National Weather Service and Crop Risks, Dollars and Dentists and Land-Grant Colleges

Dakota Midday - 06/26/2012

Susan Sanders of the National Weather Service office in Rapid City discusses the forecast for high temperatures and no precipitation over the next few days. Also, South Dakota State University agricultural economics professor Matt Diersen talks about the economic implications of the recent weather on the crops and livestock.

Miles O'Brien talks about tonight's show airing on SDPB-TV called "Dollars and Dentists." Dental care can be a matter of life or death. Yet more than 100 million Americans either don't have dental insurance or simply can't afford to see a dentist. The result is severe pain, preventable disease, humiliation, bankruptcy and sometimes even death. Tonight, correspondent Miles O'Brien uncovers the shocking consequences of a broken dental care system.

David Chicoine, President of South Dakota State University, talks about the Morrill Act and the history of land-grant colleges and universities. In 1862, the stroke of a pen began a revolution that transformed public higher education in the United States. Amid the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authored by Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill that provided an incentive to states to create higher education institutions that taught agriculture, mechanical arts, military sciences amid the classics, as described then, to the children of common people. The Morrill Act provided broad access to higher education and during the 20th century, land-grant colleges and universities developed into public teaching and research universities that have advanced growth and development in the U.S.

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