Southeast South Dakota News

Centerville Holds 2022 Community Gala Event

By Jared Hybertson, Community & Economic Development Coordinator 

The Centerville Development Corporation once again hosted the annual Celebrate Centerville Community Gala event. This year the event was held on Friday, December 2nd at the Centerville American Legion. The event looks back on Centerville’s accomplishments over the past year and honors a few deserving individuals and organizations with some community awards.

The primary dinner sponsor for the evening was the Centerville Area Community Foundation. The dinner was prepared by Double A Smokers from here in Centerville. Double A Smokers is a local side BBQ business for Adam Hanssen and Andy Nelson. The dinner featured smoked pulled pork sandwiches, corn, beans and a side of pie.

The horderves table, along with the pies for dessert were prepared by Susan Overgaard and also sponsored by the Centerville Area Community Foundation. The horderves table featured three very nice charcuterie boards from another local side business in town, CHICuterie & Moore. As always, Susan also supplied the stunning decorations for the evening. Event sponsors help us make this event possible with financial and technically support. This year those sponsors were MidAmerican Energy, the Centerville Area Foundation and Quint Pease of Geek Dad computer services. 

We hosted a nice crowd again this year of just over 100 guests. In attendance were a variety of local businesses, community leaders, volunteers, and economic development partners. The Gala program and dinner is an opportunity for the Development Corporation to say thank you to all of the people in our community that we have worked with and that do great things in Centerville throughout the year.  

As Executive Director of the Centerville Development Corporation, I was honored to MC the Gala event. To kick things off I shared some growth numbers for Centerville. It is estimated that in the last 15 years Centerville’s population has grown by about 66 people. I also presented some impressive sales tax growth numbers for Centerville from the last four years. Since 2018, Centerville’s sales tax numbers have increased a whopping 47%. Several new businesses in our downtown, along with increased shop local efforts have contributed to this growth.

Next, we heard from Mayor Kent Austin with an update on City business. Mayor Austin first shared an update on the continued plans for street repairs and street maintenance throughout the town. He then shared the unfortunate state of Centerville’s standpipe water tower. The water tower will unfortunately need to be repaired or replaced soon. Mayor Austin also shared a long-term goal to rebuild Broadway Street, our main business corridor. 

Next, we heard from Susan Overgarrd, board chair of the Centerville Area Community Foundation. Susan highlighted the grants and projects the foundation spearheaded this past year. The Foundations grant recipients this year included the Centerville Fire Department, Centerville Tornado Days, the Centerville Ambulance, the Centerville Wellness Center, the Centerville Alzheimer’s Walk and their student scholarship winner Sophia Eide. The Community Foundation also sponsors the alumni golf tournament and kids pedal pull during Tornado Days. In all, the Foundation pumped over $10,000 back into the community this year. Our local Community Foundation has a big impact in our community.

After a short intermission, the audience was entertained by a group of CHS oral interp students that qualified for state with their readers theatre performance. The group included Averie Salberg, Brady Muller, Luke Knight and Anna Preheim. They shared their fantastic talents with the crowd. Centerville has many talented performing arts students and we wanted to showcase that and hold this group up.   

After the oral interp performance, we received an update on the Centerville School District from Superintendent Eric Knight. Mr. Knight highlighted some school topics including continued solid enrollment numbers, excellent student testing scores, and Centerville high rankings when it comes to school efficiency. The Centerville School District truly shines when compared to other schools of a similar size from across the state. 

Mr. Knight gave a few project updates as well. Fundraising for the new crows next building near the track and football field wrapped up with good successful. Construction of the new crows nest building was able to start over the summer and was finished this fall. The new facility was a much-needed update and improvement. The crows nest will now have new restrooms and a new concessions stand on the home side of the football field. Mr. Knight continued on to discuss the need for a larger shop area in the school. An addition to the existing shop may be one of the next major school projects. The additional space would benefit the Ag and Automotive classes, as well as other hands-on classes the school could expand into.    

Next in the program, I highlighted projects the Centerville Development Corporation had been working on throughout the year. I first focused on our housing projects, highlighted by a rehab project, a new construction, and the 14 acre housing development that we will break ground on in the spring of 2023. The new development will feature twenty-two new single-family housing lots of various sizes. There will be an announcement coming in the next few weeks for when the lots will be available for purchase. We hope to have the lots done and ready to be built on by summer of 2023.  

Next, we discussed a variety of business successes that Centerville had over the year. Including many milestone anniversaries for several of our small businesses. I elaborated on several of the downtown projects we accomplished, including the large-scale community mural project on the side of the bowling alley that was completed throughout the year. 

We also highlighted the downtown community celebrations we held like Tornado Days and the Fall-O-Ween Festival. I discussed some of the parks & recreation projects we have been working on. Including how excited we were to be a part of the fundraising efforts that helped to see the new crows nest built. The Centerville Development Corporation was able to contribute $50,000 in matching funds towards the projects fundraising efforts. 

And lastly, I shared the successes we have had with a variety of marketing efforts such as our restaurant rumble campaign, our interstate billboards, our booth at the Turner County Fair, our Facebook page and a newly revamped Centerville website.      

The evening concluded with us recognizing some deserving Centerville residents and businesses with our annual community awards. Each year we have done our community gala celebration we have awarded a volunteer of the year, business of the year, and community and economic development partner of the year. 

Our 2022 volunteer of the year went to Dan Thompson. Dan was recognized for not only his time volunteering but what he has done over the years to step in and fill many needed roles that no one else wanted to fill at the time. Dan’s resume includes former council person, filling in as Mayor, and stepping up to be pool manager when no one else wanted the job. The past few summers Dan has worked as part time maintenance and mowing person for the City when that role has been hard to fill as well. 

In a quote from one of the people that nominated Dan Thompson, “Dan sees something that needs to be done and he just does it. He’s willing to do the dirty work and the little things.” Dan so often keeps a positive attitude while doing all of these “little” things that have a big impact. He is a great example of what both volunteerism and a good employee should look like. And that is why Dan Thompson is our 2022 Volunteer of the year.

For the 2022 business of the year award, we went in a little bit different direction. Although this business is probably our second largest employer in town, it often gets overlooked as being a business at all. Their administrative staff and board of directors have the task of balancing a budget larger than most businesses around. They have the task of filling job openings that very few people want or are even qualified for. All while trying to keep parents happy and give children a quality education. Of course, I am talking about our fantastic Centerville School District. Running a school is big business. Superintendent Eric Knight, his staff and our wonderful teachers do an amazing job. The school district is running like a well-oiled machine. The enrollment numbers and efficiency statistics show just how deserving of this award the Centerville School District is.

Our final award of the evening was our 2022 Community and Economic Development Partner of the Year. This year the award was presented to a group of individuals that have had a huge impact on our community over the last couple years and this year especially. That group is the Centerville Festival Committee. This group has helped drive more people to town and has certainly helped in a big way with the increased sales tax dollars that we have seen. The group helped breathe new life into our downtown and really got involved in community development and event planning. It was this group that was behind helping to spark the tremendously successful Fall-O-Ween Festival and now the Hometown Christmas Event. Many of them also take part in helping to run various events during Tornado Days. Several in this group are the passionate business owners in our downtown that want to help keep Centerville a thriving community. I was honored to present the Centerville Festival Committee with this award. 

As we wrapped up for the evening, I left the crowd with some motivational words from what I referred to as some of my favorite pop culture philosophers. The reoccurring theme encouraged everyone to continue to stay involved in their community because it does matter. And to think about what they will do with the time they have, and about the legacy they hope to leave. 

It was another fantastic community gathering and gala event. A big thank you to everyone that helped with the planning and setup for this event and to all those that were able to attend the Gala. We look forward to celebrating more of Centerville’s accomplishments with you next year!

Original source can be found here.