Submitted Photo Jerry Hauff, chairman of the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch Foundation Board of Directors, speaks from the podium as a group of Minot Area Chamber Ambassadors and Ranch representatives prepares to ceremoniously break ground for Zurcher Cottage on the Minot campus Thursday.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday for the $8.5 million Zurcher Cottage, which will improve the delivery of care and treatment services to youth at Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch.

Zurcher Cottage, expected to be completed in late 2025, will replace the nearly 50-year-old cottages on the Ranch’s Minot campus. The buildings have been retrofitted and maintained, but they weren’t designed to provide the care the children at the Ranch now require, according to information from the Ranch.

The new cottage is made possible by donors, including a lead gift from Carol Townsend, Houston, Texas, in memory of her parents, Elmer and Connie Zurcher, and her brother, Earl. Elmer Zurcher was on the Ranch board of directors for years and was involved in the planning and development of the Minot campus.

More than 100 people attended Thursday’s groundbreaking, according to the Ranch.

Dr. Wayne Martinsen, psychiatrist and medical director at the Ranch, spoke about the need for improved facilities.

“In the 25 years I’ve been associated with Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, the nature of the kids has changed, as has the landscape that we work in. We no longer have a state psychiatric facility that manages kids with serious mental health issues over a longer period of time. Those kids are coming to us, and our facilities were designed for a different time and a different population,” he said. “The more that we invest in these kids as we are with this facility, the more we’re affecting not only how they return to their own families now, but we’re affecting how they do academically, how they do in their career. We’re affecting how they raise their own children.”

Martinsen said he is awed by the work the youth do to change and the staff who are patient with them.

“I am even more awed by the people who invested in a facility like this to give of their treasure, their time, whether that’s as administration, as a board member, or as a donor to make this happen,” he said.