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Ceremonial Groundbreaking Set For Madison Community Center

For more information contact: Marty Gallanter 256-5120 or Jill Schneider 256-7327

(Madison, SD) After several years of planning, ground will finally be broken for the construction of the Madison Community Center on July 15, 1999 at 4:30 in the afternoon. While construction on the eight million dollar project will actually begin a few days earlier (tentatively right after the 4^th of July weekend), a community wide celebration and ceremony will take place on the 15^th.

By the time the ceremony takes place, the site, located adjacent to the DSU Field House at the north end of Washington Avenue, should be busy with construction equipment and decorated with a tent to accommodate visitors for the ceremony. Light refreshments will be served after Dr. Jerald Tunheim, Mayor Royce Hueners, and Madison Community Foundation Chairman Pat Pastrollo each turn a shovel of soil symbolizing the start of the construction.

The event will also be used to highlight the community-wide fund raising campaign that seeks to raise and additional $500,000 toward construction and a substantial endowment that will be used to assist memberships for community members who cannot afford to pay the center’s fees. Long tables will be erected around the ceremony site where community members, individuals, organizations and business representatives, will fill out pledge cards. Significant contributions will be able to be paid out over a period of time up to five years and these contributors will be permanently recognized on a Wall of Honor that will be erected inside the completed center.

The Madison Community Center came together as an unprecedented joint project of the City of Madison and Dakota State University. The majority of its cost is being supported by an extra penny sales tax agreed to by voters in the City of Madison and an increase in activity fees agreed to by DSU students. The balance will come, hopefully, from the community fund raising effort. The new facility will offer a wide range of recreational opportunities from an indoor pool to sports courts to a wellness center. The project, which will be managed by a joint community/university board, is expected to open in the Fall of 2000. For further information on the groundbreaking ceremony, contact Jona Shuck at DSU 256-5692.