That's the ticket

What's there not to like about Neal Wanless?

The kid has enough money to purchase a South Pacific island, yet he chooses to live in South Dakota.

And he knows when to shut up. A coat hanger is more glib.

Wanless is the Powerball mega-millionaire from Todd County whose winning ticket fetched $232 million in May. Opting for the $88.5 million lump-sum payout, he has since dipped into his winnings to buy western South Dakota – or at least 23 square miles of it – according to some Butte County deeds.

Wanless was 23 when he walked into an Ampride gas station in Winner and picked his lucky Powerball numbers. He still might be 23. Or he might be 24. Only his friends and family know. Wanless doesn't speak to the media.

So I'm hoping he'll read this. Because once he and Hoss and Little Joe have that ranch up and running, I have some ideas on how he could spend some of that cash in ways that could benefit the rest of us:

§         Run for Congress. A politician who doesn't prattle and pander to the press? It will be a landslide.

§         Hire a team from NASA to invent a cell phone that causes teen drivers to break out in zits whenever they type a text message instead of KEEPING THEIR EYES ON THE ROAD!!! Adults who text and drive will get hemorrhoids.

§         Get us all blaze orange hats and bulletproof vests for those days when Dick Cheney comes here to hunt.

§         Buy North Dakota and change its name to BRRRRRRR. Network news anchors never again will confuse South Dakota and our neighbor to the north, where the state flower is the sugar beet and the mosquito is the state bird.

§         Give half the money to the ethanol industry. It loves handouts.

§         Purchase some maps of the state, hire some school kids and where it says "Badlands" on the maps, tell them to write "Pheasant Country" instead. Then have the kids pass out the maps this fall to all the out-of-state hunters while they're waiting for their luggage at the Sioux Falls Airport. What's that? There's not a pheasant anywhere to be found in the Badlands? You don't say.

§         Have Daktronics in Brookings install a scoreboard on the moon so big it can be seen from Earth. Program it to display the national debt.

§         Do Kelby Krabbenhoft one better and build a retractable roof that covers the entire state. When January comes around, close that sucker up tight and don't open it until St. Patrick's Day. Or give the Sanford Health CEO a call. Together, you two probably have enough money to buy the sun.

§         Buy the Capitol in Pierre and move it to an undisclosed location. Tell only people who think teachers work more than nine months a year where it is.

§         Purchase the Denver Broncos and move them to Belle Fourche. Even though Chicago is 170 miles closer to my living room than Denver, I get stuck watching the Broncos instead of the Bears every Sunday afternoon because, apparently, though the people at the local CBS affiliate can spot a rain cloud three time zones away, they cannot perform simple math. If we have to watch a pro football team nicknamed for an orange-flavored drink instead of one called the Monsters of the Midway, we might as well have reason to root for them.

§         Hire Faith Hill to be the house band at the Crow Bar. She doesn't even have to sing.

§         While they're at it, have those folks from NASA invent an apple pie that, when smothered in ice cream and eaten while drinking a beer, causes a person to actually lose weight.

OK, that last one was mainly for my benefit.