“They needed people, and we were just kind of a link in a food chain,” Westhope native and Vietnam War veteran Dennis “Denny” McKechnie says. “I didn’t have a choice. I got No. 19 in the lottery, and my buddy got 18. … We knew where we were going, right?”
They were just boys when their country called them.
“I didn’t want to be there, but yet, here I am with 30 guys. They don’t want to be there neither,” Denny recalls of the plane ride to Vietnam in May 1971.
He was only 20 years old.
Ruth Iversen enjoys reading about others. She’s usually reading a historical book, with a good detective story thrown in on occasion, and recently read Jimmy Carter’s autobiography.
“I like biographies, but his was exceptional,” she says of the former president, who died at the end of 2024 at 100 years old.
Still, Iversen’s not convinced there’s something to write about when it comes to her own life.
“I can’t imagine there’s anything interesting,” she says.
A crowd gathered at the Sky Dancer Casino and Resort 5 miles west of Belcourt on a chilly fall morning to watch the first event of its kind take place – a white buffalo gifting ceremony. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa had 11 white bison until Oct. 16, 2024, when they gifted five white bison calves to neighboring tribes in North Dakota and Minnesota.
White bison hold deep significance for the Indigenous tribes of the Great Plains. They are also rare, occurring once in every 10 million bison.
Syndi Musland Miske was practically born with boots on. Growing up in rural North Dakota, she spent her free time riding horse, practicing barrels in the arena near her family’s farm and ranch and riding to the Do Drop Inn in Merricourt for malted milkshakes.
A cardiac rehab nurse, Miske and her husband, Darin, now live on a ranch in Wibaux, Mont., served by Goldenwest Electric Cooperative, just 40 miles away from Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). It’s a dream come true for the cowgirl who dreamed of riding her horse in the Badlands.
Jason Bentz has always loved fishing.
Growing up, Bentz and his family would spend their weekends camping at Heart Butte Dam and Lake Tschida, reeling in walleye, perch and bass from dawn until dusk in a 14-foot aluminum boat.
“You couldn’t go out when there was a whole lot of waves,” Bentz says with a laugh.
On camping trips, the family slept in a truck topper perched on a ’79 Dodge and spent time stargazing when they weren’t casting.
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.
Energy.
