May 12th, 2025
From concerts and car shows to Japanese art and Juneteenth celebrations, there's so much going on around the region this summer. This year's High Plains Reader Summer Events Calendar is back and bigger than ever. It's packed with everything you need to make this the best summer yet.
Check out the May events below and mark your calendars with all the great June events on tap. We'll bring you July events and the August event calendar in our June print issue, but you can read them all…
April 17th, 2025
By Prairie Rose Seminole
I was a child who walked behind my parents into classrooms and kitchens, spaces of song and prayer, where teachings lived in the air and settled on my shoulders. I didn’t yet have the words to name what I was learning, but I felt the weight of history in story, the pull of a sense of place in land, the breath of language in prayer, the shape of theology in the way we loved one another.
Faith, culture and community became my earliest…
April 16th, 2025
By Winona LaDuke
You sent me a postcard in 1984. It’s a picture of myself, author Peter Matthiessen and a few more of us in Fargo, right after your Bismarck evidentiary hearing in October. We had scraped together money and purchased a billboard downtown Fargo that said “Free Peltier.” We were proud of ourselves that day. That’s in the photo’s background.
You wrote a sweet note to me, the return: #89637-132, from Marion Federal Penitentiary. I’d gone…
March 15th, 2025
By Sabrina Hornung
Rodeo is a family tradition for sisters Kate and Tera Flitton. The duo performs under the moniker Stellar Trick Riding Cowgirls. The Utah natives will be performing along with bareback riders, steer wrestlers, barrel racers and more at the Fargo PRCA Rodeo at the Fargodome on March 28-29.
Kate, who is 18 years old, has been trick riding for 11 years. Tera, age 13, has been trick riding for five years. Kate fell in love with the sport after seeing a…
January 15th, 2025
By HPR Staff
We’re all a part of building strong, healthy and inclusive communities. But the region’s non-profit organizations do a lot of the heavy lifting. Now it’s time for these organizations to step into the spotlight.
We asked several North Dakota and Minnesota nonprofit organizations to share three easy ways our readers can help them reach their goals in 2025. From Fargo-Moorhead to Grand Forks, Valley City to Bismarck, these groups showcase great art, local agriculture and…
December 26th, 2024
By Sabrina Hornung
The onion calendar is an old German folk tradition used to predict levels of moisture each month throughout the coming year using salt, a knife, an onion and a little bit of patience. Donna and Delbert Eszlinger of Ashley, North Dakota, honor this tradition each New Year’s Eve. They along, with a number of other locals, swear by it.
“It’s a German tradition that's been carried on from grandparents and great grandparents,” Donna Eszlinger said…
December 19th, 2024
SHSND delves into their ornament collection
In 2017 we received Christmas ornaments from the North Dakota Former Governors’ Residence. The ornaments were gifts from local chapters of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society of North Dakota, Three Crowns Swedish American Association, Sons of Norway and the Ukrainian Cultural Institute. Starting in 1985, different ethnic-themed Christmas trees were decorated at the residence as each year another group…
December 19th, 2024
By Michael M. Miller
As the holiday season approaches, I wish to extend Yuletide best wishes and a special “Weihnachten” greeting to you and your family. I would like to share with you some Christmas memories from our Germans from Russia community. Please email or send me your Christmas memories.
A Christmas tradition in many Germans from Russia homes was halvah. This Turkish confection is made of pressed sesame seeds and honey. Curt Renz recalls his father…
December 18th, 2024
An exclusive Q&A with Dr. Scott Bonn
By Sabrina Hornung
Dr. Scott Bonn is a renowned criminologist and serial killer expert. He is a professor, a best-selling author and he also travels the country discussing America's fascination with serial killers and true crime. In January, he’s bringing his 90-minute show to Fargo and Bismarck followed by a Q&A session, so get your questions ready.
During High Plains Reader’s exclusive Q&A opportunity, Dr. Bonn revealed a number…
November 23rd, 2024
By Winona LaDuke
There’s not really a word for reconciliation, it's said in our language. There’s a word for making it right. To talk about reconciliation in terms of the relationship between Indigenous people and North Dakota, South Dakota or Minnesota, would assume that there was a good relationship to begin with. That’s a stretch.
There is a word for making it right: gwayakochigemin. That’s what we must try and do. Gwayakizhichigemin: making it right.
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By Bryce Vincent HaugenFor the first nine months, the dysfunction of the Trump administration and Congress was a four-time-zone-away abstraction for a Moorhead native living in Alaska’s interior. But it became all too real when…
By Michael M. Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu I would like to recognize some of the scholarly Germans from Russia from Canada and USA shared on the GRHC website. There are additional names not included here. If you have suggestions…
December 17-21, 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and SundayThe Fargo Theatre, 314 N. Broadway, FargoCould this be the end of an era? After 26 years of doing the Holiday Soul Tour and 35 years together as a band, The…
By Sabrina Hornungsabina@hpr1.com I scroll through comment threads on the news stories in my social media feed and come across the retort, “You voted for this.” Sure the vote’s in…but when someone’s livelihood is at stake,…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comDemocrats have MAGA, MAHA, MAWF, and Trumplicans to fight My favorite analyst of things religious and political is Finton O’Toole who uses plain English, curses, temper, and knowledge to make a…
By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…
By Mandy Dolneymandy@ksbsyndicate.com This cake will be on the menu at Nova Eatery through Thanksgiving served with maple crème anglaise Ice cream. It uses pumpkin pie pumpkins grown locally at Ladybug Acres and local apples grown…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Japanese director Hikari, born in Osaka and originally named Mitsuyo Miyazaki, is poised for a significant stateside breakthrough with “Rental Family,” the new film she co-wrote with…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Gallery 4 downtown recently celebrated its 50 year anniversary, making it one of the longest consecutively running galleries in the country. With different membership tiers, there are 17 primary…
Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…
By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…
sBy Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com The holidays are supposed to be magical: party, presents, fancy food, lights and sparks. You are looking forward to it. You work very hard, you put in long hours at work as well as at…
By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…
By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson.nd7@gmail.comPersonal background and historical perspective My deep concern about tariffs stems from my background as a fourth generation North Dakota farmer. Having lived through the 1980s farm crisis…
