BELLE FOURCHE—An evening dedicated to those who volunteer, sponsor or attend any of the Belle Fourche Area Community Theater (BFACT) events was held Saturday evening, February 21. The Volunteer Gala was held at the Branding Iron Steakhouse Banquet Room. Attendees showed up dressed to the nines in keeping with the Broadway theme, and the evening was packed with events.
Executive Director Derek Olson started the evening with a warm welcome to the crowd. “This is such a wonderful turnout, thank you so much for being here! Thank you so much for participating in the last year and all the previous years! Thank you so much! You all are what makes BFACT keep going year after year after year,” he said. “Last year was our 15th season—it was an amazing season—we’re already on to our 16th season.”
The first recognition of the night was for Volunteer of the Year. There were three nominees: Terry Hoscheid, Crystal Woods and Emma Tinsley. This is a new award, just started this year. “It took us 15 years to get around to it, but we’re doing Volunteer of the Year, which is something new we are trying this year because we want to make sure that we recognize the people that make BFACT run. So this year, our board of directors nominated three people, and then we chose from those three people for our Volunteer of the Year,” explained Olson. “Keep an eye out in 2026, we’re going to do it differently. We’re going to have a different nomination process that’s going to be open to the public.”
The first-ever Volunteer of the Year was awarded to Terry Hoscheid. Season passes for all 2026 BFACT events were awarded to all the nominees.
Following the award ceremony, the premiere of the documentary Stage Directions was held. “Okay, we’re going to get started with our documentary here—ahead of our 2025 season, our board of directors decided that we wanted to commemorate our 15th season, so we contracted an amazing local filmmaker, award-winning filmmaker…Anna Robins, to do a documentary,” shared Olson. “We did some video shooting even in 2023, in 2024 and even a little bit in 2025—she’s been working on this pretty nonstop for quite a while.”
Robins introduced her film and added, “It was really a privilege to be asked to do this project, I really wanted to do it!”
The room was quiet as everyone watched the film and the history of BFACT unfold. Thunderous applause rang out at the end of the film. Olson said, “Thank you so much everybody for watching it. It’s been a true labor of love for everybody that’s been involved in it.” He went on to explain that the documentary would not be released to the public just yet as BFACT was going to submit it to a few upcoming film festivals.
The BFACT 2026 season is taking shape, and Olson shared the important dates for the year. Up first for the 2026 season is Curtain Call, a night of one-acts on March 27 through 29 at the Community Hall. New this summer, at the end of July, BFACT is going to be doing their first Western called Minnesela. “If you know anything about the area, Minnesela is an old ghost town outside of Belle Fourche,” said Olson. “It is a Western comedy… if you’ve ever wanted to do a Western on stage with a lot of fun, guns, bar fights and breaking bottles!”
In December, to wrap up the 2026 season, BFACT will perform A Seussified Christmas Carol, with Toi Flick directing.
After all of the business was taken care of, Pass the Mike Entertainment took the gala in a different direction. DJ and BFACT board member Michael Meemken turned up the energy with good music, trivia and karaoke. There was also a photo booth like opportunity with a Polaroid camera and photo props to commemorate the evening.
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