Dakota Beacon

Minot leaders are very concerned that winter will arrive before housing is available for displaced residents.  The president of the Minot Area Community Foundation estimates $300 million of flood damage in the community.  He said the focus must be on ways to keep people in Minot.

Minot was the focus of Jamestown Sun “Bravos” and “Buffalo chips.”  Bravos to the busloads of Jamestown volunteers going to Minot for flood cleanup.  Chips to criminals who have doubled Minot property crimes so far this year.

Amtrak service in ND is poor, even when conditions are normal.  Trains are late more often than not and stops in ND cities come at inconvenient hours.  It’s no surprise someone saw this as a business opportunity.  Jefferson Lines is initiating daily bus service that will track Amtrak’s Empire Builder route from Fargo to Williston and all stops in between.  To add to the appeal, the bus will stop at NDSU in Fargo and UND in Grand Forks.

UND will give up the “Fighting Sioux” nickname.  A delegation from ND made a last appeal, but the NCAA wouldn’t take into account how widely revered the UND nickname and logo are, including among many of the state’s Indians.  The state and UND were helpless to resist the potentially damaging sanctions of the NCAA.  A politically correct minority has successfully imposed its will on the entire state.  A number of state leaders believe the biggest losers will be the state’s Sioux Indians, who receive nothing from the resolution, but will shoulder a disproportionate share of the negative consequences.  ND House Majority Leader Al Carlson said, “The NCAA is hurting the very people they claim to be helping.”  Earl Strinden, a former a house majority leader, echoed those thoughts.

Suspicions have been brewing in Dickinson for sometime, so for many it was no surprise when Dickinson State University President Richard McCallum was asked to resign for messing with DSU’s enrollment records.  Other matters at DSU are being investigated.  A Dickinson Press editorial says all evidence shows rules were broken and trust diminished.  “More than President McCallum are at fault” said the Press, as it asked why no staff members “blew the whistle.”

Stutsman County (Jamestown) is one of the state’s larger counties with many miles of roads and a declining rural population.  Last year, with good reasons, Stutsman purchased an expensive piece of Caterpillar equipment for converting paved roads to gravel in order to achieve lower maintenance costs.  The machine was first used to recycle ten miles of Old Highway 10.  As Sarah Palin might say, “How is the gravely thing working for you?”  Not so good, Sarah, the “gravely thing” requires weekly grading -- even that is not sufficient in certain sections bordered by water.  The wonderful new Cat machine is idle and the county’s funds are tied up fighting water.  If money were available, the county would probably turn Hwy 10 back into a paved road.

Man of many talents.  Norbert Schulz (83) of Jamestown will surely be missed.  His obituary stated “Norbert will be remembered for his ability to witch for water and predict the weather forecasts by studying pig spleens.”

For a number of years the relative scores of ND students on standard tests have been slipping.  Students in other states have been improving faster than those in ND.  Education leaders and the media in ND have been slow to acknowledge the pattern.  A Bismarck AP article stated “North Dakota’s average score on the ACT college entrance exam is slightly lower than the national average.”  Indeed, the national average was 21.1, while ND was 20.7.  ND placed 17th from the bottom, slipping into the lowest one-third.  Only 21% of ND students were college ready; nationally 25% of students met that test.  In ND, 98% of high school graduates took the ACT, while nationwide about half the students took the test  -- the difference in participation rates may have hurt ND’s relative showing.

Small, freestanding post offices make little economic sense -- they largely serve needs of the past.  However, the symbolism goes beyond mail.  An elderly, small town woman expressed it this way: "Since I've moved here, we've lost the grocery store. We've lost the café.  This is one of the last things we had."  The Minneapolis Tribune said she made those poignant remarks “standing alongside beautifully crafted post office boxes whose dials have been turned by leathery farm fingers for generations.”

When the Postmaster General suggested that the post office function could be more useful in convenience stores, small town people responded: “What convenience store?” 

Amid ND’s general prosperity -- an oil boom and strong farm economy -- something strange is happening.  The poverty rate is rising, especially in western ND.  The phenomenon was noted in the Sunday Forum and Bismarck Tribune.  It goes something like this: prior to the boom, there were numerous low income individuals with entry level jobs.  However, they got by, due in large part to a low cost of living.  With the oil boom, costs have shot up, particularly housing, but this low skilled group is not qualified for oil country’s higher paying jobs.  The Tribune said, “It sometimes seems we are becoming a state of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’”  People living on Indian reservations are also among those left behind.

McKenzie County (oil) has an average salary of $51,000; Dunn County’s (coal and oil) average is $45,000.  Yet, Watford City in McKenzie County and Killdeer in Dunn County are being served by a mobile unit from the Great Plains Food Bank in Fargo.  In Watford City, 200 people out of 1,700 are receiving food assistance.  Sioux County (Standing Rock Reservation) has the lowest median household income in the state ($27,000).  Rolette County (Turtle Mt. Reservation) has the highest unemployment rate.  A representative of the food bank says the oil boom has caused a greater gap between those who are wealthy and those who are not.

Growth rates make a big difference.  A building materials company in Fargo is opening a branch in Bismarck.  The company’s management said Bismarck-Mandan has twice the market potential of Grand Forks.  B-M is ideally situated to cash in on the western ND energy boom.

DAKTOIDS:  Bismarck State College has 4,000 students and 300 dorm spaces.  Students in Bismarck, Minot and Dickinson are having difficulty finding off-campus housing . . .  Minot State University expects a 10% decrease in enrollment because of the floods . . . How wet is it this year in ND?  Implement dealers are sold out of combines with tracks . . . In mid-August, Jamestown was building 2,700 feet of dikes -- new flooding from heavy rains upstream in the James River basin.