Opinion: Can’t imagine life without Capitol

Talk about it

My first visit to the South Dakota Capitol building in Pierre is memorable for a chance meeting with Gov. Sigurd Anderson.

In truth, I have only a vague memory of the incident. I was 7 or 8 at the time and in the capital city because my cousin Leo invited me along when his folks made the trip to take in a summer rodeo in Fort Pierre. We had a picnic in the park — Griffin Park, I assume — and we visited the Capitol building briefly before heading to the rodeo arena across the river.

As we walked up the front steps, a man in a suit came walking down. I don’t know if he stopped to chat or if my Uncle Frank greeted him first. In any event, the man shook hands all around. That’s what I know, except that after he continued down the steps, my uncle told my cousin and me that it was Gov. Anderson.

Even though I grew up just 80 or so miles away, I don’t recall a second visit to the Capitol until 1969, when Nancy and I parked in the lot out back and wandered around the building until we found the Associated Press bureau and met the correspondent in charge, Jim Wilson. We were in town looking for a place to rent in advance of a move from Sioux Falls. I’d been hired by the AP. Because Mel and Jeannette Beemer had been kind enough to do some house hunting for us, we were able to rent a place nearly as soon as we got to town. That gave us time to seek out Wilson, introduce ourselves and ask if I needed to know or do anything special before my actual start date.

The AP bureau was a makeshift thing, stuffed into a small space on the fourth floor behind the House chamber. It had one door that opened onto the hallway and a second one that opened into the Old Age and Survivors Insurance office. The AP bureau, and the United Press International bureau across the Capitol behind the Senate, fell to restoration sometime in the 1980s. What was once home to two news bureaus is now hallway space. I suppose some might consider that a higher use.

From that first 1969 visit, I’ve loved the old Capitol building. I liked the place even before the restoration efforts, back when the paint was peeling and the lights were dim and the stained glass was smoked with age and decades of legislative cigarettes and cigars and pipes. I like it even better with the polished floors, gleaming window glass and fresh paint.

I used to work a Saturday shift for the AP. Except for an informal security guard and the occasional visitor, I was often the only person in the place on those days. It had the most amazing echoes I’ve ever heard — distant footsteps down a hall, a door slamming two floors down, sudden laughter, whispered conversation so real I’d sometimes leave my desk and walk to the spectator’s gallery overlooking the empty House chamber, just to see if I could make out where the noises originated.

Bud Jones, a Pierre kid who joined UPI in Pierre the same time I joined AP, got a key to the rotunda once, and we climbed the circular stairs until we were far above the stained glass of the dome. In those days, a few of the pieces of glass were missing, and we could catch a glimpse or two of the flooring far below. I can recall when a couple of Fort Pierre kids, high school or college age, helped restore the decorative trim around the dome. They scampered around the high scaffolds like mountain goats.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say they had lived in South Dakota all of their lives but had never visited the state Capitol. If I hadn’t taken the AP job and moved to Pierre, I suppose I might be saying that, too. As it is, I can’t imagine not being familiar with the place. It belongs to all of us.

Tags: terry woster, wednesdays with woster, opinion