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nyone attending a sporting event ranging from high school to college to professional has likely witnessed the progression of that event on a Daktronics scoreboard. They're hard to miss. One of their latest football- related installations will make its debut this fall at the University of South Carolina's Williams-Brice Stadium. The fast- growing firm,

Daktronics, a major supplier of electronic scoreboards and message boards, is enlarging its manufacturing facility in Brookings, S.D.

based in Brookings, S.D., is a leader in the supply of scoreboards and electronic signs.
   With sales on the rise, Daktronics is in expansion mode, and is adding 110,000 sq. ft. (10,200 sq. m.) to its main manufacturing facility in Brookings. The enlargement boosts manufacturing capacity there by 30 percent. The company is also leasing 140,000- sq.-ft. (13,000- sq.-m.) in a former Litton manufacturing building in Sioux Falls, about an hour's drive from Brookings.
   Jim Morgan, Daktronics' president and CEO, said the buildings will add a total of 200,000 sq. ft. (18,580 sq. m.) of manufacturing space, a 70- percent increase. Daktronics' demand for personnel is exceeding the supply in the Brookings area, necessitating the Sioux Falls expansion, he said.
   South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds tells Site Selection that Daktronics' expansion illustrates one of the state's economic development pegs: providing jobs to keep young graduates in South Dakota.
   "Daktronics has been very successful in helping keep young people in our state and at the same time marketing their products on a worldwide basis," Rounds says.
   Daktronics' scoreboards are an example of just one of several sectors lighting up the state's economy. Drawing considerable attention is its booming ethanol production business. Eleven plants are operating and more are on the way.
   "We're very pleased with the growth of ethanol production," Rounds says. "We had about 165 million gallons produced in 2002 and by the end of this year,

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds

it will be up to 675 million and by 2007, over 700 million. We're optimistic that we can replace foreign oil to some extent."
   With South Dakota using just 435 million gallons of unleaded gas annually, the state is exceeding its gas need with ethanol and will be a major exporter in the future, Rounds says. This effort also produces a plentiful supply of dried distiller's grain, a by-product of the process that is a high-protein food source for livestock that is being shipped from the state to dairies across the U.S.
   One of the latest ethanol production announcements comes from Archer Daniels Midland, which recently chose Cedar Rapids for its second ethanol capacity expansion. ADM will build a dry corn milling plant with an initial annual capacity of 275 million gallons adjacent to its existing corn processing plant.
   Biodiesel is another cog in the state's alternative energy efforts. South Dakota Soybean Processors and Transocean Group Holdings of Sydney, Australia, are developing a 40- million gallon refinery adjacent to SDSP's soybean processing facility in Volga. Rounds says the state's DOT is now using biodiesel in its heavy equipment, a switch that has proven to be successful in reducing maintenance costs.
   The specialty welding sector also has been a success story for the state in recent years, Rounds says, with companies moving to South Dakota creating 3,000 jobs.
   A major plum could come the state's way later this year in the form of the proposed national underground science lab. South Dakota is vying with Colorado for the site and has proposed using the Homestake Gold mine in Lead. The Legislature has provided $45 million over the last several years to develop the site, now controlled by the South Dakota Science & Technology Authority.
   "Among the things we have going for us is that we already have our mine dug and completed down to 8,000 feet [2,438 m.]," Rounds says. "We know what's down there and we know the strength of the rock and we have a 125- year history of success at the gold mine. We're excited. If we are successful, we are confident of our ability to provide a great facility. If we can get scientists to come and do research here, it will provide one more opportunity for our students."
   Homestake is already famous as the site of work by Ray Davis, Jr., a Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist whose work there on neutrinos garnered him a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in physics.