoors Day sponsored by the McPherson and Edmunds County 4-H. They enjoyed fishing in Leola, as well as classes on trapping and shooting.