After the illegal
search of 1998, I decided to travel to the University of Illinois and see my
older kids. My son was going to school there. He was not taking psychology. He
and I and his friend Dana, who was studying nuclear physics, did some
observations of who was taking psychology at IU. We found that many were in
that field because they didn't know what to take and it was not a brain
challenging major. That was no surprise to me.
When I got there. I
wrote up my official complaint to the sheriff of Beadle County and the State's
Attorney. I never heard back. I suppose since I was in Illinois, they thought
the problem had solved itself. That is when I reached out to Ron Schmidt,
Jarvis Brown, my state representative, Ron Volesky, and about everybody I could
think of. I have to admit some were severely tongue lashed. That didn't help.
In the spring of
1999 on my way back to South Dakota, I decided to stop in to see Sheriff
Beerman in Huron. I asked about why he didn't respond to my complaint. His
answer was that he did not have jurisdiction on the fair grounds. He told me he
had transferred my letter to Craig Atkins, bureaucrat in charge of the fair
grounds. I went to see him.
Atkins denied
having ever received any letter from Beerman. I didn't think Beerman would lie,
so I suspected Atkins was in the cover up mode. One needs to be careful about
drawing conclusions.
On my way, I
stopped in Faulkton to see Jarvis Brown, My state representative. Brown told me
that I had been illegally detained and illegally searched. He refused to get
involved, however he said he would get me lined up with a lawyer who would work
with me in a three days. Days turned to weeks with no response. I asked him to
contact Jerry Miller, Gary Kingsbury and Gene Abdallah to at least get the
facts straight. Brown is a Republican and he was not about to challenge the
power of the Janklow's administration.
About a month later
I was in Sioux Falls again, so I had the opportunity see these people on
the way home again. When I got to Huron, I stopped in to see Beerman
again. This time he denied ever getting a letter from me, let alone sending it
to Atkins. I thought that was strange.
I asked him to go
through his letters to see if he could find mine. After going through a few
letters in his drawer, he found it. I was wrong about Atkins. Now Beerman was
super angry with me because he got caught lying.
Never one to give a
hypocrite a way out, I asked Beerman if he was a veteran. Not only was he a
vet, he informed me, but also he was the Commander of the local American
Legion. I then asked him if he knew the proper way to display the American flag
because the one in front of his office was tattered, torn and unfit for
display. He denied that it was. I invited him out to examine it. Wow! Did he
get hot! He virtually ran me out of the courthouse. I went out to get my camera
to take a picture of his flag. He was still standing at the window as I trained
my camera and snapped away. When I finished, I pointed to the flag with my full
arm a few times. I don't think he was pleased that I understood what he
really was.
I went to see
Atkins again, but he was in the cover up mode as well. I did manage to take
some pictures of his flag, which was way beyond display quality.
My little niece and
I went back to Gettysburg. I had to plan my next move.