The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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A seismic shift is taking place in the North Dakota party convention nominating system with the fragmentation of power and resources and candidates bypassing the structured nominating system and going directly to the polls. While North Dakota history is full of erratic appeals to primary elections, the present fracture was led by Senator Kevin Cramer and Governor Doug Burgum, both of whom took their cases to the public after rejection by conventions. The precedent has been established. By...
A new scientific poll underwritten by the North Dakota News Cooperative has finally cast some light on citizen opinions about this $10 billion Legacy Fund filled primarily by oil and gas money. The money did not come from the backs of those “hard-working citizens” often used in political rhetoric but it is money owned by everyone in North Dakota. Therefore, everyone has a stake in the use of the Fund. Having taught polling at the University of North Dakota, I offer some cautionary advice. The re...
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...
A couple of days ago, I retrieved one (of about a hundred) of our family doglets’ chew bones from the seemingly unreachable chasm under my youngest and quietest daughter’s bed using an ingenious invention of my own making – namely a straightened-out wire clothes hanger. This same apparatus also comes in handy for retrieving various undergarments (along with a metric ton of lint) that somehow fall behind – and then underneath – our washer and dryer. The clothes hanger/wonder hook prompted...
Congratulations to Amanda Koepplin, third grade teacher at NR-S, on her selection as the Eddy County Teacher of the Year for 2023-24. I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who pursue teaching as a career, and even more so for those who dedicate their lives to teaching young minds. It’s a noble profession. When I was in elementary school, I often said that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I had three younger siblings and four younger cousins to look after, and teaching seemed...
It comes as a surprise to no one that North Dakota, like every other state in the nation, is in the throes of an unprecedented teacher shortage. Long-time administrators will tell you that where once there were dozens of applications for each open position, they are now fortunate to receive one or two worthy applicants, if any. Many educators will tell you that K-12 education remains an honorable and vital profession with an ever-increasing level of stress. What both agree on is that the consequences of ignoring the teacher shortage are dire...
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...
What an amazing coincidence! Two days after Apple released its much-ballyhooed Vision Pro contraption, Joni Mitchell gave her first Grammy Awards performance. It’s a coincidence because someday hordes of Vision Pro devotees will doubtless be warbling, “I’ve looked at life from no sides now/Tripped over something, might be a cow…” Surely you’ve heard of Vision Pro. Apple insists on calling it a “spatial computer,” but reviewers tend to describe it as something like “a mixed reality headset t...
It’s another year of “lasts” at the Wobbema house. Yes, I realize we are smack dab in the middle of our daughter’s senior year, but reality didn’t set in until just a few days ago. It all started when a fellow mom of a senior posted a picture of her son on social media last week. That night was the last time he’d play high school basketball on his home court, and she was wrestling with all the emotions that come with it. I replied that I was fortunate that NR-S was hosting the district girls’ to...
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...
Now that my age has surpassed the mid-century mark and I’m more ancient than virtually all professional athletes, everyone in my department at work, and even my pastor at church, I’ve noticed that the old memory is not what it used to . . . . Wait. What was I writing about again? My cognitive decline became all too obvious the other day when I was at the Verizon store upgrading to one of those newfangled iPhone jumbo-large-print editions with a camera powerful enough to take photos of the por...
Dear Editor, Generosity throughout Carrington contributed to a successful shoebox gift collection season at drop-off locations for the Samaritan’s Purse project Operation Christmas Child. Across the U.S., the project collected 10 million shoebox gifts in 2023. Combined with those collected from partnering countries in 2023, the ministry is now sending over 11.3 million shoebox gifts to children worldwide, including many who are suffering from war, poverty, disease and disaster. Through the continued generosity of donors since 1993, Operation C...
“Things are not always as they appear to be … Curiosity creates possibilities and opportunities.” Roy T. Bennett I’m a curious person. It’s a trait that characterizes many journalists, and for good reason. The drive to know more or to ask just one more question to get to the heart of the issue is often the catalyst for good news articles. According to Dictionary.com, curiosity is “a strong desire to know or learn something.” I usually refer to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for official defi...
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...
With the hope of increasing the number of local journalists, the University of North Dakota intends to create a new department of journalism. This comes at a time when smaller newspapers are dropping left and right. According to Joshua Irvine, reporting in Forum Communications, half of North Dakota counties have only one news outlet. As the present editors retire, new ones are not coming forward to buy newspapers. Losing Revenue Dying main streets have no advertising revenue and the vacant...
The issue of homeless students in North Dakota has come to the fore in the last couple of weeks. Homeless in North Dakota? Even though a variety of public and private entities offer services, kids are still falling in the cracks. We shouldn’t be surprised because a global look at our neglect of children in this state reflects our “bootstraps” orientation to life is one of private sector capitalism and not compassion for the needy. Right now, the state is reaping millions of dollars more than...
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...
Disclaimer: No pets die in this column (but they sometimes smell like they did). As I write, I’m trying to relax in my recliner on a cold winter’s day next to a roaring fire, yet my feet are freezing because a large, semi-elderly cat named “Missy” – AKA “The Loaf” – is lounging on the fireplace hearth directly in front of the firebox and hogging all of the heat. “How did I reach this state?” you might wonder. So do I. When my middle daughter was six years old, she looked up at me with her big,...
Valentine’s Day and Giving Hearts Day are coming soon, but did you know that there’s one more very important heart-related observance we are in the midst of right now? Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. This could be a little girl in the ICU or a grandfather with Stage 3 leukemia. January is National Blood Donation Month, and the need is greater than you might realize. The American Red Cross recently announced that they are experiencing an emergency blood shortage. Blood don...
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 are two things that should be completely off limits: a person's children and a person's grief. You do not mock a child, something that we often forget when that child happens to belong to a politician we despise, and you do not make fun of someone in the depths of mourning. I have never had a child, but I have experienced grief. The greatest pain I ever felt, and the greatest I ever will carry, happened 10 years ago when my mother passed away. No matter how deep your faith in the...
"Is North Dakota better off today than it was a year ago?” That’s the question asked by Craig Blumenshine, host of the PBS “Main Street” radio program, to a panel of journalists last week. “We have no way to go but up,” I replied. The year 2023 was not one of my best, not even close. There were definitely some high points, and I’m grateful for that. Yet, I felt more anxious than I have in years. I’m not alone in that either, as uncertainty about what lay ahead has been all around me latel...
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...
I forgot what it was like to experience a good old common cold. Prior to covid, you see, the cold-getting experience went like this: I’d wake with a stuffy nose and scratchy throat and my only thought was to curse the gods for visiting a new virus cocktail on me that was going to make me cranky for nine days. I remember at first denying that a cold virus was feasting on me, then, as the hacking got bad, I moved on to the anger stage before finally accepting my fate that the miserable common cold...
There’s not enough snow to ride a snowmobile. The trees are bare, and the stubble from last year’s crop is still visible. There’s even water running through the ditches in some areas, in January! It’s “the winter that wasn’t,” some have written. Those that typically revel in that white winter wonderland are depressed to see bare trees and black ground. All I know is that the unseasonably warm temperatures and little to no snowfall have made winter all the more bearable for me. Last year at...
