Month: June 2016

Kat Perkins Makes Waves With Musical Tribute to Late Friend Christina Grimmie

Kat Perkins is back in North Dakota on a week that her newest song is making waves in the music industry.

Perkins, a Scranton native, was featured on the homepage of music magazine Rolling Stone’s website throughout Tuesday for an article about the release of her song “Angels.”

Perkins recorded “Angels” as a tribute to her friend, the late singer Christina Grimmie, as well as the victims of the Orlando, Fla., nightclub shootings. She said Tuesday afternoon that the response to the song — which was written by her boyfriend, producer and guitarist Eric Warner — has been “overwhelming.”

“It was one of those cool, spontaneous moments for us to do what we know how to do and that’s make music and help people heal through music,” Perkins said. “It was helping us heal at the same time. It was a cool moment to see it come together like that and make an impact on others, because that’s what we set out to do.”

Perkins’ popularity rose after she appeared on season six of NBC’s singing competition show “The Voice.” There, she met Grimmie. The two were not only competitors but roommates who became fast friends.

Grimmie, a 22-year-old Christian pop singer, died June 11 in Orlando after being shot while signing autographs following a concert. Her shooter, 27-year-old, Kevin James Loibl, took his own life.

Perkins said “Angels” won’t be released on iTunes until Wednesday, at the earliest. When it is, proceeds from the single’s sales will be given to Grimmie’s family through a GoFundMe website. Perkins said Grimmie’s mother, Tina, is not only dealing with the loss of her daughter but has also been fighting cancer.

“She was everything to that family, not only as a daughter and an awesome human being, but her career was something that was taking off,” Perkins said. “They moved to L.A. for her. They fully supported her passion for making her music.”

Perkins will perform “Angels” live for the first time Saturday during a concert that begins at 3:30 p.m. at Medora’s Burning Hills Amphitheatre.  

Leading up to the concert, she’s hosting the Badlands Rising Star Music Camp. It begins today with 28 singers from across the upper Midwest and as far away as California.

Perkins will coach and mentor the campers throughout the next three days. They’ll then perform as the concert’s opening act and alongside Perkins during her concert.

“It felt so right,” she said of the camp. “I’ve never been so excited about something in my life. Now in the light of the last week or so, it’s kind of a shining light in my life and I feel like I can carry on a really cool legacy for not only myself but for Christina and the other musicians to help our young ones not only become better singers and performers, but to be better people and to be kind and choose love.”

 

If you go

What: Kat Perkins concert

When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Burning Hills Amphitheatre, Medora

Opening act: Participants of Perkins’ Badlands Rising Star Music Camp, which is being held this week in Medora.

Online: Visit www.thedickinsonpress.com to watch the music video for “Angels.”

Mott-Regent Passes $8.7 Million School Bond Issue by Thinnest of Margins

MOTT — Mott-Regent is getting a new elementary school and making major improvements to its high school.

The district’s school board made that official Monday after a canvassing meeting found that 61 percent of the district’s residents voted in favor of the $8.7 million bond referendum. The project needed a 60 percent “yes” vote to pass.

Viola LaFontaine, the district’s new superintendent who is just settling into her role and doesn’t start full time until July, said she has heard the mixed opinions about the bond passing.

“When you get a vote this close, you know there’s opinions out there,” she said. “I’m hearing different things.”

The bond calls for a 32.01 mill levy increase, or about a $143 increase on $100,000 in residential property. Cropland will see an average tax increase of 93 cents an acre.

A total of 639 district residents in Hettinger, Adams and Stark counties voted on the bond referendum, with only 390 voting yes. It was such a thin margin, the school board waited to receive additional mail-in ballots at Monday’s canvassing meeting to officially announce the results. They received just one mail-in ballot.

Mott-Regent has 240 students in its system.

With the funding, the district will construct a new elementary school, remodel and renovate the high school building, and demolish the old elementary school.

Work could begin immediately, LaFontaine said. Though she and school board president Kevin Roth said the school is likely going to ensure all the legal aspects of the project are shored up.

“We’re not going to rush into anything,” Roth said. “We’re going to do our due diligence and do everything properly. Hopefully everything will come in under bid.”

Consolidated Construction was hired as the contractor at-risk for the project. LaFontaine said the company wants to start soil borings and sight surveys soon.

“Some of those things, I think we can do pretty quickly,” she said.

The school will officially approach the Bank of North Dakota this week about a 2 percent, 20-year loan.

“The main thing is we just move forward from here,” she said. “I’m a very open and willing to listen to people, and am looking to make this a positive move for the Mott-Regent School District. … This is an opportunity for the school to celebrate education.”

The district also canvassed the election of incumbent school board members Garret Swindler and Lucas Greff, as well as newly elected Jeremy Ottmar. All three ran unopposed.

The Big Little Guy Who Changed My Life

My outlook on life completely changed nine months ago.

The reason was Grant Bennett Monke. He came into our lives last September as a 9-pound, 22-inch newborn baby.

Now he’s a 31 inches, 22 pounds and is a speed-crawling cruiser who leads us on many chases around the house.

Grant is a smart little charmer who loves to laugh and smile, enjoys taking apart his toys, having books read to him and then flipping through them himself.  

The news business, as some of you probably expect, is stressful. Days can be long, busy, and equal parts infuriating and invigorating. But everything changes when I walk through the front door and Grant looks up at me, smiles and says “DaDa!”

As I celebrate my first Father’s Day today with Grant and my wife, Sarah, it’s amazing to reflect on the changes we’ve had to make in our lives because of this big little guy.

The first three months went pretty well. Aside from a couple get-thrown-in-the-deep-end moments, Grant was great as an infant. He even flew on an airplane like a champ over the New Year’s holiday.

After that, things got more interesting. We watched as his personality started to form and he lit up the lives of everyone around him.

Now, as he starts making that transition to toddlerhood, we’re able to incorporate him into the lives we lived before he came around.

Going to events like Friday’s Bakken BBQ are still fun. They’re just a different kind of fun. I ran into some of my single buddies who were drinking beer and carousing, while I was on the hunt for baked beans and one of the juicier porks being served because, well, that’s what Grant can eat at a BBQ.

Though my industry works on daily deadlines, there’s times when I have to drop everything and rely on my wonderful staff because Grant needs to be taken to an appointment or picked up from day care. (Special shout-out to Holly for doing an excellent job!)

Then there’s times like last week, when Sarah had to go on a four-day work training trip and I’m left trying to balance work in an election week and being a dad to a teething 9-month-old. Thankfully, Grandma was available on Election Night to help pick up some slack.

But it’s all worth it, because being a dad is fun. Though there are some nearly sleepless nights — including a couple last week — and some very, very costly purchases that go along with having a kid, especially one that has grown nine inches in nine months, being a father is something I wouldn’t trade for the world.

The most exciting stuff is what you learn along the way.

I’ve discovered “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” or “Paw Patrol” and a remote control without batteries, or even a water bottle, can create a perfect 30-second distraction.

Sarah has taught me the beauty of strategic interior decorating, wherein a brick fireplace can still work for the room despite being covered with padded alphabet tiles, and how arranging our couches just right can create the perfect play area.

I know now that if I want to make my son laugh, I only need to spin him around, or bust out a rhyme or a funny word. For some reason, the word “explosion” said in just the right way makes Grant double over with laughter.

Grant doesn’t stop learning, either. He started talking a couple months ago and knows a few words.

He’s learned that Go-Go Squeeze, Cheerios and pancakes are pretty awesome. Almost simultaneously, he found out that his dog, Noodle, will eat just about anything he drops to him.

Everyone says having a child changes your life. And it obviously does. But really, it’s how one chooses to raise their children that determines what kind of a parent they really are.

Me? I choose to be the best dad I can, whether that’s running to Wal-Mart at 10 p.m. for diapers, working until midnight on a Thursday so I can spend time with Grant on the weekend, or simply being there for him when he needs me or getting him the things he wants and needs.

Because I cannot imagine a life that Grant’s not a part of.

Burgum Showed North Dakotans Want to Get Back to Business

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Color me shocked that Doug Burgum defeated North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem so soundly in the state’s Republican Party gubernatorial primary.

While we all knew it was possible, I never thought Burgum — a millionaire businessman and entrepreneur — would carry nearly every North Dakota county.

A friend, who is a huge Burgum supporter, asked me on Election Day how I thought it would all play out. I told him there’s no way western North Dakotans would vote for a Fargo tech millionaire to be their governor.

Boy was I wrong. And I wasn’t alone.

Few predicted a Burgum win, let alone a Burgum rout.

From the moment Burgum announced his candidacy, he just seemed to me like a guy with some good ideas who wasn’t going to get the chance to act on them. Sure, he had the money to win an election, but were small-town North Dakotans really going to turn out for this guy at the polls?

Perhaps the answer, in the end, is Burgum simply wanted it more.

He by no means ran a perfect campaign, but he did what North Dakotans wanted him to do — he went and talked to them.

He loaded up his crew in a 1974 bus and visited as many people in the state as he could. He went to places like the Dakota Diner in Dickinson to tell voters his vision for North Dakota. He made visiting small towns a priority, even going to Amidon (where he just happens to own a nearby ranch).

And he spelled out his vision to North Dakotans, who it seems clearly aren’t happy with the Republican Party’s wish for the status quo in the days following the oil boom.

Stenehjem — one of the biggest political faces of the oil boom as a member of the Industrial Commission — didn’t even come close to equaling Burgum’s campaign presence either in person or in advertising.

To his credit, Stenehjem should be commended for taking his job as the state’s attorney general seriously during campaign season and not shirking his duties to endlessly campaign.

Though if he wanted to be governor, perhaps he should have.

The biggest shift from this election, though, was that Democrats crossed the aisle in droves and cast votes for Burgum, who has many moderate to libertarian viewpoints. What that means for the general election, we don’t quite know yet, but signs sure seem to point to a Burgum landslide.

As Forum News Service columnist Mike McFeely put it Wednesday, Democratic governor candidate Marvin Nelson isn’t finding $8 million in a ditch in Rolette County anytime soon.

Sorry Marvin. But he’s right.

Republicans and Democrats came together to send Burgum on the general election, giving one of the state’s top politicians in Wayne Stenehjem a collective thumbs down and signaling a return to a business leader in the same vein as former governors John Hoeven and Ed Schafer.

Remember, neither Hoeven nor Schafer had political experience prior to taking over as governor, but were both well-known business leaders.

So now it’s time for Burgum to do what his Republican outsider counterpart on the national level can’t seem to do — unite his party (and others outside of it) behind him.

Then, should he win in November, he needs to make sure his money was spent wisely and actually do something to help North Dakota.