News

The North Dakota Salt Lands

September 11th, 2019

Photographs by C.S. Hagen, design by Raul Gomez - photograph by C.S. Hagen

WILEY FIELD, North Dakota – The stench hits first. Invisible and explosive, hydrogen sulfide burns through mucous membranes, leaving a metallic taste on the tongue. Breathe in enough – which isn’t much – and the gas, a byproduct of crude oil, will knock down anyone within two breaths. Death comes in minutes.

With few signs of burning flares on a windy day, the invisible poison has no ground zero in the oilfields of Bottineau County. It can be smelled everywhere between the…

North High school shooting threat

September 3rd, 2019

Fargo North High School - school website

FARGO – A school shooting threat written on a student’s desk at North High prompted an investigation and will ensure a heavier police presence at the school on Wednesday.

Fargo North High School Principal Andy Dahlen issued a statement late Tuesday night, saying that during eighth period a student told a teacher about writing on a desk. The teacher then reported the writing to the school administration.

“The following statements were scrawled on a desk: ‘I wan to run away,” and…

The smaller we are the less likely we are to be profitable

August 28th, 2019

Photograph and design by Raul Gomez

By Carmen Rath-Wald
carmen.rath.wald@ndus.edu

Young Logan County area farmers sat together on a recent Monday night, and talked about Tyson’s closure of its Holcomb, Kansas beef processing facility due to a fire. According to USDA, North Dakota ranks 9th in the top 10 states in the nation with the most beef cows, measuring 985,000 head on January 1. Those at the table background cattle and sell to the finishers.

Beef processing facilities are located in Kansas, Nebraska and Texas and…

‘Hatred is born of ignorance: fear is its father, and isolation is its mother’

August 28th, 2019

Christian Picciolini a former violent extremist Nazi now fighting to help them leave speaks with HPR - photograph by Peter Tsai

CHICAGO – A day before the United States President called himself “The Chosen One,” a reformed Nazi predicted Christian fundamentalists view Donald Trump as an end to a means: the Apocalypse.

Violent extremists strive for RaHoWa, or a racial holy war, while Christian fundamentalists pray for the “Second Coming,” with rivers of blood, dead walking the earth, a time when all will be judged. The difference between white supremacists and religious fundamentalists boils down to…

ND’s petroleum spill could be U.S.’s largest land spill

August 20th, 2019

1 million gallon brine spill from Crestwood's Arrow Pipeline on July 8, 2014 - photograph by Sarah Christianson and provided by the Dakota Resource Council

WATFORD CITY – A reported 10-gallon spill of liquid gold at the Garden Creek I Gas Processing Plant in 2015 – just before the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy – could now be renamed as the largest land spill in human history.

The plant, operated by Oklahoma company, ONEOK Partners, reported 10 gallons of condensate or liquid natural gas spilled, but the accident, which occurred over a long duration of time, was underreported, Bill Suess, the spill investigation program manager…

Vandals using the Aryan Nations symbol hit statue of Viking hero

August 17th, 2019

Rollo the Viking statue - photograph by Sabrina Hornung

FARGO – First, Lady Liberty was kidnapped in July. Then on Friday, the statue of Rollo the Viking, or Rollon in French, was vandalized with what is apparently white supremacist graffiti.

There are no connections between the two acts of vandalism, according to police, but investigators are taking the crimes seriously.

The statue of Rollo the Viking, one of Fargo’s oldest originally placed west of the Great Northern Depot on Broadway, was one of two copies of the original 1863 works…

Be-trade

August 14th, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

FARGO – Farmers don’t talk politics at the elevator, it’s almost an unwritten rule. But when the trade war with China broke out, conversations changed.

“Now every time I go to the elevator it’s fricking Trump this and fricking Trump that,” Todd Leake, a farmer, said. “When they’re listening to the markets they’re smashing their hands on the dashboard of their pickups saying they’re pissed off at Trump.”

Why President Donald Trump’s overall approval rating has…

Pride: the show must go on

August 9th, 2019

Peacekeepers Jameson Dargen and Dustin Wilkinson at All Ages Drag Show for Pride Week - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – When Holiday Mathena was in sixth grade, she knew she was different. Growing up in an open family she found the support she needed, Mathena said, but when she first came out as bisexual, she was ostracized at school.

Now 18 years old, a pansexual, she is also a drag king who enjoys the thrill of dressing to perform her male role as “Spencer Ship.” With only a few performances under her belt, two with Pride events, she’s aware of the controversy surrounding drag shows…

Pride: break down the barriers

August 7th, 2019

Kyle Anderson preparing for drag - photograph by C.S. Hagen/design by Raul Gomez

FARGO – Twenty years ago Kyle Anderson would have never given his real name. If he had been a drag queen then he would have made the makeover quietly, without pictures. Nobody at the Elk’s Lodge could have known what the before and during transformation pictures were like.

Dressed in a robe of thunderstorm blue, he stood before his bathroom mirror, took a long look. Name brand paint sticks, cream covers, brushes, and a brand new eyelash kit lie scattered across the counter. There is…