The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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Most of us have likely seen it at least once before. We’re in the middle of an important task, such as entering thousands of entries into an Excel spreadsheet or posting our latest update to Facebook, and all of a sudden the computer screen turns blue. About a week ago, the screens of an estimated 8.5 million Windows computers came down with the blue screen of death. It was like watching Inside Out 2, when orange-haired Anxiety takes over our beloved Riley. The multi-day tech flub, dubbed the ...
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...
This summer, my wife and I took a vacation with our three semi-grown daughters to one of the most expensive places in America. No, we didn’t visit our local insurance office. We toured several beautiful and fascinating cities in New England. Our first stop was Newburyport, Massachusetts. We hadn’t planned to visit this charming coastal city, but after deplaning, securing a rental vehicle ginormous enough to accommodate the US Olympic Team (or our luggage), and heading north to our first pla...
Dear Editor: The Carrington High School Class of 1984 held its 40th-year reunion on July 13 in Carrington. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with each other and with other community members. And we also enjoyed the various community activities and excellent dining options. Many of us recollected our positive experiences in Carrington and at CHS as young people, and we are glad to see Carrington thriving today. We were happy that our reunion coincided with the Central City Bash events, which we...
July has been a memorable month for severe summer weather, and as I write this we are only halfway through! On July 4, mother nature declared her independence. It was an experience I will not soon forget. I watched lightning web through sky off to the northeast as I drove to Carrington that afternoon, headed for the 5 p.m. Independence Day parade. Considering the pavement on Hwy. 281 was already wet, I assumed the storm was traveling east away from town, not toward us. The weather was...
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...
I’m urging you to vote “no” this November on the ballot measure proposing the elimination of property taxes. My impetus for writing? A recent incident that clearly outlines the necessity for maintaining local control with property taxes. In the early hours of July 5, 2024, 29 rail cars carrying hazardous materials derailed and caught fire about nine miles southeast of Carrington, where I serve as fire chief. The hazardous materials, including anhydrous ammonia, posed a significant risk to people in and around Carrington and Bordulac, but our r...
Just because there are trained professionals dealing with the infrastructure, logistics and marketing of the Summer Olympics, it doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook. To fulfill our obligations as world citizens, instead of just blundering into nearly three weeks of pageantry and athleticism, we should apply critical thinking to the whole phenomenon. But you’re probably way ahead of me. You’ve doubtless pondered why we don’t have Spring and Autumn Olympics. I can just imagine the former...
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...
As our country goes to pot, I find myself more focused on personal matters, such as this hopeful item I read on MSN.com: Researchers have identified a molecule called osteopontin, which is a potential game-changer for people who are losing their hair. That’s good news for fellows like me, whose hair has been slowly receding for years. For most of human history, you see, the roles of men and women were clearly defined. Since basic survival was so difficult, the division of labor was very clear a...
You likely paid 94 cents for this newspaper. It's not enough. Remember this number: 94 cents. It's the number I'm repeating as I work with your newspaper in the coming months as part of a national experiment to help save local news. That number, 94 cents, is how much it costs you as a subscriber to get this paper every week with your $49 in-state annual subscription. 94 cents. A Twix and a bottle of pop – both machine-produced within seconds – each cost over $2 at a gas station I recently stoppe... Full story
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...
I’ve heard it said that things happen in threes, especially tragedies, deaths and doses of Pepto Bismol after a big Tex-Mex dinner. My own three defining experiences over the past few weeks can’t be described as tragedies, per se, so I’ll refer to them as catastrophes, instead. First was/is the great Graves dishwasher incident, or saga, or ongoing fiasco. In our home, we tend to hang on to appliances until they die of natural causes–and sometimes we invoke extreme resuscitation measure...
For the first time since I’ve been in business, I had to file an insurance claim. The electricity went out in Carrington during a severe thunderstorm the night of Monday, June 17. When Independent staff came to work Tuesday morning, they discovered that some of our office equipment was not working properly. The main office printer wouldn’t turn on, so they made the call to Central Business Systems, the company that maintains our printer. It turns out that the surge protector box had done its job...
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...
Thank God Willis Haviland Carrier invented air conditioning — for the most part. Before air conditioning, the heat drove us outside and brought us together. Friends sought the shade of trees or a refreshing dip in a lake or river. On the hottest nights, whole families brought their blankets and pillows to riverbanks, where it was cool. In the evening, neighbors sat on their large front porches, enjoying a cool breeze as they sipped lemonade and told stories. Even in the 1970s, when I was a k...
With the state primary season concluded, the forms of messaging statewide candidates used leading up to June 11 is curious. Likewise, the steady drumbeat we hear from local and state governments to move public notices to government websites, along with the decisions some state agencies make in bypassing legacy media to publicize state programs. As the executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association (NDNA), and also a community newspaper publisher, the requests for free coverage by...
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...
In response to the article written by Leasa Lura in the June 10th, 2024, edition of The Foster County Independent. It was stated, “During their last meeting on Tuesday, June 4th, the board heard about a contract Garrison Diversion officials say was signed by road superintendent Nate Monson for road blading during the construction of the pipeline. Commissioner Alan Scanson said that the commission was unaware of the contract and that Monson would not have the authority to sign it.” The Foster County Commission wants to clarify that the Foster Co...
“It’s like going to a family reunion where they all actually like you.” “You would never have known it was their first time hosting a convention.” “That is one of the best, most beautiful rooms I’ve ever stayed in. It’s right up there with resorts in big cities.” That’s what members of the Fraternal Order of Eagles had to say about their time in New Rockford and Carrington this past weekend, as New Rockford Aerie 2923 hosted the Dakota State Convention. In total, more than 200 people from across...
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...
In 1974, when I was 11, I flushed an apple core down the toilet. You see, my father had remodeled our basement into a family room with a powder room. Always looking to save a buck — he had six kids to feed on one income — he bought the cheapest toilet he could find. It never did work right, and since we couldn’t afford a plumber, my father spent much of his spare time unclogging it. Armed with this knowledge, then, it’s remarkable I did what I did. One Sunday morning, after chomping on a large...
This primary season has been quite the experience. On one hand, it’s positive to see so many North Dakotans interested in running for political office. We’re seeing primary challenges in both state and local government races, which means voters have choices in who they want to represent them over the next few years. On the other hand, more candidates means more political advertising. Citizens have started write-in campaigns, and announced their candidacy in newspapers, radio, TV and all ove...
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...
Now that two of my daughters are away at college and the one still at home basically views me as an ATM in an unfashionable neighborhood, I’ve tried to find myself a hobby. Since I’m not interested in activities that involve getting out of bed before noon on a Saturday, that pretty much rules out most manly-type-outdoorsy stuff that would require me to sweat profusely in a tent, clean an animal carcass or have one of my friends pluck a tick from a region of my anatomy that I can’t reach. Inste...
