Bushnell gets the ribbon for staging the county’s most exciting air show ever.

That town, as you may know, is a few kilometers northeast of here.

It is today a watch-fob of a place that isn’t going anywhere, but it’s graced with a few dozen good people bound and determined to do it at their own pace.

Its main attraction is potter Dave Huebner’s Dakota Stoneware shop.

Dave wasn’t around in the 1920s when Bushnell was the site of an air show at a time when most people believed growing feathers was a prerequisite to flying.

The show took place in the early 1920s.

Bushnell’s movers and shakers organized that holiday picnic and air show to give their little town of 350 a boost over big-city bully Brookings.

The late Cecil Sanderson, then of Aurora, who was 91 when he told me about the day, remembered it in vivid detail.

It was the first time he’d ever seen a patched and oil-smeared canvas-skinned airplane parked near the Bushnell picnic grounds.

During picnic lunch before the show, a staggering stranger in town who folks thought was just another rowdy from Brookings, set about making a dunderhead of himself. He seemed full to the gills, and was talking loudly as he snatched sandwiches and drumsticks from families’ fare, reeling from one picnic blanket to the other like a pig on a silage pile.

A sloshing bottle of something sinister bulged out his hip pocket.

Folks thought about sending for the sheriff to rid that pleasant afternoon of this very unpleasant man with about as much sense as God gave a goose.  

They became even more concerned when the inebriate careened out to the parked airplane there for the air show, and commenced fumbling around with the humming guy-wires and kicking at (but missing) the well-worn tires.

Then to everyone’s surprise, the man staggered to the plane’s business end and started turning the propeller. The craft’s engine coughed and then, my goodness gracious, it started, nearly decapitating the poor fellow as he flailed backwards away from the whirring blades.

He walked stiff legged around a wing, bouncing a knee off the leading edge, and worked himself back to where he practically fell into the cockpit.

Bushnell commercial club members, realizing something was amiss, unhooked thumbs from suspenders and waved and yelled warnings. Some sprinted out to pull him back from sure death. But the plane was airborne in seconds and left behind a swirling wake of stifling Dakota dust.

The little craft struggled as it banked around the town elevator and turned toward the picnic grounds, coming in low and fast. Women screamed, children ran for cover and men stood with open mouths, stroking beards and swallowing chewing tobacco in large cuds.

The plane’s prop wash peeled leaves from trees and caused mangy town dogs to hide their tails under their stomachs. Picnic blankets went flying. The plane made a sickening loop, then banked sharply for another run even closer to the ground.  

But it didn’t crash as everyone thought it would – or should.

It landed safely and taxied up close to the stunned gathering.

Out of the cockpit jumped a stone-cold sober pilot. He bowed majestically and acknowledged his aircraft with a broad sweep of his hand.

Slowly, over the next minute or two, everyone caught on. A few folks started to chuckle and then everyone was laughing and slapping knees.

The sandwich stealing, the near-decapitation, the just-missed town elevator and the low strafing runs over the crowd were all part of the Bushnell Air Show.

Pity we all weren’t there to enjoy it.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.