The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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Several weeks ago I was asked to give a presentation to a Christian women’s group about growing vegetables in North Dakota as well as talk about farmers’ markets and how they operate. It was a bit surprising to learn that many people in this group weren’t aware of what is happening in this emerging industry. Growing vegetables and taking them to market is much like operating a grain farm. Almost always, however, vegetable farms are smaller acreages. And, unlike grain farms, there is no elevator...
We’ve all heard the creepy, campfire stories that scare us out of our wits. But there are actually documented accounts of the unexplained happening in various parts of our state. You can choose to believe it or not, but the people who tell these stories are quite serious. For instance, during Prohibition, tunnels underneath Minot were basically a haven for bootlegged booze and speakeasies. There was also crime in those tunnels because there was a lot of money changing hands. It is said that s...
I’m sure we’ve all been in Bismarck at one time or another. But, if you don’t live near Bismarck and don’t get there very often, the next time you do, you’ll most likely notice changes. The city of Bismarck seems to defy just about all of the rest of North Dakota and continues with a robust growth that has now pushed the city to 75,000 in population. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that the state capitol is located there, but it also sits in a strategic location in North Dakota which makes it a na...
On July 28, we attended the Medora Musical with our grandchildren. It’s always fun to get away from the monotony of our every-day routines to enjoy some taffy, ice cream and the musical. Since that Sunday night, a number of people have commented about the musical after we told them that we had attended. The first thing that should be mentioned is it’s amazing that there are people here in North Dakota who aren’t aware of the musical. In their defense, their often transplants who have come here...
A couple of weeks ago KFYR-TV in Bismarck reported North Dakota now has only 29 grade A dairy farms, down from 53 in 2020. That seems unusual given that milk is the official North Dakota beverage. The number of dairy farms has been sinking for many years with no recourse to keep the industry from spiraling out of control. Back in the 1950’s there were thousands of dairy farms in the state. Thousands might be a little misleading because back then, any farm with 10 or more milk cows was c...
It seems like it’s been a long time, but Leonard Peltier is back in the spotlight for a couple of reasons. Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, who is now 79, is serving two consecutive life sentences in a Florida prison for his role in a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation that left two federal agents dead. First of all, he was recently denied parole from the prison that is approximately 70 miles northeast of Tampa. He has now been in prison for more than 29 y...
As the Olympics are beginning in Paris, there’s some interesting information that many people may not be aware of even though they may be sports fans. This is the third time since the modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece in 1896, that Paris will be the host city. The games were also held there in 1900 and 1924. It is also one of only three cities anywhere in the world to host the games three times. The others being Los Angeles and London. A total of 206 nations are represented at this y...
There’s been a lot of chatter lately on social media about lack of customer service. It seems it doesn’t matter if it’s retail, wholesale, the service industry or even medical clinics. Why is this happening? The easy answer that has become a cliche is everybody is short staffed. Employees get stressed out when they are overworked. I get that. It’s happened to me numerous times in my career. But this seems to be happening to a lot of people “customers” and they aren’t happy about it. Yes, I’ve...
Have you ever heard of Interstate 27? It’s a freeway that currently runs north/south entirely in the state of Texas, from Amarillo to Lubbock. The length of 1-27 is 124 miles, but is about to change in a big way. An number of media, especially those in Bismarck, have been reporting that I-27 will be running through western North Dakota, from Bowman in the south, to Plentywood, Mont., in the north. In effect, U.S. Highway 85 is going to become I-27. It will also run through western South D...
Lately, there have been a number of lists that have surfaced about who the most famous North Dakotan may be. There are several separate lists from Sports Illustrated to Forbes, but one thing is clear, on every list except for one outlier, the No. 1 person is the same – Josh Duhamel. Duhamel was born in Minot. His ancestry is German, and smaller amounts of Norwegian, French-Canadian, English, Irish, and Austrian (his last name is very common among Francophones in the world). Duhamel is an a...
A year ago Heber Jeffs was sentenced to five years in a Piute County, Utah court for first degree felony kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl he previously had in his care. When the girl’s mother sought to take her child back, Jeffs refused and fled Utah. He was later arrested in Minot, then extradited to Utah to face charges. Jeffs is the son of Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was apparently a revelation from t...
There was some new information that came out last week regarding the implementation of nuclear energy in Saskatchewan. Sask Power released a statement saying it has made significant progress in its search for a host site for the province’s first Small Modular Reactor facility and it is seriously close to the North Dakota border. The SMR is actually a small nuclear reactor and after studying this for at least four years, Sask Power has whittled it down to two sites, both near Estevan, Boundary D...
It’s been just short of a month, but it appears the hype isn’t backing down regarding direct flights from Bismarck to St. Pete/Clearwater, Fla. Since May 15, Allegiant has added this flight twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday. Numerous people are talking about this and even though it gets hot in the Tampa Bay region during the summer, those flights continue getting booked. Maybe it’s such a “hot” topic because the flights are cheap right now as an introduction. You can get a one-way r...
Back in the 1990s when I lived in Langdon, I made frequent trips to Winnipeg, sometimes twice a week and most often took care of business, ate meals, stayed in hotels and attended football games in Winnipeg’s west end. Apparently, that part of town has changed dramatically since the ‘90s and nobody seems to know what to do about it. Crime, which was always restricted to the downtown area and almost always at night, has shifted. The crime rate in the west end has increased dramatically and des...
As many of you know, there’s been a push to have recreational marijuana legalized in North Dakota. In April, supporters submitted a petition to the secretary of state to get it on the November ballot. Now, supporters need to find 16,000 valid signatures by July 8 to make it happen. Should they get the signatures, we’ll see it on our ballots when we vote in November. But it doesn’t appear this will be rubberstamped even though medical marijuana is already legal in the state. They’ll most likely...
Anyone who has studied North Dakota history knows that Pembina was the first settlement in what is now North Dakota in 1797. But there’s a lot about Pembina that isn’t common historical knowledge. Most of this history can be found in the Pembina State Museum and it proves that Pembina, and the surrounding area have had a colorful past that actually goes back long before Dakota Territory existed. One example is there is reference to the Red River ox carts that transported goods from St. Paul to...
A year after an announcement was made to paint murals on the side of a downtown Minot grain elevator, it appears the project is going forward. Australian artist Guido Van Helten was in Minot recently to survey the premises and get a better idea of what exactly he will be doing. A specific timeline hasn’t been announced, but originally, Van Helten was going to work through last summer to paint the elevator. One thing is certain. The Minot Council on the Arts got the right guy to take on this j...
A post on Facebook about Theodore Roosevelt revealed a piece of history that was quite shocking mostly because I’ve never seen anything about this while there are multiple articles, TV spots and museum entries in south Florida. Roosevelt and his Rough Riders spent some time in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa before disembarking for the Spanish-American War in Cuba in 1898 where the famous San Juan Hill battle took place. The Rough Riders were in Tampa just a short time, but while there m...
There was a report in North Dakota newspapers a couple of weeks ago regarding the closure of a Crosby grocery store. For months there were efforts to save it, but the closure happened and forced the closing of several other Jason’s Super Foods stores on the northern tier. Crosby is a community of more than 1,000 people and is the Divide County seat. The residents are now faced with having to travel if they want to visit a bonafide grocery store. Crosby has a Dollar General and another b...
Editor’s note: This article is educational and is not intended as medical advice. It simply explains the two types of vertigo and the various ways vertigo affects people. Most people don’t like to talk about medical issues, although in some cases, those issues are brought into the public domain as people suffer from conditions manifested by the disease or condition. One of them is vertigo. Simply put, vertigo is uncontrollable dizziness that can last a few minutes up to a week in some severe cas...
There seems to be a lot of talk among the baby boomer generation about the generation of young Americans today who are just making their way in the world. Unfortunately, the talk isn’t so good and it’s mostly about alleged lack of motivation, lack of social skills and mostly about not wanting to work, but rather playing video games and living with parents. I’m a baby boomer too and recently retired from the professional world. In my career, I’ve worked with all kinds of young people and I still...
We all have pet peeves that drive us absolutely nuts, right? It might be a wet dog shaking itself off on the couch or a delivery driver consistently delivering your packages to your neighbor. Let’s admit, we all have some. I have some too, 10 in fact, that I’ll share with you in this article. 1.) Motorists not using blinkers: For some reason, people don’t use blinkers any longer, and I’m talking in heavy traffic. The biggest issue is when I want to turn left on a highway and someone is coming...
Have you ever heard of a place called Drake Landing? I didn’t either until I read a recent news article about it. Drake Landing is perhaps the most unique community in North America because more than 90 percent of the power to heat the 52 homes in Drake Landing is solar. What’s even more unique is that this community isn’t in south Florida, Texas or Arizona. It’s right in the middle of oil country in Alberta. Drake Landing is part of the city of Okotoks, situated 30 miles south of Calgary...
Several weeks ago my wife and I met a friend from New Zealand who was visiting North Dakota. We agreed to meet in Bismarck and chose the downtown restaurant Pirogue Grille. Several years ago we frequented that restaurant, but because we live on the northern tier of the state, it’s hard to get to Bismarck on a regular basis. But, when we met Kiwi Kate there, it was as if nothing had changed. The restaurant looked the same, the staff was nearly the same and the menu which was new each time you w...
My intent this week was to write about a special restaurant in downtown Bismarck and the people who operate it. However, there is a more pressing issue that needs to be addressed. Another friend was lost to cancer last week and what appears to be remarkable about his case, is that it could have been preventable. A family friend from back home, who we called “Soup Bone” when we were kids because he was so skinny, died last week at the age of 62 from kidney cancer that had spread to his lun...
