The history of theater at South Dakota State University began in the 1880s with the formation of eight literary societies that presented farces and plays and established traditions such as the Senior Class Play. These organizations eventually merged into a short lived dramatic club in 1923. In 1930, the Footlight Club was organized and became the primary dramatic society on campus. By 1939, theatrical productions were formally placed under the supervision of the Forensics and Dramatics Council within the Speech Department. This council oversaw all campus productions in coordination with the State Players Dramatic Club, which was founded in 1949.
A chapter of Alpha Psi Omega was officially established on the SDSU campus in 1949 and was highly active throughout the 1950s. The first designated technical director of plays at SDSU, Lawrence Stine, was appointed in 1952. Beginning in 1953, students became eligible to receive academic credit for participation in theatrical productions. In 1956, SDSU expanded its repertoire to include Broadway musicals, including a production of South Pacific, making SDSU one of the first nonprofessional groups to stage the work. That same year, summer theater productions were introduced. Revue style productions, including Rabbit Rarities and vaudeville shows, also became part of campus theater programming during the 1950s.
State University Theatre later became a unit within the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre and is also affiliated with the School of Performing Arts at South Dakota State University. Theatrical productions have been staged in more than fourteen facilities across campus, with the most recent venues including Doner Auditorium and the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center.
A comprehensive chronological history of theater programs at South Dakota State University has been documented for the period from 1892 to 1992. While records documenting theater activities after 1992 exist, they have not yet been compiled into a single, comprehensive institutional history.
Rhea Beryl DeHaven Stewart (1899– ) was an educator, writer, and active member of South Dakota’s literary and educational communities. Born on September 2, 1899, in Linden, Iowa, she moved with her family to homestead near Capa, South Dakota, in 1907 and later to Wessington, South Dakota, in 1915.
Stewart began teaching at a rural school while still in high school. She completed her high school education at Northern States Teachers’ College in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Education, followed by a Master of Arts in English Literature from the State University of Iowa in 1932. She held teaching positions at Roosevelt and Simmons Junior High Schools and became Director of the English Department at Central High School in Aberdeen, where she also advised the Drama Club and initiated the student publication Word Craft.
On January 24, 1943, she married Chase David Stewart and became a farm homemaker near Wessington. Stewart was a prolific poet and writer, contributing to numerous publications and receiving awards in national competitions and state literature contests. She was a member of the South Dakota Press Women and the National League of American Pen Women, serving as state president of the latter.
Stewart remained active in education through service on the South Dakota Board of Education (1947–1959) and participation in President Eisenhower’s Conference on Education in 1955. Her achievements are recognized in Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who in South Dakota, and International Who’s Who in Poetry.
Janet Cressman Stofferan graduated from South Dakota State University in 1966 with a degree in fashion merchandising. While a student, she participated in Little International, the Home Economics Club, and the Episcopal Church Youth Group. She earned a Master of Science degree in apparel and textiles with a focus on cooperative extension education from the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 1972.
Following her graduation from South Dakota State University, Stofferan worked for the Simplicity Pattern Company. In 1994, she became the museum curator of the Snellman Hsia Collection at South Dakota State University, where she was responsible for managing a historical costume collection. She retired from this position in 2008.
Joseph Martin Stuart was born November 9, 1932, in Seminole, Oklahoma, to Arch William and Lillian (Lindsey) Stuart. He was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he attended high school, and served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. Following his military service, he pursued higher education under the GI Bill, earning both Bachelor of Arts and Master’s degrees in art from the University of New Mexico. He married Signe Margaret Nelson on June 18, 1960.
Stuart was an artist, museum director, curator, and educator. Over the course of his career, he held positions at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, the University of Oregon Museum of Art, the Boise Art Museum, and the Salt Lake City Art Center. He later served as director of the South Dakota Art Museum at South Dakota State University and as professor of art history. Joseph Stuart died December 9, 2016.
Signe Margaret Stuart was born December 3, 1937, in New London, Connecticut, to Carl Einar and Anna Louise (Gustafson) Nelson. She studied at the Yale-Norfolk Art School in 1959, earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut in 1959, and completed a Master of Arts degree at the University of New Mexico in 1961. She married Joseph Stuart on June 18, 1960.
Stuart joined the faculty of South Dakota State University in 1970 as a professor of art and taught until 1994. Following her retirement from SDSU, she continued her work as an independent artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2001, she served as artist-in-residence at Grinnell College. Her career includes exhibitions and publications such as Signe Stuart: Retrospective, held March 4 to April 23, 1995, at the South Dakota Art Museum, South Dakota State University. She has been recognized in biographical listings including Marquis Who’s Who for her contributions to the visual arts.
Ora Blanche Fryer Swenning was born on February 23, 1882, in Michigan to John H. and Imogen Swenehart. As an infant, she moved with her family to a homestead near Clark, South Dakota, where she spent her early childhood. Her recollections of pioneer life and survival during the blizzard of 1888 were later preserved in a personal memoir. Ora spent her later years in Minnesota and passed away on February 5, 1972, in Pipestone.
Joseph and Winifred (Catlett) Swering married in 1918. They began their newlywed life in Brookings, South Dakota, before moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Joseph worked for Westinghouse. They later relocated to Buffalo, New York. The Catlett family had built a large home in Brookings in 1902. While living there, both Winifred and her sister, Margaruite, held their weddings in the family home. The Catlett house also hosted many social events during the family's residence. Eventually, the home was converted into student housing for South Dakota State College.
Clark S. Thomas was born on December 8, 1917, in rural Springfield, South Dakota. He attended South Dakota State College from 1937 to 1941, earning a degree in agriculture. From 1941 to 1945, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, stationed at military posts in Texas and California, and overseas in Guatemala and India. Following his military service, he farmed near Springfield, South Dakota, until his retirement in 1980.
Verl Thomson was a pioneering South Dakota broadcaster. Born on April 26, 1906, he began his career at Sioux Falls' first broadcast radio station in 1924. He later served as an announcer and program director for KSOO and KELO, and worked as an announcer for NBC in Chicago. In 1948, he established radio station KSID, which he operated until its sale in 1966. From 1962 to 1987, Thomson served as executive director of the South Dakota Broadcasters Association. He passed away on July 7, 1989.
Valerian Three Irons is a Native American educator, oral historian, and advocate for Indigenous language preservation. He served as a professor of American Indian Studies and Associate for Diversity at South Dakota State University from 1997 to 2011. After leaving SDSU, Three Irons joined the faculty of Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College in New Town, North Dakota, where he has been actively involved in teaching Native American Studies and supporting Mandan language revitalization efforts. In 2018, he received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to create a publicly accessible archive of Mandan language resources. Throughout his career, he has contributed to tribal education, cultural preservation, and service-learning initiatives.
TLN Productions, Inc., based in West Palm Beach, Florida, was a television production company active during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that specialized in travel, outdoor recreation, and destination programming. The company produced and distributed a variety of television segments and series highlighting landscapes, communities, cultural heritage, and tourism opportunities throughout the United States. TLN Productions frequently collaborated with tourism agencies, local communities, and regional organizations to film locations and develop programming designed to promote travel and public interest in particular destinations.
Among the company’s projects was the travel series Discover America, a program that featured locations across the United States and introduced viewers to regional attractions, historic sites, natural landscapes, and recreational activities. Episodes and segments were filmed on location and incorporated interviews, scenic footage, and coverage of local cultural and tourism destinations. The series was created as a travel-promotion program intended to showcase the diversity of American regions and encourage tourism.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, TLN Productions filmed several segments in South Dakota for inclusion in the Discover America series. Filming documented communities, cultural sites, and recreational destinations across the state, including areas such as Lake Andes, Aberdeen, Fort Randall Casino, and locations associated with the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. The footage captured landscapes, community events, tourism facilities, and regional attractions intended to highlight South Dakota as a travel destination.
The resulting recordings represent the production materials created during the filming of these segments. They document the work of TLN Productions in promoting regional tourism through television programming and provide visual documentation of South Dakota communities and attractions at the time of filming.
Alfred “Al” George Trump Jr. was born April 23, 1907, in Kahoka, Missouri, to Alfred G. Trump Sr. and Elizabeth Bonnett Trump. At age eleven he moved with his family to Chicago, where he graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1924. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Germanics from the University of Chicago in 1929 and later completed the A.B.M.S. degree in 1933 and the A.M.L.S. degree in 1938 at the University of Michigan. Prior to coming to South Dakota, Trump gained broad professional experience in both public and academic libraries, holding positions at the Chicago Public Library, the University of Chicago Library, the University of Michigan Library, the Michigan State Law Library, and Virginia Junior College in Minnesota. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946 as a lieutenant, performing intelligence work in the continental United States and Hawaii.
Trump joined South Dakota State College in 1948 as a librarian and was at that time the sole faculty member assigned to the library. The collection comprised approximately 90,000 volumes housed on the second floor of Lincoln Library, serving a student body of about 900. Appointed director of libraries in 1959, he oversaw a period of substantial expansion that paralleled the institution’s growth and the introduction of doctoral programs beginning in 1954. By his retirement in 1972, the library system held roughly 270,000 volumes and 3,000 journal subscriptions in Lincoln Library, with additional specialized collections located across campus and at nursing facilities in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trump attributed the rapid growth of holdings, particularly in scientific journals, to expanding research needs and played a central role in developing one of the strongest research library collections in the state. After retirement, he continued to serve as archivist emeritus and assisted with planning and logistics for the 1977 relocation of collections to the Hilton M. Briggs Library.
Active in professional service, Trump served as president of the South Dakota Library Association (1958–1959), represented the state in the Mountain Plains Library Association, and served on the governing council of the American Library Association. In Brookings, he participated in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and university and community organizations for retired faculty and teachers. On August 22, 1935, he married Anne Harris Arnold, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College who earned a master’s degree in history from Case Western Reserve University and worked in academic and state libraries before serving as assistant librarian at the Brookings Public Library from 1960 to 1986. Together they had four children: Michael, Peter, Jeane Gautier, and Andrew. Alfred G. Trump Jr. died November 26, 1994; Anne Arnold Trump died January 11, 2004.
Andrew Benjamin Trump was born on November 28, 1950, in Brookings, South Dakota, to Alfred G. Trump Jr. and Anne A. Trump. His father served as librarian and archivist at South Dakota State University, and his mother worked at the Brookings Public Library. He later resided in Fargo, North Dakota, and passed away unexpectedly in Sioux Falls on October 27, 2021, at the age of 70.
TV Productions Inc. is a locally owned video production company based in Brookings, South Dakota. The company provides full-service media production, including filming, editing, and post-production services, primarily for clients in the Brookings area. It has been involved in the creation of a wide range of audiovisual content, including promotional materials, event documentation, and institutional recordings, particularly for South Dakota State University. The company is owned and operated by Jay Vanduch, who has also served in operations at the SDSU Performing Arts Center. TV Productions Inc. has contributed to the preservation and dissemination of local and institutional history through its media work.