The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 118
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...
Excitement is mounting and those of us involved in the North Dakota Farmers’ Market & Growers Association, are counting down the days until the local foods conference. This celebration of all things local foods is how a small, but determined group of individuals set out to make sure this year’s conference is something special. We started planning this event last November and we only recently put the lid on the schedule. It will be held March 21-23 in the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck...
Do you remember the TV show The Incredible Hulk? It was a weekly series about a muscle-bound guy who would suddenly completely change into some sort of a green monster. As the narrative stated in the show, a strange metamorphisis occurs that transforms this man into the incredible hulk. It seems weeds are like that. This past week I was cleaning the greenhouse to get it ready for the spring season and discovered some interesting finds, that quite frankly, I can’t believe are possible. To f...
This winter in North Dakota has been remarkable for a lot of reasons and because of it, I took advantage and did some traveling across the state. The farmers’ market manager in Wahpeton contacted me about the lack of vendors at her market. It seemed like a desperate situation and because of Wahpeton’s size, I decided to take a trip and meet with her about those issues. But, this isn’t about that meeting. Unlike most others who would go across the state on an interstate or U.S. highway, I travele...
For the past several months, and even going back a couple of years, I’ve noticed some interesting changes in radio across North Dakota. I researched and found the official answer to this, but there’s all kinds of speculation surrounding these changes on a national scale. In any event, there have been a number of AM radio stations that have started broadcasting their signals from FM translators. These are most often low power signals that reach only a few miles. The official answer to this is...
There’s a situation happening right now that could have a long-term effect on the human psyche, and it doesn’t appear that too many people are concerned about it, at least not publicly. If you’ve gone to a fast-food establishment lately, you may have noticed that some have completely replaced actual employees with kiosks where you order your food. Some of them have gone so far as to make you start an email account or you can’t order. Supermarkets have gone to self checkout some time ago, bu...
Minot was a busy place over the weekend. There were three major events going on so there were a lot of people in town. First, the KMOT Ag Expo was happening. This has become one of the largest events of its kind on the northern Great Plains. Second, there was a farmers’ market symposium at the NDSU Research Extension Center and third, the North Dakota Association of Dance and Drill hosted the state dance competition in the Minot State University Dome. Thirty-eight teams from across the state w...
From March 12-16, there’s an event happening in Anaheim, Calif., that is unlike any other in the United States, except for a parallel event that happens each September in Baltimore. It’s called Natural Products Expo West and it brings tens of thousands of exhibitors, guests, media and sponsors together to look at the latest innovations in everything organic from retail to farming. A number of entrepreneurs from North Dakota have made the trip to Anaheim over the years in an effort to make a dif...
On May 4, 2023, one of my employees and I attended the annual North Dakota Farmers’ Market and Growers Association local foods conference in Bottineau. When we arrived at the hotel on schedule, nobody else was there. The following morning people started to trickle in, but overall, the conference was poorly attended. The venue for the conference, Dakota College, was just the right place, but the timing was completely off. That’s the very weekend that most vegetable producers in North Dakota beg...
When I worked as ag reporter for the Minot Daily News, I did an annual report on the crops in North Dakota. This was generally a fairly long article because as you know, this state produces a lot of agricultural products. We produce a lot, but many of those crops and livestock don’t get the recognition they should. As an example, you’ve most likely seen a report that comes out from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture outlining the 11, No. 1 crops that put North Dakota at the top of a nat...
There have been some new developments regarding Canadian Football League expansion, developments that could spawn teams in North Dakota and South Dakota. I’ve written about this topic in the past, but this time there seems to be a bit more urgency. For the past seven years, the CFL has been looking to expand to Halifax, Nova Scotia. However, shortly after the season ended in late November, the deal fell through and Atlantic Canada won’t be getting a professional football team. That said, the...
Because we aren’t most people who go to Grandma’s house for Christmas, it was a traveling holiday to Rapid City, S.D., and back. It’s a long trip, nearly 1,000 miles round trip and just to do something different, we took U.S. Highway 85 from Watford City to Spearfish, even though it’s a little out of the way. We did that just to break up the monotony of the road, basically from Reeder to Sturgis. Along the way, we came upon Amidon and there is a sign on the outside of town that says “Nation’s sm...
I think most people will agree that Christmas was around too long and now that it’s in the rear-view mirror we wonder where the time went. Honestly, I could have written this article two months ago, but I refused, waiting until Christmas was past before voicing my opinion about said holiday. I get why retailers start with Christmas early. They aren’t going to win the lottery, but will get some trickle sales leading up to Christmas. But before Halloween? I won’t name the retailers that had Chris...
It was late November 1995 and I had just been hired as editor and publisher of the Cavalier County Republican in Langdon. Then, my entire world was turned upside down. The very day I was supposed to start my new job, we attended my mother’s funeral in Hazelton. I was devastated and my siblings were devastated. At that point in time, I wondered how I would cope. The people who owned the newspaper told me to report the following week and there was a nice bouquet from them at the funeral. A week l...
When you first look at the 2023 USDA Hardiness Zone map that was recently published, you’ll see subtle changes for those of us who live in North Dakota. The biggest changes are on the southern tier of the state. Richland, Dickey, LaMoure, with parts of Stutsman, Dickey, LaMoure,Logan, McIntosh, Sioux, Grant, Bowman, Slope, Stark, Billings and Golden Valley counties having changed from Zone 4a to 4B. It also includes parts of Sheridan and McLean counties and a tiny spot around the city of M...
There was a recent funeral I attended and before the service, I was chatting with the funeral director, who has been a friend for many years. He was telling me that he was dealing with a separate situation in which the deceased didn’t have a will, didn’t have a life insurance policy and the loved ones didn’t have any money to bury the deceased. Mak-ing it even more complicated is the family members weren’t close at all. He said those kinds of situations put an emotional and financial strain...
In this day and age you wouldn’t think something so simple as cellular telephone coverage would be so spotty, but it is. There are numerous “dead spots” across North Dakota, and depending on where you experience this, you sometimes have to shake your head because it really shouldn’t be rocket science. Joel Heitkamp talked about this on KFGO radio one day, but I’m not sure anything was ever done to rectify the situation. I personally don’t remember where all the spots are in the state, but...
I’m sure just about everyone can remember the Dakota Access Pipeline protests that took place in 2016 and 2017. They lasted a long time and things got ugly. I’m sure some of you reading this were involved in it in some way. First responders were sent, law enforcement was sent, protestors came from all over the U.S. and Canada and they all stayed there for a very long time. That placed a lot of stress on the locals; those people living in Morton County south of Mandan who sometimes cou...
When I moved to Langdon in 1995, the company that owned the newspaper put me up in a hotel until I could find a place to live. It didn’t take but a couple of weeks and I found a decent apartment that wasn’t too expensive and it was close to work so I took the third-floor loft. During the two years I lived there I got to know the neighbors quite well. Almost all of them were elderly or recently retired. One neighbor, who was the exception, was a teacher at Langdon High School. One of those nei...
We have some friends who grew up in northeastern North Dakota, went to college at the University of North Dakota, then worked in Grand Forks for many years. Then, the husband got a job in Minneapolis that paid far better than anything he could have ever imagined in Grand Forks or Fargo. The wife was able to work from home after moving to the Twin Cities. For the past seven years, these two, who don’t have any children, are set. Their salaries together total a half million dollars a year, they b...
As a writer, this piece of information is, well, really stepping outside the box. It’s about an Australian magpie who took Melbourne by storm. Many of us know that Australians love their animals and one example is they worked feverishly to save as many koalas as they could following devastating fires that happened west of Sydney. The situation with Gus the Magpie is similar. Judy, my friend who lives in the Melbourne suburb of Tarneit, found an injured magpie and took him in and nursed him b...
Somebody help me out here. I’ve been a football fan for a lot of years and honestly don’t know what is going on right now. Why is there so much hatred for Carson Wentz? My guess is it’s people who are hiding behind a computer screen and have never played football. I just don’t get it. Here is a guy who grew up and played football at Bismarck Century, went on to be successful at North Dakota State University, then got into the National Football League. He’s a professional football player and all...
