Monke – Page 40 – Dustin Monke

A SPECIAL DELIVERY: Baby boy born 1 hour after St. Joseph’s hospital opens doors

Liam Rajala was seemingly late to arrive. It turns out, however, he was right on time to be the first baby delivered at the new CHI St. Joseph’s hospital. Dickinson’s newest resident — a 21½-inch boy weighing 9 pounds, 6 ounces — was born at 9:09 p.m. Monday. Liam was delivered by Dr. Thomas Arnold a little more than an hour after the hospital officially opened.

“He was a week late. I thought he’d be born in the old one,” Lorina Rajala, Liam’s mother, said Tuesday afternoon as her husband, Brad, held their son in their postpartum room.

Brad said when his wife went into labor at home Monday afternoon, she had to call the hospital to determine where she’d have to go for the birth. They sent her to the new facility on Fairway Street.

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Dickinson's wait for Wings ends

The wings are ready and the beer is flowing at Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar in Dickinson.

The long-awaited restaurant officially opened its doors Monday after a weekend training opening that packed its roughly 8,300 square foot facility in the West Ridge Development on Saturday night and whet the community’s appetite for the city’s first new national chain restaurant in more than a decade.

“We’re expecting this to be one of the busiest Buffalo Wild Wings in the franchise,” said Ken Herslip of Minot, who along with his family owns the Dickinson, Minot and Williston franchise locations.

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Our watchful protector and not-so-silent guardian

Last week, I worked the afternoon and evening shift while my news editor, page designer and all-around nighttime showrunner April Baumgarten took a well-deserved vacation.

That meant I had to get into the habit of sleeping in, working until around 11 p.m. or later and staying awake into the early-morning hours — something that until early 2013 was entirely normal for me after spending the previous decade working in newspaper sports departments.

It sounds kinda fun, right? Sleep in and stay up late! Well, it wasn’t so bad when I was a single guy. Now, with a wife and dog at home waiting for me, it’s not so fun.

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‘REAL’ CHRISTMAS: Tradition, ‘the smell’ keep holiday shoppers coming back for live trees

For John Kempenich, it’s about tradition, family and, of course, the smell.

Kempenich spent several minutes Wednesday night at the Dickinson State University Agriculture Building carefully examining the fir trees lining the walls until he found one that caught his eye.

He fluffed the tree and inspected it some more. After seeking the advice of his daughters, who each performed the same meticulous study of the tree, the decision was made. The Kempenich family had found their Christmas tree.

They have been coming to DSU to pick out a Christmas tree sold as a fundraiser by the university’s rodeo club since before their 18-year-old daughter Lexi was born.

“It’s just one of them things that you like — that smell and the familiness of coming together and picking out a tree for the year,” Kempenich said as the smile on his face grew.
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You don’t need a plastic bag to cook a turkey

Every once in a while, there is advice that sounds good, but you just shouldn’t take it.

I ran into this situation on Thanksgiving when I decided to take the advice of others and use one of those plastic roaster bags in my straight-out-of-the-box roaster to help avoid cleaning up baked-in turkey juices.

It sounded like a great idea. We use similar bags all the time when cooking with a crock pot and they work like a dream. So, in an effort to avoid cleaning the contraption, I decided to use a roaster bag for the first time. We had picked up a couple for next to nothing about a week earlier and, like a fool, I assumed they worked just the same as my crock pot bags. You know, put them in the roaster, set the temperature, place the food in there, walk away and wait for that delicious smell of turkey to waft through the house.

But, because of my foolishness (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it), things didn’t go as planned.

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