The Deadwood Bears

My dad often told the story of making the Little League All-Star team in Rapid City, South Dakota, but never getting to play. His family moved before he got the chance – one of eight or nine moves during his school years.

Grandpa was in the grocery business. He owned or managed stores in South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon and Nebraska, constantly searching for greener pastures. When Dad was in sixth or seventh grade, Grandpa bought a drive-in in Pluma, South Dakota, nestled between Lead and Deadwood. They remained there for a few years and Dad always considered Deadwood his hometown.

Pluma had a one-room, K-8 school. They had a gym and a basketball team - the Pluma Panthers. When it came time to go to high school, Dad elected to go to Deadwood and become a Bear. A year later, my uncle opted for rival Lead and became a Golddigger.

This was before South Dakota legalized gambling. Deadwood was just an old mining town whose claim to fame was Wild Bill’s death in the No. 10 Saloon and the debauchery of that era.

Dad played football, basketball and ran track for Deadwood. When I was a little kid, he gave me his old Bears football jersey. It was long sleeve, made of shimmering orange satin with black numbers and stripes on the sleeves. The color scheme and nickname made me believe Dad had played for the Chicago Bears.

Dad’s sophomore year, Grandpa decided to move the family to Oregon once again and help my great-grandfather with his grocery store. Dad wanted to finish the basketball season, so he got his own apartment in Deadwood. Can you imagine being on your own at 16? It didn’t last long. After an argument with the basketball coach, Dad met back up with his family in Oregon.

They spent a year and a half on the coast, before Grandpa moved them back to the Midwest, this time to Alliance, Nebraska. After spending his formative years surrounded by trees in South Dakota and Oregon, Dad said Nebraska felt like the Mojave. Dad would have graduated in 1969, but he didn’t want to be the “new kid” again. He enlisted on his 18^th birthday and went to Vietnam instead.

He had met my mom before he was deployed. When he got back from his tour, they married and settled in Alliance. Dad bought his own grocery store in Hemingford, 20 miles north of Alliance, in 1982. And that is where they have remained ever since.

Despite being a Nebraskan for the last 45 years, the Black Hills are Dad’s roots. He was heartbroken when a young arsonist burned down most of his old high school in 1985. By that time Deadwood and Lead had consolidated and the Bears were no more.

Despite not graduating with them, Dad still gets invited to the Class of ’69 reunions. He has many good memories from his time in Deadwood so I wanted to commemorate the bears.  Fortunately I found references. The website www.dhsclassmates.com featured photos of some old uniforms. Deadwood won the Class A state basketball title in 1954, sort of a Hickory Huskers story. One of the players from that team shared a photo of his old warmup jacket. Yes, it was before Dad’s time, but the Bear is a perfect example of folk art from the time period. The Bear is asymmetrical with uneven ears. The stitch-work is free-hand which meant that each team member’s jacket was slightly unique. The “artist” used humanlike eyes, long whiskers and a pointed nose, making the creature look more raccoon than a bear. But this was before Clip-Art or Google. The seamstress that designed the applique may not have had references.

While I appreciate his or her effort, I made a few adjustments to the design. I still wanted to keep it simple, but more bearlike. It turned out to be a less fierce Chicago Bear . . . maybe a Chicago Cub. Oh well. Here’s to the memory of Deadwood High School Bears.