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one recently purchased from the Indiana State Museum.
• "The idea is that people want something to do when they get there, and there really hasn't been anything to do other than to look at it," he said.
• Opening up the windows to allow in more light and adding a balcony so visitors can get closer to the corn murals will make the building more inviting, he added.
• "At this point, our focus is on tourism, that we can get more visitors and get them to stay longer," he said.
• Crews will begin the process of hanging new murals in late August, Schilling said.
• A drought last year hurt some of the colored corn used in the murals and the Corn Palace was forced to decorate its building without four colors: blue, calico, orange and light brown.
• It was a predicament that worried Schilling and other local officials, but one that comedian Stephen Colbert found humor in. "The Colbert Report" traveled to South Dakota to film a seven-minute "special report" titled, "A Shucking Disaster -- Nightmare at the Mitchell Corn Palace," which lampooned the issue.
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• MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) -- One of the last drive-in theaters in South Dakota is shuttering its doors.
• The Starlite Drive-in in Mitchell will operate on weekends through September but will close for good after that, owner Jeff Logan said.
• Logan said he is forced to shut down the theater because of the industry's conversion to digital projection. Studios have said they expect to stop releasing movies on film around the end of the year, and converting to digital costs about $70,000 per screen.
• "The drive-in doesn't make enough to pay back that large of an investment," Logan said. "The season is too short in this part of the country and the weather is too unpredictable."
• Instead, Logan will invest in additional auditoriums in indoor theaters he owns in Mitchell, Huron and dell Rapids.
• The Starlite was built in 1949, the third drive-in built in South Dakota. Logan purchased it in 1976. He closed it in 1986 but re-opened it in 1993.
• This time, he said, he believes the closure is for good.
• There are estimated to be about 350 drive-in theaters in operation across the country, a significant decrease from the high of 4,000 during the late 1950s.

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