LITTLE MISSOURI STATE PARK — The suspect in a Bismarck homicide was found dead by apparent suicide in the Little Missouri State Park north of Killdeer early Monday morning.
Dunn County Sheriff Clay Coker said the body of Kirk Kwasniewski, 35, was found in an open-air pavilion about 50 yards from where his vehicle had been located earlier by a deputy following a 911 hangup.
At 1:09 a.m. Monday, a Bismarck woman living on the 600 block of North 22nd Street, called police to report Kwasniewski was in her home threatening her with a gun. She found her boyfriend, 30-year-old Caine Fischer, of Bismarck, dead in the home. She told police Kwasniewski had fled.
Would you put a 350-foot wind turbine on your land?
That’s the question my dad was asked by a representative of NextEra Energy Resources not long after the company expressed interest in leasing a small corner of land in an area owned by our family about 2½ miles west of our farm.
The turbine would be part of the Brady Wind Energy Center II project NextEra plans to stretch across northern Hettinger County as a complementary project to the larger Brady Wind Energy Center I proposed for southern Stark County.
My dad promptly asked me the same question and others. “What do you know about the company?” And, “What do you think we should do?”
Brian Benesh, right, speaks Wednesday during Veterans Day Services at Stickney Auditorium in Dickinson State University’s May Hall.
When Brian Benesh began planning Veterans Day Services in Dickinson 16 years ago, they were held at the St. Anthony Club.
Over the years, attendance has grown so much that the services need to be held at Stickney Auditorium in Dickinson State University’s May Hall, one of the city’s largest venues.
Benesh said Wednesday during the service’s recognition ceremony that he’s stepping down as the planner of Veterans Day and Memorial Day events to focus his volunteerism on memorializing veterans’ gravesites in cemeteries with American flags.
“The time has come for me to just spend my time and efforts on my cemeteries and honoring those people,” Benesh said. “These programs will run themselves. That won’t be a problem. But it’s time to let go.”
First Sgt. Scott Obrigewitch, a Dickinson teacher and master of ceremonies for Wednesday’s service, said he didn’t have to worry about the program with Benesh in charge.
“When he calls me up, it’s pretty much planned,” Obrigewitch said. “He has everything lined up.”
Why did it take President Barack Obama seven years to reject the Keystone XL pipeline?
We’ll never know the answer to that question.
What we do know is that the president seemed pretty happy with himself Friday when he finally took a knee holding the political football he’d seemingly been playing keep-away with since his first term began.
A semi truck hauling oil is followed by two vehicles on U.S. Highway 85 while going through the small town of Fairfi eld about 16 miles north of Interstate 94 on Saturday morning. A street sign denoting the highway was recently clipped by a vehicle and is now crooked.
FAIRFIELD, N.D. — Joe Kessel is blunt when he talks about a proposed project that would make U.S. Highway 85 four lanes from Interstate 94 to Watford City, N.D.
“Why haven’t they got it done yet?” he asks with a hearty laugh.
The Billings County Commissioner lives a half-mile off the well-traveled Bakken Oil Patch thoroughfare only about four miles south of the McKenzie County line and said he deals with oilfield traffic every day. He even believes the drop in oil prices over the past year hasn’t created that much of a slowdown along the highway.
The public will get a glimpse of the 62-mile project proposed by the North Dakota Department of Transportation for the first time this week when public scoping meetings are held at 5 p.m. Monday at Belfield City Hall and at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Watford City City Hall.
Jamie Olson, the NDDOT’s public information specialist, said there’s no telling how long the four-laning process would take, but said it could last upward of a decade. There’s also no dollar amount attached to the project yet, as it must go through multiple approval steps first.
“It’ll take a long time once they complete that environmental (assessment) portion of it,” she said. “That’ll help to answer some of those questions: How long are we looking at? What are the options?”
Dustin Monke 