Fifty years ago, when the first Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo was held at the Central States Fairgrounds in Rapid City, nearly all of the people attending that three-day event probably lived and worked on western South Dakota ranches and farms.

No doubt a much smaller percentage of the quarter of a million people expected to turn out for the 2008 Black Hills Stock Show have direct links to agriculture, but that shouldn't stop anyone from enjoying what has become a 13-day western extravaganza at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

South Dakota's population has shifted dramatically over the past half-century or so, from farms and ranches and the small communities that served them to the urban centers of Sioux Falls, Rapid City and a handful of other growing towns and cities.

But while the demographics of agriculture have changed significantly in the intervening years, the industry's importance to South Dakota's economy has not.

Agriculture contributes $2 billion annually to South Dakota's gross production, and a little of that huge economic impact will be felt in Rapid City this week - in livestock sale rings as well as in stores and restaurants all across Rapid City.

The Journal congratulates the staff and volunteers of the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo on 50 years of success and welcomes all of its exhibitors, vendors and spectators to Rapid City for the coming week.

We hope you'll all become avid newspaper readers this week and we think you'll enjoy the coverage that we've planned for the event. You'll find the same thorough coverage of the stock show and rodeo that you've come to expect in our daily print edition year after year. But this year we've expanded and improved its coverage in our online product to include daily interviews, opinion polls and other video features that promise to capture all the sights and sounds of the stock show.

For the smells, however, you'll still have to visit the stock show in person!

Rapid City's YMCA is already an amazing facility and director Roger Gallimore gives all credit for that to the community and a lot of hardworking volunteers.

But Gallimore asked even more of his YMCA volunteers this week, when he launched the community fundraising phase of a $13.2 million YMCA expansion project at a grand kick-off event Jan. 22.

"It's a premier YMCA and it's all because of this community and the Y's great volunteers," Gallimore said. "But here's an opportunity to take the work of the YMCA one step further."

The expansion project includes a four-level, 378-space parking ramp across the street to the west that will be topped by a new 15,000-square foot wellness center on the fifth level, connected to the current YMCA by a skywalk.

But in addition to building strong bodies, the YMCA's mission is also about building strong kids, strong families and strong communities, and the expansion project allows it to focus on those missions, too.

Once completed, another 200 schoolchildren will be able to take advantage of the YMCA's after school programs each day and its popular childcare program, which often has 100 children on a waiting list, will be expanded to accomodate another 40 children.

"The need in this community is well documented for both those programs," Gallimore said.

Last, but by no means least for frustrated YMCA members searching for a parking space at 5 p.m., the new facility will ease downtown parking shortages.

The project, which is already almost $8 million towards its $13.2 million goal, was launched by two generous donations: A parking lot from Black Hills Corp., which will retain use of 175 parking spots during business hours, and a magnanimous lead gift from George and Nancy Dunham of Rapid City.

"Without the Dunhams and Black Hills Corp., this project would never have gotten off the ground," Gallimore said.

But much remains to be done. To accomplish it, 70 volunteers will fan out across the community, seeking financial support for the ambitious project in the form of five-year pledges. Anyone interested in contributing who isn't contacted by one of those volunteers can call Gallimore or Elizabeth Sailer at 718-9622.

Like Gallimore, we're counting on those volunteers, and the response of a generous community, to build a stronger YMCA.