Repurposedby Amy Scheer

In 1980, the Rowenhorst Student Center was created from the shell of the Silent Sioux factory. Much of the facility was renovated in 2007, and another refurbishing project is under way.

The sheet metal business of Orange City’s Silent Sioux Oil Burner Corporation stayed current with the times.

When oil brooders and heaters went the way of gas, the Silent Sioux, founded in 1921, shifted production. And when post office equipment came into high demand, workers loaded mailboxes into the two railroad cars that tracked into the back of the building.

STEPHEN ALLEN

Operations slowed after the corporation’s president died in 1969; various businesses would move in, but none took. Eventually, the smooth-bricked rectangle on Highway 10 sat as quiet as its name.

Northwestern, meanwhile, experienced its own growing pains. Overcrowded athletic facilities and a small student center in Union (now Hospers) Hall limited campus recreational opportunities. To fulfill President Virgil Rowenhorst’s vision to develop the whole person—academically, spiritually and physically—the college purchased the factory from the Agri-Quip Company for $325,000 in 1978.

By the fall of 1980, the renovated Silent Sioux became the Rowenhorst Student Center, a 90,000-square-foot facility named after the president, who died of cancer at age 54 the previous year. The campus showcase included a 250-seat theatre, an art gallery, and a large fitness area with a track and multiple courts.

“The parquet wooden floor was always the real eye-catcher,” says Dale Thompson, who has served as director of the RSC since the building’s second year.

He recalls how crowds of students would gather to watch the latest shows on a large projector television, or head over to the theatre for a reel-to-reel movie. Students would stop by after lunch to check for mail and stay for a game of pool.

Then came e-mail. Televisions in rooms. Phones in pockets. Students taking a tour of the dark, mazelike structure would point to the snooker table and ask what it was for.

“The life of the building mirrors the life of the college,” says Thompson. By 2007, the facility underwent another renovation, allowing for more light and greater visibility to student services, among other accommodations to the changing times.

This summer sees more construction on the center. A $1.5 million project will result in fitness center improvements such as new flooring, lighting and heating. Housekeeping Supervisor Arlo Van Beek, who worked as a student on the factory changeover, was able to sneak on site and locate a trowel he accidentally dropped into a column 30 years before.

The tool now sits in his garage at home, where it has found a new purpose—as did the factory it helped renovate and the student center it built.