Dakota Beacon

You’ve seen it many times on TV -- a sports team wins a championship and, immediately, bags of championship caps are ready for the celebration.  The GF Herald posed a “what if” -- suppose the UND men’s hockey team wins another national championship.  A championship cap bearing the Fighting Sioux name and logo would be prohibited under current UND transition rules.  University officials are looking for a politically correct way to circumvent the rule.  Separately, attorneys have advised UND that it must use or lose the Fighting Sioux trademark -- nonuse would be considered abandonment.

State Rep. Eliot Glassheim of Grand Forks was upset -- the House cut the governor’s higher education budget and added insult to injury by voting to retain the UND Fighting Sioux nickname.  Glassheim lashed out, “I’m getting less and less interested in pouring a billion dollars into the west” -- a veiled threat to oppose infrastructure improvements in the Oil Patch.  The Minot Daily News had a rebuke, it said it understood the role of political deal-making, “But we’re surprised at the public and inappropriate method by which Glassheim chose to make his statement.”  The Jamestown Sun had no such concerns -- they unhesitatingly gave Buffalo Chips to the House for its Fighting Sioux vote.

The ND Legislature reached the middle of its session and took a recess.  The Sunday editorial writers did not.  Tribune Editor John Irby continued to be frustrated by the Legislature: “What happened last week looked like business as usual -- contentiousness, misleading and partisan politics based on power and control and fulfillment of personal agendas.”  The vote on the Fight Sioux name was very much on his mind.  Herald Editor Mike Jacobs was more sanguine: He saw the Fighting Sioux vote as part of a historical turf battle between the Legislature and the Board of Higher Education.  He said the Legislature “just can’t understand why an appointed board didn’t heed what is clearly a majority opinion in the state, that the name be saved.”

Is this progress?  Minnesota’s Bemidji State University, facing a loss of $5 million of state support, dropped German and French programs and and replaced them with an Ojibwe minor.  Richard Hanson, previously the acting president at NDSU, is Bemidji State’s new president.

United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck had a $10,000 study made to determine the school’s direct economic  impact.  They didn’t need to waste the money.  The study indicated UTTC contributed $32 million to the local economy, as you would expect, an amount about the same as UTTC’s annual budget of $30 million.  A related Tribune article stated that all but two percent of UTTC’s revenues comes from the federal government.  UTTC’s main mission is job training.  Each of ND’s four Indian reservations also has a community college.

UTTC offers technical education in fields such as automotive technology and health services.  Some instructors have advanced degrees, but many have bachelor and associate degrees from area colleges.  Several instructors have degrees from Capella University, an online college.  One instructor has a Doctor of Ministry from the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, California.  The university’s website indicates the Doctor of Ministry involves “training in mystical practice and prophetic empowerment”  -- “Training that is sorely lacking in most professional schools.”  Yes, we can see that.

Tribune columnist Clay Jenkinson returned to a subject that has long troubled him -- the historical treatment of U.S. Indians.  While Indian culture may be making a slow recovery, Jenkinson believes that “just below the surface is a vast reservation [sic] of sorrow, pain, rage, grief, anger, and loss.”  His solution: a Truth and Reconciliation Commission something like the one used in South Africa.  Jenkinson doesn’t see this happening anytime soon.

Grand Forks is a regional shopping hub, not just for northeast ND customers, but those from Manitoba and northwest Minnesota as well.  Nearly half of the $1.4 billion spent annually in the GF area comes from customers outside the area.  Buxton, a Texas consulting firm, recently delivered an analysis of the city’s retail trade and preferences of area consumers.  As a university town, the city is schizo, split between older conservatives and younger college grads or students.  The study also targeted retail leakage, that is, sales going out of the area.  There was big leakage in clothing -- one out of four sales dollars leaves the area.  Women’s clothing was particularly leaky -- nearly one out of every two dollars left.

A Wall Street Journal article pictures a Fargo man dodging snow drifts as he walks home from work.  The article does not disparage, it’s about ND’s low unemployment rate and the difficulty of filling professional and technical positions in the state.  There’s the usual stuff about bad winters and the “Fargo” image, but the article also suggests job applicants should give the state a second look.  A chart indicates a $50,000 job in Fargo (with cost of living adjustments) is equal to a $62,000 job in Chicago, a $80,000 job in L.A., and $93,000 job in New York City.

The average ND annual wage in 2009 was $45,200, that was better than neighbors Montana and South Dakota, but was still 20 percent below the national average of $57,000.  However, wages in ND are growing more rapidly than the national average. 

At its peak, Cirrus Industries of Duluth was one of Grand Forks’ largest private employers with over 300 employees, today, there are about 75.  The company lost business during the recession and has financial difficulty.  Cirrus manufactures small high performance aircraft.  The company has been purchased by an arm of a Chinese government-owned conglomerate that includes makers of military and commercial aircraft.  There are the usual assurances that employment will be maintained and Cirrus will have financial stability.  

Old bombers and new tankers.  The B-52s at Minot AFB are 50 years old -- their longevity is a tribute to ND’s congressional delegation.  Boeing has a 10-year $750 million contract to maintain the ancient birds.  After much political brinksmanship, Boeing has also obtained a $35 billion contract to build a new generation of 200 aerial tankers.  The GF Herald is urging the ND congressional delegation to get on the ball and bring some of those tankers to GF when they begin to roll off the production line in 2014.  GFAFB was a tanker base until last year.

Hess Corp. is an oil production company -- the 79th largest company in the Fortune 500.  Hess announced that in 2011 it will invest $1.8 billion in ND projects -- one-third of its corporate budget.

Jamestown is narrowing its strategic planning objectives.  Three front-runners: a fire station, an overpass, and developing self-esteem.  A resident said, “We have so much here.  We need to sell Jamestown -- to our own people first.”  Thought this could only happen in California.