Dakota Beacon

No more “Three Amigos” or “Team North Dakota” --  Gov. John Hoeven becomes the first Republican senator from ND in 24 years and Rick Berg replaces U.S. Rep. Earl Pomeroy who held the job for 18 years.  Republicans also swept all state offices in ND.  Mark Jendrysik, a professor of political science at UND, sounded a note of caution, he said, “I think people here have grown used to having a disproportionate influence in Washington, and when they don’t it will be a big shock.”  A reader at the Bismarck Tribune seemed ready for the shock -- he insisted it’s time for congress to deal with $13 trillion of debt.  He said, “We can’t afford for them to bring home the bacon anymore.”  

Gov. Hoeven is expected to resign as governor in December opening the way for Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple to take office.  Dalrymple wasted no time in announcing that his own replacement would be former U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley.  While most known for successfully prosecutiing Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., the killer of UND student Dru Sjodin, Wrigley has prior experience in ND government and politics.

Nodaks lived up to their reputation as savers by giving lobsided approval to the Legacy Fund, a measure to bank 30 percent of the state’s oil and gas revenues.

After awarding ‘bravos” to polite Halloween children, the Jamestown Sun dug deep in its Buffalo chip bag and tossed the contents at Earl Pomeroy and Rick Berg, candidates for the U.S. House, for their annoying and negative advertising.

In 2002, attendees at the Great Plains Population Symposium at Dickinson State were treated to a talk by a colorful braggart who was then president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes.  It was Tex Hall in signature cowboy attire entertaining the audience with his vision for the Ft. Berthold Reservation, including a casino ship to ply the Missouri River.  Hall was great on vision, but short on management skills and steered the tribes into a financial hole.  He lost his chairmanship in 2006.  In the inexplicable world of Indian politics, Tex Hall is back, he defeated incumbent chairman Marcus Levings in Tuesday’s election.  Tex will have his fingers in the oil money coming to the tribes.

Larry Woiwode may be ND’s best known author.  He is a novelist, short story writer, ND Poet Laureate, Writer in Residence at Jamestown College, and has a rich history of escapades.  He does not seem to have a strong political identity, but randomly pops up as a letter writer on various subjects.  Near election day, he tackled a Jamestown Sun writer who called former governor Ed Schafer a liar and who added “what would you expect from the right?”  This was in connection with Schafer’s appearance at a Tea Party forum in Jamestown.  Woiwode suggested the writer’s excess was an example of media bias that was one reason people joined the tea party. 

The Big Sky Conference covers a hunk of mountainous real estate.  UND will be on the northeastern edge of a conference stretching west to the Pacific Coast and south to Northern Arizona.  The conference will consist of two schools each from Montana and Utah and one school from each of seven other states.  UND and Southern Utah recently joined Big Sky and will participate in its 2012-2013 schedule.  In addition to the 11 schools, California schools UC Davis and Cal Poly will be football-only members.  UND seemed overjoyed to join the Big Sky Conference -- it had been a prospective member of the Summit League, a Midwest conference which includes NDSU, USD and SDSU.

Bears fought Woodchucks in the 9-man football state quarterfinals and you know how that was likely to turn out.  The Wells County Bears from Fessenden-Bowdon High School are a good example of the ever consolidating world of ND high school football.  Bowdon is about 15 miles south of Fessenden and the combined high schools play a 9-man schedule.  It won’t last long, because they are down to less than 20 student athletes, so next year they will join Harvey’s 11-man team and represent Wells County’s entire 1,300 square miles.  Harvey is about 15 miles up Highway 52 from Fessenden.

A Minneapolis Star Tribune article by Bill Klein says a typical square mile in the Prairie Pothole Region of ND contains about 40 small wetlands.  The potholes are a legacy of glacial activity nearly 10,000 years ago and according to Klein are where most of the ducks in North America are hatched.  In an article about duck hunting in ND, Klein says “I couldn’t think of another place I’d rather be in the fall . . . ”  He also said, “The people of central North Dakota are also a draw.  They are, for the most part, so welcoming it’s almost embarrassing.”

In mid-October my wife and I crisscrossed ND -- temperatures in the 70s, sunny skies, golden fields, bright blue water -- in other words, nearly perfect.  Ten days later, the situation reversed with snow, wind and temperatures in the 20s.  Clay Jenkinson discusses this phenomenon in an October Tribune column.  ND weather can do a “180.”  It’s his contention that loving ND includes loving its volatile, sometimes violent weather.  He says the glossy calendars and state tourism brochures skip that picture, but it is as much part of the state as the serene photos taken on the few calm days of the year.

DAKTOIDS: The “Wheat King” title passes back and forth between ND and Kansas -- ND is the winner for the second year in a row, producing 375 million bushels, which would bring about $2 billion at today’s prices . . . Don’t try to tell Nodaks what’s good for them -- the state is having a surge of motorcycle deaths and two-thirds of our late friends were not wearing helmets.