Mary Jo Parker and Rebecca Beeson attended the 2024 South Dakota State University (SDSU) Energize Conference held on May 22nd and 23rd in Hot Springs. This was the third year that Mary Jo attended the event and Rebecca’s first year attending. There were approximately 140 people registered for the conference representing communities from across South Dakota. Previous energize conferences have been hosted in DeSmet, Lemmon, Milbank, Fort Pierre and Wessington Springs.

The Energize conference is about and for rural communities. It is held annually in a different location each year in a community with less than 5,000 people. Each conference has a keynote speaker and sessions that feature South Dakota rural community and business success stories. The conference is a great source of networking and meeting with resource partners that serve South Dakota communities and businesses. The SDSU Energize conference’s goal is to make rural communities stronger.

For Lake Andes, Mary Jo and Rebecca volunteered to go and be a part of this opportunity to bring back information to better the Lake Andes community. The city was very supportive of their two delegates and paid for their registration and attending costs. Mary Jo had attended the Lemmon and Fort Pierre En-ergize Conferences. As this was not her first time attending, she knew that she could expect a good networking experience with other communities and their residents along with some innovative ideas as solutions to problems plaguing rural communities across the state. Mary Jo attended this year’s event in hopes of finding some solutions to the housing and childcare deficits that Lake Andes is currently facing.

In order to cover the most ground in terms of the information presented at the sessions, Mary Jo and Rebecca split up and attended different sessions. The first session that Mary Jo attended was the “Creating a Foundation for Building Community” with speaker Mayor Mary Williams of Wall. This presentation spoke a lot on what Wall did due to their need of more housing for the city. Wall found a developer that brought in governor homes. The governor’s homes that were brought in sold right away. Within the last year 21 more governor’s homes were brought in and at the time of the presentation there were over 40 lots available for people to build homes on. In that year, Wall was also able to expand their airport. Young people began to move into Wall, many of them recent vocational college graduates. With an influx of recent vocational graduates moving into Wall, the City of Wall responded by building industrial condos. The vocational condos were made for young entrepreneurs who were looking to start up their own businesses in the area.

The second session that Mary Jo attended was the “Building Community Through Fundraising to Put life Back into Hyde County” with speakers Beth Simonson and Carrie Stephenson of Highmore. The ladies talked about how they were a part of the Highmore Pool Fundraising Committee. The Highmore Pool Fundraising Committee was able to raise $1,000,000 in two years. One idea that they presented was combining with other non-profits when they held events. For example, the pool fundraising committee held Chase the Ace at a senior meals fundraiser. The pool committee raised $90,000 and senior meals raised $15,000.

The final session that Mary Jo attended was “Funding Sources in Spink County Leads to Spec Homes, Programs, & Events” with speaker Gianna Schieffer. Gianna Schieffer is the executive director of Grow Spink Inc. which is a non-profit development corporation that is dedicated to boosting the local economy and strengthening the local community. It is an organization that is dedicated to helping local entrepreneurs by offering loans, workshops, and a networking environment for business owners to collaborate and succeed which in turn strengthens and boosts the local community. After attending this session, Mary Jo knew that her next step in aiding in the solutions to the problems that Lake Andes is facing was the need to develop a 501(c)(3) organization. A 501(c)(3) organization is commonly referred to as a charitable organization. In order to qualify for grants to get programs off of the ground this type of organization is needed. This is something that Mary Jo is currently in the works of trying to develop in the Lake Andes community.

The event closed with a panel titled “Voices of the Next Generation: Young Entrepreneurs”. There were five members of the panel all under 21 years of age that had chosen to start and operate their own business in small rural towns. Two of the panelists were from near Lake Andes. Aaron Sundquist with AccurAerial Solutions of Gregory and Reese Powers with Made & Company of Avon.

The 2025 conference will be held in an east river town as the location alternates east and west river annually. Thank you to Mary Jo Parker and Rebecca Beeson for attending the event and sharing some of your experiences from the 2024 SDSU Energize Conference.