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.
Continue reading “Editorial: The long rejection for Keystone XL “
How well do you know your neighbor? Do you even know your neighbor? What’s their name? What do they do?
About 10 days before Halloween, we had a story on our front page about how some people’s house decorations for the holiday had been riling up their neighbors. One woman said she believed her neighbors were going too far with such items as a mannequin hanging off the roof of their house from a noose.
Others brought up the fake “dead” baby dolls in another yard. The concerned parties expressed their frustrations to us and others via social media before they even took the time to talk to their actual neighbors about the problem they had with the decorations.
That’s a bigger problem than someone hanging a mannequin off their roof as a gag.
Continue reading “Meet your neighbors, don’t hide from them”
Growing up, I always heard rumors and stories about Dickinson parks at night. “That’s where kids go to make out and people go to get high.” Back then, teenage me laughed at that because, of course, I didn’t really care. Whatever you can get away with, I often thought. Now that my family lives across the street from one of Dickinson’s largest public parks, I don’t find it so funny.
I called the Dickinson Police Department three times this summer and made similar calls last summer after witnessing what appear to be drug deals and other suspicious activity taking place in my neighborhood’s park after dark.
One call to police a month ago prompted an officer to drive by and eventually get out of his car to look for two men who had been sitting in one of the park’s many darkened areas for more than an hour. By the time he got there, they were already gone. I watched as they fl ed on foot as the officer rolled by.
This spring, I was one of the three people who called 911 after finding a severely beaten man who’d been thrown out of a vehicle and onto a street in the middle of a Saturday afternoon as a dozen bystanders enjoyed a warm day in the park.
Many of those bystanders were children. Some were just yards away.
Congratulations and welcome to Thomas Mitzel, the next president of Dickinson State University. Mitzel will become the newest leader in our community when he takes office in January, and a leader he will very much need to be.
Expectations have never been higher for an incoming DSU president. Mitzel will not only be expected to increase enrollment rather quickly, but also help the university establish a new and trustworthy alumni foundation, all while improving community relations.
We, and the rest of the community, want and expect DSU to return to its glory days. But there’s much Mitzel and his new staff must do before that happens.
He should listen to the needs of his faculty and staff, and weed out those who believe the status quo is the only way to go. He must convince the most hardheaded at his school that there are better ways of doing business than by ignoring problems and then wondering why problems linger for years.
Continue reading “Editorial: New DSU president must bring pride, people back”
It doesn’t matter how how few pro athletes we produce, North Dakota sports have always been great. From Class B basketball to 9-man football and American Legion baseball, we take pride in our schools and their teams because — for many of us — it’s an outstanding source of community pride.
When it comes to fall, the world feels so much better when the football you care about is good too. And life is good lately for southwest North Dakotans who pay attention the local guys on the gridiron.
Dickinson High is the No. 2-ranked team in North Dakota Class 3A football. Dickinson State and Dickinson Trinity both have winning records, and North Dakota State and the University of North Dakota once again played on the same fi eld.
Continue reading “Life is better with good football”
Dustin Monke 