Elizabeth “Betty†Berg, wife of former South Dakota State University President Sherwood Berg, died Oct. 17, 2018, at the Brookings Hospital.
Berg, 97, was born June 27, 1921, at Grandin, Minnesota. In 1939, she graduated from high school at Hendrum, Minn., where she met “Woody†at age 5. They married in 1944 while Berg was home on leave from World War II. That partnership lasted 70 years, until the 2014 death of Sherwood.
Sherwood and Elizabeth were always considered a team, in fact, Woody said she “could handle ideas with the best of them.†His job took him around the world.
From 1951 to 1957, Sherwood served as agricultural attaché first in Yugoslavia and then in Denmark, where Elizabeth flourished as a mother and enthusiastic participant in diplomatic life. In 1957, Sherwood joined the University of Minnesota as head of the department of agricultural economics. He became dean of the Institute of Agriculture at the U of M in 1963 and Elizabeth grew into the role of consummate hostess.
Sherwood served as resident director on a Midwestern Universities Consortium of International Aid project in Indonesia from 1973 to 1975, when Elizabeth developed her love of Indonesian textiles. From 1975 until 1984 Sherwood was president and Elizabeth first lady of South Dakota State. They returned to Indonesia with consortium from 1984 to 1986.
They then returned to Brookings, where Elizabeth resumed her memberships in the South Dakota Art Museum Guild, AAUW, Brookings Woman’s Club, Faculty Women’s Club, PEO Chapter BP and Brookings County Democrats.
In 1984, she was honored by the Alumni Association with its Distinguished Service Award to a nonalumnus. In 2005, she received an honorary Doctorate of Public Service from South Dakota State.
