Dakota Beacon

Just a few months ago, Minot was one of the most optimistic small cities in the country.  It was a success by almost every indicator: employment, real estate values, business investment and population growth.  The city was eagerly anticipating its two signature events -- the State Fair and the Norsk Hstfest.  Today, almost all of that is turned upside down -- the city is a FEMA disaster site -- the physical, economic and emotional damage from the flood remains to be determined.  There is speculation Minot may have been hit harder than Grand Forks in 1997.  With great will, the city will recover, but recovery will be measured in years not months. 

Justice comes slowly in Minot.  In January, four American Indians were killed in what appeared to be closely related murders.  Police have arrested Omar Kalmio, a Somali national with a violent criminal record, for killing Sabrina Zephier, the mother of his child and one of the four victims.  Kalmio is not considered an “official suspect” in the killing of Sabrina’s brother, mother and mother’s boyfriend.  A Minot police captain said summer flooding in Minot may have delayed Kalmio’s arrest.

According to oil rig co-workers, Kalmio said that Zephier was “ruining his life, getting pregnant on purpose, always taking his money and he was sick of it.”  The day following her murder, Kalmio told a co-worker “his baby mamma was dead.”

A section headed “HIGHER EDUCATION” on the GF Herald website included only the pictures of Nicholas Spaeth and Dr. Richard McCallum.  Readers digging further may have been surprised by what they learned.  Dr. McCallum was asked to resign his position as president of Dickinson State because he cooked the enrollment books, creating 180 fictional students.  Spaeth had a different problem, the 61-year-old attorney had applied for teaching positions at more than 100 law schools and was turned down by all of them.  Spaeth, a former ND attorney general, did not take the rejections lying down -- he filed over 100 age bias complaints.

“If financing can be finalized” was a key phrase in a Jamestown Sun article about a $100 million new ethanol plant.  Great River Energy has a coal-fired power plant near Jamestown and now plans a 60-million-gallon-per-year corn ethanol facility using waste steam from the power plant.  The plant is expected to be ready in the fall of 2013 and will require 21 million bushels of corn -- the majority of corn production within 30 miles of the plant.

A Sun photo showed Whitney Carlson in her family’s kitchen -- the table was groaning with plaques, trophies and awards.  Carlson holds six track records at NDSU where she was a 4.0 student and NCAA Div 1 All-American.  She will be entering dental school in Lincoln, Nebraska and preparing for the Olympic tryouts next summer in Eugene, Oregon.  The article said Carlson will “go down as one of the state’s best track and field performers ever.”  The Sun boasted Carlson was the latest in a tradition of great athletes from the Jamestown area: Darin Erstad and Travis Hafner (baseball), Jim Kleinsasser (football), and Jeff Boschee (basketball).  Like Kleinsasser, Carlson attended Carrington High School.  The article said despite her achievements “Carlson remains a humble, down-to-earth farm girl” who perfected her running stride atop hay bales -- each bale the perfect length for a stride.

Speaking of Kleinsasser, we are used to hearing him described in terms such as “The Man’s a Beast.”  Jimmy K. is going into his 13th season with the Vikings and he’s the team’s senior member.   The Minneapolis Star Tribune sought the veteran’s views on Vikings quarterbacks from the past 12 seasons.  Kleinsasser opined on quarterbacks from Randall Cunningham (“pure athlete”) to Brett Favre (“great guy” who “had plenty left”).  Kleinsasser emerged as intelligent and analytic, completely comfortable handling a lengthy interview.

River flooding in Minot and Bismarck crowds the news, but in many parts of ND there are serious, evolving, but less publicized cases of overland flooding.  The small town of Kensal (160) is on the Canadian Pacific railroad about 20 miles southeast of Carrington.  For years the area around Kensal has become more and more like a wetland.  Recently, in a period of three weeks the area received from 20 to 30 inches of rain.  The fire department pumped day and night to evacuate standing water from the town into nearby sloughs.  Roads are underwater, some for as much as half a mile.  The same rains undermined the CP tracks causing a train to lose two locomotives and 25 of its 90 cars about five miles from Kensal near the James River crossing.

Sixty years ago Crystal Springs was another smelly alkali flat along Highway 10 between Bismarck and Jamestown.  Today, Crystal Springs is a 134 acre lake that threatens I-94 and the BNSF railroad, both are being raised in separate multimillion dollar projects.

The superintendent of T. Roosevelt National Park reminded everyone that the erosion process creating the beautiful badlands is constant.  She said that the scenic drive near the Little Missouri River in the north part of the park is closed because of landslides.  To the east, Highway 22 near its Little Missouri crossing has been closed by landslides for the balance of the year.  Hwy 22 is a heavily used north-south route from Coal Country to the Ft. Berthold Reservation.  Detours can add two hours to a one-way trip.  This would be a significant disruption anytime, but is now compounded by heavy oil industry traffic.

Is it monstrous overreach?  Three young brothers from Starkweather, ND (about 25 miles north of Devils Lake) have begun a 20,000 mile bicycle trip from Anchorage, Alaska to Argentina.  They are farm boys ages 19-22 -- two have Dartmouth educations, the youngest just graduated from high school.  They are not without cycling experience -- the middle brother crossed North America by bike.  They will have no support vehicles, planning to carry their own camping equipment and supplies -- much of it donated by Scheels All-Sports.  Another company furnished the bikes.  The trip will take the better part of a year -- they hope to arrive in Argentina in May 2012.  It’s difficult to sustain physical and mental condition for such a long period.

DAKTOIDS: Columnist Lloyd Omdahl contends ND has the largest legislature in the country, calculated on a per capita basis.  The ND senate is larger than that of California . . . An August issue of Fortune magazine profiles EOG (formerly Enron Oil and Gas) -- the article says that primarily as a result of Bakken oil production in ND, EOG may become the second-or third-largest producer in the U.S.