People

Some people say they sense their deceased loved ones. They see them in a cardinal, smell them in a soup recipe or hear them in a Johnny Cash song.

Tony Fisher and his family will sense his grandfather with every row tilled on the family farm near Ypsilanti.

Described as “neat, orderly and innovative,” Tony’s grandparents, the late Darwin and Helen Fisher, kept an organized farmstead – where every item has a place. Many of the items are original Darwin purchases and still in use on the Fisher family farm today.

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.

“I don’t know that we could have did it without her,” says Corey Hart, a Bowdon area rancher who in 2010 desired to have a local meat processing facility in his community.

Many wouldn’t have thought it could be done. Period.

Bowdon’s population was 127 in 2010. The project faced challenges. A lack of people and capital, but not a lack of heart.
If the community of Bowdon wanted it bad enough, Lori Capouch was willing to try.

Another dream streaming from the imaginative mind of sculptor Gary Greff, “Sir Albert” now majestically guards the castle, fending off a fierce fire-breathing dragon.

The 41-foot-tall knight, clad in shining armor made of tin, towers over the grounds of the Enchanted Castle in Regent. Nearby is the knight’s nemesis, a green dragon measuring 42 feet tall and 100 feet from nose to tail and clad in chainlink fence to replicate scales.

The average age of the American farmer is 58.1 years old, and nearly 40% of producers in the United States are age 65 or older, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2022 Census of Agriculture released Feb. 13.

Surprising? No.

Eamon Alido lifts the canola plants from a tray, enthusiastically explaining hydroponics as a technique of growing plants using a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil.

In the music room, Mikaela Fattorini ripples her fingers over the piano keys, then settles into singing “Let It Be” to the heavens.

While Alido and Fattorini ventured from a world away to teach in the rural community of Mott, science and music know no boundaries.

A U.S. Marine Corps veteran with a worldly palate, Jayson Parsons put a pinch of this and a pinch of that into a seasoning jar for an outdoor survival trip, and discovered the recipe for a new business.

Originally from Arizona, Parsons and his family had moved to Hebron, where he and one of his sons explored the outdoors in survivor style.

In the heart of Wolford, nestled amid the rolling fields of golden wheat and endless skies, is Father's Farm – a place where redemption grows through fortitude and faith. It is where Jonathan Freeman found a second chance at life.

Freeman, a California native, made his way to North Dakota in 2018 alongside his girlfriend, seeking one of the many job openings the state had to offer.

“You’re letting her do that?”

Bret Dockter was asked this question when his daughter, Emma, decided to pursue a career in teaching.

“Absolutely,” Bret responded, knowing he hadn’t looked at the profession through rose-colored glasses. Twenty-six years in teaching – and 27 as a football coach – will do that. Still, he loves it.

It’s a Friday afternoon, and Brooke Hilzendeger plops a heavy bag on the dirt floor of the Lineworker Training Center in Mandan, kicking up a trail of dust. She opens it and pulls out climbing boots, a body belt, a pole strap, gloves and a hard hat. These aren’t the items most people would expect to find in a woman’s bag, but for those who know Hilzendeger, a 29-year-old single mom and self-proclaimed tomboy, it comes as no surprise.