Month: June 2013

Drivers get 77 mpg on Guinness World Record attempt

Wayne Gerdes, left, and Bob Winger fuel up their Volkswagen Passat TDI at Frankie’s West Side in Dickinson on Tuesday.

Drivers stopping at or passing by Frankie’s West Side late Tuesday morning got a glimpse of two men trying to set a Guinness World Record.

Wayne Gerdes and Bob Winger spent a couple of hours in Dickinson putting diesel fuel in the white 2013 Volkswagen Passat TDI sedan they have been driving since June 7.

Gerdes and Winger are “co-pilots” on a mission to break a world record for what Guinness calls best fuel economy on a drive through all 48 of the continental United States in a non-hybrid vehicle.

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New England loses an endearing personality

The impact of some people we know isn’t truly felt until after they’re gone.

Myself, and I’m certain the entire city of New England, feels this after the death of Norma Peterson.

Norma was the longtime editor and then publisher of The Herald weekly newspaper that serves Hettinger and Slope counties. She died June 7 after a courageous 16-month battle with lung cancer.

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Serenity in the Bakken: TRNP North Unit balancing beauty against oil boom’s impact

A lone buffalo bull grazes in a clearing next to a butte in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit south of Watford City on June 6.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK NORTH UNIT — Ron Sams remembers a time when very little of note happened here.

The U.S. law enforcement park ranger worked in the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park from 1999 to 2001 before being transferred through the Department of the Interior.

He returned to the North Unit in 2008, just as the Bakken oil boom and all that came with it was beginning to dig into the northwest part of North Dakota.

“When I left here, I remember how quiet it was. When I came back, that was not the case any longer,” Sams said. “I’m not saying we’re as busy as Yosemite or some of the other parks I’ve worked in, but I’m seeing some of the same crimes here that I saw in other places. I should have expected it, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. But sleepy little Watford City, I think it surprised all of us.”

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Farm accident claims the life of 19-year-old Mott man

A 19-year-old Mott man beloved by the community he grew up in died Monday while doing what he loved, family and friends said.

Mike Wehri was attempting to spray a field for an area farmer he worked for when the machine he was driving “hit something electrical,” Hettinger County Sheriff Sarah Warner said.

Wehri was a 2012 Mott-Regent High School graduate and recently completed his freshman year at North Dakota State University, where he was majoring in agronomy.
“All he wanted to do all his life was be a farmer,” said Judy Martin, Wehri’s grandmother who lives in Dickinson.

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Playground-like insults pepper post-legislative dialogue

There’s a schoolyard showdown happening and the battleground has been the opinion pages of this and most other newspapers in North Dakota.

On one side of the playground are the Democrats, complaining that seemingly every bill passed in the 2013 legislative session was the worst thing that ever happened in North Dakota.

Rebutting those claims and puffing their chests are Republicans, convinced that everything their supermajority did between January and May was in the best interest of North Dakotans while the Democrats are just sore losers.

Sometimes, children — even the really big ones — just can’t get along.

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