Celebration and disgrace

By Sabrina Hornung and Tom Bixby

sabrina@hpr1.com

Adventure series

This is the first issue of HPR’s Adventure Series, focusing on Medora. If you go hiking in the badlands, look out for brown humps. See Race Heitcamp’s article in this issue on what to avoid, how to avoid it, and what kind of music buffalos prefer.

The oil companies again

Speaking of Medora, you don’t have to walk far in any direction to see oil wells and other evidence of extractive industry.

We’ll double down on extractive: in Medora profits from economic activity stay in North Dakota; the oil industry’s flow out down the pipelines, and most of the workers are from out of state.

The Little Missouri River is a national treasure and it is a crime that the oil companies are allowed to draw water from it to use in their fracking. See Jim Fuglie’s blogs https://theprairieblog.areavoices.com/author/jimfuglie/

If you heed our advice and head west, be sure to think of us as as you dip your toes in the little Missouri River silt that lines the banks of the river, while you still can.

The Best of the Best

Are you excited to see who won? We are, and there are 50+ categories.

Our awards ceremony: it’s happening on Sunday, July 16, at the Plains Art Museum, doors at 6, program at 7, and that doesn’t mean 7 in the morning. Eric Bloch is our master of ceremonies. It’s an event, but it’s a party as well. We hope to see you all there, friends, friends of friends, and friends we haven’t met.

Theatre B

Theatre B has moved to Moorhead. The former Lincoln School gymnasium was purchased by Karin and Joe Rudd, to use as an affordable arts space, as reported by John Lamb in the Forum. Ms. Rudd is a member of the board of directors of the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre and the Arts Partnership.

It is disgraceful that no developer, not the Kilbourne Group or any of the others, made any attempt to keep Theatre B in Fargo. The city is changing rapidly now, and it would have been easy for them to include TB in their plans.

They are fixated on high-end retail and upmarket condominiums. Talk to them about anything else and they don’t want to know. They offer temporary use of the former Schumacher Tires garage and think that’s sufficient, and look what happened.

Is there no one in our city with the vision and community engagement of the Rudds? Moorhead is lucky to have them. Shame on you, Fargo real estate developers.

“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction,” wrote John Steinbeck, and Fargo developers are the embodiment and personification of his thought.

Father’s Day: the unknown father

An important holiday, more important than the official ones when the banks close.

Is there a monument to the Unknown Father, like the one to the Unknown Soldier?

We know of one.

We know a dad who is always, always in the middle of non-completed used car deals.

People back out of them and no one knows what to do. The monument is his backyard. It looks like a junkyard, but he can’t help himself, he was born that way.

When things get confused and no one knows the way forward, he doesn’t mind losing out when friends are involved. He’s kind and generous, and a better person than most of his friends. Let’s forgive him and celebrate what makes him special.

And let’s show appreciation for our very own dads, for all of them. But we won’t tell you where the monument is!

What else?

As we write, this is Diane Miller’s birthday, and she’s one of our favorite people. We can be accused of favoritism: why her and not a lot of other people?

Because, dear Reader readers, we needed a good editor and she was that and more for two plus years, and then she stayed around for more than a month and expertly trained her replacement. Thank you thank you, Diane!