Minnesota has hockey. North Dakota has basketball. And no one knew North Dakota basketball better than Don Hanson.
For 35 years, Hanson produced the basketball bible for North Dakota: “The Hoopster.” It is a comprehensive guide to North Dakota high school and college basketball, complete with team previews, player information, statistics, predictions and even a master list of North Dakota school nicknames dating back to a time before school consolidation.
“Your kid has done it or seen it done, and I can almost guarantee it,” says Kidder County High School Principal Michael Wachter.
The “it” Wachter describes? Vaping.
Using an e-cigarette is commonly called vaping. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid into a vapor that can be inhaled. The vapor may contain nicotine, flavoring, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other chemicals.
“It’s happening,” he says. “Your son or daughter has seen a device being used. And that right there is peer pressure in itself.”
As a nearly 20-year active member of the U.S. Army Reserves, the Hazen native had been deployed before. She served in the 2008-10 campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom, earning a Bronze Star Medal and a Combat Medical Badge as the executive officer of a forward surgical team.
“It was life-changing,” Ziemann-Bolinske says.
“If there is an issue or something to solve in Watford City, we look at things from a community standpoint,” says Pat Bertagnolli, vice president of human resources with MBI Energy Services.
This sense of community that defines Watford City and greater McKenzie County has brought a group of area leaders together to put the local face on a federal constitutional mandate. The mandate is a decennial count of the population, and the 2020 Census is here.
GIRL MEETS FARM
While in college, Yeh started a food blog, called “My Name is Yeh,” putting her passion for food and baking, like her mother, to work. The success of Yeh’s blog opened other doors. She wrote a cookbook, “Molly on the Range,” which led to the 2018 launch of her own television show on Food Network, “Girl Meets Farm.”
“Girl Meets Farm” takes viewers inside Yeh’s farmhouse kitchen, where she makes food that connects her Jewish and Chinese heritage to life on a Midwestern farm.
The Obans’ son, Evin Liam, has developed a friendship with the city’s waste management staff and a fascination with the garbage truck they drive. On trash pickup days, Erin makes sure to crack the front door open so Evin can wave and watch his friends work. The little boy often insists on delivering muffins or other baked goods to his friends. When muffins don’t happen, oranges suffice. Evin’s friends return the kindness, offering a toy truck or a ball to play with. Sometimes, they’ve even opened their wallets to hand him a dollar or two.
It’s not that strange, once you’ve done the research. Baker says he turned to “experts” at the University of Minnesota, for their preliminary peanut research, and University of New Mexico, because most organic peanuts are grown in New Mexico and west Texas. He also learned of a group of about a dozen farmers in the Niagara Region of Ontario who were producing peanuts.
Baker even sent a letter to the Peanut Bureau of Canada, which he found to be a top resource in his search.
“To this day, I appreciate it,” Baker says.
It’s the “benefit” of the Midwest tradition and definition. When one of their own falls down – be it from a life-altering accident, a devastating fire or a dreaded cancer diagnosis – North Dakotans have developed a reputation for helping neighbors get back on their feet.
After a mother-daughter-sister team experienced that giving spirit and North Dakota kindness firsthand through a family member’s illness, inspiration struck. In short order, their new business venture, Grateful Cratefulls, was launched.
