• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The narrow defeat of an attempt to reorganize the South Dakota High School Activities Association's board of directors seemed like a new chapter in an old story: resistance from small schools to dominance by the state's largest city.
• "I think there is a belief or a worry by some of the small schools that they don't want to be overrun," said Tom Culver, the superintendent at Avon, whose high school has 56 students.
• But in this case, the numbers don't show that worry at work. Ballots obtained by the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/Tx4IWt ) show that the vote to change the activities association constitution and alter the makeup of the board, which needed 60 percent approval and failed by a handful of votes, received plenty of support from small schools.
• Instead, large schools outside Sioux Falls formed the opposition to the move.
• That's partly because changing the voting parameters for choosing board members could bring "better representation" for smaller schools, Culver said.
• "My main concern had nothing to do with Sioux Falls -- on, off or indifferent," said Dan Whalen, activities director at Pierre T.F. Riggs, which voted for the change. "It appeared to give better representation to our smaller schools, too."
• Riggs, with 611 students, was the largest school outside of Sioux Falls to vote for the reorganization. All the other schools in the Eastern South Dakota Conference -- including Aberdeen Central, Huron, Watertown, Mitchell, Yankton and Brookings -- voted no.
• "If there's benefits ... it would be the biggest schools and the smallest schools," said Mitchell activities director Geoff Gross. "The rest of us stuck in the middle would pretty much stay where we're at."
• Among schools with fewer than 500 students, the reorganization cleared the 60 percent threshold. That included 55 percent among tiny schools with less than 100 students and 72 percent among schools with between 100 and 500 students. But

(Continued on page 16)