SiouxFallsArgusLeader,SD.docVIP

Sioux Falls Argus Leader, SD 03-04-07 Can $400M change a city? Sanford gift could reshape Sioux Falls image, fortunes By Jon Walker jwalker@ Sioux Falls is full of ideas. Some are found in the words of people with power and money. The rest belong to lesser- known residents who wonder today whats ahead for their community. They say the $400 million banker T. Denny Sanford gave the former Sioux Valley Hospitals and Health system - now Sanford Health - has changed Sioux Falls or even vaulted it to a higher status among American cities. But that idea itself is a hard sell. To many, the city actually is a town locked in adolescence, a place for teenagers to grow up and leave. Theres a life out there, said Nicole Wermers, 18, who plans to make her exit soon after graduating from Roosevelt High School. She hopes to become a doctor. To them, the power of Sanfords gift is not that it changes the everyday thinking on the streets or turns a happy burg into a mecca of culture and opportunity. Instead, the donation finds its place on a timeline that shows Sioux Falls with its share of faults but also growing in prosperity and population. I dont see it as starting a revolution. I think its a piece of a larger picture, said Rich Bowman, religion professor at Augustana College. The magnitude of the donation is difficult to conceive. A sum of $400 million is more than 5 percent of the $7.6 billion total of assessed value on property in Sioux Falls. Its spawned some chest-thumping that cuts against the grain for residents who value modesty. One billboard trumpets Sanfords donation as though Isaiah the prophet had dropped in to declare: A gift has been given. But if Sanford had put $250,000 into a brown bag and secretly dropped such a bag once a day, every day, at the front desk in the Sioux Valley lobby, it would have taken 41/4 years to complete his donation. Its a lot of money. More difficult to conceive is its effect on the character of the community. Sioux Falls is a town where a