GMA to broadcast from Belle Fourche

By Journal staff | Wednesday, July 23, 2008

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After Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce executive Teresa Schanzenbach told the Belle Fourche City Council of a New York Times story about the Center of the Nation, she said, "All we need now is for Good Morning America to show the flag raising."

That's now in the plans for Saturday, Aug. 16. That's when ceremonies will dedicate an avenue of state flags around the big granite compass rose monument at the Center of the Nation Visitor Center and Tri-State Museum in downtown Belle Fourche.

The program originally had been set for Flag Day, June 14. However, Belle Fourche River flooding crept up over the park and delayed construction of the foundations for the state flags and the RiverWalk bike and walking path.

"We're just in preliminary plans, but we're confident everything is going to go without a hitch," Schanzenbach said.

A Good Morning America crew is scheduled to arrive late Aug. 14, and will shoot video footage of Belle Fourche Day at the Butte-Lawrence County Fair in Nisland -- complete with a watermelon spitting contest. The crew also plans to shoot at the old Center of the Nation site north of Belle Fourche.

For the dedication program, Schanzenbach is looking for natives of the different states to raise their state's flag over the monument. She also is looking for photographs of the 1959 Center of the Nation dedication ceremonies, as well as people who attended and would be willing to be interviewed by the GMA crew.

Donations for the monument park project also would be appreciated.

"The blizzard and then flooding put a lot of our original plans onto the back burner," Schanzenbach said.