This is a production of SDPB.

Previously on Dakota Life - Greetings from Aberdeen.

We met Aberdeen's founders and folks at the fair, plus a few who lived here before any of it.

We took a look inside Aberdeen's favorite coffee shop, explored its storied journalism industry, and learned about what's on tap for the future.

Now join our crew as we continue to paint a portrait of Aberdeen.

Dakota Life.

Greetings from Aberdeen is made possible with your membership in the friends of SDPB.

Thank you.

With support from Northern State University with more than 50 academic programs, faculty who know your name and career connections that start before graduation.

All in a safe, welcoming community.

Your degree is in Aberdeen - Northern.EDU and from Dacotah Bank.

Dacotah Bank actively supports activities, events and facilities all across Dakota Territory, combining local banking services with a broad range of financial products.

Go with integrity.

Go with Dacotah Bank and from the Aberdeen Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to serve the third largest city in South Dakota.

As a membership based organization, the chamber supports the Aberdeen business community through networking, resources and leadership on issues that impact members.

With additional support from.

Donors to the Explore South Dakota Fund support the production of local documentaries and other programs of local interest.

Presented by SDPB.

Friends of SDPB appreciates their support of this program.

Showing up for artists and performers has a long history in Aberdeen.

Let's learn how the train helped turn the Hub City into a hub for the arts.

The Civic Theater was the main performance theater for everybody in Aberdeen for many decades.

this facility opened November of 1938 and in the 40s.

the 50s, this was the home of the Community Concert Association, and that was probably one of the most significant organizations that brought acts into Aberdeen and back in those days.

the biggest classical musicians, artists would they'd be performing in Minneapolis, they'd get on the train, they're on their way to the West Coast.

They'd stop in Aberdeen.

And so all these famous artists would stop in Aberdeen, do a performance and then go on to the next, next stop.

And so some of the greatest pianists singers on the Metropolitan Opera stage in New York City.

the greatest people in those areas have come through Aberdeen and performed right here on this stage.

It is truly amazing.

The Civic Theater was joined to the existing Central High School, two blocks from the train tracks in downtown Aberdeen.

Built in 1911, its history is only outmatched by what it is today I often refer to us as the poor man's Washington Pavilion.

The Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls took the old Washington High School and converted that into the Washington Pavilion.

We took the old Central High School in Aberdeen and converted that into the Aberdeen Recreation and Cultural Center or the ARCC.

It was a unique idea of incorporating the arts into parks and recreation programing.

There was a guy named Dave Glenn who had been at Northern State University, he was a potter, he came and started working with the Parks and Rec department in 1976 and started programing at what was then the old Monroe Junior High School.

And that was the first home of the ARCC, And in 2005, we moved into the old Central High School here in Aberdeen.

we really try to cover the four main general classifications in the arts.

Visual Arts was the only program when I started, we've added music in recent years and we also have added theater.

in terms of specific spaces that we have in this building, we have a weaving studio about 16 looms in it.

We have pottery studio with 8 or 10 potters wheels plus hand building area plus glazing area plus kiln firing area.

We have a glass blowing studio, printmaking equipment We do welding actually.

we do drawing and painting and just anything you can imagine in visual arts we do that.

Some of those are maybe more adult oriented, but the majority of our programing is really geared toward kids.

from preschool through high school So just like you can sign up for a dance one class a week for the whole school year, you can sign up for art one class a week or level one, level two, level three, level four.

And they all build on each other.

what's amazing is many of these kids become adults, okay.

And they still are here.

And they they actually some of them come to work for us, we call them, "ARCClings" And it's kind of a fun term.

We have invested in all these people.

We train them up.

We have developed our own staff from within.

I love the people I work for, and I love the people I work with.

the citizens of this community, the citizens of the communities beyond Aberdeen, all the all the people who come to us to see fine arts presented as well as we can do it here and to participate in those things, I love my job.

The ARCC program with the highest enrollment, lies down a locker lined hallway.

Dance!

We offer about 95 classes a week in various genres ballet, tap, jazz, modern, acro, hip hop.

The list goes on.

Ranges two through adult.

We have a roster of 16 teachers and dance assistants to pull that off every week.

And we work toward recitals in the spring.

In May, we have five performances, three different shows to accommodate our 600 students and roughly 1000 enrollments.

That's a whole lotta dancing, especially when you consider how long the program's been going.

We are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year.

Yes, I've been part of it for 20.

Coordinating teaching a little bit before that.

And we've grown exponentially since its beginning years.

our philosophy is to make accommodations to be inclusive, to accommodate students of all ages and abilities.

That includes those with special needs, as well as just the kids who are here for fun and the kids who take it seriously.

another aspect of this program is its affordability, income qualifying students.

We offer classes at a 60% discount, which makes it attainable for many.

we are very proud of our costume department.

instead of purchasing a costume, which is what a lot of studios do, you you enroll your child and then when it comes time to recital, you purchase a fairly pricey, dance costume that you will wear one time and then hang in your closet.

We have a staff, we have a costumer and a staff of four work with the teachers every year to design and produce our thousand plus costumes for the recitals, and we just rent those to the students they wear the costume, they return the costume, we launder the costumes, this massive laundry and store it all in in a couple storage rooms, we have over 500 banker's boxes stuffed to the gills with leotards and tights and boas and all sorts of fun and colorful things No matter how far students advance, skills learned at the ARCC, last a lifetime.

And for some, they even turn their craft into a career.

We've had numerous students over the years to go on and do a more professional things.

Our most current pride and joy is a is a young student, Zoe, and she is 13 and she will be moving.

She just got accepted to Tulsa Ballet.

She will be doing school year program and working into full time ballerina status, ya know?

Proof, that hard work here, can take a kid anywhere.

But the true lesson to be learned from Aberdeen's art community, is that we're all stronger when we stick together.

Aberdeen is so great with its arts agencies working together with one another.

We're a small community, so if we band together a bit and and collaborate and work together, our events are better for it.

Aberdeen is a tremendous community.

number one, we have a really good working relationship with other arts organizations in Aberdeen, and that's not the case in many communities.

the ARCC and the Aberdeen Area Arts Council and the Aberdeen Community Theater and Northern State University, and the Dacotah Prairie Museum and the public schools.

I mean, we work in partnership with them as well.

and I think a lot of us in the arts in Aberdeen feel that we can be stronger when we're together, Speaking of teamwork, there's one final part of the ARCC that we haven't yet mentioned.

I've been blessed to be able to be a part of this facility, It holds such a special place in my heart, I went to school at Aberdeen Central, so I graduated in this building.

I'll have you know that I won the Wiffle Ball home run championship in PE class in this very gym.

And I covered my first ever game here in December of 1980, while working for the Aberdeen American News and Northern State women's basketball against Jamestown.

You know, there may be some people alive that are much older than I am, that have seen more games in this building than I have.

I don't think there's anybody alive who has covered more games in this building than I have.

it holds just so many special memories for me.

And I'm still covering games here.

I mean, we're talking, you know, almost 50 years later and this building is still being there are a lot of facilities in this town, 5 or 6 that could host events.

But again, you won't find the history of any you know, of those that would match this.

This is just an iconic building, I believe it was a Works Progress Administration building.

I mean just take a look around.

It's just unbelievable.

It just screams history.

It's a building that that begs for an audience, it holds everything.

you can have anything in here and it works.

It fits.

everything from graduation to snow Queen Festival to you name it.

The Shrine Circus Way back in the day, they had cattle shows in here, the whole nine yards, which kind of seems hard to believe at this point, you know.

But this was the place to go because it was a regional hub.

we've had, you know, presidential candidates in here.

We've had entertainers in here Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Andre the Giant for wrestling.

I mean, Satchel Paige, Meadowlark Lemon.

I mean, if this building housed a who's who through the years, and you would probably be hard pressed to find any other facility in South Dakota that could match that.

And there's not a bad seat in here.

Even the ones up against the wall, up in the corners, whatever.

I mean, you are so close to the court if these walls could talk, it'd be unbelievable.

I would put my ear up next to it.

I'll tell you what.

sports is a big deal here.

You've probably you've probably found that out.

You know, I can't think of any other activity that could match the popularity of sports in the Hub City.

People are passionate, rabid, fervent, knowledgeable fans, and they just can't get enough of it.

You have no idea how loud it can get in here.

because where's the sound going to go?

it doesn't take a lot of people to make this place come to life.

Although back in the day, Northern, that was never an issue.

I mean, if they saw the fire marshal coming, they'd want to turn them away because people were sitting in the in the walkways, they were everywhere, and there were nights where there's no way in the world they they would it would have been legal.

There's there's no question about it.

But, you know, back then it was the thing to do.

There's a reason that Northern State has led the nation in attendance for basketball.

It's because people from Faulkton and Groton and Ipswich and Britton and all over the region, they will come here and attend those games.

we live in Northern and South Dakota.

We have winter for nine months out of the year.

Okay.

We need a diversion.

Okay.

So what do you do?

Well, you go to a basketball game or whatever it is, in the wintertime, that's what we do.

And and it provides just some unbelievable entertainment and some long lasting memories for sure.

Hopefully this building will never go away.

It holds so many memories for so many people.

has already stood the test of time, and hopefully it'll be around for centuries.

There's another Aberdeen sports institution that continues to stand the test of time State tournament.

the B will always, always, always stand on its own.

It doesn't matter which eight teams are in it, it doesn't matter the weather, whatever.

You don't even have to have a dog in the fight, okay?

You just wander in off the street and it's just you're connected.

There's a spirit, you know, You know, I've covered all three classes and the atmosphere just is not the same.

it.

In fact, I have seen coaches from other classes who don't make their tournament.

They come to the B, again, it really doesn't matter who's playing in it.

It is a big deal for our city, this is a big deal to Aberdeen And it means something to us as Aberdonians to be able to host that and give them the best experience possible so that they want to come back.

Once again, we turn to Jackie Hendry.

for a story about what can happen when school does not come come back.

For decades, Presentation College educated most of the nursing workforce in the Aberdeen area.

When the college closed in 2023, Northern State University began work to take up the mantle.

Lyncee Monson played a leading role in creating the NSU nursing program.

Having nursing here is kind of a personal thing to me.

It's, you know, the the shortage in this area definitely has hit us hard not having that, you know, pipeline that we had with the other college in town has kind of been a big hit for both of our hospitals in town and all of our clinics and everything, you know, the long term care facilities.

So it was really important to get this back going and having something in here because there's just really nothing in this northeastern corner.

And, you know, it's always known as the hub.

So everybody comes here.

And if you don't have nurses, it makes things a little difficult.

In a few short years, enrollment has grown from 11 nursing students to nearly 200.

There are a variety of degree tracks, including a full bachelor's of nursing.

That means nursing students don't have to transfer to get a four year degree.

It's huge for our community, if you think about it, a lot of times, if we didn't have this program and they were going to other schools, you know, you get to another location and you tend to like stay where you go to school sometimes or stay in that region.

And so it's hard to pull them back here, you know.

So if we have them here and they're in in school here and they're using our local facilities and things like that, they're more likely to stay and work when they're done.

And new this year, a state of the art simulation center with an assortment of specialized mannequins, thanks to a partnership with Avaya.

The area that we're sitting in right now is our eight bed lab here at northern.

And so this is this room here is basically where they learn things.

They, you know, start IDs and put in catheters and do all those things in this area.

Know we have a pediatric mannequin that actually cries real tears, and you can poke his finger and actually get blood.

He turns his head and follows you in the room and does all those things.

We have a mannequin that delivers a baby, you know, so and those settings are really nice because, you know, in a rural area, it's really hard to get experience in pediatrics and OB.

You know, a lot of times there might not be that many births.

And the time there is a birth, it's when you're not at the hospital, you're not at clinical that day.

So it's nice that you can have it in another setting.

The nursing program is guided by a board of health care professionals, including Carey sat rang with Avera Saint Luke's Hospital.

So we've talked a lot about communication skills, communicating with patients, communicating with providers.

And I think that simulation lab is a great way to really build that skill, because they can communicate with those mannequins and the mannequins can communicate back with them.

So they're really learning that real world experience in a safe and controlled environment, and they can get instant feedback from their instructors.

All faculty in Northern's nursing program are also required to remain active in the health care profession.

NSU Provost Erin Faubourg says that sets their program apart.

So with a state of the art sim center, the students are getting, you know, ideas and case studies that are our faculty who are out there in the hospitals can build out a case that they might have seen in the last week or month in their own practice as nurses.

They build it out in our simulations, and then the students get to practice it here.

With so many reps, so many repetitions, so many opportunities to try and fail on the mannequins before they go out into the clinical field.

The closing of Presentation College was a blow to the health care pipeline in the region, but necessity has bred invention and the establishment of new partnerships.

What's happened now that we have this health care education system with with a nursing program is a new set of donors has come to Northern.

And the relationships that there that we're building will help us actually start to potentially build out other health care kinds of programs academically that we didn't necessarily have on our horizon ten years ago.

So the closure of PC led us down this path to nursing.

And now nursing is leading us down to the path to serving the health care industry in multiple other ways.

And those conversations are happening every single week with our health care partners.

The first cohort of NSU nursing students will graduate in spring of 2027.

Associate Dean of Nursing Lindsay Munson can't wait to see them in the field.

Just having those first graduates out there, it's honestly, it's going to be exciting to be like, oh, hey, you know, this is one of our this is one of the northern nurses, you know, that that took care of me today or whatever, you know?

So I think I'm just kind of excited for that.

So I'm like, I keep thinking, like a year from now, like, these students are going to be done with school.

They will pass boards and they're going to be working, you know, so it'll be nice to see them on the other side.

in Aberdeen.

Let's meet a few and learn how to get something done.

"Aberdeen style."

I grew up not far from here, and its just kind of been an eyesore.

It looks like a slough.

moreso than a creek going through town.

It was just full of cattails, um couldn't even really tell there was any water in here.

mayor had an idea a few years ago, you know, get in here and start.

Start digging it out see what we can do from there.

when I first got into this office, so many people brought up to me.

Boy, the Moccasin Creek is an embarrassment.

There's areas where you can't even tell there's water.

In fact, right behind me it looked like a swamp.

and it was overtaken by ten foot tall cattails.

It looked terrible.

over time, the city had conducted six different studies that said, do this, do that thing, never completed any of the work.

And so I said, you know, every success that Aberdeen, South Dakota, has had has been a result of us rolling up our sleeves and just doing the work.

no more talking about it.

We're going to get an excavator and we're going to start to dig.

There were some challenges as far as how we were going to get the material out of the creek and into trucks safely, and not bury trucks.

the frozen ground is a huge part of the process that we came up with is to get the cattail shaved off because they act as an insulation or whatever.

Once we get the cattail shaved off, get the ground frozen foot almost two foot in some spots where we could actually get excavators out there, get ramps built, get trucks onto the mud and back right up to the machines and was able to load them.

And it worked pretty well.

the cost of this thing.

Because this is all homespun, this is all our doing.

We were able to save so much money.

In 2012, the city council commissioned a study that costed about $60,000.

The study told them spray the weeds.

They spent $300,000 sprayed a bunch of weeds.

The next year they were all back.

We spent less money cleaning the entire first year than they did on this study.

We were doing over 100 loads of silt removal every day with our guys that do our city streets, do our under street infrastructure, hardworking, innovative guys.

Let's let them get to work.

one of the biggest challenges we had it, was getting the water down, winter of 2025, we had an excavator fall through the ice unfortunately found some ice that wasn't as good as we had been experiencing and fell through.

And It was quite an adventure.

it did cause some damage and some problems, but once we got the ball rolling, nothing was going to stop us at that point.

We were making a pretty good mess.

The first year we did but once we got the water the productivity went a the second year We pumped the water out of the area that we were digging, kind of put our heads together.

We came up with an idea to put some sheets of steel in and some plastic to dam the water on the upstream, as well as on the downstream side to keep it away from us.

probably spent a couple of weeks cut nice to get our dam built with the chainsaw.

Went through a lot of chainsaw blades We were doing up to 250 loads per single day, and so we got thousands of loads of silt removed from But that's not all they removed.

waterlogged trees, dead branches, just a bunch of them.

So the first year we got a little overboard.

Cut, cut quite a bit of trees down.

And then last year, the forestry foreman came out and marked the trees he wanted to keep.

And then all the other trees.

He said, you know, have your way with them and cut them down.

So But now, you know, you'll see ducks running around with their little ones.

You know, geese, couple of them hatched over here.

looking out across the water now, you can see it has a lot different.

I appeal to it now, And if you looked at what it looked like before and then you're like, well, we came out and did this, as all public works, you know, we came together and worked together and makes, makes you feel good And now producer Jaxon Thorson takes us across town and into a world of stories.

All people are like kids.

They never grow old.

For five decades, classic fairy tales have come to life at Storybook Land in Aberdeen.

While we're celebrating the 20th of Storybook Land Festival 50 of Storybook Land, this weekend is one of my favorite weekends in the park.

To be honest with you, it's super busy, but you get to see all of the kiddos and they're just the joy in seeing a little kid run from place to place with a big old smile on your face.

There's nothing can beat it.

And how much is admission at a place like this?

It's free, so if you get here in ten minutes in, you have a meltdown.

You didn't have to pay to get in.

You're not wasting money.

You can leave and come back tomorrow.

Like, you don't have to spend a dime.

And we encourage people to come out to the park to bring a picnic lunch.

You don't have to utilize the concessions, but to me, that's amazing because I understand how tough times can be for young families so that we're giving them an opportunity to enjoy something and make those lasting memories.

L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, worked in Aberdeen from 1888 to 1891.

It is believed that elements in the story were inspired by his time here.

In 1969, is when the concept began to surface a little bit.

1971 A master plan was put together for Storybook Land when the idea came up within the department.

At that time, if this thing was to actually come to fruition, they needed some help.

They needed somebody to come in beside this project.

And so the club decided that, looked at the master plan, thought it looked really cool, and they decided as a club that they would partner alongside the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Aberdeen to begin what it was called Storybook Land and the original kind of founding members of the club did the sweat equity work that came into putting down the initial sidewalks, mapping out where things would be.

But that relationship between Sertoma and the city of Aberdeen was critical, and without it, this park probably would have never gotten off the ground.

And there were some people that took some real gambles, and the names that come up are always will be a Doug Johnson, Benny Benson, Bob Grumman, Bill Schlosser.

A lot of blood, sweat and tears here.

When we first got started, it was just those people, you know, our crews and local citizens that came up and poured the concrete and and moved the dirt and did a lot of that old work themselves, visionary type people.

And they were also able to go out into the community and sell it and sell it to people and tell them, hey, this is going to be something special.

They begin some work.

We got a grant to do some some work on the stream and build the island and do a few of those things.

It was slow starting, I think in 1976 or celebrating 50 years here.

Things went pretty slow.

And then probably the beginning of the 80s, things began to happen.

A gentleman by the name of Leo Weber came into the picture.

He always was particular about his J. Because there was another Leo Weber, and they would get each other's mail and all kinds of things.

He tried to do things that would benefit the children of the community.

And there was a, you know, a real need for this type of thing.

You know, he had no idea it would grow.

This big reveal was a unique individual.

He really helped a lot to get this place off the ground.

And the 15 or so, maybe more projects that he put in out here.

The old lady in the shoe in particular is still here.

You know, he did amazing work through the years and without again, without Leo.

I mean, we obviously once Leo got to a point where he couldn't do it, but we had to move to another entity to do that.

But certainly Leo had great influence on Storybook Land.

You know, people will always say, I wish I had that talent or whatever, but I always think, where would we be if there wasn't anybody to appreciate it?

It wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling.

What really brings me joy is the people that come here, the people that we work with, the people that we get involved in, the activities and what we do out here, it's just the people, honestly, we have all these things out here, but they're nothing without the people.

Certainly, we did a huge sidewalk improvement process that took a number of years to make sure that we were accessible for, you know, handicapped individuals and wheelchairs and still have wide enough pathways for everybody to navigate.

And so one of the biggest things that we really started pushing for was the inclusive playset.

Pretty much there's a zero access point and there's a number of different features within that playset area where anybody with any kind of ability can be engaged and have fun.

And I think that sets a tone also, as we continue to look forward for different areas, is that accessibility that there there isn't anybody that's going to be left on the sidelines when they come to Storybook Land.

And we look forward to this next generation taking over and taking off and just doing, doing the same thing and seeing that vision and to grow this place and to keep it, seeing it evolved.

Thank you for watching Dakota Life.

If you've missed any of our stories here in Aberdeen, or just want to go back and take another look you can find more at sdpb.org/dakotalife For all of us on the crew here in Brown County, I'm Tim Davison.

Thank you for watching Dakota Life and we'll see you next time.