Dakota Beacon

Tomorrow, ESPN’s three-hour College GameDay show will be hosted by NDSU in Fargo. NDSU’s athletic director modestly stated: “It’s huge, probably the biggest thing that ever happened to Fargo . . . in terms of athletics.” The show will be held in downtown Fargo -- part of Broadway is closed for three days in preparation for the show and thousands of Bison fans.

Expect the ESPN show to be very profound. One example, the infamous woodchipper from the Coen brothers' movie "Fargo" will be part of the enlightenment.

If only they were still the “Fighting Sioux.” The Montana Grizzlies flattened the UND football team 55-17 before nearly 10,000 Alerus Center fans. The Herald said “UND fans will take this one very hard and rightfully so. The team did little to inspire hope.” Similar words were written last year about other UND teams. Is something missing?

The U.S. News annual college ratings are out. The disappointing, but not surprising, news is ND schools did not rank highly. Among national universities, UND ranked 173 -- the good news is that’s slightly ahead of national universities in Montana and South Dakota. At 190, NDSU ranks beside USD. To salvage as much pride as possible, the rankings of smaller colleges and universities are broken into regions, and by type within a region. Second tier ND universities fall into the Midwest Region where Jamestown ranked 35, Valley City 43, Mayville 58 and Minot 105. Troubled Dickinson did not receive a ranking.

Spokespersons for the national universities in ND and SD downplayed the lists, but said they were excited to be on them.

The annual UND Writers Conference faces "funding challenges" and may be ending. The GF Herald suggests that the $70-100,000 yearly cost could be covered by an endowment. An endowment of approximately $2.5 million at a four percent spending rate would raise $100,000 a year.

“Tiny Bucyrus almost burned to the ground . . . last fall.” -- The Bismarck Trib described the near demise of the southwestern ND town. Today, a huge grain terminal has sprung up next to the ashes and loads 440,000 bushel unit trains headed for Vancouver, Wash., where the grain is exported to Asia. Japan’s Mitsui Co., owner of the new terminal and two others in Montana, expects to originate a dozen unit trains a year from Bucyrus.

“But for many Grand Forks-area businesses, the old adage of ‘location, location, location’ appears to be less important than workforce, education and housing.” -- The GF Herald explained why 110 GF companies are doing business in the Bakken. For the first time, the ND Petroleum Council is holding its annual meeting in GF and, for that matter, the first time in the eastern part of the state.

The ND Dept. of Transportation is spending $300 million widening Hwy 85 from Watford City to Williston -- the largest project in the department’s history. That does not include an additional $55 million for a Watford City bypass.

Is Minnesota trying to tax and regulate its way out of a slump? The SayAnythingBlog said “North Dakota, South Dakota and other states – already beneficiaries of Minnesota’s big government policies – stand with open arms ready to embrace new businesses and new workers looking for a better policy environment to prosper in.” The blog was referring to a proposal to raise the minimum wage in Minnesota to $9.50/hour. Minnesota also recently increased a variety of taxes.

Clara Stockland is ambitious. The Fargo entrepreneur started an outlet clothing store called MODE in 2008. Since then she has established franchises in ND and SD. More Dakota and Minnesota franchises are on the drawing boards. Eventually, Stockland hopes to have 75 stores with a Great Plains footprint stretching from Winnipeg to Texas.

Dakota Growers Pasta Company in Carrington started as a durum growers cooperative. ND Governor Jack Dalrymple was one of the founders. Later, the coop became a public company and, later still, it was acquired by Viterra, a Canadian agribusiness giant. Viterra is selling Dakota Growers for $370 million to Post Holdings -- you may recognize Post products on your breakfast table. This is one of the highest prices ever paid for a non-energy company in ND.

The GF Herald indicates that moving into an apartment in Williston can require as much as $6-7,000 for a security deposit and first and last month’s rent. Job seekers don’t have that kind of money. For more than two years the Concordia Lutheran Church has provided a temporary home for people seeking work. They estimate about 1,000 people have used the service. The program has ended -- the city Planning and Zoning staff closed them. Williston has no homeless facility.

It’s hard to find good employees in Williston . . . so some businesses take a chance. Allguard Security hired Elliot Campbell although they know he had been fired from the police department in Tempe, Ariz., for stealing evidence. Campbell told Allguard his stealing days were behind him -- owner Andy Anderson said “We believed him.” Campbell was arrested for stealing more than $14,000 from Allguard. Anderson said it’s not over, as they dig, they find more and more of what Campbell stole.

Wish we could get rid of the word “homelessness” -- it misstates the cause of an important problem. Despite ND’s prosperity and low unemployment rate, the population of street people in F-M has tripled since 2000. The real causes of chronic homelessness are chronic health problems, serious mental health issues and substance abuse -- only 17 percent of the homeless population in Fargo does not have one or more of those major issues. In Moorhead, 77 percent of the homeless are American Indians or people of color.

DAKTOIDS: ND has a growing web of pipelines 17,500 miles long -- that’s 70 percent of the distance around the earth . . . It’s creeping up -- in July, ND’s daily oil production reached 874,000 barrels . . . Williston has 17 crew camps within the city limits. The city has decided that’s more than enough and will accept no further applications . . . Airline boardings in ND reached an August record of nearly 100,000 . . . About 30 miles south of the ND border in Aberdeen, you find the only surviving quintuplets in the nation. The Fischers, four Marys and a James, just celebrated their 50th birthday.