The second Annual Earth Day Festival took place on April 26, 2025. This event was hosted to build connections within the Spearfish community and promote environmental awareness.
After Eva Chase’s resignation as BHSU’s Sustainability Coordinator in February of this year, Taryn Davis, the BHSU Sustainability Graduate Assistant, took over responsibility for the coordination of the event.
Davis also recruited the help of Ky Hammond, a fellow sustainability graduate student
“I had never planned a big event like that before, so it required a ton of research,” Davis said. “I reached out to [Hammond]. He really stepped up and went above and beyond. The Sustainability Department ended up hiring him so that we could co-organize the event.”
This event hosted inspirational speakers, student organization tables, booths from local businesses, food trucks and educational booths to help teach the community about sustainability and the importance of preserving the Earth’s ecosystem.
Aside from spreading the word of sustainability, Davis and Hammond also opened the event to many others who had a message to share.
“We had a lot of nonprofits this year,” Hammond said. “I was glad to get to talk with a lot of them. This year just felt like we were more purposeful with our networking. Connecting BHSU with the [Spearfish] community is very good in that regard because it spreads education as well as communication among different organizations and nonprofits.”
Not only did the Sustainability Department strive to promote taking care of the environment and being sustainable consumers, but they were also able to maintain that sentiment with their budget.
“We required all the vendors who were going to be selling goods or items to pay a booth fee,” Davis said. “So that’s where we got our money from. All of the student tables and all the non-profit organizations, their booth fee was completely waived, but with the money that we had gotten from the sponsors and the vendor booths, we were able to operate within [our] budget.”
The program’s largest expense was the event banner, which they plan to reuse for years to come to help support their cause.
Davis and Hammond also reached out to Dr. David Berberick, a music professor and band director, to collaborate for the BHSU Spring Music Festival.
This festival is typically a solo act, hosted to help raise money for the Music Department. However, Davis and Hammond felt the two events could work well together.
“Collaborating with the Spring Music Festival in this regard, it just felt more connection-based, which I know is something that a lot of the student organizations have been having issues with when trying to get attendance to activities,” Hammond said. “I was a little worried about this [event], but having a bigger festival, especially during warmer weather, just feels nicer [for the community] as a whole.”
Both the Sustainability and Music Departments believe they have successfully overcome this obstacle with a noticeable increase in attendance compared to previous years.
“I worked closely with the band council, Jessie Graham and Skott Chandler [for this event],” Berberick said. “I also worked with [music] directors of various schools and community groups as well as the owners of three food truck businesses.”
While Berberick was a driving force in the musical side of this event, he also credits the students who reached out to local businesses and individuals who would be interested in donating to the event’s silent auction.
“It is my hope that [the Earth Day Festival] is becoming an event that people can attend annually for years to come as a Spring Homecoming for Alumni and kick off the outdoor summer event season in Spearfish,” Berberick said. “We get to feature the hard work of our groups that have prepared for so long indoors through the cold season.”
The Earth Day Festival and Spring Music Festival collaboration has arguably become one of the biggest non-sports-related events that BHSU has hosted in many years.
“[This event] proves that BHSU is an entity with which collaboration is possible and networking is possible,” Hammond said. “The students want to be involved in the community more than they already are now. We would like to work together in the future and we love Spearfish.”
