Black Hills State University President Steve Elliott kicked off the Fall 2024 semester with his first State of The University Address since his induction at the beginning of the last semester. Among other topics covered during the Aug. 20 event, Vice President for University Advancement, Steve Meeker, announced the winners for the 2024 Presidential Awards.
Casey Hibbert, who was hired on as BHSU’s new theatre instructor just two weeks prior to the beginning of the Fall 2023 semester, was announced the winner of the Presidential Rising Star Faculty Award.
“It’s really awesome, but I don’t do this for the awards. I do this because I love teaching the students. I’m just here, doing what I was hired to do, and I hope I can make a difference in the department.”
Joining the BHSU Theatre Department holds much more meaning than what meets the eye for Hibbert. As a Black Hills State alumni and a former member of the Theatre Department, the new theatre instructor returns to campus with personal ties to the community.
“It means the world. This is the school that shaped my career and set me on the path to do what I wanted to do professionally. To come back to the same school and be able to share my knowledge of what I’ve learned in the field is second to none. I’m hoping I can share with the students things I wish I had known as a student who wanted to get into the business.”
Returning to his hometown after a fifteen-year stint as a professional actor in Michigan, Hibbert hopes to bring positive change, instill new values and carry the program beyond its former prestige.
“Hopefully me coming back to this program, giving it a fresh look and a younger energy will be a huge benefit to the students,” Hibbert said. “When I was a student here the department was pretty huge. We obviously had a major in theatre, we had probably twenty-something majors, which was cool to see.”
Since Hibbert’s departure from BHSU as a student in 2009, the Theatre Department slowly began to deteriorate, losing participation and funds.
“Right now, obviously, we don’t have a major. We just have a minor but slowly we’re getting the numbers, so I’m hoping to make [the Theatre Department] even better – having a few more faculty members on staff in the department to be able to teach other cool classes. I would love to have the goal of [becoming] the premiere performing arts school this side of South Dakota. It’s ambitious, but I think it would be really awesome because the students on this side of the state have to go to USD or all those other places. It would be awesome to keep them right here.”
Despite only just completing his first two semesters as a theatre instructor, Hibbert has already taken strides toward his dream of building a powerhouse performing arts program.
“It’s better now than it was previously, so I’m hoping to continue that growth path so we even surpass what it was when I was a student here,” Hibbert said.
Although raising a dying program from the grave is no small feat, Hibbert has already found effective new ways to get students back on stage. One of which was a project that had never before been attempted at this level by any previous Black Hills theatre instructor.
“It was kind of a wild project to begin with. Karl and I got together and we were like ‘lets collaborate on something’. They had done it in the past, but it was like small twenty-four-hour play festival sort of deal. I said ‘hey, let’s expand it to see what we can do with this program… why don’t we try to write an entire play in an entire semester.”
Alongside Professor Karl Lehman and his Creative Writing class, Hibbert planned to use the project to jumpstart the program and share his passion for the performing arts with the BHSU community.
“[Hibbert] is a super creative guy,” Lehman said. “Ideas are just popping out of him all the time, so we worked pretty well together to come up with all kinds of [ideas].”
And so began one of the largest collaborations between the Theatre and English departments in recent school history. Hibbert’s idea to have students write and perform a completely original play within the time frame of one semester generated the buzz he was looking for to kickstart his vision for the future of BHSU Theatre.
“This [project] was a whole level-up in terms of ambition,” Lehman said. “[One] might think it would make more sense to write [the play] one semester and put it on the next semester, but we wanted the collaboration.”
Facing the task of creating the right educational environment to motivate his students to succeed, Hibbert felt he needed to find his new muse.
“Seeing the students passionate reignites my passion for it,” Hibbert said. “I lost interest for a while in the professional field because I burned myself out. When I came back here and I landed into this position, I thought to myself ‘what can I do to help these students become passionate about the arts’ and that was becoming passionate again myself. If I’m passionate about a subject, the students will become passionate about that subject.”
Through seemingly insurmountable odds, Hibbert and his production crew managed to beat the clock and complete the preparation process just in time for opening night.
“When it came to crunch time, the students gave everything they possibly could to make this production a success. They went full bore and they did it. They put an amazing production on the stage.”
Finally back in his hometown, working at his alma mater, Hibbert has rediscovered his love for theatre through teaching and helping young actors and actresses reach new heights in their careers and giving back to the program that provided him with his own career.
“There’s nothing like seeing the joy on the students’ faces after a production. I love every ounce of this art. I love the entire cohesiveness and being able to collaborate with the students [and] with other departments is awesome.”