Big boom for State

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BROOKINGS – South Dakota State University Army ROTC and Air Force ROTC cadets recognized One Day for STATE, held Thursday, with a literal big boom on Tuesday afternoon in front of Depuy Military Hall.

A three-member crew, under the direction of officer in charge Army Cadet 1st Sgt. Alice Foote, fired a couple rounds from a 1940s 75 mm pack howitzer, modified to fire a 10-gauge blank shell. The cadets answered the cannon’s boom with their own roar of “Go Jacks!”

The firing was part of a video-recorded One Day for STATE message from Lynn Sargeant, professor and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

The cannon will boom again on Saturday in Madison at the fifth Annual Ag Bowl football game between Dakota State University and Dickinson State University (North Dakota).

Foote, 20, from Little Falls, Minnesota, and a junior majoring in psychology, will be commissioned a second lieutenant in May 2022 and serve as a health professional in the Army.

“My plan right now is to go for the full 20 years,” she said, with a laugh, then adding, “but we’ll wait and see.”