McKenzie County ND

On Wednesday April 23, Raynette Samuelson, Activities Director at the Good Shepherd Home in Watford City was hostess to a Volunteer Appreciation Tea.

Raynette planned an afternoon of delicious foods, Hawaiian coffee, music, a meaningful message from Paster Lane and fashion show provided by Meyers Clothing Store for those who donate their time and talents to the residents and staff of the nursing home. Without these people’s generosity the residents would lead a quiet life. The volunteers offer music, spiritual, card playing, bingo calling, one on one time, ethnic foods, and to many stimulating activities to name.

A big thank you to all of those who brighten the lives of others.

If you are interested in sharing your time contact Raynette at the Good Shepherd Home, 701-444-2331.

Museum Reports Fence Exhibition Huge Success

Please read the attachment for the post report on the Smithsonian Exhibit Bewteen Fences.

I recommend you all read this and leave a weigh in through the ‘comment’ button below to say if you think this a good idea for our county. Money, Money, Money comes in handy when the income is available readily for you to spend on worthwhile projects. First click on the three words in a row, and read how Anamoose, ND is doing it. Thanks.

Few acknowledge that underage tobacco and alcohol use are criminal behaviors. But Sgt. Bruce Talbot taught in his Broken Windows presentation last August that the underage use creates a gateway behavior that leads people, particularly teens and young adults, deeper into the criminal life….and away from success.

Among the few are the Community Coalition and the Horizons-Leadership to Reduce Poverty groups of McKenzie County, partners in efforts to curtail behaviors that increase the chance of living in poverty. (Read ‘Rethinking Poverty’ posted by Tim Swenson.)

Mapping Successes for Our Children began with panel presentations March 31 and ended before the group of 60 participants could do the mapping for convincing youth to leave the illegal drugs alone.

On Monday, 18 people followed facilitator Anita Rohde of New Town into a 90-minute session ending successfully with a three-pronged approach to the age-old social problem:

1. Mentoring training, with partnershipsof youth and adults to be trained after the Gatekeepers of Harvey, ND

2. Monitoring and advocating for compliance checks in order to limit access to gateway drugs

3. Sponsor political candidate policy forums and offer alternate refreshments at dry bars. A homemade label on legal refreshments would bear messages supporting the better lifestyle choices for success.

“Parents, young adults and all kids need support to abstain from alcohol and drugs,” says Don Moberg of Watford City, a participant in the Mapping Successes for Our Children II session.

Brittany Bennett, an Alexander High School student, accepted a position on the board of the Lewis and Clark Trail Museum in Alexander. Museum board members usually do a lot of the behind the scenes work at the museum as well as serving on the board. Over the past several years, Brittany has done many chores about the museum as well as serving as a tour guide for visitors.

Holly Helling of rural Alexander also accepted a board position. Holly has been leading crafting classes in Alexander with the purpose of making saleable items for the museum’s gift shop. Other board members are Vi Baye, Joe Weber, and Dorothy Reil.

Pictures courtesy of Holly Helling.

Holly Helling and Teresa Forthun represented the Lewis and Clark Trail Museum of Alexander at the two day 2008 North Dakota Tourism Conference in Mandan April 21 and 22.

Eight Governor’s Travel and Tourism awards, recognizing outstanding leaders in the tourism industry, were presented Monday, April 21, at the 2008 North Dakota Tourism Conference in Mandan. During the conference, Governor John Hoeven, Tourism Director Sara Otte Coleman, and Destination Marketing Association of North Dakota President Wendy Howe, presented the awards in eight travel and tourism categories.

“As the second-largest industry in North Dakota, tourism accounts for $3.8 billion in visitor spending,” said Hoeven.”

Each dollar spent on paid media in 2007 brought in $123 in visitor spending. “Our efforts in aggressively marketing North Dakota as a great place to live, work and play are coming to fruition,” said Gov. John Hoeven.

ND Tourism will spend $1.9 million on the 2008 advertising plan. The plan includes broadcast, direct response television; print, radio, online and out-of-home advertising; as well as newspaper inserts, direct mail and outdoor (hunting and fishing) marketing. Some media has begun, with the majority starting April 1 in target markets of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, and Montana. These targets reflect potential travelers age 35 to 64 within a 1,000-mile radius of North Dakota.

Many thanks are extended to the Horizons Program for the funding to make this conference possible for Holly and Teresa. Also thank you to Holly for the pictures.

“Cooking Up 50 Years of 4-H Memories” is a new cookbook honoring the 50th Anniversary of Sagebrush Wranglers 4-H Club located in the Grassy Butte area of southern McKenzie County. This book contains 174 pages of recipes of present and past club members and leaders. It contains a listing of members and leaders since its existence as well as the club’s history. Memories of recipe contributors are included.

This must have book is available at the McKenzie County Extension Office and several McKenzie County businesses. The books sell for $12.50 each.

Woof! Woof! I’ve recently had the pleasure of attending another giveaway of registered border collie pups to area 4-H’ers. Norstog Border Collies, that is Konrad and Sharon Norstog of Watford City, awarded “Booker” to Haley Brodhead Voll and “Turk” to Thadd Hall. Hayley is the 15 year old daughter of Pam Voll of Watford City and Thadd is the 12 year old son of Todd and Pattie Hall of Killdeer.

Norstogs have awarded six Border Collie pups to 4-H youth in the past four years.

Youth interested in receiving a dog complete an application. Those awarded a pup must actively agree to train and use the pup as a stock dog. These dogs come from a long and impressive line of working Border Collies in Scotland and Wales.

The Norstogs breed, train and show Border Collies at their farm a couple miles south and west of Watford City. They will host the “Best of the Badlands” Dog Trials at their farm May 25 to 28. The trials will include dogs moving sheep around obstacles on command. Sharon says “it’s poetry in action!”

Dog handlers will attend from across the United States and Canada including the states of Washington, Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, New Hampshire and California. About 50 people and over 100 dogs are expected to visit our area for this event.

The public is invited to the “Best of the Badlands.”

A Dog Trial will also be hosted by Norstogs during the McKenzie County Fair on June 26. This will be a timed event in the Rodeo Arena of the McKenzie County Fairgrounds.

Reversing the direction of teaching, Mark LoMurray, a nationally known trainer in suicide prevention, is setting the youth trained as Gatekeepers to approach the two adults they trust the most and lead them to become well-versed Sources of Strength.

“Suicide prevention is really about getting a large part of the community involved, breaking codes of silence and having teens and adults partnering together,” LoMurray insists.

“During the Watford City training, April 14, I think we made a great start on teens, adults, and faith-based groups willing to come together and get out messages of hope, help, and strength. That help is available in the mental health and medical systems, but also on the village side through family, friends, mentoring, healthy activities and spirituality. Also messages that there really is hope, despite feelings of being stuck, alone, and hopeless - By sharing stories of strength and resiliency, we can shine some light on some ways people have made it through emotionally hard and difficult times to a better, more healing place in their life,” states LoMurray.

The following provides insight into the Gatekeeper/Sources of Strength Training. (more…)

More and younger youth in Watford City are “stepping up” to the mission of choosing to build a better future through abstinence from drugs, including nicotine and alcohol.

“We have six, and as many as 12 interested, Junior High students at Watford City High School who are active in the new Junior High Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) Chapter we have just started in Watford City Public School,” announced SADD adviser Katie Paulson during the April 23 meeting of the Watford City Community Coalition. “The Junior High SADD Chapter is going!”

Katie also informed the group of the assigned tasks of the Gatekeeper students. Reader: REFER TO THE PREVIOUS STORY, in addition to the following story about Gatekeepers expanding into more sources of strength.