Speaking of Mount Rushmore, the Forest Service was kind enough to send me a list of all the ticket requests it received in June and the winners it drew for the big money-losing July 3 Trump-Noem ego show at the national monument. Among the numerical trivia from the ticket lottery:
The Forest Service data list 25,185 submissions requesting 125,819 tickets. That deviates slightly though not significantly from figures reported back in June. That’s an average of 4.996 tickets requested by each entrant; the maximum request allowed per entry was 6.
The Forest Service figures show that Recreation.gov chose 1,251 winning entrants for a total of 6,187 tickets. The odds of an entrant getting tickets were thus 4.97%.
The Forest Service released no personally identifiable data; it gave me the city, state, ZIP code, country, number of tickets requested, and time of entry for each request. Some of the entries have conflicting location data, but it appears South Dakotans made up 32.27% of the seat requests and 34.46% of the seat winners. The win rate for South Dakotans was thus 5.16%, a little better than the total average.
The next biggest chunks of winners came from California, Colorado, Texas, Washington, and Illinois:
| State | % of winners | % of requests |
| SD | 34.46% | 32.27% |
| CA | 10.68% | 12.40% |
| CO | 5.80% | 6.86% |
| TX | 3.77% | 3.02% |
| WA | 3.31% | 2.95% |
| IL | 3.30% | 1.97% |
| OR | 2.93% | 2.72% |
| MN | 2.86% | 3.25% |
| UT | 2.76% | 2.64% |
| WY | 2.67% | 2.53% |
| NE | 1.89% | 2.16% |
| VA | 1.49% | 1.14% |
| ND | 1.47% | 1.43% |
| WI | 1.36% | 1.34% |
| AZ | 1.23% | 1.45% |
| FL | 1.21% | 1.80% |
| ID | 1.20% | 0.94% |
| MT | 1.16% | 1.07% |
| IA | 1.15% | 1.46% |
| MD | 1.08% | 0.87% |
| MO | 1.00% | 0.82% |
Of the 311 towns Wikipedia lists with populations in South Dakota, I am pleased to report 64 had the good sense not to sign up for any Trump-Noem tickets. Among the largest sensible towns were Tyndall, McLaughlin, St. Francis, Waubay, Wilmot, Gayville, Alpena, Egan, and Trent:
| Towns w no tix to Trump-Noem | population (2019 est) |
| Tyndall | 1,022 |
| McLaughlin | 653 |
| St. Francis | 566 |
| Waubay | 560 |
| Wilmot | 501 |
| Gayville | 396 |
| Alpena | 285 |
| Egan | 273 |
| Trent | 230 |
| St. Lawrence | 185 |
| Letcher | 176 |
| Volin | 163 |
| Goodwin | 148 |
| Spencer | 147 |
| Lesterville | 131 |
| Carthage | 130 |
| Ashton | 124 |
| Sinai | 124 |
| Cavour | 123 |
| Oelrichs | 123 |
| Fairfax | 115 |
| Batesland | 114 |
| Stockholm | 107 |
| Badger | 101 |
| Agar | 80 |
| New Witten | 77 |
| Claire City | 75 |
| Fairview | 74 |
| Strandburg | 70 |
| Fruitdale | 68 |
| La Bolt | 68 |
| Morristown | 68 |
| Utica | 67 |
| Bushnell | 65 |
| Ravinia | 64 |
| Orient | 61 |
| Brant Lake | 60 |
| Lane | 60 |
| Garden City | 58 |
| Raymond | 54 |
| Lake City | 52 |
| Ward | 52 |
| Erwin | 44 |
| Lebanon | 43 |
| Dolton | 38 |
| Tolstoy | 36 |
| Altamont | 34 |
| Broadland | 34 |
| Long Lake | 31 |
| Marvin | 29 |
| Chelsea | 26 |
| Bancroft | 19 |
| Vilas | 19 |
| Virgil | 18 |
| Butler | 17 |
| Albee | 15 |
| Onaka | 14 |
| Farmer | 10 |
| Artas | 8 |
| Lowry | 6 |
| Verdon | 5 |
| Lily | 4 |
| Hillsview | 3 |
| White Rock | 3 |
Five towns sought tickets equivalent to over half of their population: Hermosa, Wetonka, Keystone, Rockham, and Custer.
Among our bigger towns (population over 2,000), our Black Hills burgs constituted the eight biggest ticket requestors per population. The most avid requesting towns outside of the Black Hills were Pierre, Winner, Fort Pierre, Dell Rapids (jeepers, Dennis, how many times did you enter?, Hartford, Brandon, Beresford, Mitchell, and Redfield, all of which requested tickets for more than 4% of their population.
| City | 2019 estimate[2] | Tickets Requested | Tickets Won | req/pop | win/pop | win/req |
| Rapid City | 77,503 | 13876 | 772 | 17.90% | 1.00% | 5.56% |
| Summerset | 2,660 | 402 | 6 | 15.11% | 0.23% | 1.49% |
| Spearfish | 11,756 | 1632 | 72 | 13.88% | 0.61% | 4.41% |
| Hot Springs | 3,502 | 475 | 43 | 13.56% | 1.23% | 9.05% |
| Sturgis | 6,922 | 934 | 57 | 13.49% | 0.82% | 6.10% |
| Lead | 2,943 | 355 | 33 | 12.06% | 1.12% | 9.30% |
| Box Elder | 10,119 | 816 | 14 | 8.06% | 0.14% | 1.72% |
| Belle Fourche | 5,702 | 453 | 33 | 7.94% | 0.58% | 7.28% |
| Pierre | 13,867 | 903 | 58 | 6.51% | 0.42% | 6.42% |
| Winner | 2,824 | 177 | 8 | 6.27% | 0.28% | 4.52% |
| Fort Pierre | 2,217 | 123 | 16 | 5.55% | 0.72% | 13.01% |
| Dell Rapids | 3,628 | 182 | 5 | 5.02% | 0.14% | 2.75% |
| Hartford | 3,354 | 159 | 6 | 4.74% | 0.18% | 3.77% |
| Brandon | 10,074 | 448 | 37 | 4.45% | 0.37% | 8.26% |
| Beresford | 2,026 | 89 | 14 | 4.39% | 0.69% | 15.73% |
| Mitchell | 15,679 | 688 | 41 | 4.39% | 0.26% | 5.96% |
| Redfield | 2,273 | 98 | 6 | 4.31% | 0.26% | 6.12% |
| Tea | 6,031 | 202 | 18 | 3.35% | 0.30% | 8.91% |
| Canton | 3,560 | 117 | 16 | 3.29% | 0.45% | 13.68% |
| Volga | 2,028 | 64 | 3.16% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| Harrisburg | 6,710 | 200 | 6 | 2.98% | 0.09% | 3.00% |
| Yankton | 14,687 | 419 | 27 | 2.85% | 0.18% | 6.44% |
| Sioux Falls | 183,793 | 5190 | 215 | 2.82% | 0.12% | 4.14% |
| Madison | 7,270 | 204 | 2 | 2.81% | 0.03% | 0.98% |
| Aberdeen | 28,257 | 776 | 62 | 2.75% | 0.22% | 7.99% |
| Brookings | 24,415 | 641 | 14 | 2.63% | 0.06% | 2.18% |
| Watertown | 22,174 | 546 | 58 | 2.46% | 0.26% | 10.62% |
| Chamberlain | 2,366 | 54 | 2.28% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| Vermillion | 10,926 | 221 | 2.02% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| Huron | 13,380 | 249 | 12 | 1.86% | 0.09% | 4.82% |
| Milbank | 3,103 | 55 | 5 | 1.77% | 0.16% | 9.09% |
| Lennox | 2,479 | 39 | 1.57% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| Flandreau | 2,316 | 36 | 1.55% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| North Sioux City | 2,928 | 36 | 2 | 1.23% | 0.07% | 5.56% |
| Mobridge | 3,444 | 23 | 0.67% | 0.00% | 0.00% | |
| Sisseton | 2,398 | 14 | 0.58% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
The luckiest bigger town in South Dakota—the one with the highest ratio of ticket wins compared to ticket requests—was Milbank, where only 1.8% of the population were angling for tickets but 9.1% won. Other disproportionately winning towns were North Sioux City, Watertown, Canton, Beresford, and Aberdeen. Bigger towns that rolled snake eyes—not one winner—were Volga, Chamberlain, Vermillion, Lennox, Flandreau, Mobridge, and Sisseton.
Kinda explains the South Dakota media’s call that there doesn’t seem to be any trump virus outbreaks from the political road show at Rushmore because they were all over the country who came. That was reported many times. The scheme worked, and the trump virus spread as planed! For the hedge funds of Wall Street, we are sick and dying.
Also, the 2 million dollars the trump virus road show produced would have been motel rooms from these out of towners in Keystone, blood money every penny.
Mr. grudznick mused that next to him were out of state people… if he was there.
6 or however many it was that were the maximum, of those Lennox requests were mine, which were made with the deliberate intention of NOT attending.
I asked for six, outa Hot Springs, which I woulda sent to Kristi after having done something clever with them.
Meanwhile, speaking of Hot Springs Bob, which are really not hot today, what is the geology in extreme northeast WY that lends itself to creating such great flowing hot well(s) out in the middle of nowhere for star gazing, if you know and wanted to share? Its been quite a few years though. Way before Woodruff/Reiman became so successful to attract the love of the GOP superspreader machine.
I wonder did a similar study occur marking fireworks a superspreader? Those unmasked “patriots” sat together much of the late afternoon/evening. Does Kristi have immunity from liability promoting brands?
Finally, what explains CA stopover attendance? RCRAirport likely has some data; and RC police, Penn Sheriff, USAF band, and other LEO infection data?
One thing that doesn’t show up in these stats is how many of us requested tickets with the intent of not attending. It was an effort to reduce the crowd. There were a number of people in both Custer & Pennington Counties who entered the drawing just for that purpose. No one that I talked to were successful in their results.
Thank you, Richard, for doing your part to protect others from coronavirus and Noem-Trump soul damage.
I would love to get some data showing how many of the winners actually attended.
Robin, interesting that none of those jammers won… but given that the odds of winning were only 5%, we’d need big numbers to establish that there was any sort of thumb on the drawing scale.
For instance, if we could find 50 such jammers, there would be only a 7.7% chance that none of them would win tickets.
Leslie, I know it’s hard to accept, but I don’t know the answer to any of your questions. I am sure the coward grudznick has opinions, though.
13 more dead from trump virus today, including one in the 40’s. South Dakota has over 7,100 cases of the trump virus.
We are now at 290,000 dead Americans at least from the trump virus since March 2020. Dump republican failure so we can move on. Vote Blue, that’s who.
I also entered the lottery and won/was awarded six tickets. I had no intent to attend the ego-fest and said tickets are now framed and adorning my wall with “Hell no, I didn’t go!” scrawled across them.
I used a Sharpie.
Barry Muxen rules!!
OSHA will not report any business employees that come down with the trump virus. We’re on our own kiddo’s.
“If your workplace is the site of a major coronavirus outbreak, don’t expect your employer to tell the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Employers are legally required to notify OSHA promptly whenever a worker ends up hospitalized due to a work-related injury or illness. But the way the Trump administration is choosing to read the rules, there is almost no scenario in which a COVID-19 hospitalization must be reported to the agency.”https://www.huffpost.com/entry/osha-covid-19-hospitalizations_n_5f889a28c5b6e9e76fbb6db7
This is not good news for workers nor for consumers. Fascism be thy name.
Having drank Barry Muxen’s beers, I agree with Mr. jerry. Barry Muxen indeed rules.
(Here is where you need to imagine grudznick, one arm in the air with pinky and index fingers extended, standing in a slight crouch, with my other hand gripping my crotch in the libbie way, not the Trumpist way, and a howl on my lip…grudznick has only one lip, or rather a lip and a half some say, as most of you know…howling “Baaaaarrrrryyyyyy Muuuuuuuuuuuuuxeeeennnnnnnnnn Ruuuuuuuuuuuules.”)
Indeed, I drank Mr. Muxen’s beers, and his seats were given to my friends.
As a product of Lily, SD, formerly known as a city, I’m sad to report that the community was disestablished. So you need to take the Lily Tigers off your list (RIP mom)
Had it not been for Lily, South Dakota, Hubert Humphrey Jr. would not have been as his father met and married his mother in Lily. How about that Mr. Schoenbeck? http://www.ghostsofnorthamerica.com/lily-south-dakota-population-4/
When I came home to Webster in ‘84, Uncle John was still on town council. They met once a month. According to the legal notice in the county paper, it appeared their only business was to pay the electric bill for meeting. But all gone now
The railroad made those towns like Lily and many others like them all across South Dakota. The only towns that are still standing have railroads going through them with services. I didn’t care too much for Bill Janklow, but I did appreciate his support for keeping the rail system alive in our state. It would behoove the South Dakota legislature to improve the existing rail and to expand it greatly. We will need rail for the future and now would be the time to start putting effort into those kinds of projects. What say you sir? If you build it, they will come.
Okaton still exist?
Guess we can figure out who grdz is, huh?
The interference w/CDC (involving Noem), FDA, OSHA, DOJ, DHS, eTc, is covered in some degree in Yale History prof Tim Snyder’s book: On Tyranny. The Rachel Maddow Show podcast @12:00 (10.09.20)
This a-hole Trump has a date in prison. Barr let him down for a big Oct surprise w/o a DOJ Counter Russia Report. Rudy is trying hard to destroy Joe and Hunter Biden. Putin puppets abound in the GOP/Trump mafia administration.
Barry Muxen is my HERO!
The town of my elementary school, St. Lawrence, was wise enough to forgo Covid Creep’s Superspreader Event. I am so proud! Willie’s Bar lives on!
Is there an Onanka or is that really Owanka on the rr tracks, which no longer “appears to be a going concern, Lieutenant”, along the river breaks west of Wasta?
From today’s Bonny’s blog: 797 new cases (total = 31,012; 7-day average = 653/day [record high])
WOW
Onaka, South Dakota exists. Owanka had no water system, water is life, so the good camping place, died. Long ago, a bartender in Scenic, South Dakota by the last name Arndt (sp) told me about Okaton, as he was originally from there. He said in the old days of prohibition, Okaton was called “Little Chicago” because of the many bootleggers and toughs there. He said those fellers were armed to the teeth and were not afraid to pull those smoke wagons. So now Okaton is about a goner, but when you go to the old main street there, you can look to the south and see the breaks of the White River and the Horseshoe Butte, real pretty there. The old school still stands and has had some work to preserve it. If the Wheat growers/State of South Dakota would continue the railroad through Murdo and onto Kadoka, Scenic then into Rapid City, Okaton could have a revival.
“Dances” thought was to acquire Badlands, Scenic to Whitewood/Deadwood ROW to destination resort/FrawleyRanch, skislopes,, golfcourses eTc. Would have been real eco dev rather than GOP gtifter Noem/Trump/Lust tax evasion billionaire forever trusts using twiddleywink SD puppet republican grifter legislators, broad brush:)
We could be shooting bison from trains today!? Damn pesky Indians! (Tongue cheek)
I have Okaton stories too. You tell me where Onanka is/was. Did Ardmore ever sell?
Onaka was founded on the rail line between Conde and LeBeau (Cheyenne River Country), as far as I know Onaka still exists, but again, the railways built these places and the railways took them away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onaka,_South_Dakota
I have a book “LeBeau, A Sputtering Flame” By Mary and Dale Lewis. LeBeau was like Parade, they both shipped cattle, lots of them. Parade still has the old Diamond A remnants of the pens used to load cattle to ship. LeBeau is under water when the river was dammed for Oahe.
Onaka is a real town. (Note it’s spelled with one “n” only, pronounced with a long “A”.)
I’ve been there. When I was a kid I played softball there. The team was coached by Mike. I don’t know his name but he had only one hand. The other, which may have been wooden, was covered with a black glove. First time I’d seen that disability so it stuck in my mind.
Satellite view on Google maps shows it’s smaller, no signs of a softball field now.
I also requested tickets with no intention on attending. I just wanted to see Trump and Kristi face empty seats in the news coverage. She actually touches his hands… eeewwww!