Dakota Beacon

FARGO’S MERITCARE is the largest health provider in ND, with 7,500 employees and facilities in both Minnesota and ND.  SANFORD HEALTH IN SIOUX FALLS has 10,000 employees and claims to be the biggest health-care system between Denver and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Sanford also operates in the three states adjoining southeast South Dakota.  The two regional providers are exploring a combination—discussions are expected to continue through the summer. They cite economies of scale and greater specialization as reasons for the merger.

The ND budget surplus is the result of luring visitors to the state and robbing and even murdering them.  That was the theme of a SKIT ON THE NBC “TONIGHT SHOW” hosted by Conan O’Brien.  A redneck character in the skit, who purports to be the state budget director, stands in a wheat field and invites viewers to come to ND and “Bring your money.”  (We will meet you in the barn.)  The GF Herald polled readers about their reaction to the skit.  Not everyone was laughing—about 25% were bothered or insulted.

As ND legislators struggled with issues related to the state’s surplus, they made frequent references to taxpayers’ “HARD-EARNED DOLLARS.” Nonsense, says Herald columnist Lloyd Omdahl, they weren’t hard-earned, they were windfall dollars from oil royalties and record farm prices—“forces beyond our doing.”  Omdahl urged more generosity for the state’s needy.

SEC filings indicate ND has only four publicly traded companies: a real estate trust (REIT), a pasta company, a mutual fund company and a sugar beet cooperative.  That list may be about to expand.  Two years ago ND adopted an incorporation law that is friendly to shareholder rights activists.  As a consequence, investors have included proposals in corporate proxy ballots of certain public companies to REINCORPORATE IN ND.  Corporate boards and their outside counsel are very wary of the idea—they say reincorporation in ND would be expensive and pointless.  Nevertheless, American Railcar Industries based in St. Charles, Missouri, is changing its incorporation from Delaware to ND—this will bring ND annual franchise fees of $80,000.

It runs in cycles—periodically there is a burst of concern in ND about young people leaving the state.  Tribune Editor John Irby wants the governor to form a commission to to find ways to stop migration and bring expatriates home.  Irby cites Albert Stern who wrote in 1965: “Some states export cotton; other manufacture goods, oil, timber or coal.  NORTH DAKOTA EXPORTS PEOPLE, young, talented (and) energetic people . . . thousands by the year.”  Perhaps the first question should be:  what would have happened if they hadn’t left?

The Bismarck Tribune said what was recently unthinkable: “North Dakota farmers and ethanol operators need to look seriously at whether corn-based ethanol is the right kind of value-added agriculture for the state.”  The Tribune recommends transitional support for corn ethanol, but concludes: “WE NEED TO GET OFF CORN.”

“Fredonia” (meaning freedom) was once proposed as a name for the United States.  Groucho Marx praised a fictional Fredonia (“HAIL FREDONIA”) in one of his movies.  The name change didn’t go anywhere, but many little Fredonias sprang up around the country.  One such Fredonia, about 50 miles southwest of Jamestown, came into the news recently (and briefly) when a train of corn derailed on nearby Highway 56.

Grand Forks is fortunate to be designated a permanent beneficiary of the KNIGHT FOUNDATION, an outgrowth of the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain which once owned the GF Herald.  This year the Foundation will give the community $1 million, an amount roughly equal to what was raised in 2008 by the United Way campaign.  Foundation gifts are carefully targeted—this year’s gift will help to upgrade a rundown neighborhood in north Grand Forks.

The late Tom Clifford, a former UND president, revised his will in 2007 to lessen the interest of his two sons in favor of their stepmother, Gayle Clifford.  Whether Tom Clifford was competent to make that change will be the subject of a FORMAL PROBATE TRIAL scheduled for Grand Forks in May 2010.  Clifford’s sons represent that Gayle Clifford’s actions and statements “raise the issue of the validity of the document purported to be a will.”  Gail’s attorney said, “Apparently, the sons do not like their stepmother very much.  But that’s not the issue.”

We see constant examples of how farm programs, rather than market forces, influence planting decisions by farmers.  Farmers will be compensated by the government for corn land they were unable to plant this spring because of wet conditions.  They will be permitted to plant those acres in WINTER WHEAT, seeded in the fall, but considered to be next year’s crop by the USDA.  ND expects a big jump in winter wheat. 

Breezetta Etienne of Fargo pleaded guilty to the 2008 attempted murder of her daughters.  She is the sister of Moe Gibbs, 2006 ND MURDERER OF THE YEAR.  Gibbs was an ex-convict who killed a Valley City State student and later pleaded guilty to other felonies in Valley City and Fargo.