Office Max has their Elf Yourself program online again this year.  It’s easy and a lot of fun.  The program allows you to upload photos and then places the faces as heads of dancing elves.  This year there’s the Charleston, Country and Disco dances as well as the Classic dance from last year.  It takes [...]

Two recent editorials from Minot Daily News indicate that the editors are keeping a close watch on what goes on in the nation’s capitol. 
The newspaper published one editorial on November 22 questioning whether or not we will really see change in the next few years or just a change in who holds position and power.  The [...]

According to this KX News article, shoppers were out in abundance early this morning.  Unlike other parts of the country, people in North Dakota aren’t as worried about the economy.  The article states that the recent oil boom in the western half of the state (North Dakota is now fifth in the nation for oil [...]

According to this KX News article, the real estate industry in North Dakota is doing reasonably well.  While there were slightly fewer homes sold in the Bismarck area this year and although they sold for slightly less than they would have the prior year, agents and builders cited in the article indicated that North Dakota [...]

North Dakota farmers Wayne Hauge and David Monson, who wish to grow crops of industrial hemp, appeared with their case in the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals last week.  This post at StopTheDrugWar.org said it could take weeks or months to get a decision.
Monson and Hauge maintain that industrial hemp (used in products ranging from lotions to clothing) is not the same [...]

This Bismarck Tribune article highlights a survey-study by the Bismarck Mandan Development Association during a recent job fair in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It appears that while the rest of the nation struggles with unemployment, the Bismarck/Mandan area in North Dakota is “apparently rich with jobs.”
It’s not that the economic downturn hasn’t brushed North Dakota.  Major manufacturing companies [...]

I just came across another really great web site about southwestern North Dakota–the Strom Center Blog.
The site is affiliated with the Strom Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Dickinson, ND.  It aims at true economic development and appears to use a series of programs like E-Scholars and Home Town Competitiveness.  This sounds like a blog to watch.

According to this article, Senator Byron Dorgan discussed a goal with the Three Affiliated Tribes during the Great Plains Energy Expo this past week.  The goal:  to make a one-stop-shopping scenario to help expedite oil and gas leases on the reservation.  The tribe sits over the Bakken oil formation but to this point it has been difficult [...]

North Dakota state Senator Richard Marcellais is as kind as he is intelligent.  Congratulations to him for his election to tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa–I’m sure he’ll do as much good there as he does in our state senate.
Read more about it here.

Stories like this one by AP writer James MacPherson show both how the Bakken oil formation helps rural North Dakotans and how the good-hearted people react to the influx of new wealth.  The people living there are salt-of-the-earth people.  Same goes for the people I’ve talked to in nearby New Town.
I’m very happy to see that the energy industry is [...]