City: Lead, SD

Category: Education

Telephone: (605) 717-3890

Address: 320 South Main St.

Description: This district in the heart of Black Hills gold mining country is still proud of the fact that Lead High School won a prestigious National Bellamy Award for overall excellence and teaching of Americanism in 1970. But the school hasn’t rested on its laurels in subsequent decades. In recent years LHS physics and chemistry students have excelled in regional competition with their peers, and the school band represented South Dakota at the 150th anniversary of the laying of the Washington Monument cornerstone in Washington, D.C., in 1998. Student athletes have brought recognition to Lead-Deadwood by winning state championships for the girls’ cross-country team in 1997 and 1996, when they won a combined championship with the boys’ team, which went on to become the 1998 Class A champ. The boys’ golf team reigned as state champs in 2006, while the girls’ team took top state honors from 2005 through 2008. The Debate and Speech team won the 2004 District Award, which means the entire team competed at the National Forensics League’s national tournament. The team has sent individuals to the national speech and debate tourneys from 2006 through 2009. The district’s approximately 860 students are divided among one elementary school, one middle school, and the high school in Lead.