KSFY Live In The Morning anchors Chris Studer and Valerie Gutierrez talk with city leaders throughout South Dakota about their towns, what's happening there and what's new

They talked to Mayor David McGirr from the city of Huron. It has a population of about 11,000 people. The city is in Beadle County in east central South Dakota. A lot of people are problably familiar with Huron because it's home to the State Fair.

Mayor McGirr said their $40 million dollar turkey plant that opened two years ago, Dakota Provisions, now employs over 600 people and will be doubling their capacity by January 2008 and adding another 300 to 400 employees.

He added that new employees and new residents have been an unfamiliar but welcome change in Huron as over 2,000 new jobs were created in Huron over the last two years. And 800 more jobs already are committed to by local business and industries by the end of this year. There's also a surge of new retail has been added and Huron is once again a regional shopping center. The opening of a Super WalMart, a new Runnings store, and a retail strip mall that includes a women’s clothing store and two restaurants on the south end of Huron has turned the corner for the city’s retail sales.

The Mayor said that Huron Retail sales grew 15% in 2007 and over 42% over the last three years. Huron has a lot of new construction slated for this year. One of the major city projects is a $2 million dollar library expansion that adds 10,000 square feet and nearly doubles the size of Huron's library. According to Mayor McGirr two miles of new walking trails will be built in south Huron in 2008 to complement the trails already in place around Memorial Park and Ravine Lake in the north end of town. Work is also underway for the construction of an additional baseball field in 2008, as well as the redesign and renovation of our executive golf course located at Memorial Park.

Huron also haa a number of exciting events coming to the city during 2008, including the WISSOTA Central 100, which is a regional stock car championship race to be held in Huron this September that is expected to bring in 300 to 500 race cars for nearly a week of top notch racing action. In addition to stock car races, Huron will be host to the national go-cart championship this July for the second consecutive year.

The South Dakota State Fair numbers were up significantly over the past two years, and exceeded the goals set by the legislature for revenue; those gains have helped to cement the future our one of South Dakota’s longest running institutions.

Mayor McGirr said they're really excited about the newly opened Huron Community Campus. The campus opened last fall and returned higher education to Huron for the first time since Si Tanka Huron University closed several years ago.

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