Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center open house set for April 24

A ribbon-cutting and open house for the new Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center is set for Saturday, April 24, at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium on the SDSU campus. The events will coincide with the Jackrabbits spring football game.

The ribbon-cutting will begin at 1:45 p.m. The public is invited to view the ceremony from the stands of the stadium. The game kickoff will follow at 2:15 p.m. After the game, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., a public open house and tours will take place. No admission will be charged for the day’s events.

A 30,000-square-foot facility, the Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center:
• Houses an academic center for all SDSU student-athletes;
• Serves as the home of Jackrabbit football with coaches offices, locker room, meeting rooms, a strength and conditioning center and athletic training facilities; and
• Provides a dedicated area to showcase the program to recruits and donors.

Situated on the north end of the stadium, the Dykhouse Center is the first major athletic building constructed on campus since Frost Arena in 1973.

The Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center was made possible through leadership gifts from the Dana and La Dawn Dykhouse family and South Dakota businessman and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford.

Dana Dykhouse, president and Chief Executive Officer of First Premier Bank in Sioux Falls, is a 1979 graduate of SDSU. He lettered three years for the Jackrabbit football team, earning honorable mention all-North Central Conference honors as a defensive tackle in 1978. La Dawn Dykhouse also graduated in 1979 from SDSU, where she was a Pride of the Dakotas Dakota Deb Member. They are the parents of two children: Dan (Kristina), a 2007 alumnus and football letterwinner from 2004-06; and Alana, who will graduate from Black Hills State University this spring after lettering four times in women’s basketball.

The Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center is a project of It Starts with STATE: A Campaign for South Dakota State University. It is the largest university fundraising drive in state history, with a working goal of $190 million. The campaign is in response to campus-wide strategic planning that developed a vision for future growth on campus.