The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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Since July 4, my wife and I have had two opportunities to drive across Garrison Dam. The first trip’s destination was Rapid City and the second, Beulah. I drove the first time and she drove the second time. Have you ever taken a close look at that dam? It’s an incredible feat of engineering. Because I was the passenger the second time, I looked at things I don’t normally get to see as a driver. And as we passed from McLean County into Mercer County, the only thing I could think of is the press...
Assuming that election fraud is rampant in county offices and in the precincts, a band of 50 sponsors are proposing to pass a constitutional amendment to prevent fraud. The problem is that there is now no voter fraud in North Dakota, never has been, never will be. I have personally been involved in a survey of local election inspectors and states attorneys and did not find any reports of fraud. This is another case of passing legislation to restrict something that is unlikely to happen. In case...
Sometimes I wonder what people expect from local newspapers like the one I work for, and from local reporters like myself. While readers regularly thank us for our great coverage, we've also been told we're too negative, and that our only job should be to "build up" our community with positive news. Recently I was reminded what it means to be a good reporter, and why I work for two of the best newspapers in North Dakota. Some may have heard about the small-town newspaper in Kansas that was...
North Dakota Tourism tells us there are a lot of visitors to our state during the summer months. And that’s true. Just take a drive through the Badlands or visit Medora and you’ll see all kinds of vehicles and license plates from out of state. But tourism isn’t limited to those two areas. We have Lake Metigoshe, Fort Ransom, Garrison Dam, Devils Lake, the Pembina Gorge is now designated as a state park and others. It doesn’t stop with tourism. People from out of state come here for busines...
Houses are getting smaller again — which is going to make many Americans happier. Americans faced with high mortgage rates and a shortage of affordable homes for sale are opting for new, smaller homes that do not have dining rooms, living rooms, spare bedrooms and even bathtubs, reports the Wall Street Journal. Builders are building smaller homes partly to give cost-constrained buyers a more affordable option. But it’s mostly because it’s the only way home builders can turn a reasonable profit,...
I’m one of the lucky ones. I have been selected to be part of two surveys for the U.S. Census Bureau in the past year. No, these aren’t the types that ask nicely for your participation, offer you a free meal or a dollar or any token of appreciation for your answers. Rather, they are required by law, as is the decennial census that all Americans must fill out. Once you get “chosen,” you’re stuck. They send you emails and letters that don’t stop until you answer all their questions, sometimes m...
Have you heard about this incident in Marion County, Kansas? Apparently the police chief ordered a raid on the local newspaper, the Marion County Record and seized computers, cell phones, a router and photographed the entire office. When this story broke, the reason for the raid didn’t make any sense. The publisher was investigating a DUI. Newspaper editors do that all the time. That shouldn’t be cause for a raid. But on Tuesday, the Kansas City Star reported the publisher was actually inv...
These days, getting all three of my semi-grown daughters together for a family activity is like herding cats who have cars, jobs at coffee shops and their own debit cards. So, when our girls were able to pencil us in for a quick weekend trip to San Antonio, my wife and I jumped at the chance . . . or sort of hopped. Our backs hurt. Our justification for this little getaway was back-to-school shopping, which has come a long and expensive way from a new box of crayons and a Hello Kitty lunch bag....
The winds of change are howling. Last Friday, Aug. 18, was the last time our staff had the opportunity to see and inspect our newspapers before they entered the postal system. Effective with the Aug. 28 edition and for the foreseeable future, we will no longer be unloading totes and bundles of addressed newspapers off pallets and delivering them to the local post offices in Carrington and New Rockford. Instead, our printing company will take all the print copies of both the Independent and the...
There was a time not so long ago that you could easily get ethanol (alcohol fuel) in North Dakota, but now you have to search for it and sometimes when you find an E-85 refueler, the place is “out of stock.” Why is this the case? The availability of ethanol is definitely lacking across the state. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, there are 14 (E-85) locations in North Dakota and eight of them are in Fargo and two are in Grand Forks. You used to be able to fill with ethanol as far west as...
Declining attention spans have reached epidemic levels. That’s what Adam Brown, co-director of the Center for Attention, Learning and Memory at St. Bonaventure University in New York, tells Time. That’s certainly the case with me. As I struggled to write the first three paragraphs of this column, I searched autotrader.com for a new car I don’t need or want; searched Facebook Marketplace for lakefront vacation homes I can’t afford; and visited Amazon.com to order more expensive treats for my...
Both newspaper offices have been a flurry of activity lately. We’ve had many visitors this summer going through our bound files, or newspaper archives, to gather information published over the past 100+ years. I’m sure our guests in Carrington have heard their share of newsroom banter, as noise flows through those uninsulated faux walls like the North Dakota wind through a screen. Author Karri (Bye) Theis brought her daughter and a friend to the Carrington office to do research for a book she...
This past weekend we took the grandkids to Medora to see the musical, eat a pitchfork fondue steak and take in the sights. As always, it was first-class entertainment and it was good to see so many young people from within North Dakota picked to perform on stage. We stayed in a Medora hotel and because it was hot at the end of July, we took plenty of water; in bottles and carbonated water in cans. When we were packing up to leave, one of the grandkids gathered all the aluminum cans and...
I have many concerns about the proposed merger of CenDak and Fessenden Co-op. The joint letter sent out to members claims that a merger will maintain local control, expand access to talent, and allow the implementation of best practices. The past acquisition of Equity Co-op by Fessenden Co-op, resulted in a complete lack of local control at the Sheyenne house. With no onsite manager I have seen many things deteriorate, and locals have disagreed with hiring, safety, and day-to- day operational decisions. What is meant by “expand access to t...
American Legion Post 25 is wanting to cancel their Post Charter due to lack of interest in the community regarding new memberships. I find it hard to believe, with the size of Carrington, that there are not more Veterans willing to support their local Legion. Carrington used to have their own National Guard Armory, therefore there should be more Veterans that are eligible to join the Legion. You only have to serve one day on Active Duty to be eligible. The more members, we as the Legion have, the more votes we have with our Legislators in...
Hello everyone! I'm definitely a new face around here, but for the past nine weeks, I have had the opportunity to intern at the Foster County Independent and the New Rockford Transcript. This summer internship has been amazing, and I have learned so many valuable skills. I am a 2022 graduate of Carrington High School, and I just completed my freshman year of college at Brigham Young University (BYU) located in Provo, Utah. My plans in the future vary a little bit from the status quo....
In recent weeks I’ve had the opportunity to chat with two 10-year-old girls. One is my granddaughter and the other is the granddaughter of my farm intern. They come from completely different backgrounds; one lives in a city in South Dakota and goes to a private school and the other lives in rural North Dakota and is home schooled. They’ve never met, but they have one thing in common. They both are able to hold short conversations in Spanish. These girls are 10 years old and they have already lea...
My family will soon take advantage of our state’s tax-free weekend for clothing and school supplies, but none of our hard-earned money will go for distressed clothing. Coincidentally, none of the money we spend at the food court will purchase pre-chewed burritos. Call us rebels. Silly me, I had assumed that America’s fascination with faded/torn/threadbare clothing would be a passing fad; but it seems to have settled in as the New Abnormal, along with backwards baseball caps, droopy pants and...
This Tuesday, Carrington is one of 17 communities across North Dakota hosting National Night Out events. The National Night Out program celebrates its 40th year of connecting law enforcement with the broader community. It all began with Matt, a volunteer with the Lower Merion Community Watch in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, Penn. in 1970. As one of a thousand volunteers in his area program, he prepared a newsletter to keep his colleagues informed about what was happening, and he learned...
It seems that every year, just before the North Dakota State Fair kicks off, there are construction zones everywhere. In fact, all we have to say is “state fair’s coming to town,” and others know exactly what it means. When I first moved to this area of the state in 2000, it seemed like a coincidence that all this construction in the city of Minot was going on immediately before and during the fair. It continued year after year and actually ramped up. You can’t help but wonder why, when hundreds...
As a heat wave hits America from coast to coast, it’s hot outside — but cool inside, thanks to the triumph of air conditioning. For most of human history, there was little people could do to avoid heat. During the day, it drove people outside of their homes to enjoy the shade of a tree or to take a refreshing dip in a lake or river. At night, folks in cities slept outside on their porches, roofs and even fire escapes. When I was a kid in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, few homes had air con...
It’s been a wild week of baseball. I photographed the Babe Ruth District 4 Championship on Sunday in Hillsboro. The contest spanned two games, 17 innings and nearly six hours from first pitch to last photo op. Hats off to the New Rockford Black Sox for hanging tough against the HCV Blue Sox and finding a way to come out on top! The Legion district championship was played just as this edition of the Independent was going to press, and it was Carrington Post 25 vs. New Rockford Post 30 battling i...
There were some comments regarding the quiz in last week’s article. One person said they didn’t get any of the 10 questions correct. Another said they only answered four correctly with the others just guesses. And that was exactly my point for presenting that quiz last week. A lot of people aren’t going to be aware of the answers to these questions because they just aren’t taught, but should be common knowledge to all of us. I’ll admit, the Portal question would have been tough for most peop...
I dream of recreating some of the epic bike hikes I enjoyed as a kid back in the 1970s. My used Murray five-speed spyder-bike with the high handlebars only cost 25 bucks, but it was one of the coolest bikes of the age. Man, I loved that bike. During the long summer days, I rode with a group of kids. We’d ride for two or three hours in the county park, then make our way to McDonald’s for an orange drink and apple pie, which I paid for by borrowing a handful of coins out of my dad’s penny jar. It...
I was among a small group of three who decided to explore downtown Crosby, Minn., the nearest town to the lake house my husband’s family inhabited for a few days this past week. The population is 2,300, so it has a few more residents than Carrington. This central Minnesota town had a fair amount of traffic that Saturday afternoon, however, a sight that I would love to see in New Rockford or Carrington. No doubt the lake (one of Minnesota’s 10,000) – and the nearby Cuyuna Country State Recreation...
