Dakota Beacon

Devils Lake officials described everyday life in a flood zone.  The superintendent of schools blamed an enrollment drop on the rising lake and the resulting lack of economic growth.  He said some families are sending their children to other schools because of road conditions.  A public information officer added: “Be very careful as you drive anywhere in the Lake Region.”  As for cell phones, “Don’t do it! Just taking your eyes off the road for one second could mean someone’s life with all this extreme heavy traffic.”   They are referring not only to flooded roads, but hundreds of trucks being used to raise levees and roads.

Williston officials struggle with a different reality -- rampant growth.  The 2011 city budget is $48 million; the preliminary budget for next year is $65 million reflecting not only more employees, but a 10 percent across-the-board pay increase needed to retain employees.

The oil patch is a magnet for development.  Very few have heard of Columbus (130), a town located just seven miles south of Canada in Burke County.  The town is about to experience acute growing pains.  A New Orleans developer has begun site work on a project that could add 400 homes and 500 apartments in the next few years.  The developer said, “We are going to recreate Columbus with an old-town feel.”  Wouldn’t you guess the town already has that feel?

“What a chance-in-a-lifetime opportunity this is for Griggs County” -- Sheriff Bob Hook.  Federal money does arouse excitement -- a Homeland Security grant will contribute $1 million towards a $1.3 million addition to the courthouse in Cooperstown.  The sheriff is housed in temporary modular offices because of mold in the state’s oldest courthouse.

Federal money was on the mind of another ND city.  Jamestown receives $2 million a year from the Essential Air Service program; Devils Lake about the same.  In 2010, Jamestown had 4,300 boardings -- a $500 subsidy for each passenger.  The Jamestown Sun pleaded to retain the subsidy, even becoming plaintive, saying the city was already the victim of flooding and the aftermath of a recession. That nuance got lost along the way,

The Forum seems to have a case of “oil patch” insecurity.  Whenever there is a favorable report from the western part of the state, the Forum is inclined to say “what about Fargo? -- it’s the economic engine of the state.”  A recent example, the state Data Center reported a boom in the number of preschoolers in the oil patch.  The Forum’s response: If the oil boom fades, “most of the young families . . . will disappear like early season frost in the sunrise.”  The Forum said “a one-horse economy . . . will stall when the horse sickens or dies.”

They may be retiring the Fighting Sioux logo, but the wrangling is not diminishing.  Ross Nelson, a contributor to Forum commentary, calls the loss of the nickname a “disgrace.”  He said the NCAA whipped a ND delegation which arrived with no Plan B, “All the NCAA had to do was let the delegation turn blue in the face, and then simply say ‘no.’  Poof.”  A Sioux Indian told the Herald that politically correct people have diminished Indians, as in “out of sight, out of mind.”  Jane Ahlin, the Forum’s most liberal columnist, dismissed it all with “A logo is just a logo.”

It wasn’t just pundits and readers sounding off.  Rep. Al Carlson of Fargo, author of legislation mandating continued use of the Fighting Sioux nickname, claims UND and the Board of Higher Education jumped the gun by beginning to retire the nickname while the legislation is still in effect.  He stated his objections in a letter to UND President Robert Kelley and the president of the BOHE.  The letter elicited a most unusual response from a UND spokesman: “The state board directed the president to plan for the transition, not start the transition.  That nuance got lost along the way.”

Earlier, it was noted here that the average scores of ND students on the ACT have dropped below national averages.  Two newspapers reacted in very different ways.  The GF Herald said the average scores and trends “mean almost nothing” because of inconsistencies -- ND requires all students to take the test, while nationally only half the students take the test.  The Bismarck Tribune acknowledged the different participation rates, but saw it differently, saying “It’s time to do away with excuses.  We can do better.”  The Tribune went on to say ND needs to change the status quo.

Lake George is in the southeast corner of Kidder County near Streeter.  The lake looks like another shallow prairie pothole.  But surface looks are deceiving, Lake George at 150 feet is the deepest natural lake in ND.  So deep that temperatures near the bottom stay near freezing.  Research at the lake is being funded by a National Science Foundation grant -- scientists believe the undisturbed sediment at the bottom of the lake may provide clues to the region’s historical temperatures and precipitation.

It seems like ND has always been the #1 state in barley production.  Not this year -- it appears Idaho and Montana will go soaring by.  Reasons: ND’s increasingly wet weather is unfriendly to barley, which likes dry growing conditions.  Secondly, corn and soybeans have become more profitable crops.

He warned a judge that he planned one “evil act” a month -- Michael Damron (also known as Wade Arvidson) was true to his word.  In 1995, Damron left 20,000 people in Fargo without phone service when he cut phone lines to burglarize a car-stereo store.  The damage totaled $1 million.  Damron made the threat in 2005 when he was released from federal custody.  Less than two years later he was found with $100,000 in stolen goods and sent back to prison.  He’s been released again -- Fargo police believe Damron will live in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagan.  Will he resume his evil ways?

DAKTOIDS:  In the mid-1990s, Devils Lake was eight miles away from Minnewaukan.  Today, lake water laps at the town’s school, held back by an emergency embankment (federal money).  A new $7 million school building (yes, federal money) is being built on higher ground . . . ND has the lowest proportion of same-sex couples in the nation -- mostly women living in the state’s four largest cities . . . Call them the “flax family” -- the Stober family in Goodrich (100) operate Flax USA which has nutritional products in Costco and Sam’s Club.  The Stobers were selected as the ND Family-owned Business of the Year . . . What’s going on -- the Williston-Tioga area has twice as many traffic fatalities as the Fargo area, which has six times as many people?