Submitted Photo by Roxee Jones Actor Michael J. Fox, middle, walks with Denise Lutz of New England, left, and Sam Fox, who is bicycling throughout the country raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation while also climbing the highest peak in every state, walk toward White Butte near Amidon on Sunday afternoon.
AMIDON — Roxee Jones drove from Dickinson to White Butte in rural Slope County on Sunday morning expecting a quick hike up North Dakota’s highest point.
The Grand Forks woman never thought she’d spend time with a famous actor who is the face of a cause near to her heart.
Actor Michael J. Fox fl ew into southwest North Dakota on Sunday to join Sam Fox, the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s outreach and engagement offi cer who is making a threemonth journey across the United States to raise money for Parkinson’s disease research.
Jones said the actor actually led the hike up the butte, which is 3,507 feet above sea level.
“It was just an awesome experience — overwhelming that he showed up there,” said Jones, who teaches Parkinson’s wellness classes at the Grand Forks YMCA and whose father, Donald Lutz of Dickinson, lives with the disease.
Jim Kerzman, a former state legislator from Mott, holds a lamb on his farm in this undated photo. The state representative of 20 years who also farmed near Mott for a half-century died Saturday in a tractor accident on his farm. (Submitted Photo)
MOTT — Jill Kerzman said her husband wasn’t perfect — but he was close.
Now, as she prepares to say goodbye, she said she’ll forever remember how he tried to treat others with care and help those who were less fortunate.
James Kerzman, a state legislator of two decades who farmed near Mott for a half-century while raising 10 children, died Saturday in a farm accident involving one of his tractors. Details of the accident have not been released by the Hettinger County Sheriff’s Department.
“He was one of the kindest men I will ever know in my life,” Jill Kerzman said in a phone interview. “He was a humble, hard-working man who really got into his life and got dirty.”
Kerzman, 68, was a Democrat who represented District 31 from 1990 to 2010. After his political career ended, he stayed busy as a member of the Slope Elective Cooperative and the North Dakota Farmers Union boards, and was an active member of St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Mott while also being heavily involved in the Knights of Columbus.
“His heart was as big as the prairies of North Dakota, but it was also as gentle as the little lambs he raised on his farm,” said Aaron Krauter, a former Democrat state senator from Regent.
Satellite images that circulated the Internet more than two years ago purported to show natural gas flares lighting up the Bakken Oil Patch as bright as a major metropolitan city were “highly processed,” “manipulated” and “inaccurate,” researchers at the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center said Wednesday.
Chris Zygarlicke, the EERC’s deputy associate director for research, said he took an interest in the images because the science involved aligns closely with his background. He said having driven through western North Dakota and the Oil Patch, he believed the images were inaccurately portraying the area.
“There’s no way that we’re lighting up the land like you see people talking about everywhere,” he said.
BISMARCK — The newest chairman of North Dakota’s Republican Party is from Dickinson.
Sen. Kelly Armstrong was unanimously elected by the party Saturday afternoon during a statewide GOP committee meeting at the Doublewood Inn.
Armstrong will serve a two-year term as he chairs the GOP’s executive committee. The position primarily takes the lead for Republican messaging and candidate recruitment in the state.
“I think I can bring some things to the table that help the Republican Party experience success in the future,” Armstrong said.
Former GOP Chairman Robert Harms announced to party officials Friday morning that he would not seek re-election to a second term.
Todd Anderson, service manager at T-Rex Conoco in Dickinson, talks to customer Bobby Metz, who came into the shop Wednesday while looking for an oil change. Anderson said business has slowed down along with the drop in oil prices, but said he’s somewhat happy to have a reprieve from the chaos of the boom. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)
Steve Keinzle noticed a change around the first of the year.
The manager of Mac’s Hardware in north Dickinson said his business catered to many oilfield service companies, both big and small — mostly hot-shot crews and roustabout companies — that would come in and buy everything from tools to flame-retardant gear for employees.
But when the oil prices dropped out, so did much of that business.
“Their budgets went away real fast,” Keinzle said. “And, of course, we felt that effect right away. The traffic is down.”
Many business owners and managers in Dickinson say they’re feeling the effects of the drop in oil prices as much as anyone else. For some businesses, traffic and profits are down. Others report steady customer flow not all that different from a year ago, when oil drilling in western North Dakota was at an all-time high — particularly around Dickinson.
Some say it isn’t all bad. They say they’re happy to have more time to work on projects, improve infrastructure and think ahead instead of worrying about the challenges the oil boom brought them over the past few years.
“It’s a nice reprieve to be able to slow down a little and catch a breath, because once things get going again, (business) will pick up,” said Todd Anderson, service manager at T-Rex Conoco off Third Avenue West in north Dickinson.
Anderson said he’s noticed a definite slowdown in work. Now his crew has time to take walk-in oil changes or fix vehicles without work being scheduled weeks in advance.
“I’d say equivalent to before the oil came,” he said.
On the other side of the building, T-Rex convenience store manager Vicki Nogosek said she is ordering less product than she did in 2014.
“You notice pretty much all day that it has slowed down a lot, just in gas and everything,” Nogosek said.
However, she said there is some good that has come with the slowdown in business.
Dustin Monke 