HAPPY ACTIVITY

        South Dakota State University, Brookings, has a dairy bar. In it one can watch the ice cream being made. Some twenty choices of ice cream are on sale. For those of us who hang out around the Twin Cities the SDSU ice cream is cheap! Six persons made their selections and most chose double dip. The cost for all this?  $27.00!! Yup, so why not go more regularly? 

     State now has something like 12,000 students. When I was a student there in the late 50s the enrollment was 3,200. Word has it that the last two freshmen classes were recorded breakers. It's a Land Grant School heavy on agriculture and engineering. Many of the servers at my favorite eating place, which is near campus, are students. One of those servers is an aviation major, and another is majoring in hospitality. 

     One of my memories from my time there was that you could always tell the engineering students by the slide rule that hung from their belt. Another memory is of the night that the dairy bar burned to the ground. Scobey Hall, the dormitory of my freshman year was recently razed.  50+ years ago it seemed quite modern.

Takk for alt,

Al

Coughlin Campanile, the face of South Dakota State University, is a chimes tower that stands 165 feet tall.

Building Description

Completed in 1929 at a cost of $75,000, the Campanile took 320,000 bricks to build. The campanile rings out the time on the hour and plays music during the 10-minute period in-between classes as students are walking on campus.

The Campanile was a gift from 1909 electrical engineering graduate Charles Coughlin, who was the president of the Briggs and Stratton Company from 1935 to 1972. Coughlin was born in Carthage, SD on Nov. 10, 1885. The tower of Indiana white limestone, red brick and concrete received a $600,000 full restoration during the 2001 construction season. A speaker replaced the chimes in July 1995. The Campanile was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. A keyboard is located in Lincoln Hall to play the chimes located at the top of the structure.

To visit the campanile and climb its 180 steps, check out a key at the Alumni Center.