April 23, 2020

The past eight months have been tough ones at Avera Behavioral Health.

The medical center along West 69th Street bore some of the worst damage from one of three tornadoes that hit Sioux Falls in September 2019. With patients and staff displaced, some functions were relocated and the damaged areas have been under construction ever since.

Then came COVID-19, adding another layer of change to daily life for staff and patients.

So one of the educators at Behavioral Health, Michael Jerke, thought a new addition was in order.

“He said it would be really nice for Holy Week with all everybody has gone through if we could put up a cross where people could see it from the building and from the road,” said Tim Paauw, facilities services manager.

When service line administrator Thomas Otten signed off on the idea, Paauw went to Journey Group, whose team has been a presence on the site since the tornado hit.

“We have a good relationship with the maintenance staff out there, and if they ask us to do something, we’re happy to help,” said Nate Cartmill, a superintendent at Journey.

As Paauw and Cartmill talked over the idea, they happened to be standing next to a pile of lumber that had been used to board up windows after the tornado.

“I said, ‘What are the chances of getting a cross built out of this lumber?’ ” Cartmill said.

The chances were good.

“We just figured if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right,” Cartmill said.

That meant a 12-foot-high cross, with research to make sure the ratio of width to height was correct.

The next day, Paauw asked how Cartmill was coming along.

It was done.

“We got more feedback over that cross than we did turning over a wing,” Cartmill said. “It was greatly appreciated.”

Maintenance supervisor Aaron Imhoff took it from there.

“He’s a very Christian man, and he ran with it,” Paauw said. “He bought some landscape lights so it would light up at night and went to a nice spot on a hill and got it all in place.”

It went up the Wednesday before Easter Sunday. And it’s staying up for the foreseeable future.

“With the tornado and now COVID, it’s just something we want to keep up for a while,” Paauw said. “People working in the building really like it. It’s really neat we built it out of materials that were helping during the tornado.”

There’s some good news there too. The last unit under construction is scheduled to open at the end of the month.

“They’ve got some outside stuff to do, but we’ll be able to start taking care of patients,” Paauw said.