June 2016 – Dustin Monke

Beach Man Charged With Murder After Allegedly Shooting Man in Head

BEACH — A Beach man has been charged with murdering another man three weeks after he allegedly shot him in the head.

Though details about the incident are slim, court documents state Gabriel Alexander Castro, 22, shot Richard Young, 24, of Beach, on June 6 with a 1911 model .45-caliber pistol.

Young died from his injuries on June 10 in a Bismarck hospital.

Castro was officially charged with Class AA felony murder on June 24, the day he made his initial appearance in Southwest District Court, and is being held on $500,000 bond at the Southwest Multi-County Correctional Center in Dickinson. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Court documents state Castro also intentionally interfered with law enforcement’s investigation by “altering the firearm and removing items with fingerprints.” He faces charges of hindering law enforcement, a Class C felony, and providing false information to an officer about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, a Class A misdemeanor.

Castro has a preliminary hearing before Southwest District Judge Dann Greenwood on July 28.

Golden Valley County Sheriff Scott Steele said he could not provide details about the case as it remains under investigation.

Steele added that he could not comment on whether or not the pistol Castro used was legally obtained.

Golden Valley County State’s Attorney Christina Wenko said both the sheriff’s office and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation are investigating the shooting.

Beach Mayor Walt Losinski said it has been decades since the last murder charge in Beach. He recalled a murder happening sometime in the 1970s, but none since.

He said he doesn’t know much about the shooting and neither do many others in the southwest North Dakota town of about 1,100 people just 1 mile from the Montana state line.

“They’ve sure kept quiet about it because I haven’t heard anything,” he said, referring to law enforcement.

The two men both came to Beach from other states. Castro’s Facebook page states he was working in the deli at the Pilot Flying J Travel Center in Beach and that he attended high school in Phoenix.

A Flying J spokesperson said she could not comment on Castro’s employment. A GoFundMe page dedicated to Young states that he was originally from Oregon, was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and had a child.

Referendum for New Richardton-Taylor School Passes

RICHARDTON — The Richardton-Taylor school district is getting a new high school.

Residents of Richardton and Taylor voted on Tuesday night to approve a bond referendum during a special election, though the results were clearly split between the two towns.

Sixty-five percent voted in favor of the $2 million bond referendum for the $12 million project. Curiously, nineteen less voters approved of raising the district’s debt limit by 5 percent to help finance the project with a $10 million loan from the Bank of North Dakota.

“We’ve been working on this thing for two-and-a-half, three years,” Richardton-Taylor Superintendent Brent Bautz said late Tuesday night. “We’ve put a lot of hard work into it. It’s good to finally realize it’s coming to fruition.”

The bond referendum needed a 60 percent “yes” vote to pass. It was decided by just 28 votes.

Vote tallies showed Richardton voters overwhelmingly supported the project while Taylor residents opposed it.

Seventy-three percent of Richardton residents voted in favor of both the referendum and raising the debt limit. Only 43 percent of Taylor residents voted for the referendum and 40 percent voting to raise the debt limit.

Bautz said the district needed to raise the debt limit because the North Dakota Century Code would have only allowed the district to borrow 5 percent of its assessed value, which wouldn’t have been enough for the project. The approve allows the district to borrow 10 percent of its assessed value.

Bautz said the district would like to begin construction on the project next spring with a scheduled completion by summer 2018.

Richardton-Taylor’s administration and school board approached residents about a remodel earlier this year because of decay in the 55-year-old facility and as a long-term cost-cutting move.

The current high school building in Richardton holds grades 7-12. The elementary school in Taylor has grades 2-6. Pre-kindergarten through first-grade students are in the St. Mary’s Social Center Building in Richardton, which costs roughly $72,000 annually in lease payments and additional staff.

With the referendum passed, pre-K through first grade will move to Taylor and grades 5-12 will be placed in Richardton.

Griemsman Sets Roughrider Days Barrel Racing Record

Tanner Aus, of Granite Falls, Minn., hangs on for an 85-point ride in the bareback riding on Flaxy Lady on Saturday in the Roughrider Days Rodeo at the Dickinson State Outdoor Arena.

When Jana Griemsman heard Dickinson received torrential rain on Friday night, she was discouraged.

The Piedmont, S.D., barrel racer said she and others scheduled to run Saturday evening at the Roughrider Days Rodeo were convinced they wouldn’t have much of a chance to finish in the money.

“We were all a little discouraged thinking we wouldn’t have a chance if the ground was wet,” Griemsman said. “But we got here, and we were all really impressed.”

Griemsman, however, was the one who left everyone dazzled. Three tight turns on a near-perfect path helped her set a Roughrider Days barrel racing record with a time of 15.51 seconds. Griemsman said her horse had struggled recently to make tight turns on the final barrel.

“I knew when she finished it tonight, my other two barrels were so close I knew I was going to have a good run,” Griemsman said. “I knew it was going to be good. I didn’t know I’d be winning it, but I was tickled when they announced my time.”

Continue reading “Griemsman Sets Roughrider Days Barrel Racing Record”

New UND Logo a Missed Opportunity

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The University of North Dakota has a new athletic logo.

It’s plain. It’s simple. It’s uninspired. It’s, dare I say, everything the old Fighting Sioux logo wasn’t.

Yes, it’s serviceable, kinda sleek and very modern. But it’s just not all that great, especially considering the amount of money spent on the change.

UND spent more than $200,000 to change its athletic nickname from Fighting Sioux to Fighting Hawks, an already-unpopular move that elicited a collective shoulder shrug amongst the majority of supporters and alumni who would have preferred something as unique as the Sioux.

Then, the university dropped around $50,000 to New York-based SME Branding to design the logo. (That’s just a bit under the median household income in North Dakota, by the way.)

So forgive people who wanted something jaw-dropping and inspired that looked like it cost $50,000. Forgive them for wanting a logo that actually helped them embrace the blasé nickname forced upon the university and its supporters. Forgive the 71 percent of people who, in an unscientific Grand Forks Herald poll of nearly 6,700, said they “don’t like it at all.”

Some on social media even comically compared UND’s new logo to some weird mashup of the U.S. Postal Service emblem and the retired Burlington Northern Sante Fe logo. Others took to Photoshop and put “Just Say” in front of the logo because instead of the logo, critiquing that it looks more like a “NO” than “ND”.

Many people weren’t going to be happy no matter what logo UND trotted out. The Fighting Sioux logo and nickname removal will resonate for years. Some will never get over it. Others, including me, see missed opportunity in the Fighting Hawks nickname and logo. What drove it home for me was when a student-designed Fighting Hawks logo appeared on my Facebook page Friday.

UND student Blaine Durward of Trenton deserves a tip of the hat for designing his own Fighting Hawks logo that not only incorporated elements of North Dakota, Grand Forks and Native American heritage, but simply looked cool both on apparel and standing alone.

Durward even went so far as to show what UND football and basketball uniforms would like look with the his logo elements incorporated, as well as how it could be used on the Alerus Center football field and the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center basketball court.

His typography was solid, the colors were on point and the fact that he found a way to incorporate a negative space outlining the state of North Dakota into the Hawks’ beak and torso was brilliant. The only knock on Durward’s Hawk is that it was a bit on the cartoonish side. Still, it was a hundred times more powerful than the logo UND chose.

According to an article in UND’s Dakota Student newspaper, Durward didn’t even submit the design because he wasn’t part of a design firm — one of the stipulations UND placed on those who wanted to submit logo designs. Just think of the positive outpouring the university would have received if Durward would have been allowed to compete and actually won.

While the logo UND chose isn’t great, its decision isn’t the end of the world either. All of us — alumni, supporters and fair-weather fans alike — will deal with it.

Because at the end of the day, it is only a logo. It just isn’t a very good one.

Insight Interview With City Commissioner-Elect Sarah Jennings

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This week, Brock and I sat down to talk with Sarah Jennings, who was recently elected to the Dickinson City Commission at age 26.

Here’s the rest of the episode: