Note: This column is written as the introduction to The Dickinson Press’ annual Progress edition, which begins Sunday, Feb. 1 and continues each Sunday through March 22.
You see them every day. In supermarkets, at your job or school, as you sit down to eat, or when you drive past a construction site.
Almost everywhere you look in southwest North Dakota, people are achieving the so-called “American Dream.”
Western North Dakota, for the past five years or so, has been a place where just about anyone could get back on their feet. There are people here who were broke only a few years ago but now have thriving businesses or jobs that pay very well. Others were simply able to get out of debt after falling on hard times elsewhere.
Now, however, as we enter a time of simultaneous progress and uncertainty, there seems to be few willing to say the good times are over, even if the boom is.
Dustin Monke 