Jan 03, 2008 - 04:03:39 CST
Usually, horsing around requires little ambition.Not this time.
It'll take some elbow grease, but business professionals and ranchers in Fort Yates hope to use one of the earliest forms of transportation as a vehicle to help shake the community from its prolonged economic slumber. They want to build a home for horses.
A nonprofit group has been created to determine the possibility of constructing an equine center on the Standing Rock Reservation. The goal is to build an indoor facility where people can ride horses and watch rodeos. The group thinks the center could generate some jobs in the concessions and maintenance areas.
"We're in a community where we haven't shared in the prosperity of the rest of the state," Jonathan Anderson, director of the Entrepreneurial Center at Sitting Bull College, said. "With the oil boom and agriculture doing so well recently, people are doing better than they were, say, five years ago. That has not really happened on the reservation. We have high unemployment rates, high poverty rates. A project like this could really give us a jump on things."
Anderson and others have been heavily involved with the Standing Rock Equine Center for quite a few months. The group is seeking a professional consultant to help it decide what type of arena could be built in Fort Yates. A request for proposal has been issued; outfits interested in doing the feasibility study should reply to Anderson or Joe Dunn by Wednesday.
"Right now we're looking to see how big we should go with it" Anderson said. "There are a couple of options. Either way, horses are a good fit in our community, because a lot of people here are horse people."
Anderson said the size of the arena would be determined by how much money can be raised, and by what the purpose of the center is. The group has suggested that a $2 million center could take care of the needs of local ranchers who want to train horses, as well as hold livestock shows, a horse therapy program and the college's horsemanship courses.
A larger, $4 million to $5 million arena would expand the focus to include competing for national rodeos and shows.
Anderson said the group would like to build the center sometime next year. If it happens, it would likely go up near the college.
"It's ambitious, but you don't accomplish stuff if you're not ambitious,"he said.
Funding is possible through a variety of sources, but Anderson said the most likely would be the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Intermediate Relending Program. As a nonprofit, the group also is eligible for several grants, he said.
For information about the equine center, including how to submit a bid for the feasibility study, call Anderson at 701-854-3734 or Joe Dunn at 701-854-3455.
Penny wrote on Feb 20, 2008 9:00 PM:
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