From the original Rapid City Central, to Dakota Middle School, all the way to Rapid City Alternative today, alumni and community members came to celebrate a century of education in the 1923 building.
Sarah Gross was an organizer for the 100 Year Project, a community-based group that wanted to dig deeper into the history of the school.
“I started by thinking ‘oh, we’ll have a birthday party – it’ll be a hoot, with balloons and cupcakes’ – then all the stories started coming out," Gross said. "It’s a building that’s open to all of the public. All of Rapid City came to it for fifty-some years when it was the only high school.”
Gross, pointing out the unique architecture of schools from this era, said projects like these can help the community connect with its roots on a deeper level.
“With this project I find when I go into a school there are PTA scrapbooks hiding – and they’re hiding in gym closets or boiler rooms – and they have amazing history," Gross said. "It’s been like a treasure hunt, unearthing these boxes and finding the pictures.”
Gross said they also plan on working with student filmmakers to produce short documentaries about the individual histories of each Rapid City school building.
