Tag: North Dakota

School in August has never felt right

Tomorrow morning, kids in the New England Public School District will attend their eighth day of classes. By the time Labor Day rolls around, they’ll have been in school for 13 days.
In my mind, and apparently several thousand others, that’s ridiculous.

In fact, a group of parents from Bismarck and Mandan have come together in a grassroots effort to get North Dakota schools to start after Labor Day.

Within a month, the group will begin seeking signatures to get the issue placed on the November 2014 ballot in an effort to leave the choice of when school starts solely in the people’s hands instead of a group of school administrators.

I have long felt that North Dakota schools starting in August was absurd.

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Holding on until harvest: Crop outlook in southwest ND good despite late harvest projections

A field of durum south of New England, still almost completely green, is shown in early August.

The same fields that were being harvested on this day last year are lusher today in most parts of southwest North Dakota, and most are just barely showing signs of ripening.

Despite late planting and below-average July temperatures — including one overnight when southwest North Dakota neared frost-like conditions — grain crops in the area look good and have producers anxiously hoping the weather cooperates for another three to four weeks until it’s ready to harvest.

“It’s the old, ‘You never know until it’s in the bin,’” Scranton Equity grain manager Mike Wedwick said. “But things look good.”

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The keeping of the beekeepers: ND wants to keep a better eye on the industry

Doug Goehring, the agriculture commissioner of North Dakota, said there are concerns about the business of bees in the state. So much so that he has fielded late-night phone calls from landowners concerned about the placement of hives.

“‘Doug, I just want to let you know I’ve got bees right across from me,’” Goehring recalls one McKenzie farmer telling him over the phone at 10:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday.

Placement of beehives and the regulation of out-of-state beekeepers in North Dakota are among the concerns Goehring believes will have farmers, landowners and beekeepers buzzing at the first North Dakota Pollinator Summit, which is being held at 1 p.m. CDT today at the Kelly Inn in Bismarck.

“I think that the beekeepers are going to think I’m taking a shot at them. I’m not,” Goehring said. “I’m trying to address this issue because they are guests here.”

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Golfing gem: The Links of North Dakota deals with oil’s impact

Ronnie Swartz, the head professional at The Links of North Dakota golf course near Ray, stands on Hole No. 2 at the course on June 6.

RURAL RAY — When it began gaining national recognition more than a decade ago, the Links of North Dakota golf course was known for its Scottish flair that harkened back to the game’s earliest days with a tranquil setting along the banks and bluffs of northern Lake Sakakawea.

Today, the course that bills itself as the best in the state — and has hardware to back up that claim — is in the middle of the western North Dakota madness that is the Bakken Oil Patch. When people use the word “flare” there, it has a widely recognized and wholly different meaning.

Ronnie Swartz, the head professional at The Links, said oil’s impact on the area surrounding the course can be seen in plain view at dusk.

“You can stand up on pretty much any hole and see them,” Swartz said. “At night, it looks like the hillsides are on fire just from the flares blowing off the natural gas.”

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Playground-like insults pepper post-legislative dialogue

There’s a schoolyard showdown happening and the battleground has been the opinion pages of this and most other newspapers in North Dakota.

On one side of the playground are the Democrats, complaining that seemingly every bill passed in the 2013 legislative session was the worst thing that ever happened in North Dakota.

Rebutting those claims and puffing their chests are Republicans, convinced that everything their supermajority did between January and May was in the best interest of North Dakotans while the Democrats are just sore losers.

Sometimes, children — even the really big ones — just can’t get along.

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