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hospital would have to cut back on community services like health screenings and education and might look at staff cuts.
• Dave Hewett, president of the South Dakota Association of Health Care Organizations, said he doubts the proposed change will get approved, but he's worried it could lead to a compromise that that would still cut funding to rural hospitals.
• "There's no middle ground on this, and we will basically defend our critical access hospitals as long as we have to," Hewett said.
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Man drowns while netting minnows near Henry
• HENRY, S.D. (AP) -- Authorities in Codington County say a man drowned while netting minnows in a slough (SLEW) near Henry.
• The sheriff's office says the man's boat drifted from shore Thursday morning, so he swam after it but drowned.
• His body was recovered, but his name has not been released.
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Cattle ranchers hope SD beef plant will reopen
DIRK LAMMERS, Associated Press
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- North Dakota feedlot operator Jeff Kvamme finishes loading cattle onto a truck and bemoans the animals' 450-mile one-way commute to Dakota City in Nebraska.
• If the long-troubled Northern Beef Packers beef processing plant had achieved its grand plans of processing 1,500 head a day, the trip would be a 150-mile jaunt down to the South Dakota city of Aberdeen.
• "It'd be nice to see it reopen under someone else so we still have that option of sending cattle there," Kvamme said.
• Northern Beef Packers opened its $109 million state-of-the-art facility on a limited basis in 2012 after years of delays. But its owners filed for bankruptcy protection less than a year later saying they didn't have enough money to buy cattle to slaughter.
• Now, as creditors grapple with who will get paid in the case, which could be headed to liquidation, the region's feedlot operators are hoping someone can buy and reopen the plant.
• The tight economic times make it even more important to have a closer facility, said Todd Wilkinson, vice president of the South Dakota Cattlemen's Association and owner of a feedlot west of DeSmet.
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