Sweeter with the colors

I spent my college time dashing between brick buildings of every shape and shade, exploring the limestone-laced bluffs of the Missouri River and marching on Saturdays in one of those newfangled white dome things.

All that is to admit… I’m a Coyote.

My colors were red and white.

As a newer Brookings resident, I am becoming increasingly acclimated to the blue and yellow. My wife works at South Dakota State University and is a Jackrabbit herself. Together, we enjoy a city and university that are very different from some of my past perceptions.

Growing up in rural northwest South Dakota, I suspect Vermillion was about as many green lights away as I could go in my silver coupe — and still be within the comfortable confines of home. I absolutely cherished my days at the “U”.

South Dakota State University didn’t hold much new for me back then. I had already spent my kid days in the golden wheat fields and gray cattle corrals. State? That’s where you went if all your friends did or if you wanted to pursue agriculture or animal science.

But most perceptions are made to be broken.

And now I’m here, slipping into my Jacks hoodie to do some yard work. In the shadow of an iconic grain elevator? Sure, but also in a place much more colorful than my 19-year-old brain remembered.

In Brookings, we have found a welcoming and increasingly eclectic home.

It’s a weekend joy to walk our little brown and white Shorkie downtown as he sniffs around for discarded beige pizza crusts and gobbles them up with his pink tongue and sparse teeth.

Finding such treasures is a simple reminder that life is happening.

It’s beautiful and sometimes messy.

There is an energy that pulsates around our home, from the foot traffic that strolls past our drive to the sounds of the Bobcat marching band hitting high notes on fall mornings. We feel it – and we admittedly get a bit blue when college is out of session.

But what an evolution of the university since my supposed rival days: an increased academic footprint in the engineering and nursing sciences, a rapid acclimation to the D1 ecosystem and a growing international student population.

I find the last observation particularly exciting, especially in a place largely forged out of generational farming, hometown small businesses and fiercely proud locals.

Imagine coming here from half a world away. Imagine how strange these vast plains, open spaces, barns, blue skies and shelter belts may seem, even when quite familiar to us.

The community’s increasingly diverse population challenges our norms a bit and puts to test our assertion that we are great neighbors. With any growing place comes agitations and adjustments and Brookings is certainly no different.

Whether it’s a report of ripping down a rainbow flag at a business or nasty words making rounds on the internet, most folks deserve grace and to be held accountable. Two things can be true at once.

Hopefully these types of incidents prove rare. But when they do happen, I have been very impressed with our mayor’s forthcoming way of addressing them swiftly, head-on and challenging us to be the neighbors and humans we aspire to be.

You don’t see that every day in today’s climate. You could say that’s true blue.

Never met him. Don’t know him. Like what I hear.

This fall, when my wife and I again host a hobo for Bum-a-Meal, this red and white Yote may just serve Neapolitan ice cream with blue and yellow sprinkles.

Life is sure sweeter with all the colors.