By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

COLOME — It’s been nearly 10 years since a stretch of Highway 18 was the toast of the South Dakota high school football world when Winner, Gregory and Colome left the DakotaDome with championships. 

However, nine years later both Gregory and Winner have made trips back to the DakotaDome — walking away as champions again, while Colome struggles to keep the school open. 

This year the familiar Colome Cowboy and Cowgirl green will only be seen on varsity team sports for football and volleyball, while both boys and girls basketball teams will play a junior varsity schedule. 

“Our enrollment is what's driving us to make these decisions because our enrollment has been declining the last two years,” Colome Superintendent Betsy Rohde said. “When you have fewer kids going out for sports, then we have some small classes going through our high school between our ninth graders and our 11th graders. We have small classes so our numbers are down.”

According to Rohde, the school’s enrollment sits at 140 with a boost coming from the new Cyber Academy, which allows students from anywhere to take courses online, but still be counted in the school’s enrollment. Rohde added the program was added to help with the enrollment numbers while also giving home school students an option to have a platform for taking high school classes.   

“We do open our cyber school students too to participate in sports so we do have a couple of our online kids that are playing sports. We have a lot more numbers this year on our football team, but they’re a lot younger kids.”

This year the Cowboys are 0-3 on the year and are being outscored by their opponents 159-0. Their roster consists of 18 players made up of four seniors, two juniors, five sophomores, three freshman, two eighth-graders and two seventh-graders 

“If you barely have enough to field a team and a lot of them are younger, it’s kinda tough throwing them out there in varsity sports with not much experience or none,” Colome athletic director Wade Juracek said. “Then you throw an injury in there or a sickness in there when you barely have enough to field a team — especially football since it's a contact sport.”

Last year’s lack of numbers plus injuries led to the Cowboys having to forfeit a game. This year to ensure there would be a homecoming game, the school decided to move it to the second week of the season against Platte-Geddes. The result was the Cowboys getting a homecoming, but it also caused a rumor to circulate about how the school was not going to play the rest of the season.  

“I think what people heard was we had an early homecoming,” Juracek said. “Which we did the second week because that’s important for the kids and especially for the seniors. So hopefully we didn’t have to miss any games.

“They do a good job and their spirits are up and I’m proud of them. It’s easy to go down the road and say I’m going to go to a team that is winning. Especially with Winner just up the road and Gregory on the other end. You stick it out with the friends that you grew up with and that tells me something about the character of these young folks.” 

Colome Cowboys' Alex Larson runs for a gain during the first half against Sunshine Bible Acadmey Friday, Sept. 5 2025 near Miller. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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When the Colome Cowboys won the state football championship in 2016, the school had an enrollment of 225 K-12 students according to the South Dakota Department of Education. Since then the school has seen a slow decline after peaking at 228 in 2018 — dipping below 200 in 2021 at 191 and falling to 162 in 2022, 148 in 2023 and 129 last year. 

It’s a trend that has school officials concerned because if the enrollment drops below 100 students, then the school is at risk of losing its state funding. 

“If our total enrollment falls below 100 that makes it difficult to keep your doors open if you can't make that difference up with the state aid that we would lose,” Rohde said. “The online thing was part of that drive on, but just kind of continuing to give opportunities for students that way. It's hard when people move. It's hard when people open enroll, but we're just trying to adjust to that.”

For Colome, the future could mean a co-op with its neighbors to the west in Winner or its neighbors to the east in Gregory and in the process join a long list of hyphenated schools that dot the South Dakota landscape, which in some cases has eliminated some mascots and even town names.  

“We’re here for our school No. 1 but if you lose your athletic program in a small town, your school is going to suffer because of it,” Juracek said. “That’s unfortunate, but to ignore the fact. You can’t overlook it. When you lose your school and your athletic program, you lose a lot more. You may lose some businesses with it. 

“It’s a reality that we are facing in South Dakota in small towns. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is and we are just trying to do our best to attract and get things back to where they were. 

Colome Cowboys quarterback Harley Supik looks to hand the ball off to Sam Brandsgaard during the second half of a high school football game Friday, Sept. 5 2025 near Miller. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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For many towns like Colome, the Colome Cowboys or Cowgirls are not just a representation of the school, but it’s a representation of the town and its identity the same way the Chiefs represent Kansas City. Where the closing of a school can have the same impact of a city’s top employer closing its door.   

“I think it would be devastating because that becomes a big driver of many things,” said Bill Heese, president of the Colome Developmental Corporation about the possibility of the Colome school closing. “I think it would be terrible. I don't wanna say that it would be an absolute death blow, but certainly it would have a huge negative impact.”

Heese added the reason why the Colome Development Corporation is once again getting more active than it had been, is to be able to see what the organization might be able to do not only for the school but for the town. 

“I don't think you can really separate those two,” Heese said. “If it's good for one it's probably good for both.”

Rohde said the district is looking forward to the future and added there are school board members who have younger kids and those classes are a little bigger. 

“I think now we're just trying to drive that excitement in the younger kids and trying to find ways to get them to stay in the sports,” she said. “We have bigger classes coming up, but they are all still excited to play those sports. But if your numbers keep moving away or however, that works it makes it hard to to get that back.”

For Juracek, he is borrowing the sports cliche of leaving everything on the field. The Burke High School graduate remembers when his school was named the Bulldogs, but now are called the Cougars after consolidating with the South Central School District, which used to be home to Bonesteel-Fairfax High School 30 years ago.  

“We lost the Bulldog and I joke about that, but they still have a high school and they are doing well in both academics and athletics and they are just a different name,” he said. “It’s still where I grew up and I go back for reunions. You lose all that. I don’t make it every year for our big reunion, but I can’t imagine not having that as an option and not being able to see all those people you grew up with.” 

Juracek is in his first year as athletic director for the school and has been teaching at Colome for the past six years and is working to entice the community to come out and support the kids including having a veterans appreciation night and giving out free pop corn and leaving no stone unturned. 

“We need to have people to come out and support the kids. It’s tough enough when your numbers are low and nobody is there to support you but your parents,”Juracek said. “Nobody wants to lose their sports because that’s your identity. Nobody wants to lose the Colome Cowboy, the Colome green, the Warriors, Bulldogs, Gorillas. It’s a huge part of our communities. It’s our professional football team.”