Sunday Spotlight:Â a weekly feature to share some of the stories of the Jackrabbits competing in cross country and track and field.Â
It's common now-a-days for people to have cable tv, Wi-Fi and cellphone service, but imagine growing up in a town where the nearest stoplight and convenient store is over 100 miles from your house. A place where half of the town's population is your family alone, or only having access to Wi-Fi for the first time just a couple of years ago. Â
One freshman on the South Dakota State cross country and track and field team experienced a "normal" life while the other freshman experienced a less-common way of growing up.
Daniel Burkhalter, the 2018 Argus Leader's Track Athlete of the Year, grew up in Prairie City, S.D., a town of 22 people that includes 13 of his family members, while Joseph Minor-Williams grew up in the Twin Cities with a metro population of over 3.6 million people.
"It's really rural and not many people live out there," Burkhalter said. "A lot of ranches and farms were around us mainly. There's about 22 people in the town and 14 live in our family - 11 siblings plus my parents and myself."
A typical day for Burkhalter was different than most high schoolers. He was home schooled but competed at Bison High School, where his dad was the cross country coach. While Minor-Williams went to a Minneapolis school with about 400-plus kids in his grade alone.
"I was homeschooled," Burkhalter said. "So, a typical day would be waking up, doing my school work until about 3:45 p.m. and then going over to Bison High School to have practice."
Living in a small town and running at Bison, Burkhalter said that going out to eat was a huge deal, no matter where, just the idea of eating out was a huge deal.
"Where I live, going out to eat was a big deal," Burkhalter laughed. "It didn't matter, convenient stores, gas stations, it didn't matter where we went, but it was one of the best parts about track being out for track and going out to eat."
Being homeschooled, Burkhalter was able to work at his own schedule and pace. With that, he was able to take a lot of college classes for credit towards the end of his high school career. He joked that his mom couldn't help him with the high-level math classes.
"It's really a fluid thing," Burkhalter said. "My curriculum was really dense in math and science and it benefited since my major is math. Once I learned a topic I was able to move on right away - which, in the end, helped me earn about 68 college credits and come in technically as a junior at SDSU."
Minor-Williams got into computer science because of his dad, who is a graphic designer in Minneapolis and went to a lot of coding academies.
"I always took code academy in my spare time," Minor-Williams said. "My dad kept showing me new things to do as well so that helped."
Going to college and being in a structured class room has been a little bit of adjustment for Burkhalter but he feels like he has transitioned well.
"I'm taking it pretty light this semester," Burkhalter said. "I have adjusted pretty well, but the main thing I have to make sure of is deadlines. I didn't have a lot of deadlines in homeschooling, so that is one thing I have to really make sure I plan out.
Living in such a small town Burkhalter mainly ran alone while in high school, except when his brother was a senior in high school and he was a sixth grader.
"My sixth-grade year, my older brother was a senior, we were about the same speed so we would run together for practice and training," Burkhalter laughed. "After he graduated I ran alone from seventh grade until now."
With Minor-Williams, the practices are very similar to what he did in high school with the only main difference being the intensity of the practices.
"Other than my senior year, I mainly ran and trained by myself," Minor-Williams said. "Until my senior year, when a teammate stepped up. "
Highway 20 is the only paved road that goes through Prairie City, so Burkhalter ran on a lot of gravel roads. He also remarked that the town is less than a 1,000 square meters so he would run 1,000-meter interval circles around the town sometimes for a workout.
Minor-Williams was able to run on pavement, unlike Burkhalter.
"We trained on a lot of pavement or grass," Minor-Williams said. "It's different running on gravel here, so that would be one of the main differences along with more intense workouts and being able to run with people."
Coming from a place where you can run 1,000m intervals around your hometown, to Brookings - with an estimated population of 23,895 (2016), it can be bit of an adjustment.
"It's different, I haven't been off-campus a whole lot since I've been here," Burkhalter said. "To me, the campus is pretty much a town in itself. I get food, mail, and everything there. One of the big differences I've noticed is you can't zone out running like you can in the country."
Burkhalter remarked that they only got Wi-Fi in their town a couple of years ago and still remembers dial-up internet.
"This insurance company opened up in our town a couple years ago and they needed it so they ran it through the town," Burkhalter said. "But growing up, I still remember dial-up internet very well."
Burkhalter and Minor-Williams wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they were put in each other's shoes.
"I wouldn't like it," Burkhalter said of living in Minneapolis. "I wouldn't say I would meal prep, but I would only go to places if I really had to."
Minor-Williams agreed that it would be different than living in the metro-area and he wouldn't like it much.
When Minor-Williams graduates, he would like to move back to the Minneapolis area where he's from while  Burkhalter would like to move to Rapid City, S.D. when he graduates.
"Since I have about 68 credits, I plan on graduating with my math undergrad in about two and half years and then earning my masters as well. I want to be an actuary in the Rapid City area when I graduate."
Minor-Williams would like to go back and do something with computer science.
"There's a lot of opportunity in the twin cities," Minor-Williams said. "It would be a great place, but I would also like to live in Los Angeles, Chicago or like New York."