SCHMID: LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST - JUNE 30, 2014
WOULD YOU LIKE A NEW FIGHTING SIOUX JERSEY? Is yours becoming tattered? The UND Fighting Sioux nickname and logo is a valuable brand. Hard to estimate the financial worth, but it’s in the millions. UND’s deal with the NCAA requires UND to hang on to the trademark to keep anyone from selling Fighting Sioux merchandise. That requires using the brand periodically, otherwise, the brand is considered abandoned and falls into public domain. Blogger Rob Port indicates UND may be on the horns of a dilemma -- if they use the brand, the government may cancel the trademark pursuant to a recent federal court ruling about disparaging trademarks. If UND and NCAA properly argue the brand is not disparaging -- they have another problem. Port would love to see the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo fall into the hands of supporters making Fighting Sioux merchandise widely available.
SMALL BUT MIGHTY Employment in ND is steadily growing, but the number of employees in the state is still less than neighboring states. Northern Plains Statistics reports ND has 395,000 employees, SD 435,000, MT 492,000 and MN dwarfs the other three together with 2,844,000 employees. Small but mighty ND is credited with lifting the economies of both SD and MN. ND and SD have different employment profiles -- the five largest cities in ND have 78 percent of the state’s employees, while the five largest in SD have 59 percent.
BIG FISH ARE CIRCLING ND’s extraordinary growth attracts attention. Larger companies are interested in businesses in ND. Starwood Capital will acquire Fargo headquartered TMI Hospitality, a company with 188 hotels and 4,000 employees. The price is rumored to be about $1 billion.
TALE OF TWO SYTEMS ND’s University System gets steadily larger budgets. In Minnesota, it’s a different story. According to a news release from Northland Community Technical College in E. Grand Forks and Thief River Falls, state financial support of Minnesota’s institutions has decreased by almost 45 percent since 2000, while the system as a whole educates about 66,000 more students than it did that year. NCTC is making staff cuts to compensate for a $1 million budget shortfall.
THE CARRINGTON KLEINSASSERS The UND Alumni Review called Jim (1999) and Sheri (1997) Kleinsasser two of UND’s greatest student-athletes ever. Both were team captains and All-Americans (Jim - football; Sheri - basketball). Jim played 13 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings; Sherri is the co-owner of a magazine, On the Minds of Moms. The Carrington brother and sister, and their parents, have established the Kleinsasser Family Endowment to support UND’s football and women’s basketball programs. Their mother, KathE, said, “If they wanted to participate in something, we were behind them. But if they started something, they needed to finish it. And they did, of course.”
SPORTS HALL OF FAME Jim Kleinsasser was inducted into the ND Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. The first class in 1992 consisted of Phil Jackson, Roger Maris and Dave Osborn. This year’s crop has Glenn Hansen (NBA), Jim LeClair (NFL) and Mike Podolak (golf).
YOUR GOVERNMENT WANTS TO HELP The southwest corner of ND is home to a few sage grouse. The federal government is currently under a court order to determine whether to place the bird on the endangered species list. If that were to happen, farming and ranching in the Bowman-Slope county area could be changed in an alarming way with very little benefit to sage grouse. The Bismarck Tribune recommends an extension that permits the state to carry out plans to protect the sage grouse remaining in the state -- at last count, the state had 31 male sage grouse.
THE DEVIL MADE THEM DO IT The U.S Dept. of Agriculture is a monster. Its Rural Development arm in ND alone has funneled $178 million into 42 health projects in the last five years. Here’s one example of mission creep -- the agency loaned $39 million to McKenzie County for a hospital necessitated by patient load from the oil fields.
HOPE Last week, editorials in two ND newspapers were skeptical about President Obama’s visit to the Standing Rock Reservation and the inevitable federal programs that follow. Columnist Clay Jenkinson at the Bismarck Tribune took a more high-minded view of the visit: “But it clearly is more meaningful in that this president is an African-American, a man of great achievement and success who comes from a historically-oppressed minority, addressing representatives of another historically-oppressed minority.” Jenkinson reached even higher, “I like to think that one of those young people who met the president — in part because she met the president — will grow up to change the world.”
A LIGHT BULB GOES ON Minot Daily News editorials are frequently about national political subjects only lightly related to ND. It’s been puzzling. A reader noted MDN editorials are “cut and paste jobs that appear in all of their papers.” MDN is owned by Ogden Newspapers in Wheeling, W. Virginia.
ANOTHER WEEKEND IN THE OIL PATCH The Highway Patrol tallied weekend deaths: In McKenzie County (Watford City), a man from Florida rear-ended and killed a man from Montana; also in McKenzie County, a California man rolled his car killing his California passenger. In Stark County (Dickinson) a Montana man rolled his car killing his Montana passenger.
DAKTOIDS: The Badlands Bowl in Dickinson pits ND high school football players against a Montana team. The ND team squeaked out an overtime win this year, the sixth win in 21 contests . . . Kathleen Norris, author of the 1993 book “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography,” is on a literary tour of ND and SD entitled “Two States One Book” in observance of the 125th anniversary of statehood in both states . . . ND is one of the few states whose residents are becoming younger -- Williams County (Williston) had the largest decline in the nation last year -- 1.6 years. The state’s average age declined from 35.9 to 35.3 . . . The Hess Corporation has donated $5 million to UND’s Collaborative Energy Complex.
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