Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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Here’s an unpleasant holiday statistic: Average Americans are giving significantly less to their favorite charities this year than they did just four or five years ago. Average Americans have long been among the most generous people on Earth. But this year, thanks to an economy disrupted by COVID-19, soaring interest rates and three years of high inflation, many are unable to give. Americans are hurting in their pocketbooks. This past year credit card debt jumped faster than ever before in h...
Unlike Alexander Hamilton, a more famous Founding Father who wrote extensively about the proposed Constitution and championed its ratification – and later became a 21st century cultural icon who made it to Broadway two hundred years after his death – James Iredell had to settle for a mere appointment to the first U.S. Supreme Court. Iredell’s name, image and likeness are nowhere to be found outside of North Carolina, which he had served as a judge on the state’s superior court and as attorney general, before President George Washington named h...
Wishful thinking/daydreaming is fun but keep an honest eye on the horizon. Mom had a saying, "don't let your eyes be bigger than your stomach." Throwing around big numbers, looking for grants and raising taxes is tempting but isn't realistic when held up to the light of long-term past and future demographic change. Anomalies are an unsteady thing. Spend millions on a school addition because there's a big first grade! Well, the 13 seniors last year started as a class of 30 a few years ago. Spend three or four hundred thousand on a show hall! On...
Last night, I got to see "how the sausage is made." As a member of the media, I was invited to watch DPRCA's "The Christmas Show" before anyone else. This time, I was on assignment, shooting photos to document Elliott Schwab's original script coming together on stage. Well, that was part of it. I also wanted to be among the first to see it so I could give you, my dear readers, a glimpse inside the show. It was the one Wednesday night appointment I was happy to take, and it came just in time....
Each year the weekend after Thanksgiving, I sense an innate urge to risk life, limb and public humiliation by festooning the exterior of our home with several hundred C9 incandescent lights. (I'm still resisting the whole LED craze – also known as "the Devil's bulbs.") My mild-mannered next-door neighbor and I always engage in an unspoken competition to see who can get their Christmas lights up first, but since I have the holiday sleeping habits of an inebriated grizzly bear in m...
President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to nominate William O. Douglas to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Louis Brandeis in 1939, but there was a problem: a geographical problem. Douglas, a resident of Connecticut since his days as a Yale Law Professor, and four current justices – Hughes, Stone, Frankfurter and Roberts – were easterners. While no formal requirement for geographical representation on the Court existed, presidents had generally followed a long, if somewhat loose, tradition that sug...
The countdown to Christmas is on. As I write this, December 25 is exactly 34 days away. That means it's time for our annual Winterfest edition of the Transcript, full of all things local for the holidays. I came across a meme posted on the New Rockford Area Chamber of Commerce Facebook page a few days ago that really hit me. It read, "Big companies won't notice your purchase over the next couple months. But small businesses will, and it might even change their life." It's true. Small,...
Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a series. The Transcript is printing four letters per week until all are published. Dear County Commissioners, My name is Kylan Bergrud and I am a third grader at New Rockford-Sheyenne School in New Rockford, N.D. I am writing to you today because I am concerned about gas prices in our town. This is an issue that affects me, my family, and my community because so our community has enough money for food. I believe that this issue is important because our community will not have enough money for bil...
William O. Douglas, the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in American history (1939-1975) – whose outsized life on and off the bench required two autobiographical volumes, and inspired devoted followers and passionate detractors – was at the center of the Court’s most important 20th century rulings. President Franklin D. Roosevelt might have expected as much when he nominated Douglas, just 40 years old, to replace Justice Louis Brandeis, who was forced by a heart attack to leave the Judicial Palace. At the time of his appointment, Dougl...
We've been blessed with beautiful fall days lately. I can't help but smile as I run around doing errands and buzz from one meeting to another. The only thing that could have made this past week better was spending more time outside. With our daylight hours dwindling and the temperatures beginning their precipitous drop, I'm choosing not to dwell on the depressing weather that is destined to come. Instead, I'm focusing on the good things (such as this gorgeous weather) and mindfully practicing...
Editor's Note: This is the second installment in a series. The Transcript is printing four letters per week until all are published. Dear County Commissioners, My name is Kinley Thompson and I am a third grader at New Rockford-Sheyenne School in New Rockford, N.D. I am writing to you today because I am concerned about lunch at school. This is an issue that affects me, my family, and my community because familys don’t have to worry about paying. I believe that this issue is important because kids need good food to fuel there brains. I hope t...
The odds were against Willis Van Devanter ever winning an appointment to the Supreme Court. Widespread talk that he suffered from “pen paralysis,” an affliction that subverted his production, made President William Howard Taft “hesitant” to nominate the Wyoming transplant to fill a vacancy on the nation’s High Court. Various factors, however, convinced President Taft to overcome his reluctance. In 1911, he named Van Devanter to the Court, where he served for 26 years. Geographic considerations persuaded Taft that he needed to add a westerner to...
My small business roots run deep. While the hardware store my great grandfather started in 1906 no longer operates, we now have five generations that have owned various small businesses in North Dakota. I have seen first-hand the importance of the community to the success of their local small businesses and vice versa. Neither thrives without the other. Small businesses drive our local economy by hiring workers, providing essential goods and services, and give back to our communities through supporting everything from area non-profits to the...
Frustration is the word of the day in the newsroom. It’s Monday, and subscriber newspapers have not been delivered to New Rockford, Fessenden and other rural post offices on time for the second week in a row. Our loyal readers, and this time the local postmaster herself, pick up the phone to notify us of the delay. “So what gives? Why isn’t the paper coming on time?” readers ask. I wish I had the answer. All the subscriber print copies of this newspaper were taken to the Fargo Post Office...
Dear County Commissioners, My name is Teigan Alderman and I am a third grader at New Rockford-Sheyenne School. I am writing you today because I am concerned about the animals. This is an issue that affects me, my family, and my community because animals need better places to live. I believe that this issue is important because we need to build animal shelters. I hope that you can help me find a solution to this problem in our community, and I hope that you will consider bringing this issue to our county commissioers meeting. Thank you very...
When President Herbert Hoover in 1930 nominated Charles Evans Hughes to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, an unprecedented second tour of duty on the nation’s High Tribunal, he didn’t find it necessary to offer much in the way of justification because, he said, “it was the obvious appointment.” Hughes’s forceful, forbidding Jovian aura commanded attention and respect. Justice Robert H. Jackson, a historic figure in American law and comfortable in the company of great men, once said of Hughes: “He looked like God and talked like God....
Halloween is upon us, which means you'd better be cautious about the costume you choose. Halloween has long been a staple of childhood, but in the past few decades it has been increasingly celebrated by adults – and for good reason. Until recently, it was the one day where adults could dress up in funny, outrageous costumes that satirized popular culture and the complexity of modern life. Dressing up as a rock star, Albert Einstein, a famous sports figure or some other pop icon could be fun a...
The U.S. Supreme Court is a law court, of course, but it is primarily a political institution that guides the destiny of the nation. Its rulings mark the boundaries of power between the branches of the federal government and those between the federal and state governments, as well as determining the scope of liberties enjoyed by the citizenry. William Howard Taft, the lone American to serve as both president and chief justice, was acutely aware of the impact of the Court on the life of the nation, and the influence of individual justices on...
I am sincerely grateful to Representative Joshua Boschee for his focus on the working families of North Dakota during the special legislative session with HB 1193, child care stabilization. I am disappointed the Legislative Management Committee voted to not move this critical bill forward, and I urge legislators to continue to find ways to fund this fundamental issue. As a co-founder and board president of Energy Capital Cooperative Child Care in Hazen, I have a front-row seat to the challenges faced by child care providers. North Dakota...
Administrator Isabel Guzman, the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and voice in President Biden’s Cabinet for America’s more than 33 million small businesses, announced the SBA will celebrate the 10th annual National Veterans Small Business Week (NVSBW) from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3. Throughout the week, the SBA, its resource partners and local organizations across the country will host a series of virtual and in-person events to highlight the entrepreneurial journeys of veteran- and military spouse-owned small business owners and...
I grew up understanding that being part of a community meant giving of your time and talents whenever possible to enrich others. My dad was a member of the Robinson Lions Club when I was a kid. My mom took us to many activities and events led by volunteers, including 4-H and Sunday School. Both my parents served on church boards and committees, and I remember watching my grandmother prepare and serve meals at funerals and other special events in her church. We volunteer. It’s what we do. T...
For the last 4 months I have been traveling in North Dakota, exploring the ways that ordinary folks in rural areas are revitalizing their communities through immigration. It has been a heartwarming journey. Our state is made up of good people with abundant common sense, whose memories stir them to go extra measures time after time to help new neighbors. It is the North Dakota way. So many of our churches have an ethnic heritage and memory. As I started this journey and realized that a new wave of Ukrainians is entering North Dakota, it seemed...
This National Co-op Month, I recognize that many of the cooperatives operating today were established for the benefit of people. It didn’t take much effort to put together a list of cooperatives we do business with on a daily basis. After all, I’ve been a member of cooperatives since I was a young girl. My extended family have been members of Northern Plains Electric Cooperative (formerly Tri-County Electric) my entire life. The family farm and my parents’ home are served by this all-i...
When I read a news piece about the passing of longtime California senator Dianne Feinstein a few weeks ago, some of the comments left at the bottom of the online article made me sad. Feinstein suffered a very public health decline before she passed. Anyone with the slightest sense of empathy would think “there but for the grace of God go I” – as every one of us could suffer a similar decline before our time finally comes. Empathy is in short supply these days, however. I don’t recall the exact w...
The federal government has entered a new level of dysfunction. It’s like being in the middle of your favorite soap opera when the power goes out. For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives has ousted its duly-elected speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California. “They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic,” McCarthy said of the eight Republican colleagues who voted against him. “That’s not the party I belong to. The party of Reagan was if...
