Our First Day in Oacoma & Chamberlain 7/28/2010

We decided to go and do some caches this morning but the only thing was that there were only about 10 in this area. So off we went with Muffy and Raggs. Well come to find out because of the flooding in all the rivers in South Dakota we were only able to even look for 3 of the caches. The first cache we went after at a boat launch we ended up with a couple of ticks on us before we even got within 100' of the cache so that was the end of looking for caches in the woods or any kind of grass. Then the next 3 caches were most likely under water as we drove to each site and couldn't get anywhere near them. Our first find was in the overflow parking lot for Al's Oasis in Oacoma which is another Wall Drug Store set of stores that sells everything from soup to nuts and also has food. Next we found a nano cache in the Chamberlain Rest Area on a historic marker commemorating the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial. Our last cache find was a multi cache where we had to go to a local park and get the coords for the second part, which happened to take you to the local Chamberlain Library. There we had to find a book about the subject, who was Billy Mills and Olympic hero who won the gold medal in the 10,000 meter run in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

William Mervin Mills or "Billy" Mills (born June 30, 1938) is the second Native American ever to win an Olympic gold medal. He accomplished this feat in the 10,000 meter run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics making him the only American ever to win the Olympic gold in this event. A former United States Marine, Billy Mills is a member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Tribe. His 1964 victory is considered one of the greatest of Olympic upsets.
William Mervin Mills ("Billy") was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a Native American (Oglala Lakota (Sioux)), and was raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation which is very close to Chamberlain. He was orphaned at the age of 13. Mills took up running while attending the Haskell Institute, which is now known as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Both a boxer and a runner in his youth, Mills gave up boxing to focus on running.
He attended the University of Kansas on an athletic scholarship. He was named a NCAA All-America cross-country runner three times and in 1960 he won the individual title in the Big Eight cross-country championship. The University of Kansas track team won the 1959 and 1960 outdoor national championships while Mills was on the team. After graduating with a degree in Physical Education, Mills entered the United States Marine Corps. He was a First Lieutenant in the Marine Corps Reserves when he competed in the 1964 Olympics.
Billy Mills qualified for the 1964 Summer Olympics on the U.S. Track and Field Team in the 10,000 m and the marathon.
The favorite in 1964 was Ron Clarke of Australia who held the world record. The runners expected to challenge him were defending champion Pyotr Bolotnikov of the Soviet Union, and Murray Halberg of New Zealand, who had won the 5000 m in 1960.
Billy Mills crosses the finish line in the 10,000 m in the 1964 Olympics, 14 October 1965. U.S. Marine Corps photo
Mills was a virtual unknown. He had finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials. His time in the preliminaries was a full minute slower than Clarke's.
Indeed, Clarke set the tone of the race. His tactic of surging every other lap appeared to be working. Halfway through the race only four runners were still with Clarke: Mohammed Gammoudi of Tunisia, Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia, Kokichi Tsuburaya of Japan, and Mills. Tsuburaya, the local favorite, lost contact first, then Wolde. With two laps to go only two runners were still with Clarke. On paper, it seemed to be Clarke's race. He had run a world record time of 28:15.6 while neither Gammoudi nor Mills had ever run under 29 minutes.
Mills and Clarke were running together with Gammoudi right behind as they entered the final lap. They were lapping other runners and, down the backstretch, Clarke was boxed in. He pushed Mills once, then again. Then Gammoudi pushed them both and surged into the lead as they rounded the final curve. Clarke recovered and began chasing Gammoudi while Mills appeared to be too far back to be in contention. Clarke failed to catch Gammoudi but Mills sprinted past them both. His winning time of 28:24.4 was almost 50 seconds faster than he had ever run before and set a new Olympic record for the event. No American had ever before won the 10,000 m.
American television viewers were able to hear the surprise and drama as NBC expert analyst Dick Bank screamed "Look at Mills, look at Mills" over the more sedate play by play announcer Bud Palmer who seemed to miss what was unfolding. For bringing that drama to the coverage, Bank was summarily fired.
After the race Mills talked with Clarke and asked if he was straining as hard as he could on the final straightaway to the finish, to which Clarke replied, "Yes." Mills has stated that he tried to be relaxed during his final kick to the finish line and felt that helped him to pass both Gammoudi and Clarke. An infrequently mentioned fact is both Clarke and Mills ran the marathon at the 1964 Olympics after the 10,000 m. Clarke finished in 9th place, Mills finished in 14th, in a respectable 2:22:55.4, approximately two-and-a-half minutes behind Clarke.
Mills later set U.S. records for 10,000 m (28:17.6) and the three mile run and had a 5,000 m best of 13:41.4. In 1965, he and Gerry Lindgren both broke the world record for the six mile run when they finished in a tie at the U.S. AAU nationals, running 27:11.6.
Billy Mills was inducted into the United States National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1976, and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984. He is also in the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, the Kansas Hall of Fame, the South Dakota Hall of Fame, the San Diego Hall of Fame, and the National High School Hall of Fame.
Billy Mills is the subject of the 1984 film Running Brave, starring Robby Benson.
Mills also serves as the spokesperson for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, an organization that helps support projects that benefit the American Indian people, especially the youth. It was a fun cache to do and the librarian was so helpful in helping us but not telling us exactly how to do the cache.

After we finished that cache we had to stop at the hardware store and pick a few things up and then we headed back to the coach for the day. All in all it wasn't a bad day as we did get to see the rest of Chamberlain so the day wasn't a complete loss. Well that's about all from here for today so until tomorrow we miss and love you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick