Tag: Local

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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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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Safety first: MBI offers unique training program — slowly

BELFIELD — Troy Ohlhausen never lets the needle on his pickup’s speedometer go beyond 10 mph when he’s on an oilfield site — even if the site where he’s driving is nothing more than a simulation.

As Ohlhausen drove slow and steady around MBI Energy Services’ training facility Thursday, he pointed out truck drivers training to haul crude oil by first spending time in classrooms, tank batteries set up to show employees proper safety techniques, and even one trucker undergoing a quality control check on how to properly put chains on his truck’s tires.

“You can do training out in live operations, but it’s so fast,” said Ohlhausen, MBI’s director of training. “Everything is fast-paced. We slow it down out here.”

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Dickinson Investments names former management company operator of Hawks Point

The management company that ran Dickinson’s Hawks Point at its inception will soon be in charge once again.

Dickinson Investments LLC — the group that owns the senior living community on the Dickinson State University campus — announced Thursday that, beginning April 1, Senior Services of America will take over management of the facility.

Senior Services of America managed Hawks Point from its inception in 2007 until 2013, when the company was terminated by Dickinson Investments. From that time forward, the DSU Foundation managed the facility.

However, Dickinson Investments has been searching for a new management company since last November when North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem forced the Foundation into financial receivership.

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Trial Runners continues to expand

Few Dickinson businesses felt the impact of the Great Recession.

As stock prices fell, the national housing market crashed and consumer confidence dipped, southwest North Dakota largely weathered the storm.

Trial Runners tells a different story.

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