December 21, 1984, the day the then-century-old school filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors, didn’t mark the end, or even the beginning of the end, of Yankton’s existence; it was more of a turning point. Yankton still held its final commencement the following June, inviting graduating seniors—who’d been forced to spend their spring semester at other schools—back to campus for a small ceremony in the gymnasium. Yankton’s Board of Trustees—a body that exists to this day—even appointed a local businessman as the college’s new, postmortem president, tasking him (ultimately to no avail) with figuring out a way to revitalize the campus.

Yankton College continued (and continues) to exist even after it tied up the loose ends, too, and this is where Garrity comes in. Part of her job resembles that of a registrar: There are transcripts and other student records to maintain and provide to alumni if and when they request copies, for example. Alumni-relations duties account for another chunk, such as the all-class reunions, popular events that draw roughly 200 alumni from around the country to Yankton every two years and supplement the regional alumni get-togethers in areas ranging from New England to Arizona. (The agenda for the biennial reunions always includes a tour of the prison.)

There are also funds to be raised from those alumni, of course—as well as funds to be spent. Garrity’s days as of late have mostly revolved around the spending side of things—namely, efforts to preserve the college so that it doesn’t fade into obsolescence once its last alumni (the youngest of whom are now in their 50s) die. Without Garrity, who would ensure that the alumni-supported scholarships Yankton awards annually to college students are funded in perpetuity? Most important, who would maintain the college’s history and artifacts? Garrity’s latest endeavor has focused on mapping out the school’s forthcoming Alumni and Educational Center, located in a local history museum and slated to open next year. The long-awaited center—which will include exhibits and resource rooms—will, according to the college’s website, serve as “space of our own where we can gather and commune amongst those who have gone before us—faculty, administrators, groundskeepers, actors, philosophers, athletes, musicians, and so many more.”

Yankton’s closure “was devastating. The community was crushed,” says Garrity, who didn’t attend the college but whose family is from the town of Yankton. “It didn’t matter if you were an alum or just a business person—it felt like a huge loss, both historically and economically.” Garrity says she has a passion for the college by way of osmosis; now she’s “a fixed part of its family.”

Argus-Leader, december 18, 1984

More than 1,200 higher-education institutions have closed in the past few years due to inauspicious economic circumstances eerily evocative of the context in which Yankton found itself back in the ‘80s. Like Yankton, many of them were small private liberal-arts colleges whose limited endowments rendered them heavily dependent on student-tuition revenue; and like Yankton, some were too tightly tethered to an outmoded understanding of higher education or a religious mission that made innovation difficult or unappealing.