Bison Discovery Center names first Legacy of the Herd honorees
The Bison Discovery Center named Don Williams, Rod Sather and Jud Seaman as its first Legacy of the Herd honorees, a new annual award tied to Jamestown's bison identity.
The North American Bison Discovery Center named Don Williams of Jamestown, Rod Sather of Vivian, South Dakota, and Jud Seaman of Rapid City, South Dakota, as the first Legacy of the Herd honorees. The new annual award recognizes leadership, service, generosity and commitment that the center says have made a lasting impact on the organization.
The honor gives the Jamestown nonprofit a formal way to identify the people who have helped shape its work at 500 17th St. SE. The center, formerly known as the National Buffalo Museum, is built around a mission to advocate for the restoration of the North American bison through education, outreach, exhibits and a live bison herd.
That mission has roots in 1991, when Jamestown-area leaders founded the North Dakota Buffalo Foundation, also known as the National Buffalo Museum, to tell the bison’s story. Today, the center sits beneath the World’s Largest Buffalo, the 26-foot-tall, 60-ton concrete monument that has stood since 1959 and was named Dakota Thunder in 2010.
The award also reinforces how much of Jamestown’s identity is tied to the bison. North Dakota tourism materials place the center among the key sites for learning about the animal’s cultural, ecological, economic and historical significance, and the Discovery Center keeps two herds on either side of Interstate 94, where they are visible from the highway much of the time.
By naming one Jamestown recipient alongside supporters from Vivian and Rapid City, the center showed that its network of help reaches beyond city limits even as its public identity remains rooted here. The recognition is likely to deepen the donor and volunteer ties that have sustained the organization through its growth, while also giving the center another way to link its conservation message to local pride and visitor traffic.
The Legacy of the Herd announcement comes as the center has continued to stay active in the community. A founders ceremony on Oct. 23, 2025, honored the people who launched the museum and included the unveiling of a Founder’s Plaque. In June, the Great Bison Bash fundraiser drew support at the Baymont by Wyndham Jamestown, and in May the center welcomed its first calf of the season, a reminder that its bison herd is still part of daily life in Stutsman County.
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