The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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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...
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...
Okay, maybe I’m approaching this from a position of privilege. One of my earliest memories is of tagging along to my mother’s former grammar school when she voted. Social Studies was one of my favorite elementary school classes. Mr. Lowry’s junior high Civics class taught us about polling, current events and debate skills. I made straight A’s when I minored in Political Science in college. So I’m a wee bit prejudiced when I applaud the arrival of the book “Restoring the City on a Hill: U.S....
"Mention their name. Tell their story. Continue to live their legacy by remembering them with me." – Nathalie Himmelrich Allen Stock, publisher of the Foster County Independent for 46 years, left this world on Christmas Day. I first got to know Allen about four years ago. He was a fellow publisher, but he hadn't attended a newspaper convention or other gathering for several years. I remember him calling to ask if he could rerun articles we had printed in the Transcript, and he requested help s...
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...
Here’s a great New Year’s resolution: get a pet. As we wrap up a very inflationary 2023, pet shelters across the country are at maximum capacity and they don’t have room to house the pets people are turning in. ABC News reports that animals entering shelters began to climb in 2021. During the covid pandemic, you see, many people adopted pets, but as they began to go back to the workplace, some decided they no longer wanted to care for a pet, so they turned them back in. The past year was signi...
North Dakota’s rural communities have lost over 20% of their grocery stores in the last decade. The loss of a local grocery store is a significant blow to small towns seeking to navigate existing workforce and economic challenges, and maintain the health and wellbeing of residents, while also investing in these communities’ long-term viability. With overwhelming and seemingly insurmountable challenges, residents and community leaders can feel hopeless. They can feel like, no matter what they do, their community is destined to erode or dec...
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...
My heart is heavy this Christmas. My best friend lost her dad a week ago, and one of our daughter’s former classmates died by suicide. I also heard that two gentlemen from my hometown, one the school janitor and another a bus driver, also had passed away. I know that loss is a part of life, but that doesn’t make it any easier. “We are here.” That’s what I repeated to every person I hugged or talked to at the prayer service for my daughter’s classmate. And I listened to his grandma tell us wha...
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house It vas da nacht before Santa Clausen und all through the husens Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; No noise makin’schweinhunt unmousen all qviet The stockins were hung by the chimney with care Oof-da schmnellley foot wearin up the fireplace hanging In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; Expecten gud old Nicholas would quick be fillin’ The children were nestled all snug in their beds The kinderfolk vas restin qviet...
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...
A course is a course, of course of course … Or is it? According to those madcap bean-counters at the National Golf Foundation, the number of off-course golfers (those going to simulators, driving ranges and entertainment venues such as Topgolf) recently surpassed the number of traditional on-course golfers in the United States. For the sake of full disclosure, I am neither a traditional golfer nor a high-tech golfer. But I do enjoy playing miniature golf with my wife and son when we’re on vac...
Last week, I got to see “how the sausage is made.” As a member of the media, I was invited to watch DPRCA’s “The Christmas Show” before anyone else. This time, I was on assignment, shooting photos to document Elliott Schwab’s original script coming together on stage. Well, that was part of it. I also wanted to be among the first to see it so I could give you, my dear readers, a glimpse inside the show. It was the one Wednesday night appointment I was happy to take, and it came just in time. Th...
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...
Here’s an unpleasant holiday statistic: Average Americans are giving significantly less to their favorite charities this year than they did just four or five years ago. Average Americans have long been among the most generous people on Earth. But this year, thanks to an economy disrupted by COVID, soaring interest rates and three years of high inflation, many are unable to give. Americans are hurting in their pocketbooks. This past year credit-card debt jumped faster than ever before in history,...
