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The South Dakota State University Dairy Quiz Bowl Team claimed the top spot at the American Dairy Science Association's Annual Meeting in Milwaukee June 21-24.

From handwritten letters to one-of-a-kind artifacts, history isn’t just something we read about — it’s something we preserve, protect and rediscover. As the nation approaches America’s 250th birthday, "The Yellow & Blue Podcast" takes a closer look at the stories that connect our campus to the broader American experience.

Earthquake resistant buildings aren’t a new concept, but applying response-modification techniques to areas afflicted with human-induced earthquakes falls into a different category. Elina Efthymiou, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at South Dakota State University, is taking an interest developed in earthquakes during her childhood in Greece and her academic training to provide options for communities in seismically prone areas.

Noah Richardson didn’t need to be told twice. Associate Professor Todd Letcher told the freshmen gathered at a camp before the start of classes at South Dakota State University in 2024 that freshmen and sophomores should get involved in some of the NASA contests that the mechanical engineering faculty member has overseen for senior capstone projects. “I showed up to the next meeting, the next Thursday, and haven’t missed a meeting since,” said Richardson, who had all-star freshman and sophomore years. In a span of 12 months, the 2024 Omaha North High School graduate has participated in the finals of three NASA competitions — the 2025 RASC-AL competition in June, when SDSU’s entry was awarded best prototype; the Human Exploration Rover Challenge in April 2026, when he captained SDSU’s entry to a second-place finish; and Gateways to Blue Skies in May 2026.

Lined up against some big-name competition, a young group of South Dakota State University engineering students won its category in a prestigious NASA student competition. SDSU was one of three finalists selected to compete in the Lunar Sample Return Concept category. The students were tasked with developing a concept to extract and return to Earth lunar surface and subsurface samples. That was one of four categories in NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition. A total of 14 teams were selected as finalists, with three of them coming from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which won the other three categories.

Aided by a strong performance in the tractor pull, South Dakota State University’s entry in the International Quarter-Scale Tractor competition placed eighth out of 24 teams at the May 28-31 event in Bloomington, Illinois. SDSU’s entry is nicknamed Shelby because of its paint scheme, which is similar to the white-with-blue-stripe scheme used on some Ford Shelby Mustangs. Shelby finished fourth in the pull, scoring 94.8% of the possible points in that event, which involves three pulls.

Graduate students in the Lohr Structures Lab at South Dakota State University proved their standing among their peers when they competed at the 4th International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete in Des Moines, Iowa, June 14-17. The student competition portion of the symposium featured 15 teams from the United States and overseas designing and building an ultra-high performance concrete beam and then having it tested. The SDSU entry was among nine that advanced to the finals, where it received the people’s choice award based on the team’s presentation at the poster session June 14.

Aerospace Club’s launch into the world of rocketry competition got off to a smooth start in the club’s inaugural contest at the International Rocket Engineering Competition near Midland, Texas, June 16-20. Results had not been released when this article was posted June 30. However, Turner Marr, outgoing president of the South Dakota State University club, said he expects a strong showing. “We’re proud we were able to get within 300 to 400 feet of the 10,000-foot target altitude. You get a lot of points if you’re able to go into second inspection and the rocket is deemed flyable again. We maximized the amount of points from recovery.”

In rural communities across South Dakota, access to healthcare often comes down to access to people. According to Marissa Trosen, director of the respiratory care program in South Dakota State University’s College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, this is especially true for those needing access to the specialized care provided by respiratory therapists.

South Dakota State University’s medical laboratory science program, housed in the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, has earned a continuing 10-year accreditation from the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences.