Dakota Beacon

GF Herald Economist Ralph Kingsbury is horrified by flooding in the Devils Lake Basin.  Not just the lake itself, but a large part of northeastern ND.  Kingsbury said, “I know some of the people whose farms are there.  What is happening to them is terrible, and people who are trying to stop some of the few legitimate and scientific solutions (to lower the lake) that the governor and others have proposed should be ashamed of themselves.”  Forum Opinion Page Editor Jack Zaleski also jumped aboard: “It’s a waste of millions of dollars to raise dikes when the cheaper and smarter way to protect from the rising lake is to lower the water.”

Forum writer Patrick Springer discusses rising concern about Devils Lake.  Cities downriver on the Sheyenne are starting to wake up to the problem.  An uncontrolled release of water through the Tolna Coulee would flood from one-third to half of Valley City’s south side.  “We’d be in a world of hurt,” said Valley City Mayor Bob Werkhoven.  “There wouldn’t be much left of the business section of the city.”

We have more evidence that Nodaks of Norwegian ancestry can’t stop talking about politics.  Gayle Graveline (74) was born to a Norwegian family in Walhalla and married Larry Darling when she was 18.  In 1960, the couple moved to Santa Rosa, California, where they eventually opened a restaurant, which became known for colorful banter and Gayle’s apple pie and potato salad.  Her obituary said Gayle constantly engaged customers in conversations about politics, anything that “created controversy” --  I was a witness.  Once, when I told Gayle I planned to visit Grand Forks, she asked me to bring back a menu from Whitey’s in E. Grand Forks, one of her favorites.  I did and she hung it on the wall.  Her restaurant had an informal country-kitchen manner, but also had its standards -- I once saw the crusty Gayle evict an entire family.

The Minot Daily News reports some landowners on the Ft. Berthold Reservation are not receiving their oil royalties -- delays can be months or even years.  Numerous federal agencies participate in executing the payments -- the agencies are stymied by properties with multiple owners (pooled properties).  The bureaucracy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs seems to be the biggest problem.

A federal civil rights policy called “disparate impact” may itself be discriminatory according to the Minot Daily News.  MDN is not alone in criticizing this law which says if a practice disproportionately affects a racial group it may be deemed racial discrimination.  The example given by the MDN involves employers who screen prospective hires by checking criminal backgrounds.  The EEOC says it may not be acceptable to reject blacks simply because they have arrest records.  To do so would create “disparate impact.”  MDN says “telling employers they cannot in good faith attempt to hire the best workers possible is wrong, too. In effect the policy discriminates against prudent employers.”

Delvin Cree, a member of the Turtle Mt. Band of Chippewas, alleges tribal leaders are corrupt and incompetent and says tribal communities need ethical leaders.  That’s too much for another tribal member, Logan Davis, who says Cree casts tribal members in “a harsh and tawdry light.”  Davis accused Cree of contributing to Indian stereotypes and said he needs to “present his views with more sensitivity.”

The GF Park District operates a fitness club called Center Court which thrived before UND opened its Wellness Center.  Then monthly visits dived from 30,000 to 18,000.  Center Court is plotting a comeback with a $22 million replacement facility.  Proponents believe the new facility will succeed because they looked at Fargo, Bismarck and Minot where about 25% of  residents have Y memberships.

Get your Sarah Palin gear!  The ND Republican party is is using eBay to sell a Fighting Sioux hockey jersey autographed by Sarah Palin.  Bidding became irrational -- in late August, 68 bids had been received -- the last about $5,000.

A speaker's fee for Bristol Palin is $15-30,000.  Bristol who?  She is the 19-year-old whose fame springs from being both the daughter of Sarah Palin and an unwed mother.  She will be speaking in W. Fargo in early October at a fundraiser for a home for unwed mothers.  In case you are interested, there is a little flexibility in her fee.

It’s a delightful image -- hitchhiking hummingbirds lounging in the soft down of migrating wild geese.  GF Herald Editor Mike Jacobs punctured the myth in one of his bird columns -- he says hummingbirds “do it by themselves.”

Forum Editor Matt Von Pinnon thought it was no big deal when he asked readers for feedback on the Forum’s policy of publishing bankruptcy flings.  The result was unexpected, the Forum received over 100 letters, many phone calls and over 700 online votes.  Reactions went both ways, although online voters favored continuing the policy by a 5-4 margin.  Von Pinnon will huddle with Publisher Bill Marcil.

Here’s a quote from a Forum editorial blasting legislators who challenged costs in the ND University System: “One legislator, Rep. Mark Dosch, R-Bismarck, wanted to see a cost-benefit analysis for a science building upgrade at Valley City State University, as if science education or research can be measured like a road or drainage ditch.”  Costs in higher education can and should be subject to cost-benefit analysis -- not the only consideration, but an important one.  Maybe the Forum favors the major alternative -- which all too often drives investment decisions in the NDUS --  political analysis.

Joel Kotkin is a respected social demographer from Los Angeles who has had a long-term interest in ND.  Nevertheless, he may have been tripped up by bad assumptions about the state.  Kotkin flew into Minot to address the Governor’s Rural Community Summit.  He suggested ND was missing the boat by not attracting foreign students to its universities.  In fact, the state has a large number of foreign college students.  Dickinson State has hundreds of Chinese students and NDSU just reported a 12 percent increase in an already substantial international enrollment.  ND University System representatives shook their heads. 

The ND Youth Council was formed to gather ideas for making the state more attractive to young people -- the council’s report is out.  One council member said it well: “The problem of youth retention in the state is complex” and “council members didn’t find a magic bullet.”  Most recommendations in the report range from the mundane (expand student loan disclosure) to the dubious and expensive (“fun buses” in small towns to take youth to metro areas).

DAKTOIDS:  Nodaks are lucky to have some of the lowest electric power rates in the nation.  But that may cause them to be wasteful -- the Council on an Energy Efficient Economy ranked ND 49th out of 51 . . . Enrollment in Stanley schools has increased about 20 percent because of the oil boom.  New teachers can neither find nor afford housing -- rent can be 75 percent of take-home pay.  The school district is constructing duplexes . . . Allegiant Airlines serves ND’s four largest cities with destinations such as Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Lloyd Omdahl went outside ND in his weekly column to examine a federal judge's decision to reverse a California law banning same sex marriage.  Judge Vaughn Walker has been criticized for being an activist judge who overturned a decision of California voters -- Omdahl would have none of those arguments.  But, as he is apt to do, near the end of his column, Omdahl pivoted and declared “that Walker came to the wrong conclusion.”  Omdahl said Walker “will be reversed in the appellate process” because of “a number of unfounded suppositions and conclusions” and a failure to see a compelling state purpose for protecting traditional marriage.

Tribune columnist Clay Jenkinson has a liberal bent, but on a long drive to Kansas he listened almost exclusively to conservative talk radio.  He got an earful about Obama, Justice Elena Kagan and Judge Vaughn Walker (above).  Jenkinson does not share most of those talk show views, but believes they were spoken “from deep conviction.”  His conclusion: “We’re in for a wild ride come November.”

This year’s inductees into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame are a varied lot: The late John Odegard founded the UND School of Aerospace, actress Tippi Hedren is known for her role in the Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” Lute Olson achieved records as basketball coach at the U. of Arizona, and the aforementioned Lloyd Omdahl is a ND newspaper columnist and former lieutenant governor.  Hedren is a Minnesota native; the other three grew up in ND.  Induction will take place in September at the Minot Norsk Hostfest.

“Jamestown and Valley City are connected and it’s important our communities grow together.”  The Jamestown Sun made this comment as it gave the local Chamber of Commerce a “bravo” for including Valley City in its leadership classes.  The “growing together” thing may be a little puzzling to residents of both cities.  They are over 30 miles apart and both lost population in the last decade.

Jamestown’s population is about 15,000. The number of Somali families applying for housing there is now 550 -- 20 Somali families live in housing provided by the Stutsman County Housing Authority, more are living in Jamestown without SCHA assistance.  Dave Klein, the executive director of SCHA, attributes the long list of applicants to a shorter waiting period in Jamestown than elsewhere.  Most Somali refugees have limited English and Jamestown public schools have instituted English Language Learning programs.

US Sen. Byron Dorgan will be stepping down after more than 40 years of public service.  He is the state’s most liberal congressman and a product of its populist history.  Friend and foe alike acknowledge his substantial influence -- the federal money he has helped siphon into the state runs into the billions.  In Grand Forks alone, Dorgan will be remembered for flood protection, efforts to keep GFAFB open, and fathering the Red River Valley Research Corridor.  GF City Council President Hal Gershman said, “I can think of no one in the history of North Dakota who has done more to improve our state in ways that will last generations.”   Republicans are in the forefront in ND these days, but Dorgan’s legacy is a substantial challenge.  How can the state both deplore federal spending and continue to love huge federal benefits?

Fargo area officials signaled they will support lowering Devils Lake by releasing water into the Sheyenne River.  However, their support comes with a price.  Fargo and West Fargo obtain drinking water from the Sheyenne and they want federal assistance for water treatment.  Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said: “Devils Lake is a real significant problem and we sit here and argue about sulfates.  But the reality is that the city of Fargo would like some assistance.”

ND continues to take heart from its students scores on national tests.  Supt. of Public Instruction Wayne Sanstead said, “We’re still above the national (average), which is always a good sign, but we’re not making any real movement upward, and the flatline bothers us.”  Sanstead was referring to the ACT test taken by graduating high school seniors.  The state had an average score of 21.5 making it #30 in the nation.  All states bordering ND have higher scores.

White students in ND (89%) score well below the national average for whites -- that should bother Mr. Sanstead most.  Many states that do poorly on an overall basis, such as New Mexico (#42) and South Carolina (#44), have scores for white students that handily beat ND.  Both NM and SC have a large percentage of either black or Hispanic students, groups which do poorly on the test in almost every state.

The Organic Seed Alliance is one of a number of environmental organizations which oppose the growing of GMO sugar beet seeds in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the sole US source of such seed.  A San Francisco federal judge has revoked the government’s approval of the seeds.  If the revocation were to stick, it could upend the US sugar beet industry for two to three years.  GMO sugar beets provide about one-half of US sugar supply.  The judge expressed little sympathy for any disruption his decision may cause.

Today’s flush of prosperity, makes it easy to forget the desperate realities of ND in the 1930s Depression.  Helen Kay Dockter Just was born in Lawrence Welk country in 1919.  As a teenager she felt fortunate to learn to sew in a program funded by the National Recovery Act.  Her world steadily improved and led to a long and productive life in Berlin, ND.  She died at 90 -- her obituary read, “Helen lived a life of humility and kindness.  She never knew an enemy and modeled grace and understanding to all.”

By mid-August, the Red River Valley reached a record number of severe weather events: 158 severe thunderstorm warnings -- 115 tornado warnings.  In all of 2009, the respective numbers were 52 and 53.  We need to blame something, let’s make it El Nino.  

DAKTOIDS: Indian tribe chairmanships are highly coveted -- they bring influence and perks.  There are 16 candidates for chair of the Three Affiliated Tribes at Ft. Berthold . . . A Tribune editorial noted the great and growing talk about Bakken crude oil in ND, but reminded readers that in 2008 ag was still 36 percent of the state’s economy (before federal payments) with another 10 percent coming from the manufacture of farm equipment . . . A man who moved from Michigan for  work summed up Williston like this: “Great jobs, bad housing.”

Tracy Potter has a novel idea for saving Social Security.  The Democratic candidate for ND’s US Senate seat would require employers and employees to pay a 6.2% social security tax on unlimited earnings, rather than the present $107,000 cutoff.  However, those paying the additional tax would receive no increase in benefits.  His opponent, Gov. John Hoeven, said Congress has rejected that plan before because it won’t work.  Potter also opposes raising the retirement age.

A Bismarck Tribune editorial said the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to stand.  Increasing taxes by allowing the cuts to lapse and raising taxes for those who make more than $250,000 would stifle the economy, because “wealthy citizens make investments in the nation's businesses and industry.”  The Tribune said, “Rather than reduce the deficit, eliminating the cuts would in all likelihood slow the economy enough to require additional deficit spending as a counter.”  The top one percent of income taxpayers already pay as much as the bottom 95 percent, but since the rich have so few votes, it is a politically tempting calculation to further increase their taxes.

Tribune editorials are thoughtful and unambivalent -- close to mainstream thinking in ND.  A recent editorial took on a touchy subject -- the constitutional right of every child born in this country to become a citizen.  The Tribune believes eliminating birthright citizenship should be considered.  Editor John Irby handicapped two initiatives which may be on the fall ballot.  He approved of establishing a state Legacy Fund (to save oil and gas revenues) and repealing restrictive and unfair pharmacy ownership laws.

Tribal schools are the poorest academic performers in ND and have costs per student generally exceeding state averages.  Officials from the ND tribes testified they need more, guess what . . . money and greater control of classrooms.  They told a US House committee the schools must provide more instruction in Indian languages and culture to build self-esteem necessary to succeed in other courses.

GF Herald Editor Mike Jacobs wrote at length about the well-known benefits and challenges of the ND oil boom.  Then he got to what he really wanted to say -- that the state’s political campaigns give little attention to “a larger vision for the state’s future.”  He ended, “How about it, candidates?  Let’s hear your ideas.”

In a later editorial, Jacobs shifted to the subject of water.  He identified three issues on which compromise and concession will be necessary: The Fargo flood diversion, the drainage of Devils Lake, and the increasing amount of water required for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the oil industry.  He could have added Fargo’s proposed diversion of water from the Missouri River.

Grand Forks hired a consultant to get to the bottom of retail sales “leakage.”  Herald economist Ralph Kingsbury says there is concern GF is becoming a secondary market, meaning shoppers from the GF area and Canada are doing their ordinary shopping there, but doing their more expensive discretionary shopping in Fargo and even the Twin Cities.

First the good news.  UND made the Princeton Review’s list of the “The Best 373 Colleges” in North America, and UND is off the list of top liquor-swilling party schools.  Here comes the “but,” UND is now rated the #1 school for students who study the least and #19 for having the least accessible professors.  Well, if you are not studying anyway, who needs professors?

Women’s hockey got off to a slow start at UND, but the future may be brightening.  The Olympic Lamoureux twins will be joined next fall by two Olympic players from Sweden and one from Finland.  Other top-rated Scandinavian players are also joining the team.

“It’s kind of a natural thing,” Larimore wheat farmer Paul Hofer was talking about dust.  ND farmers are on full alert because of the possibility the EPA may attempt to regulate ag dust.  ND’s congressional delegation says “significant dust” is generated by basic activities required to produce food.  Sen. Dorgan said any changes need to have “a deep reservoir of common sense” and we want to be sure new requirements “are not going to be inhibiting activities in the farm states.”

Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Medora needs to thin its elk herd.  The park called for volunteers to do the shooting --  it got them, 13,000 and counting from 38 states.  Now that’s a problem, because they only need to kill 275 elk -- a computer will winnow the number of volunteers down to 260, about one hunter for each elk.

Nodaks are enjoying good earnings, but 2009 earnings dropped a bit from a record 2008.  Bismarck was the only metro area in the Dakotas or Minnesota to have a rise in earnings in 2009. Per capita earnings fell three percent in Fargo-Moorhead, but still slightly surpassed the national average.

Sturgis, SD, spends a year clearing up court cases related to its annual Motorcycle Rally --- then it’s time to start all over again.  The rally can draw up to 750,000, close to SD’s entire population of 800,000, and is the state’s biggest event.  The 2010 rally held in early August had ten related deaths -- the death of a Mandan man may bring the count to 11.  Sturgis is in the Black Hills about 125 miles south of Bowman, ND.  The rally has little direct impact on ND, although many riders pass through the the state enroute to the rally.

DAKTOIDS:  Three sisters, each over 90, clumped their walkers down the hallway of a Fargo senior center on their way to watch a Minnesota Twins game on TV.  Many ND women are living into their 90s -- men, a few years less . . . A bevy of tornadoes hit farms in the Wahpeton area on a recent Saturday evening.  The Al Kosel family is missing a barn and a pickup -- the pickup should come down someplace . . .  Marion Morrison -- John Wayne to you -- got his toughness during summers on his uncle’s ranch in Towner.  Minot Daily News writer Kim Fundingsland believes it is likely, although evidence is hard to find . . . The dean of the UND School of Medicine estimates the state will be short 160 physicians (mostly primary care) by 2025.

Tribune writer Lauren Donovan observes, “some struggle to ‘get their heads around’ the idea of North Dakota as a major economic player.”  In a lengthy Sunday article, Donovan described how state departments such as Workforce Development, Commerce and Transportation are scrambling to define needs in the 17-county oil patch for themselves and the 2011 Legislature.  Overall, they expect to have “the most comprehensive survey ever taken of infrastructure needs and social impact from oil development.”  One key objective: separate short-term needs driven by oil development from long-term needs after the drilling is largely complete.  Officials say their assessment is difficult because of the fast moving nature of the oil industry in ND.

One of the trickiest aspects of the survey is determining how to help workers who do not have the high wages of oil field workers.  Some are underemployed and working in lower wage jobs in the retail and service industries.  They often can’t afford training needed to obtain one of the thousands of jobs opening each year in the ND oil industry, but are confronted by high rents and a shortage of housing.  Job training programs are expected to be one outcome of the survey.  Recommendations for affordable housing is another.

Columnist Clay Jenkinson shares his travel experiences with Tribune readers.  Recently, he returned from Cairo marveling at a city with 70,000 people per square mile.  He noted that with such density ND’s population could fit into a single township “with oodles of room to spare.”  Yes, many oodles, a ND township is six miles square and at Cairo’s density would accommodate about 2,500,000 people, roughly the population of a mid-sized state like Nevada.

Do small town people seem to dress better than they used to?  An online shopping service reports that Nodaks are far and away the No. 1 online shoppers in the nation.  Why do they spend so much time with their noses pressed against the window waiting for the UPS truck?  The remoteness, cold, limited local choices?  They all make sense, but there must be something else.  All surrounding states share some of those features, but compared to ND they barely participate in online shopping.  South Dakota is ranked No. 49.

She is a prostitute who blackmailed a Valley City pastor right out of his job, but Bunny Byington is not remorseful.  She merely sees her experience as one of life’s small slips. “I am not a stupid fool.  I just made a stupid, foolish choice.”  Bunny’s current ambition is to get out of jail and write an inspirational book for women about multiple chances to turn their lives around.  Go Bunny!

Fargo Forum editorial policy is puzzling.  Why does an otherwise solid newspaper have such overheated editorials?  It appears to go something like this: Opinions delivered in a moderate voice and recognizing both sides of an argument are easy to ignore.  To make an editorial point, it pays to exaggerate, raise the volume and use rousing adjectives.  The Forum’s August 1 editorials (relatively mild) included the following.  An unsigned editorial headed “ND kids apparently don’t count” was about the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s No. 12 (top 25 percent) ranking of the state on the well-being of children.  ND had previously ranked No. 7.  The editorial concluded the ranking “suggests an embarrassing and shameful poverty of spirit” in the state.

A second editorial by Editorial Page Editor Jack Zaleski lambasted downstream opponents of the F-M flood diversion.  He labeled their arguments “stupid” and full of “hyperbolic exaggeration.”  His parting shot: “They should say they just don’t want the damn thing, and to hell with the 175,000 people in the Fargo-Moorhead metro. After all, that’s what they really mean.”  See, I may be merely making the Forum’s point -- that their editorials draw attention.

The Forum ran out of prairie roses.  Each week the Forum awards prairie roses to good people, leafy spurge to miscreants.  On August 2, tolerance exhausted, the Forum had nothing left but leafy spurge -- their most sour mood in recent years.

ND has a long list of higher education institutions.  First, the public university system with six 4-year schools and five community colleges.  Additionally, there are five tribal colleges.  That’s 16 taxpayer supported colleges in ND, making the state one of the most over-colleged in the nation on a per capita basis.  South Dakota has a smaller number of public colleges than ND.  Wyoming’s mix, while not ideal, probably makes the most sense -- it has one public university, seven community colleges and one tribal college.

The Standing Rock Sioux are quite proud of their new $40 million (per campus website) replacement for Sitting Bull College at Ft. Yates.  They graduate about 50 students with associate degrees -- that’s an $800,000 facility investment to support each graduate.  It’s a one hour trip to Bismarck where there is a private 4-year university, a public community college and another tribal community college (UTTC).  It’s difficult to say which of the 16 publicly supported colleges is most redundant, but it is not difficult to see that the total number and type of colleges exceed the state’s reasonable needs.

Be watchful driving out on the prairie -- strange things may happen.  A Max woman was cruising blithely along US Highway 83 when a lightning strike deployed the air bags in her car causing a big surprise and minor injuries.

Classify this under “I don’t understand:” Mandan’s Leadership, Pride and Image Committee urged the city commission to spend $45,000 on a “Made in Mandan” theme.  Proponents say it will “improve pride” and complement the city’s other theme, “Where the West Begins.”  The commission is skeptical, unlike the mayor, who said, “We have an image problem and we have to address that.”

Try this rat snake on for size!  An apparently dissatisfied customer tossed a 2-1/2 foot rat snake through the drive-in window of Taco Johns in Williston.

The Thunder Mt. Rockfest at the Rock Dakota Ranch in Sawyer (July 7-10) had disappointing attendance.  Bands such as Rock Sugar, Survivors, and Blood, Sweat and Tears were stiffed. Brian Hill of Rock Sugar said, “The festival didn’t go as good as they (the promoters) wanted, they panicked and are turtling . . . or, they’re just evil and they’ve taken the money and split.”

Sykeston native Esther Kundert of W. Fargo worked for the government for 25 years, mostly with the IRS, before throwing it over and becoming a barista at Red River Coffee.  Esther died in August at age 74.

In May, 92-year-old Faith Mitzel drove in the opposite lane near Devils Lake killing one motorcyclist and seriously injuring two others.  After a $20 fine, she’s back.  The day before her 93rd birthday, she was stopped for a traffic violation in Devils Lake --  no driver’s license, no insurance and no current license on the car.  Faith still thinks she’s done nothing wrong and should be able to drive.  Happy Birthday!

DAKTOIDS:  Easy to see why budget officials in Minot are grinning -- the assessed value of homes rose about 10% again this year . . . Another Minot score -- the State Fair and its new grandstand had over 300,000 visitors -- a new record.

Political contributions tend to be reported close to election time -- that leaves less time for opponents to analyze or react.  Nevertheless, donation patterns are emerging in ND races.  Incumbent US Rep. Earl Pomeroy is in a close race with State Rep. Rick Berg.  Through June 30, Pomeroy had raised $1.6 million out of state donations and $500,000 in state.  Berg had only $141,000 out of state, but matched Pomeroy within the state.  Gov. John Hoeven maintains a strong lead (69% to 22%) over State Sen. Tracy Potter in the US Senate race.  Hoeven has raised $750,000 out of state and $450,000 within.  Potter had raised only $60,000 from all sources.  This indicates out of state donors think the Senate race is already settled and neither party is making the race a priority.

The national Democratic party plans to spend $28 million buying TV time for representatives facing tough re-elections.  Pomeroy is one of 40 congress members selected for special help.

When the ND town of Heimdal was founded in 1910, there were high hopes, hence the Norse meaning of its name: “Watchman of Asgard, the city of the gods.”  Heimdal’s founding coincided with the building of the Great Northern Railroad.  The Wells County town did well and eventually had three elevators, a bank, a hotel and full range of retail services.  Today, as Heimdal celebrates its 100th birthday, the town has 28 residents, a part-time church, and a co-op elevator branch.  Is this Heimdal’s last hurrah -- another victim of the “too much” era?

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. needs no introduction in the Red River Valley.  He was sentenced to death for the 2003 kidnapping and killing of UND student Dru Sjodin.  Appeals of his sentence have been underway for years with accumulated costs probably in the millions.  At present, two attorneys continue to work on the original appeal.  Four more attorneys have been appointed to work on a “habeas corpus” appeal.  At the earliest, the appeals end in 2012.  The case illustrates the near futility of death sentences -- it’s the taxpayers who are sentenced.

What does it take to be a notable Nodak?  Apparently a month’s work, $400 and a late model car.  Curt Eriksmoen’s historical anecdotes appear in several ND papers -- he recently wrote a column titled “Quotes from Notable North Dakotans.”  You would recognize many: Angie Dickinson, Maxwell Anderson, Warren Christopher and Satchel Paige.  Wait a moment, Satchel Paige? That’s news!  It seems Paige played briefly in 1933 for a semi-pro baseball team called the “Bismarcks” thereby becoming, by Eriksmoen’s definition, a notable Nodak.

Are Minot police too nonchalant?  In separate incidents during the ND State Fair Parade, two overly enthusiastic little children toppled off floats and were hospitalized after being run over by the float trailers.  The police response: “There have been similar accidents in past years.”  Yawn.

“When life hands you lemons” was the title of a Devils Lake Journal article about Minnewaukan, a town which is being flooded so severely its future is uncertain.  The town normally recognizes summer’s midpoint with a SummerFest celebration and parade, but this year it will be called Floodfest and will feature a parade of boats.

The current norm for daily newspapers is to reduce staff and ask survivors to do double duty.  So it’s noteworthy that western ND newspapers are hiring.  The Dickinson Press has hired Lisa Miller, a recent U. of Mary (Bismarck) graduate, as a staff writer.  She shouldn’t have trouble accepting unusual hours -- Miller grew up on a dairy farm near Flasher where wakeup time was 4 a.m.

A NDSU study highlights the dilemma faced by a nation which unilaterally attempts to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The study indicates that if carbon emissions are taxed as projected the domestic beet sugar industry would be badly damaged or demolished, but worldwide GHG would decline only slightly because sugar would be imported from Mexico and other foreign countries without GHG regulation.  A tax on imported sugar would shift the cost to consumers.  The report concludes efforts to reduce GHG “must be global.”

Coal and oil producing counties lead the list of ND counties with the highest average annual wages.  Oliver County (coal) is Number 1 with a $60,000 average annual wage, Mercer (coal) is Number 2 followed by oil counties Slope and Williams.  The state average last year was $36,000.

The main detention center for women in ND is in New England, officially the Dakota Women’s Correctional Rehabilitation Center.  New England is in the southwest part of ND just 50 miles from South Dakota.  How did the center get there?  A few years ago in slower economic times, New England needed the jobs and a former Catholic girls school was available, so the town of 500 was thrown a political bone by the Legislature.  It didn’t seem to matter that most inmates came from the eastern part of the state.  The Dickinson Press reports a rumor is circulating that the center is closing -- officials say ignore that rumor.

The “Big Guy” is doing his job -- the World’s Largest Buffalo, now named Dakota Thunder, has Jamestown tourism figures “way up.”  By the end of July, Buffalo City Tourism said visitor counts increased 19 percent from 2009.  A tourism executive said we must not forget the live buffalo, especially the three white ones, who are also part of the draw.   

What could be more appropriate?  Twins Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux will throw out the first pitch at a Minnesota Twins game against the Seattle Mariners.  Jo and Mo are Grand Forks natives, Oympic silver medal winners and members of the UND Women’s Hockey Team.  It will be UND night at the the July 30th Twins game.  The GF Herald reports more than 12,500 UND alums in the Twin Cities area.

As the two-term chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, Tex Hall ran the tribes into a financial hole before he was defeated in 2006.  Subsequently, the TAT has recovered its fiscal balance.  But now Hall is back saying “he’s running to restore financial integrity to the office.”

DAKTOIDS:  This could be getting monotonous -- ND May oil production was a record 9.2 million barrels, up from 8.5 million barrels in April . . . Builders in western ND held back wanting to be sure housing demand had legs, but no more, building permits in both Dickinson and Williston are setting records.

Minneapolis or Denver?  Two popular American cities -- both have good air service from ND -- which should you visit?  To assist with this question, I used the website of Travel+Leisure.  I had no preconception, so the outcome was a bit of a surprise: Minneapolis swamped Denver.  T+E found Minneapolis people friendlier, more intelligent and more attractive than Denver.  Grrr, but Denver people were much more athletic.  Don’t look for diversity in either city.  Culture and shopping, no contest, Minneapolis walks away.  One thought -- Denver has a very fine airport -- perhaps go no further.

What are top destinations for ND flyers: No. 1 Las Vegas, No. 2 Minneapolis and No. 3 Denver, trailed by Phoenix and Chicago.

A tale of two cities.  The GF Herald is bullish about the ND oil industry; The Fargo Forum is, well, something else -- we can’t be sure.  Herald economist Ralph Kingsbury was still excited from a trip he took with a GF delegation to the Williston-Minot part of the state.  Kingsbury clearly thinks the oil boom is the real thing, “What’s happening across western North Dakota isn’t just a flash in the pan . . . No one ever expected anything like this.”

The Forum had faint praise: “North Dakota’s oil boom is great news for the state’s economy, but the sustained, reliable economic engine that is Fargo is better news in the long pull” and  “Booms, by definition, come and go.”  The Forum was almost ominous when it predicted: “the blowback that surely will come when negative social and environmental impacts of accelerating oil activity assert themselves in oil zone communities.”

So what’s going on here.  What is The Forum’s objective?  Does it feel western ND is getting too much press -- does it want to pull the center of attention back to Fargo?  Does The Forum think excitement over the oil boom masks an impending hangover?

The Forum is clearly right in one respect -- there is going to be a second stage to the oil boom where related costs and needs become apparent.  Incredible traffic and demolished roads are already on the screen.  The Minot Daily News spoke of the shortage of labor in the oil industry and the impact on other industries.  Job Service of North Dakota said,  “Agriculture can't compete with the kinds of wages paid by the oil companies either, but it isn't alone in that peril.”

The oil boom is accelerating.  Williston was ND’s No. 5 city in taxable sales in 2009 -- in the first quarter of 2010, it skipped over Grand Forks and Minot to become No. 3.  As mentioned here earlier, NY-based Hess Corp. is plowing $325 million into an expansion of its Tioga natural gas plant.  Now, Mistral Energy is proposing a 430-mile, $300 million pipeline to move ethane (a natural gas component) from the Hess plant to a Nova Chemical plastics plant near Red Lake, Alberta.  The Nova complex, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is owned by an Abu Dhabi investment firm. 

U.S. Highway 52 in ND is a workhorse -- from Portal on the Canadian border, the road slices southeasterly through Minot across two-thirds of the state before joining I-94 in Jamestown.  Hwy 52 has only two lanes, but is attracting heavy truck traffic.  On the same July day, a collision involving a semi-truck on Hwy 52 near Fessenden hospitalized two and another forty miles away near Carrington killed both drivers.

The Bismarck Tribune joined the editorial chorus calling for urgent federal action on Devils Lake flooding.  The Trib says if the lake overflows “water quality issues will be washed down the Sheyenne River no matter what the Clean Water Act or treaties with Canada say.”  The Trib sees federal regulation and inaction as the main problem, “The state has done everything it could to deal with the flooding.”  Gov. John Hoeven hopes for three recommendations from a White House interagency group: Waive the Clean Water Act, expedite permits and let water out the east (salty) end of the lake.

If you are bishop of the Western North Dakota Synod (70,000 members) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (pause for breath) you must deal with weighty policy matters like guidelines for gay and lesbian clergy.  Bishop Mark Narum also gets to hit some soft pitches, such as describing “God’s Global Barnyard,” a synod sustainable agriculture project.

We may have the makings for a new Halloween horror movie.  Imagine the heroine, amidst darkness and crashing lightning, fleeing rolling 1,300 pound hay bales.  Winds of 100 mph near LaMoure drove hay bales up to a quarter of a mile across fields.  Toss in a few grain bins for variety.

Some of ND’s little public colleges struggle to justify themselves.  Take Dakota College at Bottineau -- it’s considering a day care center for the elderly and disabled.  The college would help with toilet and meals.  A necessary public service?  Possibly, yes.  A necessary part of the mission of the ND University System?  You decide.

Yum, taste the slowly simmering buffalo tongue.  Try the buffalo liver, it’s “Indian Candy.”  These experiences were part of a camp where a buffalo was butchered as part of cultural training for Ft. Berthold youth.  Kids prepared the meat in traditional ways, cooking in a pit of heated rocks.

Is ND getting serious about battling its weight problem?  A 200-seat restaurant called Jake’s will be opening in Grand Forks, the featured specialty -- deep-fried polish sausage.

DAKTOIDS: In the annals of ND weather, 1936 stands out as the hottest and coldest.  In July that year, Fargo had eight straight days with temperatures exceeding 100; on September 22 the temperature went to 101 and temperatures have not reached 100 since (info from WDAY/Forum weatherman Daryl Ritchison) . . . Minot native Rear Admiral Mike Miller replaces Bismarck native Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler as Supt. of the Naval Academy . . . The Jamestown Sun (a Forum paper) silenced its 40-year-old press, released a few employees and moved its printing operation to W. Fargo . . . The front-runner attracts money -- Gov. Hoeven’s senatorial campaign has raised 30 times the donations of opponent Tracy Potter.

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SUPPLEMENT:  Summary of Fedgazette Article About North Dakota: “The little economic engine that could”

The Fedgazette is a monthly publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (the 9th District) covering ND, its adjoining states, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The article was written by the Fedgazette’s editor Ronald Wirtz in the July 2010 issue.  The article attempts to explain why the ND economy is an anomaly in the 9th District and the nation.  Following is a summary: 

What a difference a decade has made

The state’s economy “sticks out like a diamond.”  During the past decade the state’s per capita personal income ranking has risen from 39th in the country to 19th.  ND’s has posted “top-of-the-class numbers” in unemployment, income growth and other categories.

Repositioning

For much of the decade ND’s growth was overlooked as the nation enjoyed a housing boom.  But when the country entered recession, ND continued against the tide adding jobs in 2008 and 2009.  In the past two years, the state had job growth in almost every employment category.  So, in part, it’s the contrast with the nation that has brought ND attention and praise.  The state easily has the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

The state has not been entirely spared -- its manufacturing sector looks more like the nation’s.  Bobcat, the maker of small four-wheel drive loaders, is one of ND’s largest businesses and serves national and international markets.  It has severely downsized during the recession.  Many of the state’s small towns continue their death spiral as rural areas lose population.

Reasons for success

The quick and easy explanation for ND's out performance is the oil boom in the western part of the state.  The state has in a short time become the fourth largest oil producing state.  While oil is a large factor, the author points out that coal and agriculture remain big parts of the state's economy.

Fargo's economic diversity, with health care, the F-M colleges, and companies such as Great Plains Software and Scheels sporting goods, also contributes to a stable economic mix.

One of the biggest factors in ND’s success is what didn’t happen.  ND didn’t participate in the residential real estate boom.  As one Fargo banker put it “the housing market never got out of whack here.”

Outlook

Most people interviewed for the article did not expect the ND economy to unravel, although an extended drop in oil prices would be troublesome.  ND’s prosperity is relative and, as the country hopefully rebounds, ND’s growth could be expected to lag.  While most Nodaks are not farmers, the author believes the state maintains a farmer’s mindset -- “modest, perpetually optimistic, yet conservative.”  A tendency to discount prosperity, not project it.  Michael Solberg, president of State Bank & Trust in Fargo, said ND residents have “a steady mind frame.”

State water agencies sponsor the Devils Lake Solutions Tour -- a day long bus tour of areas influenced by the rise of the lake.  One individual on the tour, Dwayne Herman, was most impressed with the Tolna Coulee area.  He said, “Do you realize that all we’d have to do is clean out above five feet of the coulee for maybe the length of one mile and the outlet would flow?  I don’t think people realize that.”  Yes, that seems to be so.

Herman clearly joined the “let’s drain the tub” school.  Vicki Voldal Rosenau of Valley City is a particularly vocal member of a minority which says “let’s turn off the faucets before the tub overfills.”  The faucets of which she is speaking are farmlands draining into Devils Lake.  She’s one of the state’s busier letter writers and likes colorful phrases such as “Pardon me, but: Duh -- you crank down those faucets until your reach the desired tub level.”  Right now, Rosenau is not leading a very large parade -- Devils Lake and state officials are lining up to drain the tub, and yes, sorry, through Valley City.

The Forum made no secret about where it stands on Devils Lake:  “Please, no more of the ignorant nonsense about closing drains to hold back runoff.”  The Forum said there is a crisis that goes beyond Devils Lake and an outlet is needed: “The lake is rising . . . More than a billion dollars has been spent (to hold back the water) . . . It’s about time . . . Lower the water . . . And the people of Devils Lake . . . have every right to say ‘We told you so.’”

Another water problem, the $1.5 billion Red River diversion, received a hearing in Wash., D.C.  Two major messages emerged: The Corps of Engineers agreed the project is vital to protect the infrastructure of Fargo-Moorhead -- The Office of Management and Budget said the money is nowhere in sight.

Jack Dalrymple is ND Lt. Governor and likely to be the next governor.  He is also one of the founders of Dakota Growers, a cooperative formed in the early 1990s in Carrington to mill durum wheat into pasta products.  Dakota Growers is probably the most successful venture of its type in ND ag history -- in 2004 the cooperative became a regular shareholder corporation with Dalrymple as its chairman.  In May of this year, Dakota Growers was quietly sold for $240 million to Saskatchewan based Viterra, Canada’s largest grain handler.  Most of the sales proceeds will go to shareholders who are ND durum farmers -- Dalrymple is one, he said directly and indirectly he received $3.8 million. 

Dalrymple has many roles, as Lt. Gov., he is also chairman of the ND Investment Board which has responsibility for oversight of state pension funds.  Like almost all pension plans, the ND plans suffered heavy losses in the 2008 market downturn.  Although the two events are not necessarily related, the losses took on greater significance when the chief investment officer for the plans committed suicide in April of this year.  The Board announced in late June that it hired Clifton Gunderson, an auditing firm based in Milwaukee, to review the operations of the plans for $78,000.  At the same time, the Board hired a Denver based consultant for $86,000 to find a new manager for the plans.

Several ND newspapers have taken editorial positions on Arizona’s new law regarding illegal immigrants.  The Bismarck Tribune’s view is typical: “Congress has failed border states” and those states are telling the federal government, “If you won’t do your job, we’ll do it for you.”

Rick Berg is running against incumbent Earl Pomeroy to be ND’s next U.S. Representative.  Berg is campaigning on the theme “Washington should be more like ND,” you know, growing with a budget surplus.  Jack Zaleski of the Forum says unfortunately there is already little difference and ticks off the numerous ways ND lives on the federal dole.  He says, “The state feeds at the federal trough not because it’s wedded to pork, but because history, geography and climate put the state at a disadvantage.” 

The ND Petroleum Council joyfully released 2009 oil production data and their report was laced with comments like “off the chart.”  Among the Council’s many data points was the following: “517 new wells were drilled last year (in ND) at an average cost of $5.6 million.”  Pause for a moment -- that totals almost $3 billion.  When the approximately 50 oil drilling rigs now at work eventually leave the state, will there be a giant sucking sound?

Adeline Neumiller (90) of Sykeston illustrates the continuity of her generation’s life in rural ND.  She was baptized, confirmed and married in the same Sykeston Lutheran church, never living more than a few miles away.  Her obituary says she loved Sykeston, gardening, flowers and the things country living represented.  That was not to be the story for her three children who live in Manitoba, Washington and California -- their generation’s diaspora helps explain why the population of ND has remained essentially unchanged for more than 70 years.

If your name is “Buck” and you live in “Frontier,” shouldn’t we expect certain behavior?  Buck Ballantine (29) lives in the small Cass County town of Frontier.  Like any real frontier man, Buck got out his rifle and pistol and snapped off 15-20 shots into the air.  Cass County deputies confronted Buck who proved uncooperative.  They Tased him and charged him with firing rounds in a residential area.  Additional bad luck could be headed Buck’s way.

Do you know the way to Bowman?  It’s the county seat of a county of the same name occupying ND’s southwestern corner.  The town of Bowman has only 1,600 people, so you wouldn’t expect much trouble, but a gang attempting to look like the dreaded Los Angeles Crips wants to terrorize the little town with graffiti, gang colors and signs, and vague threats uttered in pseudo-Hispanic accents.  Some nervous residents fear an invasion.  The police chief thinks it’s a little early to panic -- the wannabe gang bangers are actually home grown juveniles who watch too much TV.  The chief advises storekeepers to send the kids home.

ND is holding its own -- weight, that is.  Annual national obesity rankings are out and the state stays in the middle, ranked 21st, with 28% of its adults obese.  Colorado continues to be the leanest state (19%), while Mississippi (34%) and neighboring states dominate the fat end.

The outbreak of tornadoes in northeastern ND and northwestern Minnesota on June 17th was one of the region’s “most significant in memory" according to the National Weather Service.  Forum weatherman John Wheeler said the outbreak was “one of the most destructive in this area in my 25 years as a meteorologist at WDAY.”  Wadena, Minnesota, about 90 miles east of Fargo on Highway 10, was the scene of greatest destruction.

Each month seems to bring a new crisis at Devils Lake.  Four inches of rain in mid-June added to already serious conditions.  Ramsey County officials have requested a helicopter for medical emergencies on isolated farms.  Snowplows are being used to clear debris floating onto roads and the Spirit Lake Casino road is precarious.  Gov. Hoeven toured the area and made it apparent where the state is headed, he said, “Ultimately, we’ve got to move more water out of Devils Lake.”  He said he and the state’s congressional delegation continue to press the Corps of Engineers to get the necessary permits to build a new outlet on the east end of Devils Lake.

Bring up the subject of NDSU’s recent problems, and the Forum twists, turns and acts very agitated.  The source of this angst is the state legislature, which the Forum believes is looking for a narrow excuse to attack NDSU while ignoring the school’s considerable growth and accomplishments.  Showing characteristic restraint, the paper describes legislators as less-enlightened, small-minded, myopic and punitive.  The Forum says former President Joseph Chapman is an easy target, but other guilty parties (unnamed) “have scurried for the weeds while pointing their dirty fingers at the former president” in a textbook display of “butt-covering.”  Other than that, everything is swell.

State Sen. John Andrist of Crosby responded to the Forum: “Some newspapers choose to byline their editorials.  The Forum doesn’t have to.  Editorial Page Editor Jack Zaleski’s pen is usually apparent. Mean. Nasty. Full of insulting adjectives.” 

ND has the third most young adults with college degrees, following only Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts.  Of ND residents age 25 to 34, 50% have college degrees, Minnesota is fourth (48%), while Arkansas is at the bottom (26%).  In the U.S. overall, 38% of young adults have degrees.  ND's trend is excellent, in an older group, all adults over 25, only 22% of Nodaks are college graduates, compared to 30% nationally.

In 2009, ND was one of only two states to have an increase in building permits; the other was Alaska.  Not entirely surprising, since ND also led the nation in per-capita income growth and had the lowest unemployment rates.  You might expect the housing starts would be in western ND where oil development is causing a tremendous housing shortage.  Not the case, according to State Data Director Richard Rathge housing starts took place mainly in eastern and central ND, because developers are still cautious about the energy boom.  Rathge expects to see strong growth in western housing in 2010, in fact, Williston housing permits to date in 2010 are double those in 2009.

Rathge said the housing starts are concentrated in larger communities.  Rural areas outside the oil development patches are not sharing the growth.  He used Wells County, a mid-sized county including Harvey and Fessenden, as an example, where only two building permits were issued in 2009.

Farm equipment, recreational vehicles, casino traffic, Minot AFB missile crews and, most of all, oil-field traffic -- Three Affiliated Tribes officials say traffic is overwhelming state highways on the reservation.  The main example, Hwy 23, the east-west route through New Town, carries more than four times the traffic of U.S. Hwy 85, the principal north-south artery on ND’s western side.  The TAT has a full push to persuade state and federal officials to create two four-lane highways through the reservation.

ND Budget Director Pam Sharp says, if oil production and prices stay where they are right now, at June 30, 2011, the state may have $500 million in its oil trust fund, double the $250 million previously estimated.

Darin Erstad of Jamestown was the first ND native to be a member of a baseball team that won the World Series (Roger Maris was born in Minnesota).  He is the only baseball player to win Gold Glove awards at three different positions.  As a senior in high school, Erstad was 1992 ND athlete of the year playing football, hockey and track, in addition to American Legion baseball.  He played baseball at the U. of Nebraska (which he recently gave $1 million) and was also the punter on their national championship football team.  After 14 major league seasons, Erstad is retired in Lincoln, Nebraska, but will be in Jamestown in July where he will attend an annual baseball tournament.

You might say Ben Klein (84) of Bismarck was a social being.  His obituary read like a politician’s with memberships including the Masons, American Legion, VFW, Elks, Moose and Eagles.  His ethnic bases were covered too; Klein belonged to both the Germans from Russia Society and Sons of Norway.  The Wilton native was a pipe fitter most of his life -- maybe he was just a “joiner.”

If you are a Nodak who recalls “Wild Bill” Langer you are probably drawing social security.  Langer may be the most controversial figure in ND history, having spent time in both the governor’s office and prison.  He died in 1959, but was active in ND politics from 1914 until his death.  Forum columnist Bob Lind interviewed Langer’s daughter Mary “Mimi” Gokey (85) of Fargo for an article written for Fathers’ Day.  It seemed appropriate for that day that Mimi recalled little of Langer’s blemishes, remembering him only as a “wonderful” father.

ND became a state in 1889.  Seven years earlier, in 1882, the last “great buffalo hunt” took place near what is now Hettinger.  Lauren Donovan of the Tribune reports that 2,000 Sioux rode out that year from Fort Yates, attacked a herd of 50,000 buffalo and killed 5,000 in two days.  Little did anyone know this was one of the last great hunts.  In the year of ND statehood, a bison census was taken by the Smithsonian Institute, only 1,100 remained, compared to the 60 million bison estimated to have once lived in North America.

In mid-May, a 92-year-old woman drove across the center line near Devils Lake, killing one motorcyclist and maiming two.  She received a $20 citation.  A GF Herald reader was outraged, asking “Is it because of her age” and wouldn’t a younger person be sitting in jail?  The reader hoped the family of the woman driver will pull her keys and not let her drive again.

In religion and music there is a tradition of “call and response,” a ritualized interaction between speakers and listeners.  A call and response dialogue has developed between Devils Lake and Valley City.  Joe Belford, a Ramsey County Commissioner, is the Devils Lake voice and advocates draining the lake in a controlled manner into the Sheyenne River.  Downriver, retired English teacher Richard Betting is the Valley City voice -- he doesn’t want any lake water and claims the real problem is the drainage of farm wetlands into Devils Lake.  The pair have exchanged volleys for years and both earnestly hold to their respective positions.  Independent studies seem to favor the Belford position -- the studies indicate the current wet cycle rather than wetland drainage is the main cause of the rise in Devils Lake.

It’s one thing to see reports over many years about the growth of Devils Lake -- it’s quite another to see the cumulative effect.  A newsletter reader sent photos from around Devils Lake taken from a light plane in early June.  The Spirit Lake Casino can be properly dubbed “Casino Island” -- it’s fortunate it was built on a knoll.  You can see the faint outline of old U.S. Hwy. 281, now covered by the lake.  Minnewaukan is shocking -- the town is on life support.  A cloud of black smoke rises from a house recently claimed by the lake -- it was set on fire by its owners.

Did the Republicans use a “diabolical strategy” to lose the 2008 elections and dump a host of problems on the Democrats?  Was the choice of Sarah Palin as a candidate for vice president the capstone of that evil plot?  These are the musings of Charles Linderman of Carrington, a Democratic activist and inveterate letter writer to the state’s papers.  He believes Barack Obama and CoDoPo, the ND congressional delegation, are unfairly saddled with responsibility for problems they did not create.

Fortunately, ND handles certain matters differently than other states.  Take the fatal police shooting of Keith Newton (55) of Belfield, after Newton shot a man and confronted the police with a gun.  In California, no matter the circumstances, a shooting by the police is usually followed by a lawsuit alleging excessive use of force.  There is a waiting line of attorneys whose careers consist of bringing this type of case.  In Belfield, Newton’s family said without hesitation, “They (the officers) had to do what they had to do and the family understands that.”  The family also said they were glad nobody else was injured and expressed regret that the officers had been put in the situation.

Former Lt. Governor Lloyd Omdahl had the last word on the late Gov. Link.  Omdahl said “City people have clock minds -- work is eight-to-five.”  He said Link was a farmer at heart and farmers don’t have clock minds; they have “chore minds” and focus on tasks until they are done.

ND’s Board of Higher Education wants to increase its control over individual campuses.  GF Herald Editor Mike Jacobs believes the board should avoid returning to micromanagement of the campuses.  Jacobs said, “Rather than more staff, the board needs more backbone . . . The debacle at NDSU occurred when a powerful force, the activist president, encountered a relative vacuum, a board uncertain of its mission and uncomfortable with its doubt.”

Fargo-Moorhead was shocked recently by the unexpected death of Concordia College President Pam Joicoeur (65).  The Forum said Joicoeur was a surprise choice for president in 2004 -- a woman without a Scandinavian name and a former Catholic nun from, of all places, California.  The Forum believes she turned out to be an outstanding choice -- she improved Concordia’s “reputation as a campus where education and life values converge” -- a visionary leader.

For a number of years, Clay Jenkinson has been a columnist for the Bismarck Tribune.  In early columns, Jenkinson chose meaty issues about ND’s economy, politics and culture.  More recently, he favors vignettes from his own life.  One of the latest was an essay on ND’s brief, but much appreciated summers.  He described a stop in Killdeer (for sodas and red licorice) where he said to the woman behind the counter “What a beautiful day in North Dakota.”  Her reply, “Yeah, that’s two this year.”

Yes, they are tough, don’t mess with them.  ND women have a reputation for holding their ground, but sometimes go too far.  Alycia Buethner (30) of Fargo was arrested for pistol-whipping her husband. the bison market is back,

They are back, but maybe you didn’t know they were gone.  We’re talking about bison -- the industry grew into a bubble in the ‘90s and then crashed.  Tribune writer Lauren Donovan says the bison market is back and demand is greater than supply, rewarding those ranchers who stuck with the breed.  Donovan asked a producer about the hazards of handling bison, he said the animals give fair warning, “You watch the tail and if it’s straight up, you should have been running or gone already.” 

The Corps of Engineers St. Paul District includes parts of five states.  If the ND-side flood diversion goes through, it may be the most expensive project ever built in the district.  Then three of the districts most expensive projects will have been in ND.  The other two large ND projects are the Grand Forks flood system and emergency levees for Devils Lake.

“With all due respect, Sen. Dorgan, we have North Dakota covered.  Now we need you and your colleagues in Washington to do your jobs and rein in the federal government.”  What was this about?  ND representative Bette Grande of Fargo was responding to Sen. Dorgan’s statement that a special legislative session should be held to address problems caused by oil development in western ND.  She contends state leaders have taken adequate steps to address interim concerns, plus the regular session of the legislature is only six months away.

The UND Fighting Sioux nickname and logo is on its back and gasping for air.  So, who would come along and placed their foot on its throat?  That perennial enemy, the Fargo Forum -- the ever gracious Forum gave its Leafy Spurge Award to nickname supporters “who cling to the flimsy hope that the monkiker will be rescued.”

Even if it were half true, it would be great!  Gen. Wesley Clark told the Renewable Energy Action Summit in Bismarck that ND is the future energy capital of North America.  Do we need a little discount for hyperbole?

The Red River Basin Commission has representatives from states and Canadian provinces which adjoin the basin.  Devils Lake is part of the basin.  The RRBC met recently but did not endorse an east-end outlet to relieve the lake’s flooding.  Instead, the RRBC deferred to a yet to be established international task force.  This was disappointing news for people in the Devils Lake area.  As Ramsey County Commissioner Joe Belford put it, “We can’t wait for a two-year study.”  The lake is within six feet of an uncontrolled spill into the Sheyenne River Valley.

In a related matter, the city of Minnewaukan has asked for the state’s assistance in moving “out of harm’s way” of the flooding Devils Lake.  The city wants to move one mile west to relocated U.S. Highway 281, but lacks the means or expertise.  Minnewaukan is the county seat of Benson County.

Former ND Gov. Art Link (96) died June 1 and was uniformly praised in editorials across the state.  Tom Dennis of the GF Herald described Link as a fundamentally decent and honorable man.  “That sense of honor permeated his every act, including those as ‘small’ as always obeying the speed limit and never throwing his status as governor or congressman around.”  Link was governor from 1972 to 1980 at which time he was defeated by former Gov. Allen Olson, who remembers Link this way, “He gave the state a lot and didn’t expect anything in return.” 

When cap and trade carbon legislation was first introduced in Congress, it was seen as a direct threat to western ND’s lignite coal industry.  Although the legislation is sponsored by Democrats, ND’s Democratic congressional delegation has been squarely against it.  Now alarm bells have gone off in the eastern part of the state.  American Crystal Sugar says if cap and trade legislation as currently framed were to move forward, it would be the death knell to the sugar beet industry in the Red River Valley.  So, now there is border to border opposition to the legislation. 

Nodaks with German ancestry fall into two broad groups:  Those who immigrated directly from German and those who came from Russia (Germans from Russia).  Nationally, this latter group is represented by two heritage societies.  One of the two groups, The Germans from Russia Heritage Society, is holding its annual convention in Bismarck in late July.  They have hooked a big fish as keynote speaker.  Eureka, SD native Al Neuharth will address the group.  He is the former CEO of Gannett Newspapers and founder of USA Today.

Rugby is the center of North America, right.  We have taken it as a matter of faith ever since Rugby made the claim 80 years ago.  We probably also assumed the designation came from top minds and the best science.  Would you feel a little different if you learned a federal official took a cardboard map of the continent and found the point where it balanced on a pin -- somewhere near Rugby.  Two envious small towns south of Rugby are saying rude things about Rugby’s claim.  They are also annoyed by T-shirts, postcards, etc. boasting of Rugby’s fame.

How the great have fallen.  U.S. Highway 10 used to be the Main Street of ND. The east-west road entered that state in Fargo and exited into Montana near Beach.  Since the construction of I-94, it has been an alternative road maintained by the counties.  Stutsman County is using a new $400,000 Caterpillar machine to recycle its share of Hwy 10 from pavement to gravel --  an increasingly common practice in the state as old paving becomes too expensive to maintain.

In a much publicized case, Dana Deegan left her newborn baby to die in 1998 at her home on the Ft. Berthold Reservation.  Later, she returned placing the dead baby in a cheap satchel and abandoning it in a ditch.  Ten years later, Deegan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for the crime.  A federal appeals court recently upheld the sentence saying it was in the guideline sentencing range.  One of the three appeals judges dissented stating that in his more than four decades as a federal judge, the sentence was the most unfair he had seen.  His dissent ran nearly 60 pages and states her crime was a special sort of homicide called “neonaticide,” the act of a mother killing a newborn child. 

A former Fargo district judge read about the appeals court decision in the Forum.  In a letter to the Forum, Ralph Maxwell said the dissent lists many mitigating factors overlooked by the trial court judge.  Maxwell said Deegan’s status as an Indian further worsened the sentence.  An Indian living on a reservation is is subject to federal law.  If she had been charged with neonaticide in a ND state court, she would have received a maximum sentence of three years and, possibly, only a few years on probation.  Maxwell agreed with the dissenting judge that the woman received discriminatory treatment.  The case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lee Solarski is your standard bad boy.  He spent a year in jail for assisting ax murderers in Minnesota, has pleaded guilty to felony drug charges and has DUI charges pending against him.  He is reported to have crashed his car into a pickup and mailbox in Fargo and then fled the scene.  Witnesses got his license plate number and Solarski was quickly nabbed for hit-and-run.  Solarksi employed the basic tarantula defense, claiming he was bitten by a tarantula causing the incident.  No tarantula has been found and its not clear he was actually bitten.

A year ago the Bismarck Tribune profiled Dakota Prairie Organic Flour in Harvey as a success story in ND food processing.  At the time, the mill was expanding from 30 tons of flour per day to 175 tons.  The mill is back in the news, but for quite a different reason -- for not making timely payment to farmers who supply its grain.  The Public Service Commission is giving Dakota Prairie time to arrange credit to bring its payments current.  The alternative is a cease and desist order.

The Minot Daily News: “It was an embarrassing display, United States lawmakers and administration officials including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on their feet applauding a foreign leader as he attacks our national policy.  Where's our sense of national pride?  Calderon was out of line and hypocritical in criticizing the United States for its immigration policy when his country's policy is much harsher. Shame on him. But shame on those lawmakers who applauded Calderon as he did it. They should all be embarrassed.”

ND newspapers include regular, small reminders that illegal immigration is not merely an Arizona problem.  In Oakes, ND, 32 illegals were detained by the immigration service.  Four Stars Ag and its owner, Barry Vculek, had arranged for men to plant onions through an Oregon labor contractor.  Vculek said he thought all of the non-English speaking group were U.S. citizens.

In the last week of May, the big news in ND was the naming of a new president for NDSU in Fargo.  Dean Bresciani is a Napa, California native and a VP at Texas A&M, a school with 45,000 students.  The Forum newspapers have greeted Bresciani with editorial enthusiasm and high hopes that he will restore trust at NDSU.  However, the Fargo Forum can’t help itself -- it’s still grousing that NDSU is the victim of political and petty scrutiny.  We may learn more -- the State Board of Higher Ed has hired a former federal prosecutor to look into NDSU spending.

Using a Dept. of Energy grant, the ND Association of Rural Electric Coops has retained consultants to study the feasibility of a new oil refinery.  The state is already producing over four times the amount of oil that can be refined at the Mandan Tesoro refinery.  The study is not concluded, but it appears that business prospects for producing gasoline are very poor.  Refineries are notoriously difficult and expensive to build and gasoline demand is declining (blame Priuses).  But maybe, just maybe, a plant to produce diesel, for which ND farmers are big consumers, may be feasible. 

Soon there may be one near you -- a “man camp.”  Housing is so short in the ND oil patch that the Stark County Commission has approved a 100-person camp north of Dickinson to temporarily house oil field workers.  Yes, meals and laundry, but no alcohol or children.

ND obituaries often describe large families that disburse across the country.  Robert Messmer (84) of Kensal worked for the Soo Line Railroad (now Canadian Pacific) for 40 years -- his 13 children shot gunned to 9 different states.  Job opportunities in the energy industry may make such departures less likely in the future.

Too many churches.  Declining rural populations leave many churches with small congregations and difficulty finding pastors.  In the northeast part of the state it has become common for clusters of small churches to merge.  The latest merger is in Lakota where four Lutheran congregations and one Methodist church have joined together.  The Rev. Don Reynolds, pastor of a six-congregation parish in Edmore says, “It just makes sense in rural North Dakota these days.”  Money, of course, is a concern driving the mergers, but vitality is an equal concern. 

There is at least one report every month in ND newspapers that goes something like this:  Elderly person drives up to a (fill in the blank -- clinic, cafe or store) and drives right through the front door.  In early May, the Grafton Police Dept. said “a vehicle struck Granny’s Family Restaurant about 10 a.m.”  Coffee time!

Seriously, ND needs to do something about its elderly drivers, such as more frequent testing of drivers over 75.  In mid-May, a 92-year-old Oberon woman driver crossed the center line near Devils Lake taking out two motorcycles.  Two persons gravely injured, one dead.  The elderly woman driver had no apparent injuries.

In 2009, 20 ND counties increased in population.  Most of the increases can be explained with two words, Indians and oil.  The predominately Indian counties increased their populations and most of the remainder of the growth counties fell within the outline of the Williston Basin.

Twin sisters Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux (Mo and Jo) of Grand Forks won silver medals as members of the U.S. women’s hockey team.  When the Air Force Thunderbirds gave a demonstration at the GFAFB, they selected two outstanding citizens for supersonic rides in F-16s.  Mo got the nod.  The twins are accustomed to riding high, but this was something new.  As Mo staggered away after her ride, she said it was like an intense workout.  Jo was on a goodwill trip for UND.

Please, not Beauford.  That was one of the top five names in Jamestown’s “Name That Buffalo” contest.  The other four: Sir James, Dakota Thunder, Dacotah Spirit and Benny.  The good people of Jamestown will vote to select a winner.

THIS AND THAT: You may not think of it this way, but ND is an incline which gradually slopes from 3,000 feet above sea level at Bowman in the southwest corner to 900 feet in Fargo.  Forum weatherman John Wheeler says when eastern winds push up the slope in the spring they cause a cooling which can create snow in western ND as late as May . . . There was something slightly plaintive and ironic about the following May 7th announcement in Minot:  “The Tourism Day scheduled for today in Minot has been postponed and rescheduled for May 24 because of weather conditions.”  Welcome tourists! . . . Preservation ND says the most endangered places this year are a historic Pembina church, metal truss bridges and country schools.  The state once had 4,700 country schools (almost 100 per county), simple, one-room white frame buildings.  Most are gone or abandoned.

DAKTOIDS: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce designated ND as the national leader in job growth during the last decade.  High crop prices and oil helped, but sound policies were said to be the main reason . . .  May polls: Gov. Hoeven leads Tracy Potter 72-23 in the U.S. Senate race; Rick Berg leads Earl Pomeroy 52-43 in the race for U.S. Rep . . . The American Academy of Family Physicians says the UND medical school is tops in the nation for producing family medicine doctors (20% of grads).

While we are doing other things, Devils Lake (the lake, not the city) is busy acquiring new territory.  In late April, State Highway 20, a major route through the Spirit Lake Reservation, was closed due to high water.  The lake threatens to close the Churchs Ferry bridge used by Amtrak's Empire Builder -- the state’s congressional delegation is pressing Amtrak about the issue.  Meanwhile, the Devils Lake City Engineer raised the odds of a natural lake overflow into the Sheyenne River in the next 10 years to 10%.  He says a spillover is unacceptable for downstream areas, and his city will urge a controlled release.

“I got a preliminary copy of the performance from the state. It is very embarrassing,” Hanson said. “It’s just awful. It’s bad.”  What was NDSU Interim President Dick Hanson moaning about?  He was talking about an audit report soon to be issued by the state auditor regarding the NDSU president’s house.  For Hanson, there is very little cost to the awful, bad things -- they happened on the shift of his predecessor, Joseph Chapman.

When Helen Rice Sorlie graduated from UND in about 1938, she received a degree in Home Economics and Commerce, Art & Clothing -- quite a mouthful!  Sorlie (90), who died in Bismarck in April, became well known in her own right.  She was also married to Glenn Sorlie, the son of a former ND governor and owner and publisher of the Bismarck Tribune before its sale to Lee Enterprises in 1978.

Rich city cousins are giving to poor country cousins.  The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, owners of the Mystic Lake Casino in Minnesota, make grants to their poor brethren in the Dakotas.  The Lower Brule Sioux in South Dakota will get $1 million for a convenience store and gas station; United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck will get $1 million for a technology facility, contingent on getting an equal amount from other sources.

A Sharon rancher has 500 cows, 300 have given birth, of those, 50 (17%) had twins.  A vet says 3% would be about a normal rate.  There is no clear explanation, the best answer NDSU Extension can muster is that “all the conditions encouraging twinning came together at the right time.”  The owner of the cattle had an interesting speculation, nothing more: He has been feeding the cows dried distillers grain from the Casselton ethanol plant.  The distillers grain is nutrious and improves the cows’ condition.  Cows with good condition are more likely to conceive twins.

Dane Boedigheimer is a Fargo native who has achieved instant fame -- it remains to be seen if it’s fleeting.  Dane is the creator of a You-Tube video character called “Annoying Orange” which has a million and a half viewers in the course of a weekend.  Annoying Orange makes taunting comments about other fruit and is a favorite of schoolchildren -- a commentator says “The awfulness of the orange is what brings the enjoyment.”  Dane is a college film major who now practices his wicked craft in S. California.

“From North Dakota, the immigration issue might seem overblown,” said a Bismarck Tribune editorial, “But in Arizona, there are an estimated 450,000 illegal immigrants, a number equal to 70 percent of North Dakota's population.”  The editorial said Arizona’s tough new law is what happens when Congress fails to address the ongoing issue of illegal immigration.

The Tribune thinks it’s great that ND’s oil pipeline and rail capacity is now 400,000 barrels a day, well in excess of February daily oil production of 260,000 barrels.  But the state shouldn’t rest, greater oil production is coming, plus the challenges of pounded roads in western ND, housing shortages for workers, and a variety of social ills that come with the boom.  The state produced 80 million barrels of oil in 2009 and is moving toward annual production of 100 million barrels.

In an article headed “Employed, but homeless,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune highlighted one of the problems of the ND boom -- nowhere to put the people.  Many well-paid workers cannot find housing at any price.  They sleep in cars and campers.  The article indicated the situation is worst for locals who do not have lucrative oil jobs; they have seen their rents soar -- in the midst of prosperity ND saw a spike in homelessness.

It will be Bismarck’s biggest conference of 2010 -- the 18th annual Williston Basin Petroleum Conference will be attended by 2,500 people -- twice the 2008 attendance.  The theme is “Bakken & Beyond” and the expo will have people from 40 states and 6 provinces.  Ron Ness of the sponsoring ND Petroleum Council says business development will be pursued by 300 exhibitors.  The director of the state Oil and Gas Division added sensation to the conference by doubling his estimate of the state's recoverable oil reserves from 2 billion to 4 billion barrels.

If ND were to have a patron cartoonist, it would have to be the late Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts.  With a German father and a Norwegian mother, the St. Paul native would have fit right into ND.  Like ND, Shulz was a little melancholy.  Here is a quote: ”Yesterday I was a dog, Today I’m a dog, Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog.  Sigh!  There’s so little hope for advancement.”

DAKTOIDS: West Fargo snuck up -- in 2000 the city had about 15,000 people, today, the city is estimated to have 26,000.  W. Fargo swept by slow-growth cities such as Dickinson and Jamestown to become the state’s fifth largest . . . The 450 Minuteman missiles in Montana, ND and Wyoming are supported by 9,000 personnel -- that’s 20 per missile.  The missiles first arrived in the 1970s -- the Air Force has committed $6.2 billion (yes, billion) to extending the life of the Minuteman III missiles . . . The Los Angeles and Phoenix areas have the worst air quality in the nation.  Want to get away -- go to North Dakota -- Fargo, Wahpeton and Bismarck have the nation’s cleanest air.