Category: Monke

City should build an event center

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a room with some lifelong community members.

Like men who like to talk do, we started fixing the world’s problems — starting with Dickinson’s.

Because this happened inside of a room at Trinity High School during the Region 7 boys basketball tournament, the conversation quickly turned to sports and the 2,300-person crowd packed into the Knights of Columbus Activities Center gymnasium just down the hall.

Each March, thousands of fans sardine themselves into arguably the best high school gymnasium in North Dakota to watch high school basketball tournaments.

Why? Because it’s all Dickinson, a regional hub city, has to offer.

So finally, I asked everyone a question: “Do you think this community would support a 5,000-seat event center?” The resounding answer was, “Yes.”

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Southwest ND farmers slowly start spring planting

The spring planting season has begun in southwest North Dakota.

County extension agents and farmers south of Dickinson said fertilizing and seeding of fields is slowly starting throughout the area thanks to a mix of warm temperatures, dry conditions and general anxiousness.

“Right now, everybody is tickled,” said Duaine Marxen, Hettinger County’s extension agent.

But it isn’t full-speed-ahead quite yet, farmers said.

“We’re kind of piddling along here,” said Terry Kirschemann, who farms near Regent. “We need another week of temperatures before we can get into the heavier stuff.”

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Dickinson Charities shuts down bingo after 33 years, citing declining interest

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Dickinson Charities Manager Carol Klemm sits inside the group’s vacant bingo hall in north Dickinson. Sunday was the final day of bingo at the hall after 33 years.

As Carol Klemm turned on the lights in the large, empty hall Monday, she got an “eerie feeling.”

The spacious room in the Dickinson Charities building on 21st Street East hosted its final bingo games Sunday. After 33 years, Dickinson Charities has decided to end its bingo nights due to a decline in participation.

“Everything runs its course,” Klemm said.

The bingo hall has been affected by the aging population of its players and additional opportunities to play bingo in the city, she said, as well as trouble finding consistent help.

In the end, it was a financial decision. Dickinson Charities also runs blackjack, pull tabs and raffles throughout the city. It had been holding bingo on Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

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Technology changing how grain elevator operates

RURAL TAYLOR — When he first began working for Southwest Grain several years ago, Kent Candrian said there were days when he would walk about a mile or more at work — all of it in a 20-square-foot area.

Manning toggles and switches on a large wall switchboard, Candrian would make sure grain hauled to the Boyle Terminal between Gladstone and Taylor made it to the proper bins.

These days, Candrian still does that job. Instead, he sits in front of a bank of computer screens and does the majority of his work with the click of a mouse.

“I do everything in one spot,” said Candrian, a longtime driveway attendant for the CHS Inc. elevator. “Basically, it eliminates walking.”

Like many elevators, Southwest Grain has converted to automated systems that speed up its daily unloading of farmers’ trucks, its own loading of rail cars and also makes the lives of its employees easier.

“In the last four or five years, technology has advanced to the point where it just makes more sense because of the volume we do anymore,” Southwest Grain General Manager Delane Thom said. “It gets rid of some employee fatigue. It makes their job much easier and you can manage the whole system from one spot.”

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For New England, reaching state tournament is ‘dream come true’

NEW ENGLAND — The party didn’t stop after the post-game celebration.

In New England, the revelry for winning the Region 7 boys basketball championship game last Thursday night in Dickinson lingered until the team and fans got home. Then it spilled over onto the city’s Main Street, led by fire trucks blasting sirens, a stream of cars honking horns, and the hoots and hollers of fans in this town of about 650 people relishing something that hasn’t occurred in nearly a generation.

New England, with only 69 kids in high school, will be both the smallest school and community participating in this year’s Class B state tournament, which begins today at the Bismarck Event Center.

“For us, this is the ultimate,” said Daryl Jung, the school’s longtime athletic director. “It’s actually a dream come true.”

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