Founded in 1881, the college opened its first building, Old Central, in 1883. During these formative decades, campus infrastructure was limited, and student housing options were modest. In many land-grant institutions of the era, boarding clubs were student-organized cooperatives in which members pooled resources to secure lodging and meals at lower cost. These arrangements often operated independently of formal university oversight and were created out of economic necessity, particularly for students from rural backgrounds.
The Dakota Agricultural College Board of Regents was established in 1881 by the Dakota Territory to oversee the founding and governance of a land-grant college in Brookings, later known as South Dakota State University. During the territorial period, the Governor of Dakota Territory served on multiple institutional boards, including that of the agricultural college, actively shaping educational policy between 1883 and 1889.
The board appointed George W. Lilley as the college’s first president in 1884, under whose leadership the first permanent buildings were erected and academic programs were initiated. In 1885, James Plummer Day, a Civil War veteran and legislator, was appointed to the college's Board of Trustees and remained involved through the transition to statehood.
Following South Dakota’s admission to the Union in 1889, the newly formed South Dakota Board of Regents assumed oversight of all state higher education institutions, including Dakota Agricultural College. Day and other early trustees continued their service under the restructured governance model. This early board laid the foundational policies for curriculum, facilities, land use, and administrative structure that would shape the development of the institution for decades to come.
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The South Dakota State University Dairy Club is a student organization affiliated with the Department of Dairy and Food Science and has been active for several decades. Established to unite students interested in dairying, regardless of major, the club has supported professional development, industry engagement, and applied learning opportunities connected to the university’s dairy science program, which dates to the late nineteenth century.
The club has organized regular meetings, guest lectures, farm tours, judging contests, and product evaluation activities to enhance student experience beyond the classroom. It has participated in regional and national competitions and hosted events such as the Midwest Regional Dairy Challenge. Fundraising initiatives, including the Holiday Cheese Box Sale, have supported scholarships, travel, and programming. The club has also engaged in youth outreach through initiatives such as the Jackrabbit Dairy Camp. Through these activities, the Dairy Club has contributed to student involvement in dairy production, manufacturing, and industry relations.
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Caryl Crozier was born on August 1, 1938 to Raymond Lyle Kinkner and Elvera Violet (Erickson) Kinkner and raised on the prairies of Southeastern South Dakota, where her grandparents and parents operated farms near Beresford, SD, surviving the Depression. She attended a one-room country school through 8th grade, graduated from Beresford High School, and earned a BS in Home Economics from South Dakota State University.
Caryl and her husband, Ed Crozier, have two daughters, Michelle Kegler and Cherise Barnes, and three grandchildren, Rachel, Claire, and Nathan Barnes. Her career has included roles as an Extension Home Economist, a Home Economics and adult education teacher, and a long-term care administrator for 13 years. She also owned and designed for her pattern business.
The couple has lived in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Illinois, and for over 40 years in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. Caryl enjoys gardening, boating, and fishing. She has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Central America, and much of Europe, often for genealogy research for the seven family history books she and Ed have written.
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Efforts to organize higher education faculty in South Dakota occurred throughout the mid twentieth century, including attempts by the American Association of University Professors and the South Dakota Higher Education Faculty Association. Although those early initiatives were not sustained, they contributed to the formation of the Council of Higher Education (COHE). In 1978, the South Dakota Board of Regents formally recognized COHE as the exclusive representative for collective bargaining on behalf of eligible higher education faculty.
COHE represents full time and regular part time instructional and research faculty within the South Dakota Board of Regents system, including faculty at South Dakota State University, the Agricultural Experiment Station, Cooperative Extension Service, Auxiliary Services, and designated state educational institutions. Supervisory and managerial personnel and certain professional categories are excluded from the bargaining unit. As the recognized bargaining representative, COHE negotiates agreements related to compensation, workload, grievance procedures, and other terms and conditions of employment within the state’s public higher education system.
Lonita Joyce Gustad was born on May 19, 1928, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, South Dakota, and grew up on a farm near Volin with her parents and younger sister. She began keeping a diary in 1945 at the age of 17, inspired by the historic events surrounding the end of World War II. Gustad graduated from Yankton High School in 1946 and attended South Dakota State College, earning a pharmacy degree in 1950. She was one of eight women in a graduating class of sixty-four pharmacy students, with a minor in chemistry.
Following graduation, she worked at Woodward Pharmacy in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and later in Sioux City, Iowa, where she resided for many years. In 1951, she married Thomas Edward Corothers, whom she met during college. They had one son, John, born in 1952, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1972. Thomas Corothers passed away in 1998. Lonita Corothers maintained a lifelong practice of journaling and writing, ultimately donating her extensive personal and literary papers to South Dakota State University.
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Elizabeth Cook-Lynn was born in 1930 in Fort Thompson, South Dakota, on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. An enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, she currently resides near Rapid City, South Dakota. Cook-Lynn earned a B.A. in English and Journalism from South Dakota State College (now South Dakota State University) in 1952 and completed an M.Ed. in Psychology and Counseling at the University of South Dakota in 1971. She also pursued doctoral studies at the University of Nebraska in the late 1970s.
Her professional career began in secondary education, teaching in South Dakota and New Mexico, before transitioning to higher education. From 1971 to 1990, she taught English and Native American Studies at Eastern Washington University, where she was instrumental in founding Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies alongside Beatrice Medicine, Roger Buffalohead, and William Willard. She later served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Davis, and remains active as a speaker and mentor, co-organizing the Oak Lake Writers’ Retreat for Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota writers in South Dakota.
Following her retirement from academia, Cook-Lynn became a full-time writer. Her work spans multiple genres—including fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—centered on Native American experiences, sovereignty, and identity. Her first publications, Then Badger Said This and Seek the House of Relatives, appeared in 1983, followed by The Power of Horses and Other Stories (1990), and the novel From the River’s Edge (1991), which evolved into Aurelia: A Crow Creek Trilogy (1999). Notable nonfiction works include Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays: A Tribal Voice (1996), The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (1998, with Mario Gonzalez), and the poetry collection I Remember the Fallen Trees (1998).
Cook-Lynn’s writing has been featured in major anthologies such as Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry and Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writing of North America. Her scholarship, book reviews, and editorials have contributed significantly to Native American literary and political discourse.
In recognition of her work, Cook-Lynn has received numerous honors, including a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (1978), the Oyate Igluwitaya Award from South Dakota State University’s Native American Club (1995), and the Mountain Plains Library Association’s Literary Contribution Award (2002). Her essay collection Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner was also cited by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Cook-Lynn is widely recognized for her leadership in advancing Native rights and scholarship through literature and education.
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn died on July 5, 2023 at Monument Hospital in Rapid City.
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