Dakota Beacon

The Minot Daily News: “It was an embarrassing display, United States lawmakers and administration officials including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on their feet applauding a foreign leader as he attacks our national policy.  Where's our sense of national pride?  Calderon was out of line and hypocritical in criticizing the United States for its immigration policy when his country's policy is much harsher. Shame on him. But shame on those lawmakers who applauded Calderon as he did it. They should all be embarrassed.”

ND newspapers include regular, small reminders that illegal immigration is not merely an Arizona problem.  In Oakes, ND, 32 illegals were detained by the immigration service.  Four Stars Ag and its owner, Barry Vculek, had arranged for men to plant onions through an Oregon labor contractor.  Vculek said he thought all of the non-English speaking group were U.S. citizens.

In the last week of May, the big news in ND was the naming of a new president for NDSU in Fargo.  Dean Bresciani is a Napa, California native and a VP at Texas A&M, a school with 45,000 students.  The Forum newspapers have greeted Bresciani with editorial enthusiasm and high hopes that he will restore trust at NDSU.  However, the Fargo Forum can’t help itself -- it’s still grousing that NDSU is the victim of political and petty scrutiny.  We may learn more -- the State Board of Higher Ed has hired a former federal prosecutor to look into NDSU spending.

Using a Dept. of Energy grant, the ND Association of Rural Electric Coops has retained consultants to study the feasibility of a new oil refinery.  The state is already producing over four times the amount of oil that can be refined at the Mandan Tesoro refinery.  The study is not concluded, but it appears that business prospects for producing gasoline are very poor.  Refineries are notoriously difficult and expensive to build and gasoline demand is declining (blame Priuses).  But maybe, just maybe, a plant to produce diesel, for which ND farmers are big consumers, may be feasible. 

Soon there may be one near you -- a “man camp.”  Housing is so short in the ND oil patch that the Stark County Commission has approved a 100-person camp north of Dickinson to temporarily house oil field workers.  Yes, meals and laundry, but no alcohol or children.

ND obituaries often describe large families that disburse across the country.  Robert Messmer (84) of Kensal worked for the Soo Line Railroad (now Canadian Pacific) for 40 years -- his 13 children shot gunned to 9 different states.  Job opportunities in the energy industry may make such departures less likely in the future.

Too many churches.  Declining rural populations leave many churches with small congregations and difficulty finding pastors.  In the northeast part of the state it has become common for clusters of small churches to merge.  The latest merger is in Lakota where four Lutheran congregations and one Methodist church have joined together.  The Rev. Don Reynolds, pastor of a six-congregation parish in Edmore says, “It just makes sense in rural North Dakota these days.”  Money, of course, is a concern driving the mergers, but vitality is an equal concern. 

There is at least one report every month in ND newspapers that goes something like this:  Elderly person drives up to a (fill in the blank -- clinic, cafe or store) and drives right through the front door.  In early May, the Grafton Police Dept. said “a vehicle struck Granny’s Family Restaurant about 10 a.m.”  Coffee time!

Seriously, ND needs to do something about its elderly drivers, such as more frequent testing of drivers over 75.  In mid-May, a 92-year-old Oberon woman driver crossed the center line near Devils Lake taking out two motorcycles.  Two persons gravely injured, one dead.  The elderly woman driver had no apparent injuries.

In 2009, 20 ND counties increased in population.  Most of the increases can be explained with two words, Indians and oil.  The predominately Indian counties increased their populations and most of the remainder of the growth counties fell within the outline of the Williston Basin.

Twin sisters Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux (Mo and Jo) of Grand Forks won silver medals as members of the U.S. women’s hockey team.  When the Air Force Thunderbirds gave a demonstration at the GFAFB, they selected two outstanding citizens for supersonic rides in F-16s.  Mo got the nod.  The twins are accustomed to riding high, but this was something new.  As Mo staggered away after her ride, she said it was like an intense workout.  Jo was on a goodwill trip for UND.

Please, not Beauford.  That was one of the top five names in Jamestown’s “Name That Buffalo” contest.  The other four: Sir James, Dakota Thunder, Dacotah Spirit and Benny.  The good people of Jamestown will vote to select a winner.

THIS AND THAT: You may not think of it this way, but ND is an incline which gradually slopes from 3,000 feet above sea level at Bowman in the southwest corner to 900 feet in Fargo.  Forum weatherman John Wheeler says when eastern winds push up the slope in the spring they cause a cooling which can create snow in western ND as late as May . . . There was something slightly plaintive and ironic about the following May 7th announcement in Minot:  “The Tourism Day scheduled for today in Minot has been postponed and rescheduled for May 24 because of weather conditions.”  Welcome tourists! . . . Preservation ND says the most endangered places this year are a historic Pembina church, metal truss bridges and country schools.  The state once had 4,700 country schools (almost 100 per county), simple, one-room white frame buildings.  Most are gone or abandoned.

DAKTOIDS: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce designated ND as the national leader in job growth during the last decade.  High crop prices and oil helped, but sound policies were said to be the main reason . . .  May polls: Gov. Hoeven leads Tracy Potter 72-23 in the U.S. Senate race; Rick Berg leads Earl Pomeroy 52-43 in the race for U.S. Rep . . . The American Academy of Family Physicians says the UND medical school is tops in the nation for producing family medicine doctors (20% of grads).