Local farmers showed that despite a very challenging 2019 harvest, they are still able to produce impressive yields and give back to their community.  Hefty Seed Company of Mohall held their 2019 Yield Contest Awards Banquet and the result was a total of $46,261 donated to local charitable causes.  This past harvest, area farmers volunteered their best five acres of Corn, Soybeans, or Wheat to try for the highest yield.  The production from the five acres of crop was donated to local organizations in the farm’s name.  The farmers with the highest yield in each division drov ..read more

A Main Effort Leadership Book Review Author’s Note: The following was a paper turned in on March 3rd, 2000 for the United States Military Academy’s Department of Social Sciences Course: SS473 American Foreign Policy. After digging this up and re-reading it almost 20 years after I wrote it, I am now a veteran of the war in Iraq. Over the years following my service, I have struggled when people speak out against American involvement in Iraq and describe it as a big mistake. My friends and I gave a year of our lives to help the Iraqi people bring stability to that region. Plus, I have friends tha ..read more

There is a bunch of positive career development stuff on social media about how to be successful beyond your wildest dreams; how to thrive in the workplace; how to be the best salesperson; how to motivate others; how to inspire, lead and mentor.  Hey!  Wait a minute.  Where’s the pep talk on how to fire someone? I had a boss once who said: “The first time I fired someone was like the first time I had sex.  I was nervous about it.  I didn’t know if I would do it right.  I didn’t know what the other person would think.  But after I did it, I really liked it, I ..read more

As you are scrolling through the Facebook or the Twitter and seeing ad after ad of all the easy claims to lose a lot of weight in no time and ad after ad of what superfoods to eat to build muscle and cut fat, it must be evidence that the calendar is about to flip to another year.  You, like many people, must be contemplating a new year’s resolution – again.  In a few days you will raise a glass to a new year, a new decade, and a new approach to making yourself a better human in 2020.  If your new year’s resolution is to lose weight, you can absolutely lose exactly how many pound ..read more

In our neck of the woods, the weather has been terrible for what seems like since August.  If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes they say. Farmers have been waiting longer than that and the tables haven’t turned.  Sure, the weather changed in 5 minutes just like it always does.  Only it just changes to one form even more unfavorable than the previous.    A tale of two years:  2018 was a story of drought and months without rain and crops that showed it when harvested.  “We’ve been through this before” was a phrase heard on more than a few occasions.&n ..read more

A couple Saturdays ago, we did something that we hadn’t done in a while.  We took the kids to the hill to watch the Club de Skinautique (French for Club of Waterskiing) on the beautiful waters of Lake Metigoshe.  The “Skinautiques” are a group of kids ages 8 – 20somethings, that perform in their own water-ski shows.  Lake Metigoshe lies partly in Canada so it is officially “international waters” and there are several club members who are Canadians from mainly Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  There are several shows throughout the summer at Metigoshe, but they also travel to gigs ..read more

Recently, the former Governor of Indiana – Mitch Daniels – wrote a piece that appeared in the Washington Post where he made note of the increasing divide between the urban and rural people of our country.  More specifically, the growing divide between big city people and the American Farmer.  He said, “The distance that has opened between the producers of our food and the beneficiaries of their hard work, and between rural and urban Americans in general, has been sadly apparent in our politics and popular culture.” In my regular attempts to find a good podcast to listen to, I came ac ..read more

The concept of tuition-free college or just simply free college is a common topic of debate as we are full steam ahead in another presidential election cycle. In recent debates, one party’s candidates all seem to be on the same page that our country’s model of higher education be that of “free college for low- and middle-income students,” and are blatantly proclaiming, “we must make public colleges and universities tuition free and eliminate student debt.”  The candidates’ ideas largely seem to be ideas to simply eliminate the tuition and or eliminate the debt. The only qualifiers in the ..read more

My dad wrote this for the Minot, North Dakota Rotary Club newsletter – “The Prairie Flower.” It was March of 1999. 20 years ago. (Oh yeah, and I should note that my mom was the Editor-in-Chief) The Finest American Crop As I sit here thinking what crops I can raise this year to make ends meet, I think of all the doom and gloom that is upon the farming industry today.  Spring wheat and durum wheat prices are the lowest they have been in 40 years.  Production input costs are the highest ever.  The situation is just not good.  Many farmers are attending local meetings about ne ..read more

Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. Without Facebook. I’m going to complain about Facebook, but don’t get me wrong.  There is a lot of good that comes from Facebook.  First and foremost: prayers.  The good old church prayer list can be effective, but Facebook can be even more effective.  In real time.  Instantaneous prayer requests.  Right there on your phone.  God bless Facebook for this reason.  My wife and I decided to give up social media for lent this year.  For those who aren’t familiar, Christians observe lent as the 40 days before Easter and ..read more