Homecoming week is an opportunity to demonstrate pride, loyalty, and dedication to your school. From foam fingers to homemade cheer signs to parade floats, there are many different ways to celebrate. During the first week of October, those with blue and gray in their blood did all of these things and more, with great enthusiasm, at DSU’s 2023 Homecoming.

The 2023 Alumni Honors Luncheon had its highest attendance ever. The DSU Football All-Class Reunion, hosted by the Blue Hawk Touchdown Club and the Dickinson State Heritage Foundation, saw over 200 football alumni, from the classes of 1951 to 2023, return to the Blue Hawk gridiron. Also, though estimating crowd size is never precise, we are reasonably confident that there were over 1,000 in attendance for the pre-game tailgate festivities that featured 23 entities serving custom-made food and drinks and even a mechanical bull.

Homecoming weekend also featured the induction of six individuals and two teams into DSU’s Athletics Hall of Fame. Inductees included Chioko (Nakasone) Hammel, Christa (Hofland) Enebo, Charles McLouth, Jason Ackerman, Francisco Rose, and Sara Berglund, as well as the 2002 and 2003 Men’s Track and Field teams. Information on our inductees can be found on our athletics website at dsubluehawks.com.

All Homecoming roads lead to the football game, of course, and that was another demonstration of enthusiasm. Between in-game attendance and those watching on-line thanks to the always great work of our friends at Consolidated and KDIX, over 4,000 (another Homecoming record, we believe) watched the Blue Hawks dominate Dakota State 40-14.

To view the complete photo album of the 2023 Homecoming festivities, please visit bit.ly/dsuhoco2023.

As both an alum and a DSU administrator, it was great to see all the support for Dickinson State. Thank you to all who participated in Homecoming.

If you are not yet part of the DSU family that celebrated Homecoming, let’s change that. For those looking for a place to pursue their college education, November is DSU’s free application month. Use the code GOHAWKS to apply for free.

Also, our Admissions Director will be working to distribute thousands of dollars of scholarships to deserving students. As they say, “the early Blue Hawk gets the worm,” so it is worth your while to apply now. [That is what they say, right?] Hawks are up!