The ever-increasing cost of having property in Custer County is keeping young people out of Custer County, driving older people out of Custer County and causing the rest of those who live within the county to scratch their heads as to a perceived inequity as to how property is taxed.

That was the message delivered by the “Realtors Tax Force” of Lane Munger, Ramona Flaig and Patty Hauschildt to the Custer County Commission at the commission’s June 5 meeting.

The opening of a new play season would, undoubtedly, have cast and crew on their toes, but reflecting that in the opening play of the Black Hills Playhouse’s 86th season? Well, that’s pure genius. 

The season kicked off Thursday, June 6, with “Boeing Boeing,” a farce about one man and three fiancées. The play was written in French by Marc Camoletti and translated by Beverly Cross and Francis Evans. The play first opened in London in 1962 where it ran for seven years. In 1965, it opened on Broadway and ran one month. Since then, it has been revived into an off-Broadway play (receiving a Tony award for Best Revived Play) and even was adapted as a feature film starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis.

Brennan Witt has his summer off to a blazing start.

Witt, a senior-to-be at Custer High School and the three-time defending state champion in Class A in the 800, posted a new personal record in his best event when he competed at the Midwest Distance Festival in Illinois last weekend. Witt ran the race in a time of 1:53.36, shattering his previous personal best by three seconds. His time was also the third fastest 800 run in the history of South Dakota high school athletes.

When asked to spell the words “balalaika” or “Pembina,” many would grab a dictionary. Not Max Oesterling, who correctly spelled those exact words at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. 

Oesterling, a home-schooled eighth grader from Custer, started entering spelling contests when he was living in Kentucky.

“My mom thought it would be good to do,” he said. “It was a lot of fun. From then I started doing more.”

In a development that has given new meaning to Verizon’s “share everything plan,” U.S. citizens have slowly learned over the past few weeks that the National Security Agency and FBI have been tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.

According to the Washington Post, the program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.