Tracie Thompson hasn’t gotten a paycheck in more than a year and a half – and it isn’t because she’s not working.
She’s working – a lot. And she’s trying to make things work in the small town of Westhope, 2 miles from the Canadian border in north-central North Dakota.
A few years ago, the Westhope grocery store, which Thompson managed, was in financial trouble, and the owner was forced to close in December 2023.
Bill Butterfield is good at a lot of things.
The Lodgepole, S.D., native is in the Hettinger High School hall of fame. He got his PGA card two years after picking up a golf club. His Black Angus cows and calves eat out of the palm of his hand.
“I have to be competing in anything I do,” Butterfield says.
Four years ago, the self-taught pitmaster took home the People’s Choice award at his first competition barbecue event in Taylor.
Butterfield didn’t just bring the smoke that day: He brought his homemade seasonings.
Whether two legs or four, the big kids and the little ones, everyone is welcome at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The same can be said for Hondo’s Hideaway restaurant on the Jamestown Reservoir.
“I wanted to keep (the ambiance) more of what you’re maybe used to if you visited Grandma and Grandpa’s house, a little bit of a homey feel,” says Lucas Dockter, Hondo’s Hideaway owner and chief grunt worker. “It pairs well with the food we serve. It’s stuff you would find at Grandma’s house or what you grew up with.”
With a mission to create healthier food options, three sisters – Annie (Sproule) Gorder, Mollie (Sproule) Ficocello and Grace (Sproule) Lunski – are transforming the way people think about pasta, one nutritious meal at a time.
After growing up with a deep passion for farming instilled by their family, the Sproule sisters ventured one-by-one to college at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn. However, it wouldn’t take long until whispers from the Red River Valley beckoned them back to the fertile fields of home, Sproule Farms near Grand Forks.
What can other towns learn from Bowdon and its meat processing cooperative?
“It gets back to the basics of the game, the baseball analogy: Too many are shooting for the grand slam when they could be really focusing on these types of base hits,” says Ellen Huber, rural development services director for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives (NDAREC). “Big things get all the attention, but this is an important incremental small business step a community was known for and made sure they could continue to stake their claim.”
What is your town known for?
Jamestown is the buffalo city. Bottineau takes “pride” in its ice cream. It’s hard to beat a steak in St. Anthony. And Stanley has the Sibyl Center, a small-town beacon of arts and culture.
For Bowdon, it was its meat plant and locker.
“There’s been a meat processing plant in Bowdon as long as anyone can remember, probably well over 100 years now,” says community member and local farmer Bob Martin.
A 5-gallon bucket of carrots, “unwashed and dirty,” and three ice cream pails of chokecherries.
“That’s how my business got started,” says Diane Schmidt, recalling her first sales attempt at the Mandan Farmers Market nearly 40 years ago.
Schmidt was a single mom at the time. She’d haul kids and carrots to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. She can still picture her young boys, in 1986, sitting on the curb while Mom made sales.
You’ve likely heard the old adage, “They don’t make ’em like they used to.” And when it comes to frozen confections, the people of northwestern North Dakota know that sentiment to be true. That’s because the small town of Stanley is home to a nostalgic ice cream treat – one that can only be found at Dakota Drug.
As the sweet vanilla scent of the Bells of Ireland fills the air and the morning dew settles on the ranunculus blooming among many specialty flowers on their 11-acre farm, the Dessonvilles start each day deeply rooted in the glories of nature.