Recognizing a rural legacy

Jack Dura wanders the road less traveled

It’s hard to pinpoint what sparked NDSU journalism senior Jack Dura’s interest in our state, but once Dura learned that North Dakota was celebrating 125 years of statehood last year, the wheels started turning. “I thought that was a pretty significant date,” says Fargo native Jack Dura, “then I found out the state had one waterfall, and I thought there must be a lot of things around here that people don’t know about.”

Armed with his camera,Dura sent himself on a mission to photograph locations throughout the state that are of cultural, historical and unexpected significance on the road less travelled. One year and 10,500 images later he was asked by Dr. Ross Collins and Dr. Mark Meister to exhibit some of his images in the Mass Communications Department at Minard Hall at NDSU. They even funded the printing and mounting of the chosen pieces. Though it was a tough decision, Dura narrowed the exhibition down to 25 images.

Dura often posts images from his ventures on Facebook, and luckily enough this imagery caught Dr. Collins’ eye, and the exhibition “Jack Dura: A North Dakota Rural Legacy” was born.

“When people think of North Dakota, they think of Fargo or they think of the state’s oil boom,” Dura says. “There’s a lot more than those things that the state has going for it.”

Dura finds himself on the road nearly every weekend, as long as the weather permits, though the cost of gas, the dependability of his vehicle and viable daylight hours factor into the equation too.

His favorite part of North Dakota thus far is the badlands area in the southwest corner of the state. “My dad and I deer hunt in the badlands. When I was a teenager I would bring my point-and-shoot out there to take pictures of the landscape,” Dura says. “It’s entirely different from the flatness of the Red River Valley -- it’s not developed at all except for the minimum maintenance roads and cattle trails.”

Dura is also a contributing writer to Dakota Datebook on Prairie Public. Dakota Datebook is a timeline that addresses significant or amusing anecdotes from North Dakota history and works in conjunction with the state’s archives and The Humanities Council. “It’s another outlet to write and educate people about North Dakota. There are a lot of unique things in North Dakota’s history as well as its landscape,” Dura says.

“Jack Dura: A North Dakota Rural Legacy” will be up from now through the month of January.

He feels that writing for Dakota Datebook provides good experience for a journalism major, though writing for radio is quite different than writing for print. “The main difference in writing for radio is things are a lot tighter and a lot more concise. You can’t use a lot of colorful language because you are writing for the ear rather than the eye,” Jack explains. “You have to write in a way so people don’t tune out or become disinterested in what you are writing for the airwaves.”

Dura is also the head news editor for the NDSU Spectrum and has been writing a feature called “A Nodak Moment.” The title is a play on Kodak moment, but instead he chooses a photo from his ventures and writes a 300-word short explaining “the who, what, when, why and how in the picture.” “A Nodak Moment” has included The Whitestone Battlefield, Medicine Rock and many other points of interest around the state.

“My main stomping grounds in North Dakota are Fargo to Jamestown to Devil’s Lake to Grand Forks and back to Fargo -- it’s that square of eastern North Dakota”, Dura says. “So I really like to venture outside that box and see what else there is, waterfalls included.”

IF YOU GO:

Jack Dura: A North Dakota Rural Legacy

Minard Hall, Room 338 at NDSU

Now through January