I was involved in raising funds to build what in 1970 became the South Dakota Pioneer Memorial Art Center.
It’s now called the South Dakota Art Museum.
As the $400,000 building to house the Harvey Dunn collection and other art took shape on Medary Avenue, it was a very big deal for the university and for Brookings.
But that was then.
Now, take a drive through the South Dakota State University campus. You’ll see much bigger, eye-popping Big Deals.
Hurry. Summer is backing away. Students are filtering in.
In recounting this summer’s campus progress I’m not forgetting SDSU’s classroom accomplishments that happen every day in the Campanile’s long shadow.
Like the 2017-18 Forensic team winning the prestigious national intercollegiate competition over the Ivy leaguers and the Big Tens and the others ...
... Or the eyebrow-arching news of a talented Jackrabbit Mechanical Engineering cadre winning the national Human Powered Vehicle trophy by running over the likes of MIT, Cal Tech and Stanford?
Treasure them, and then take a few minutes to see some dazzling physical accomplishments up there.
The cost of all that’s going on exceeds $200 million.
If you want to know exactly how much more, ask Dean Kattelmann, associate vice president of Facilities and Services. He heads up the crew that’s behind the scenes sketching, researching, overseeing, approving, planning, calculating and maybe raising blisters and calluses helping out on some of those million-dollar enterprises.
They also tend to the less photogenic hodge-podge of maintenance adding use and longer life to campus buildings having a combined value of more than $817 million.
VP Kattelmann must be losing sleep just trying to keep up with it all.
There’s the new roundabout near the final $48 million phase of the Performing Arts Center (PAC) and Frost Arena which is always morphing into something bigger and better.
As you navigate that roundabout, you’ll see a giant parking lot taking form for the convenience of fans headed to either Frost, the PAC or the nearby $65 million Dana Dykhouse Stadium. That lot, incidentally, will soon be added to the university’s already 28 acres of parking space.
By the way, there are more than 22 miles of sidewalks on campus. Try shoveling that conglomeration after a snowstorm.
As you pass the stadium you’ll see the $14 million Wellness addition. Then comes the Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory being overshadowed by the big iron of a massive $61 million addition angling off to the south-southwest.
On the south side of the campus, check out the fruits of an $8.5 million investment that’s changing downright homely and hum-drum Harding Hall into a winsome beauty for the Economics Department.
Drive Eighth Street and pass the beginnings of a nearly block-square $20 million in apartments and duplexes for graduate students and nearly graduated students.
The campus crown jewel that’s just passing final muster in VP Kattelmann’s busy shop is the country’s only Precision Ag building that will cost $55 million and be a large knock-out of a building on north Medary Avenue.
The good news in all of this is that the building dollars aren’t coming out of our pockets or from students and parents.
Generous alumni and friends are digging deep, just as they did to help build the Art Center nearly five decades ago.
What’s happening now in both the classrooms and on SDSU’s empty spaces up there is downright incredible.
If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.
