The founders of 3 Farm Daughters, from left to right, are Grace (Sproule) Lunski, Mollie (Sproule) Ficocello and Annie (Sproule) Gorder.

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.

During a memorial dedication to a fallen soldier, the Schafer-Boye-Lange American Legion Post 69 from Flasher sounded a 21-gun salute and played taps.

More than 60 years after Capt. William Richardson’s F-106 aircraft crashed into the frozen prairie near Flasher in 1963, a memorial saluting his sacrifice now stands alongside Highway 31 in Grant County.

Richardson’s daughter, who was 2 years old when her father died, tearfully attended the memorial’s dedication, as a 21-gun salute sounded into the pristine sky and a P-51 Mustang roared overhead in a flyover.

The soldier’s ultimate sacrifice has been honored in a warm embrace by the state, even though he was not a native son.
 

Bowdon meat

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.

Mike Steier and Treyten Krohmer bow hunting

Service and sacrifice are two things Mike Steier understands well.

After graduating from New England High School, Steier volunteered in 2005 for a yearlong deployment to Iraq. Last year, he retired from the N.D. National Guard after 20 years of service.

After returning from Iraq and working as a farmhand, Steier went to Bismarck State College on the GI Bill and obtained his electrical lineworker degree. Shortly after, he was hired by Roughrider Electric Cooperative in Dickinson, and he’s worked for the co-op ever since.

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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.”

Lori Carlson gathers signatures

Voting and elections provide a vehicle for citizens to change laws or introduce new ones they think would benefit their community.

With North Dakota’s ballot measure process, citizens can introduce a statewide ballot measure to change the North Dakota Constitution or state law. A statewide measure can be placed on the ballot by the Legislature or through a petition process initiated by the citizens of North Dakota.

N.D. candidates

In election years, North Dakota Living offers its platform as the state’s largest circulated publication to familiarize voters with the candidates seeking statewide office.

North Dakota Living posed two questions to candidates in select statewide races, including U.S. senator, representative in Congress, governor and lieutenant governor, and public service commissioner. Their responses are published here through page 31.

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CONSTITUTIONAL MEASURE 1 – SCR 4001
Put forth by the state Legislature, this measure updates terminology used in the state constitution to describe several state institutions.

It would change the “school for the deaf and dumb of North Dakota” to the “school for the deaf and hard of hearing,” the “state hospital for the insane” to the “state hospital for the care of individuals with mental illness” and “an institution for the feebleminded” to “a facility for individuals with developmental disabilities.”