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The following statement from ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ President Barry Dunn is in recognition of ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ receiving a Bush Prize for Community Innovation from the Bush Foundation. The university was awarded $500,000 for the Wokini Initiative.

The Bush Foundation awarded the 2019 Bush Prize for Community Innovation to five organizations with a track record of successful problem solving in their communities. The Bush Prize, which was announced Tuesday, celebrates organizations that are extraordinary not only in what they do but in how they do it.

A ribbon cutting ceremony for the new South Dakota Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (ADRDL) on the ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ campus in Brookings will be held on Sept. 6. The ribbon cutting and a short program will begin at 4:30 p.m. and guided public tours will immediately follow the program, with the last tour departing at 7:30 p.m.

Afghan War Rugs: The Modern Art of Central Asia, an international exhibition of contemporary Afghan war rugs, opened Aug. 23 at the South Dakota Art Museum. The exhibition will be on view through Nov. 24, 2019.

There may be a second act in store for the ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ theater history left behind in Doner Auditorium. The auditorium’s green room and makeup rooms hold nearly four decades worth of inscriptions from theatre students who covered the walls, ceilings and other surfaces with their signatures, dates, season lineup schedules, quotes and favorite lines from plays.

Theater students can put on a first-class/world-class production thanks to the recent addition to the Performing Arts Center. After the addition was completed, it was renamed to the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center. Students now perform in the new, state-of-the-art proscenium theater, which seats about 850 people.