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I was at home Saturday night, waiting for — if I do say so myself — some amazing ribs to finish up on the grill, when the inevitable text message came from a one Mike Carroll.

It was, simply enough, a picture of sloppy, cheesy draped burger and the text “Last Orv burger of the season!!”

Now, you might be asking yourself, “what is an Orv burger? Who is Mike Carroll? And, how did the ribs turn out?

Amazing and fell right off the bone.

Anyway, Mike Carroll is the longtime sports editor for the Huron Plainsman and was there when I entered the real world out of college and of course, a friend. As for an Orv burger? Well, it’s just about the best burger one can get and they are served at the one and only South Dakota State Fair Speedway, named for, unofficially of course, Orville Chenoweth, promoter of the track.

This is the second picture I expect from Mike each year. The first being a photo of the first Orv burger of the year, though at times it also includes a sandwich from Manolis Grocery, which I suspect is done in order to rub it that I no longer have access to a Manolis Grocery sandwich.

But I enjoy them all the same because a person enjoys those firsts when it comes to their profession. For me, the burger represented a Saturday night tradition for the two of us. Mike had always been a racing fan and threw himself fully into coverage of the Saturday night races. I was more of a Johnny come lately and while I never transitioned fully into racing fan, I certainly enjoyed the dynamic photo aspects racing provided.

Was the burger really any different from any other burger? No, not particularly. Don’t get me wrong, though, they were really, really good and they were cheap.

Once our Saturday stuff was taken care of, we jumped in our vehicles and headed over to find what more often than not would be our parking spaces. We would head through the back gates, collect our wristbands and sign the forms that allowed us in the pits and on the inside of the track’s dirt oval.

Pretty standard stuff for covering dirt track racing.

Once all the official checking in was done, we would hoof it to the burger stand to collect our supper for the night. Sometimes one, sometimes two burgers would get us through the rest of the evening’s entertainment.

This was followed by the racing, which I can say with confidence can sometimes be harrowing when there is no inner barricade. More than a few times I found myself fleeing to the inside of the track as cars collided, crashed or spun out.

This was just part of what made Huron unintentionally special for me. I remember thinking during my first few months that I did not want to be a long-timer in a community that greeted visitors with a giant pheasant on the east edge of town.

I didn’t want to live for more than a few years in a town that was at the time just over 18,000 people, but the community had a way of growing on me. I was able to have experiences that I never would have ever thought I would admit to.

Case in point. One of my favorite concert memories ever was covering Air Supply at the South Dakota State Fair. That’s a lot for a metal head to own up to, but they put on a great a show and besides, who else can say they called for an appointed interview only to have to leave a message on Russell Hitchcock’s answering machine?

Prior to that, I hung out on Quiet Riot’s bus and before that, I shot the breeze with the gambler himself, Kenny Rogers, just before his set.

I was able to cover two state championship volleyball teams, covered a college volleyball team that made it to semifinals of the NAIA National Tournament, a men’s college basketball team that also went deep into the tournament several times and watched a cowboy on a horse and two Huron PD squad cars lasso and wrangle a loose bull downtown. The cowboy did the roping mind you. The squad cars have no arms, silly.

I chased a tornado down en route to Woonsocket, only for it to emerge from a rain shroud just a quarter mile from me.

And those sandwiches from Manolis Grocery. Oooohhhh man, those sandwiches were stupidly big and made by the nicest folks you’ll ever meet.

Now, I’m not telling  you all of this because I want to draw direct comparisons to Huron and Austin. I mean, we don’t have the World’s Largest Pheasant so, we’re playing catch-up already. The communities are, as the phrase goes, two completely different animals. But I realized that after all these years, my fondness for Huron remains.

I smile every time I’m sent pictures of those messy burgers because they represent more than I thought they would. Huron sent me on a path.

Also, why, you might wonder, did I decided to tell you all of this about a town most of you probably have never been to before?

That’s a good question, and honestly I don’t know. Sometimes, I just like to talk about Huron. But one thing is absolutely clear.

I really want an Orv burger now.