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For 50 years the SDSU Rodeo Club has brought together men and women to maintain an interest in the sport of rodeo, bring prospective college students to SDSU, to promote relationships among students interested in rodeo and to represent SDSU in rodeo competitions in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.

“The rodeo club pulls together people who have an interest in western agricultural heritage,” rodeo club advisor and rodeo team coach Terry McCutcheon said. “It gives the members involved an opportunity to remain active in activities that really interest them outside of the normal classroom activities.”

McCutcheon’s predecessor H.L. Hutchinson said that the rodeo club brings a lot of students to SDSU.

“It gives a lot of students something to participate in, a sense of identity and belonging,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson, who spent 36 years as the rodeo club advisor before McCutcheon took over four years ago, said that the club affects the responsibility level of the students involved.

“Most people don’t realize that if you bring a horse to school with you, well, that’s a major undertaking,” he said, citing two-a-day feedings. “It’s not like having a cat or a goldfish.”

The 50-year rodeo club history begins with Guy Hamm, who graduated in 1952 from SDSU. Hamm tried to start a rodeo club on campus for four years, but the SDSU president at that time would not allow it. Bob Penfield, a year younger than Hamm, took advantage of an administration change between his junior and senior year, and on the new president’s first day, Penfield was given the go-ahead to pursue a new club.

“[The president] was surprised we didn’t already have a rodeo club,” he said. “He said, ‘have at it. You have my blessing’.”

Penfield said that there were about 40 charter members.

“We had meetings all winter and practiced a lot,” he said.

Roping practices took place north of where the current outdoor rodeo arena is, and the arena was constructed out of used snow fence and used wooden posts.

“We fielded a team that year and three of us went to rodeos at Laramie [Wyo.] and Ft. Collins [Colo.] because they were on the same weekend and only about 100 miles apart,” Penfield said. “We were the first team from SDSU.”

This year, the club boasts 58 members, one of the largest memberships the club has ever had.

“We have quite a few seniors this year,” McCutcheon said, adding that several members were called up to duty with the National Guard.

Senior and four year Rodeo Club member Beau Wisness from Keene, N.D., recognized the advantage of a large senior class.

“I think if [the men's rodeo team] get on the same page we have a pretty good shot of winning the team championship at regions,” he said.

The rodeo team, which stems from the rodeo club, participates each year in the Jackrabbit Stampede Rodeo. The club sponsors the rodeo, providing all of the behind-the-scenes work and handling the business aspect of the rodeo. This year it will be held April 3 through April 6 at the Swiftel Center.

McCutcheon noted that the rodeo club has a unique alliance. Jim and Steve Sutton of the multi-generational Sutton Rodeo Inc. provide the rodeo stock and Tim Richter is the executive director of the Swiftel Center. All three are SDSU alumni and had ties with the SDSU rodeo club in their pasts.

Hutchinson summed up his 36 years of experience with this group.

“It’s been a lot of fun and certainly not a boring group to work with,” he said. “I’ve never had a reason to be ashamed of any of the people and a lot of sense to be proud of them.”

#1.887129:4101062815.jpg:rodeo.jpg:Graduate student Cory Skamp, former SDSU rodeo team member, at a practice last year.:

SDSU cannot yet go forward with their plans to begin construction of a new wellness center.

Although the South Dakota Board of Regents approved the plan, according to HPER department head and Athletic Director Fred Oien, no bill was sponsored for approval during the 2003 South Dakota legislative session.

The proposed location of the new facility is at the south endzone of the practice football field, directly north of the HPER Center, Shari Landmark, director of the Wellness Center, said.

Oien said the wellness center is needed for the quality of student life.

“The next step,” Oien said, “is to go back in and re-study all the programming we want in this facility, and go back in and get legislative approval in 2004.”

Oien said that when the new wellness facility is complete, students will have uninterrupted service.

Until that time, SDSU students still have access to the Wellness Center located in the HPER Center at no charge, but with time infringements. The center must partially or completely close its doors to exercisers during athletic events, the science fair, the state Future Farmers of America convention, the SDSU Wacipi , SDSU graduation ceremonies and other activities throughout the year.

A newsletter and calendar are published each month with the facilities’ closings. The calendars are available at the service desk, the weight room and in the pool area.

“If there is an event that comes up out of the blue, then we do our best to make signs and post them in the facility,” Landmark said.

Outside groups can rent the HPER Center for $750 plus maintenance fees, Roxy Cook, Intercollegiate athletics secretary, said. The rental fee except for maintenance fees is waived for on-campus groups.

SDSU students have been able to use the Wellness Center for free since 1992.

Oien said community membership fees maintain the Wellness Center. Otherwise, the Athletic, Intramural and Recreation Committee gave a one-time allocation of $5,000 to pay for new equipment. AIR distributes the student activity fee budget.

The Wellness Center does not have enough equipment for the approximately 1,000 students who use the facility and the 500 community members, but the budget is too tight right now to purchase any new equipment.

“I try to fight for a new piece [of equipment] every year,” Landmark said about expanding the number of cardio equipment, which includes two running treadmills, three walking treadmills, three elliptical trainers, six stair-steppers, rowing machines, cross-country ski machines and stationary bicycles. “As a [previous] student here, I know how important it is to come exercise.”

Landmark said she experiences frustration in how long it takes fix equipment as well.

Students and Wellness Center members also have access to two weight rooms, the 1/8-mile track, and the pool during the Wellness Center hours.

An alternative work-out can be obtained in the Intramural Building, commonly know as the Barn, when the Wellness Center is closed. The Intramural Building has four racketball courts, a martial arts room, a weight room and a free-play court. Students must be flexible if they want to use the free-play courts, though, since they are closed off during the spring semester from 2 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 2 to 6 p.m. on Friday for team practices.

Students and community members can expand their workout options by purchasing a $50 cardio card that provides access to spinning classes, water aerobics and land aerobics.

Christel Liebig, a fourth-year biology/pre-med major from Gettysburg, uses the Wellness Center five or six days a week, altering her schedule depending on the Wellness Center hours. She said that she doesn’t mind paying for spinning, but she wishes that she could use the spinning bicycles outside of scheduled classes.

“If we have a cardio card then obviously we know how to use [the bicycles] and care for the equipment,” she said. Liebig would like to see more workout options available “because there’s only so many things you can do.”

Unitl a new facility is approved and constructed, students will have to continue to work around the Wellness Center’s varying schedule and work with what is available.

#1.887228:2821423868.jpg:hper.jpg:Signs posted outside the HPER weight room alert patrons when varsity athletics are using the facilities. During HPER events, students who want to use the wellness facilities face conflicts.:

Dr. Nancy Lyons asks her students to watch television and award shows and to read magazine to keep up with the fast-paced changes in the fashion industry.

Lyons, a professor of apparel merchandising at SDSU, said she wants to instill on the apparel merchandising students how important it is to be well-read and to be aware of new trends in order to stay current.

Aside from keeping up on the latest trends outside of the classroom, SDSU apparel merchandising students take classes in design and manufacturing, textiles, international trade and on the history of costume. Product knowledge, design principles, consumer behavior and the organization and operation of the fashion industry are also emphasized by the department.

“Textiles is an important subject students study,” Lyons said. “A key facet is apparel and there are many ways it can be studied and applied.”

As an SDSU student wishing to broaden his or her horizons in the apparel merchandising major, SDSU has a collaborative agreement with the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City that allows students to spend a semester or a year studying fashion in New York City.

Dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences Laurie Stenberg Nichols said that SDSU is a great place to complete all coursework for straight retailing positions, but for students who want more of a fashion design background, FIT is a way they can go to enhance the SDSU curriculum.

Lyons said that the FIT experience is beneficial because “FIT is located where the [fashion] industry is located.”

SDSU apparel merchandising students gain other fashion experiences through the practicum. Lyons said that the real-life experience hours are optional at many other institutions, but SDSU requires 280 documented hours on on-the-job experience.

“We encourage [the students] to go away to a larger area for the practicum,” Lyons said. “It gives them a more cosmopolitan background.”

Seeing and working with fashion are integrated into the classroom work. Students in this major are responsible for the window displays on the second floor of the Nursing, Family and Consumer Sciences and Arts and Sciences Building (NFA) and for the fashion show held during the Family and Consumer Sciences Expo each spring. Students undertake these tasks while enrolled in the sophomore level fashion promotion and visual merchandising class taught by Lyons.

“It’s designed to be experiential learning and hands-on,” Lyons said.

Amanda Campbell, a senior apparel merchandising major from Lemmon, said that the most fun she has had in classes was planning the fashion show and working on the display windows.

Campbell, who decided that her career would be in fashion when she was 16 years old, worked at Dillards Department Store in Houston, Texas, for her practicum. When she graduates in December of 2003, she hopes to move back to the Houston area to work in the fashion industry.

Senior Andrea Schiller of Blooming Prairie, Minn., also really enjoyed working on the fashion show and also enjoyed the study tours that SDSU’s Apparel Merchandising Association takes annually.

“It’s fun. You get to meet lots of interesting people,” Schiller said, remembering the time in New York City when they met the fashion editor for Glamour magazine.

Sophomore apparel merchandising major Loni Carmichael form Brookings, was unsure of what direction to take career-wise as a freshman. After visiting with Lyons, she said she thought that apparel merchandising sounded like fun and would be a good career option.

Carmichael said she likes fashion and seeing and selling the trends.

Careers for options in the fashion industry include department or store manager, retail store owner, a buyer or a distributor, a fashion consultant, marketing assistant, merchandise coordinator or analyst, freelance fashion promoter and museum curator.

Nichols said one of the benefits of the apparel merchandising program is the small size.

“There are about 50 students majoring in apparel merchandising,” she said, “so you get lots and lots of one-on-one interaction with the faculty and the other students.”

Nichols continued her praise of the program, and said that the job placement, even in a down economy, has continued to be strong.

“We have no problem placing our students,” she said.

On preparation for competition, Brent Smith disrobes from his Adidas shoes, loose-fitting jeans and maroon hooded sweatshirt and puts on his uniform: Wranglers and cowboy boots.

Smith, a senior advertising and marketing major, competes part-time on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. He has managed to stay injury-free, with the exception of a couple black eyes, while temping fate in eight-second intervals on the back of a bull.

Smith cannot put into words just why he straps himself to the back of a bucking bull.

“It’s somthing that comes from within and it’s hard to explain unless you try it,” he said. “Once you do it once, you want to do it again.”

Smith got his first taste of bull riding when he was 15. His older brother’s friend first ignited the spark that has fired the passion for Smith’s sport of choice.

Working around his part-time job as a deejay at the Safari Lounge, Smith practices his techniques on a machine he built an keeps in the barn at his parent’s house. Occasionally, he and five to six other guys will travel together to Sisseton or Huron to practice with actual animals.

Smith, a Brookings High School graduate, is working hard to achieve his professional bull-riding goals. He is seeking sponsors, in the hopes that he can pursue bull riding full-time upon graduating from SDSU in May.

Smith said that he will not retire from this body-bruising sport until he as given it everything that he has and has reached all of his goals.

“To compete is fine, but to compete and to win at a certain level is the best,” he said.

Smith has to work hard to dispell the stereotypes associated with rodeo athletes.

“I just like to ride bulls and that’s it,” he said in reference to his lack of an agricultural background and his atypical cowboy clothing.

“I’m a rodeo athlete, just like any other athlete. [Football players] don’t wear their footbal helmets down to the grocery store.”

Smith is looking for an opportunity to tie his career to rodeo if bull riding itself does not work out as career. The current vice president of the SDSU Advertising Club is looking at working with the advertisers for the Professional Bull Riders based in Colorado.

#1.887477:2467088824.jpg:bull.jpg:Brent Smith, senior advertising and marketing major, competes on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. Aside from bull riding, Smith also works as a deejay at the Safari Lounge.:Courtesy photo

South Dakota State University’s Dean of the College of Arts and Science has been hired to help get the messages of the United States Army Reserve to the public.

Optimal performance is a goal for athletes during every competition.

A 13-memeber search committee has selected three candidates for the position of dean of the College of Pharmacy at SDSU.

The committee, headed by Dr. Jerry Jorgensen, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences chose Dr. Elgene Jacobs, Dr. Brian Kaatz and Dr. Philip Medon to visit SDSU for several days at a time to meet and interview with students, faculty, administrators and constituency groups.

Jacobs is the associate dean and vice chair of the Department of Pharmacy: Clinical and Admnistrative Sciences at the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy in Oklahoma City and an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma Health and Sciences Center since 1987. Jacobs earned his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from SDSU in 1973, his master’s degree in pharmaceutical socioeconomics from the University of Iowa in 1977 and his doctorate in pharmacy administration fro Purdue University in 1981.

Kaatz is the professor and head of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at SDSU and is currently the acting dean of the College of Pharmacy. He graduated from SDSU in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and earned his doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Minnesota in 1977.

Medon is the associate dean of the College of Pharmacy, Student and Professional Affairs for the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Medon earned his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science in 1968, his master’s degree in pharmacology from Purdue University in 1971 and his doctorate in pharmacology from Purdue university in 1972.

When recreational runner and SDSU dining service director John Sterbis sets a goal, he takes its achievement seriously.

For his first marathon on Sept. 29 he wanted to finish in four hours and 20 minutes. His official time was four hours and 20.00 minutes, exactly.

Twenty-five thousand spectators, University of Minnesota cheerleaders and numerous bands lined the 26.2 miles of the 2002 Twin Cities Marathon, motivating Sterbis and the other 6,640 racers to the finish line.

“It was not as difficult as I thought it would be,” Sterbis said about his first marathon experience.

The Twin Cities Marathon is the self-proclaimed “most beautiful urban marathon in America,” which began in 1982. The TCM is a combination of the City of Lakes marathon in Minneapolis and the St. Paul Marathon. The first TCM attracted 4,563 entrants and since its initial year, over 100,000 runners have crossed the finish line.

A runner for as long as he can remember, Sterbis decided to prepare for one of the things that he has always wanted to do: a marathon.

Sterbis ran just over 30 miles a week during his training period. He started to increase his miles in the first part of July, running his long training runs on Sunday mornings. He used a training guide from the Runner’s World website, but it did not prepare him for everything.

“That first 16-mile run just about killed me,” Sterbis said, citing 80 to 90 degree temperatures and a lack of water in his system during his out-and-back run on a gravel road. “I knew I was in bad shape when I wasn’t sweating.”

Instead of being discouraged, Sterbis learned that he would have to stash water bottles along his running route during his long runs.

Before the race, his longest run was a 20-miler.

“I cheated on the last half mile,” he said. “I limped all the way home.”

Sterbis’s training paid off, and by race day, he was ready.

“What’s amazing is how your body can adapt,” he said. “I remember having to do a 14-mile run and it felt easy.”

Running among thousands of other people was a new concept for the man who trained solo for this race. He brought his wife, Cara, and his daughters, Jamie, 8, and Kayla, 10, along to cheer him on through the Minneapolis and St. Paul streets.

Sterbis does not remember exactly what was going through his mind during those 26.2 miles.

“You just have to focus on moving forward,” he said. “You can’t worry about anyone passing you. You have to run your race.”

Sterbis kept his marathon goal under wraps, not telling a lot of people what he was preparing for, and not wanting to disappoint those that knew of his ambition.

“The thought of not finishing kept me going,” he said.

Sterbis said that up until mile 20 everything was going fine.

“Only between miles 20 and 25 were tough mentally and physically,” he said. “Mile 1.2 was purely mental and adrenaline.”

Sterbis paid for stressing his body with the loss of one toenail and some sore muscles for a couple of days. He was unable to eat after the race, but the next day he was able to replenish his body with food.

Only a week after the Twin Cities Marathon, Sterbis was out running 20 miles a week. He said that he will probably run another marathon next year, and then he will be able to apply what he has learned from this year’s experience.

“The race doesn’t start ’til mile 20. I wish I knew that at mile 13,” he said, laughing. “And go to the bathroom before the race.”

Sterbis highly recommends running a marathon for anyone.

The discipline that it takes to complete 26.2 miles can be applied in other areas of life. For Sterbis, he has learned how to achieve goals, whether when working or when running, and that you need to keep plugging away.

“If I’d given up after that first long run, I’d never have achieved this goal,” he said.

Sterbis, who oversees all SDSU dining services, considered running Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., next year, but it falls on the same weekend as orientation for the University. So, Sterbis is again looking at the TCM, hoping to improve his marathon time on Oct. 5, 2003.

“Education’s purpose is to replace and empty mind with an open one,” Malcolm Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine, once said.

Dr. Ann Marie Bahr, professor of philosophy and religion, will again be team teaching the Middle East Topics class during the spring 2003 semester.

The course, first offered during the spring 2002 semester in the wake of Sept. 11, can be found unter the religion section of the course schedule book.

The course is open to any student and community member. Bahr hopes that elementary and high school teachers will be able to take the class to fulfill continuing education requirements.

About 20 people took the two-credit course last year. Among them was junior history major Susan Thompson.

Thompson said that she took the course because she is a history major and because of the current situation in the Middle East.

“It’s an interesting part of the world that I wanted to learn about in more depth,” she said.

Bahr said that professors from the Middle East to talk about their own countries and their own experiences. Subjects range from Middle Eastern architecture to geography to literature.

“You saw a lot of different perspectives,” Thompson said. “You got both sides of the issue.”

Thompson remembers speakers from Iran, from Egypt and a Kurdish woman.

“In that sense it was a great class,” she said. “You weren’t just reading a textbook.

Because Thompson has an interest in history, she found the textbook information useful, too.

The textbook covered Middle Eastern history from the 19th century to the present Middle Eastern situations.