Civic Center GM Brian Maliske says, "We've basically got 3 days to undo at least a week's solid worth of work."

That's the logistical challenge faced by the Civic Center every year after the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo runs its course. Cleanup operations around the building actually started this past Saturday while the show was still in progress, but the majority of the "dirty work" started early Monday morning.

Maliske says, "As you can see behind me, we've got the dirt piled up into one massive pile, which may seem like there's a lot of it. That's the hardest part to get in there, or actually the second hardest part. The hardest part is going to be the clean up."

More than 120 semi-tractor trailer loads of dirt now need to be taken out of the arena, but that's only the first step in getting the arena back to normal.

Maliske says, "Once that's done and we've got all the dirt out of here, then we start sweeping and mopping. Then we start the power scrubbing and we do about a dozen power scrubs. When we're done with that, we go into the seats. They'll wipe every individual seat at least twice and then we'll mop the different stairwell about 4 times."

About 6,000 air filters throughout the building will get changed as well. Among the weeks of preparation, execution, and cleanup, most would be hard pressed to say this year's stock show didn't turn out well.

Maliske says, "2012 broke all of our record. We had approximately 330,000 people come through the facility in this 10 day run. It was quite a phenomenal feat really if you look at it."

Stock show officials are saying a number of different factors went into this year's success citing the above-average weather, a booming agriculture economy, as well as exceptional prices on livestock.

Brendyn Medina