Month: November 2013

Love it or hate it, Black Friday brings ’em out

A look at the Walmart Black Friday crowd.

On Thanksgiving night — or Gray Thursday, if you want to call it that — crowds of shoppers gathered inside of Walmart awaiting the proverbial 6 p.m. starting bell that allowed them to buy discounted items such as TVs, iPads, video games, vacuums and even Tupperware.

Yes, Tupperware. But to be fair, at less than $7 for 30 items, any 1950s housewife will tell you it was a steal of a deal. And any 2013 gamer will say you’re crazy if you’re not in line for $30 copies of Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto V.

Love it or hate it, Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales sure do have a way of bringing out customers.

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Shoppers Holiday: Dickinson store owners, managers prepare for Thanksgiving, Black Friday rush

Sara Spradley puts a tool set on a rack at Newby’s Ace Hardware on Wednesday in preparation for the store’s early morning opening on Friday.

Lenny Johnson calls the sound similar to a “stampede of horses.”

The co-owner of Starboard, an apparel store in the Prairie Hills Mall, has been a part of three Black Friday doorbuster sales pushes. Each one has been more interesting than the last, he said, as the mall doors open and customers flood in — some of them running — toward stores looking for deals.

“It is absolutely the craziest thing you will ever see,” Johnson said. “You can literally hear the feet.”

Dickinson’s population has practically doubled in the past five years and many who work in retail businesses said sales have improved during that span.

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Page layout changes designed to help quality, content

As you have read through today’s newspaper, you have undoubtedly notice that our page arrangement has changed.

Obituaries, Lifestyles, North Dakota and Markets are all now on different pages than you are used to seeing. For the most part, the content is the same. It’s just in a different place.
We have made these changes for a number of reasons.

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No-Shave November itchy, but rewarding

What absolute gross looks like in the heart of winter.

When our publisher, Harvey Brock, asked me if I’d ever heard of No-Shave November and Movember, I laughed and told him of course I had as I consider myself at least somewhat tuned into trends.

Then he asked if I’d ever tried it.

As a guy who had never gone past the so-called “sexy stubble” stage of facial hair, I told him I never had. It’s partially because I always had a job where keeping a clean look was necessary and also because I never felt I could actually grow enough hair on my face for it to look decent.

Maybe I wasn’t so trendy after all.

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Former players reflect on ‘legendary’ Biesiot

Press Photo by Royal McGregor In this Sept. 1, 2012 photo, Dickinson State head football coach Hank Biesiot, left, speaks with players during a Frontier Conference game against Rocky Mountain. After 38 years as the head coach of the Blue Hawks, Biesiot resigned on Thursday.

To them, he’s a “legendary” coach, a man who helped teach the meaning of humility and camaraderie, or someone who simply gave them a chance when no one else would.

To all of them, however, he’s coach Hank Biesiot.
“They just don’t make ‘em like him anymore,” said Randy Gordon, a longtime head football coach for Dickinson Trinity and a member of the first Dickinson State team Biesiot coached in 1976.

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