Black Hills State University tacked on another victory over its arch-rival, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, after being crowned champion of the LG Campus Clash.

Last year LG, a multinational conglomerate recognized the Black Hills Brawl between BHSU and SDSMT presented a unique marketing opportunity for its brand and promoted a competition between the two schools.

“LG really liked the rivalry we [BHSU] had with South Dakota School of Mines,” said Becca Walters, BHSU senior director of marketing and communications. “They really wanted to take the [rivalry] to another level and pit us against South Dakota School of Mines and really get the students involved.”

Students from both universities were presented with an opportunity to create a video explaining why their school is better than the other. When all the entries were submitted, the winning video was selected through a voting process. The school with the most votes won an aerial video by Jaybyrd Films, and the student responsible for the winning video won an LG electronics package worth $3100.

Noah Westergaard, a sophomore at BHSU, was presented with the opportunity to represent his school and become the BHSU spokesperson in the Campus Clash, but he first needed to win the BHSU vote with his video.

“I was like alright, what does BH have better than SDSMT,” Westerguaard said. “Obviously, we have a more scenic campus, and then
we have the art program because [Mines] are all STEM…as a photography major, we can do [art] and we have all that stuff here for the
artistic side of the world.”

Westergaard also added an element of humor to make his video entertaining while also adding a strike to SDSMT.

“A common insult to say against Mines is to take a shower or you guys are stinky,” Westergaard said. “So, I was like all right, ‘we have
showers in our dorms – and we know how to use them.’”

Westergaard used these ideas for his script in trying out for the BHSU spokesperson.

“I went [to where LG was creating videos] and made my video was like okay, cool,” Westergaard said. “So, then I went and told my friends to vote for my video.” This sparked competition in Westergaard.

“There was this other girl [who also entered to represent BHSU] who was maybe in the forties for votes, and I was like ‘maybe I can
top that,’” Westerguaard said. “I was like all right, I should enforce more so then I asked more people to vote… through that, we [ Makai Obregon from SDSM&T] won the prize package of monitor, laptop, headphones speaker thing.”

This video made it apparent that it would showcase well for the LG Campus Clash.

“[Noah] really made some astute points about our campus and how it is exceptionally beautiful,” said Allen Morris, a photography professor at BHSU. “And there are a lot of opportunities for photography folks and art majors which Mines does not even have.”

With Westergaard and Obregon named as the champions of BHSU and SDSMT, it was now down to the Spearfish and Rapid City communities to vote.

BHSU started strong at the beginning of the LG Campus Clash with a lead in votes against SDSMT. But this lead did not last long.
By Oct. 23 SDSMT was leading 3500 to 1700. The substantial lead for SDSMT made it seem as if there was no hope for BHSU to win.

Another loss to SDSMT was unacceptable to many on BHSU’s campus, so the school utilized PR and marketing to turn out more votes.

“I reached out to our Alumni Association, Steve Meeker and Shauna Junek, to send information out to all our alumni, so over 10,000
people,” Walters said. “Over that last weekend, I think that boosted our numbers.”

Additionally, the community came together in support of a BHSU victory.

“It seemed the Mines folks petered out towards the end and we sprinted ahead as should have,” Morris said. “It was a full-court Yellow Jacket press.”

Comedy won the day for Westergaard and the BHSU community.

“The comic part on ours and also highlighting on why we are good while Mines was kind of longer thing and just talking it through,”
Walters said. “Noah was just more succinct and really just set the message, and people really liked that humor.”