SPEARFISH — A lifelong friendship strengthened by Black Hills State women’s basketball led to the largest cash donation in Yellow Jackets history, the school's athletic department announced during Friday’s Gold Rush Raffle at the Donald E. Young Center.
Miles and Lisa Beacom announced a $5 million donation to the BHSU women’s sports programs and Dana Dykhouse added a $2.5 million donation to the men’s sports programs.
The two gifts will be disbursed over the next five years, and the Beacoms created a new endowment to allow for future contributions from Yellow Jackets supporters. The Dykhouse family created a similar endowment back in 2010.
“This is a great start to a full endowment that will have a long-lasting impact,” Padraic McMeel, BHSU's director of athletics, told The Journal. “It also gives us some dollars to do things that we need today. It’s a wonderful opportunity, and the fact it’s the largest is just a bonus and a testament to the Beacoms and Dykhouses.”
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Miles Beacom and Dykhouse have been in business together for three decades and the duo currently serve as CEOs for PREMIER Bankcard and First PREMIER, respectively, in Sioux Falls.
The pair developed a solid working relationship as friendship as colleagues, but the bond grew stranger as their daughters suited up for the Yellow Jackets.
Alana Breske, formally Alana Dykhouse and wife of BHSU head football coach Josh Breske, played basketball for BHSU through the 2009-10 season. Her Yellow Jackets squads played in three straight NAIA Tournaments and won a pair of Dakota Athletic Conference championships.
Ashlee Beacom played for the Yellow Jackets from 2018-22 and played on the 2021 RMAC championship and NCAA Tournament team.
“Our youngest was eight or nine and I’d come to watch Alana play here,” Miles Beacom said. “Then when my daughter was ready to graduate she made a stop out here…loved the campus and community and stayed here to play ball.”
Dykhouse and the Beacoms both expressed the importance of giving a substantial portion of their contribution to the women’s sports programs as a way to say thank you for the investment BHSU made in their daughters.
“Women’s athletics here have such great support, and really all across South Dakota,” Dykhouse said. “Our daughters were privileged enough to play basketball, and a lot of times the women’s crowd is as big as the men’s crowd. It’s just a great opportunity because our daughter had a great experience here.”
The primary purpose of the two major donations will be to fund scholarships for male and female student-athletes due to the South Dakota Board of Regents allowing schools to raise 100% of their athletics scholarship fund.
McMeel said BHSU raises approximately $1.2 million for scholarships each year and that these donations will allow them to add 10-15 more scholarships for their women’s sports programs.
The additional scholarship money will in turn allow the athletic department to fund other initiatives and relieve the burden of day-to-day operational costs.
“It gives us a little bit of flexibility to say ‘Hey maybe there’s another type of initiative we’d like to look at,'” McMeel said. “Whether it’s facilities, whether it’s more scholarships or operational dollars, we’ll be able to look at all of those elements.”