Frontier Airlines, one of Rapid City’s airborne links to the outside world, might soon come out of bankruptcy proceedings.

So what’s next?

Not much, if you ask the company.

In an e-mail to frequent fliers, the company insisted that its purchase by a debtor wouldn’t change any routes:

Your travel plans and your EarlyReturns® miles are secure. This proposed transaction is not expected to result in any significant changes in flight schedules or locations served. We are operating our existing schedule of flights – today and in the future. All tickets and reservations will continue to be honored on Frontier flights as usual.

In the mean time, Frontier is offering by e-mails fares “so low…you’ll think they’re for the birds.” That is, $34-$199 each way.

Custer rides again, although he’s atop a plastic motorcycle and in a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy.

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876 along the Little Big Horn River in what is now Montana by Native Americans he aimed to destroy.
But Hollywood brought him back to life as a character in the Ben Stiller comedy Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which opened in theaters May 22.

McDonald’s included characters from the movie as toys in the fast food company’s kid-sized Happy Meals, through a partnership with the Twentieth Century Fox movie studio.

The series of toys are scheduled to be distributed from May 22 through June 18, according to a McDonald’s fact sheet.

According to the fact sheet: “General Custer’s battle strategy is, ‘I will proudly announce we are not going to attack. And then…we will attack!’ Pull back the toy then insert the trading card to make General Custer race forward into battle.”

The Happy Meal toy series also includes historical and fantasy characters such as Roman emperor Octavian, Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart and Rexy, a playful Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur.

McDonald’s is apparently sensitive to some regional desires. In a written release on its Web site, the company said it would offer French general Napoleon Bonaparte as an extra toy design available at its restaurants in the United Kingdom and Australia.

By Jeremy Fugleberg

The Black Hills Gay Pride Web-site includes a list of local ”gay-friendly’ businesses.

The list includes a broker, a kennel, bed & breakfasts and a number of restaurants.

On one hand, I would imagine as a business owner it would be a bonus to be on this list.You get your name out there, and inform a segment of society you won’t reject them out of hand. More business is good business, right?

But on the other hand, I could imagine some using this list as a boycott tip sheet.

What about you? Would you want to be on the list?

UPDATE: Here’s a e-mail I got from Ron Wright, chair of Black Hills Gay Pride:

Hi Jeremy, Thank You for the interest in the Gay Friendly business listing. Basically the listing show cases those area business who are supportive of creating  a community based on Equality. These business may be Gay owned, they may employ openly GLBT staff, or follow non-discrimination policies and offer partner benefits. Though  our primary out reach with the Black Hills Center for Equality is the GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Questioning community), we also serve the Allies, (mothers fathers and friends). To be placed on the list generally they fit into 2 categories: 1. gay owned, 2. gay friendly. Most of these businesses have requested to be listed, and which category they would like to be listed under. Though we could probably easily charge for such a listing we feel this is one way that we, as an organization can give back to our community and allies. Hopefully this helps to shed a bit of light on how the listings have come about.

Commenter ‘barfDOA’ says:

Seems This new Biz is planning to sell sign frontage all along hwy 34.
This is not a rally its a circus…vendors are gonna get fleeced at $4.50sqft
Count me out….Good Luck Sturgis.

The commenter also includes a link to Monkey Rock’s media kit. It’s quite an impressive venue, to my eyes.

what do you think of the cost and that facility (formerly Thunder Road)?

Is the cost for vendors too high? I mean, hey, the Monkey Rock Girls get a free round-trip flight, after all.

By Jeremy Fugleberg

Describe the good life in a music video, and you could win a $30,000 kitchen or other prizes from Merillat, which has a manufacturing plant in Rapid City.

From the company’s Facebook page about the contest:

What does the Good Life mean to you? We want to know. After you’ve watched our music video, share it with your friends, then enter the contest and make your own! Because, hey, the Good Life is meant to be shared!

Contestants could also win cash or multiple-day trips to the Caribbean, New York City or Napa Valley in California. Those who invite their friends on Facebook to join the contest can also win smaller prizes. The contest closes on June 4.

The cabinet maker, based in Michigan, has a particle-board plant in Rapid City. Company officials announced the plant would close in September, putting 157 out of a work.

For more information about the contest, go here.

By Jeremy Fugleberg

Chipper Clark from Clark Printing in Rapid City called me with a new thing he’s got going on.

You know those racks with the cards for different tourist destinations? The big ones that sit in hotel lobbies and restaurant entrances?

Now, think smaller.

Chipper’s racks are only one foot square, so they fit in more places than the large racks with the larger cards.

He’s setting up those racks at 45 locations in the Black Hills (hotels, etc.) and printing the cards to fit — they’re business card size, he said, so each rack can hold 55 cards.

Sure, this ends up being a plug for the Clark Printing, but I was intrigued by the idea of the small racks.

Kudos to Chipper for trying something new to the area!

By Jeremy Fugleberg

I’ve got friends who would drive a long way (and have) to get a tast of Fat Tire Amber Ale, brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company of Fort Collins, Colo.

Starting Monday, they won’t have to drive far.

Fat Tire is coming to South Dakota.

We’re not playing this up too big in the newspaper. After all, it’s a beer (or so the thinking goes). but to a certain group of people, most of a certain age (Hipsters, 20-35?) Fat Tire is an icon.

The word is the State Line gas station just across the border in Wyoming carries extra Fat Tire just for South Dakotans who smuggle it across the border to thirsty friends.

And closer to home, the Old Style Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood is hosting a Fat Tire part at midnight Monday. Free Fat Tire will be available, or so I hear.

What do you think?

Hype-worthy? Or just another beer?

By Jeremy Fugleberg

Add glass art to the list of businesses hit by the deepening recession.

I just got off the phone with Loy Allen, in Hermosa. Loy makes beautiful glass work in her studio, Loy Allen Glass.

Much of what she makes is sold across the nation, including through a wholesale trade show in Philadelphia.

The galleries who buy her art there practically walked away in September, she said.

Her business was down 30 percent last year:

I’m well into the second year into whatever this recession is called. The arts are the first thing people quit buying.

She’s done a number of things to bring in more business, including a revamped product line and more promotions. She’ll also probably hit the art show circuit, too.

I’m interviewing her for a larger business feature about the her art as a business. That should run a week from Friday.

By Jeremy Fugleberg

It’s a good sales hook for a tough economy.

Want to lease an apartment (layoffs=two months free), or buy a new suit or car, but are afraid you’ll lose your job and won’t be able to afford it?

Try the layoff-proof purchase.

The deals work various ways, but they all roughly boil down to this: If you get cut from your job in a wave of layoffs, you don’t have to pay.

Are these useful help, or just effective gimmicks?

By Jeremy Fugleberg

Rushmore Crossings. Yep, that’s right — the new shopping center?

That’s the name of the new, huge retail center between the La Crosse and East North Street exits on Interstate 90, according to marketing for Scheels and Michaels, both stores in the development.

Scheels billboards on the Interstate announce the store is opening in ‘Rushmore Crossings’ in March.

Michaels advertisements (they ran in the Journal recently) also incorrectly label the name of the development.

Is ‘Rushmore Crossing’ that hard of a name to get right?