Happy Holidays

Time flies. It was 20 years ago December 26 that the High Plains Reader changed ownership. The two-plus year old bi-weekly in Grand Forks evolved into what you know

HPR to be today, two decades later.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Founders Ian Swanson, Peter Ryan, Len Schmid, Mark Boswell and Jim Johnson. For the record, it was the Flood of ’97 that dislocated the Reader to Fargo.

Many discounted the possibility that HPR would survive even its first few years. We did, however.

Just think of all the topics, all the columns, all the feature stories, the interviews, the reviews, the editorials and the cover stories. Publisher Raul Gomez has created 1,000 covers or so. I’ve written several hundred editorials. Each of our editors, contributors, reporters, columnists, and stringers has helped shape HPR.

Given that we distribute an average of 11,000 papers each week, and the average size approaches 24 pages, it’s no wonder that “The Little Newspaper That Could” became an integral piece of the fabric of our broader community.

We owe each and every one of you our most sincere thanks for that.

Speaking of which...

It’s been a tradition at HPR that we take a two-week hiatus after Christmas each year.

This will be your final edition until we hit the streets again on thursday, January 12.

Granted, we could keep on rolling through the last week of the year and then the first week of the new year. We could, but we choose to rest and relax so as to charge our batteries for the new seasons just around the corner.

Please enjoy the season, your family and friends, each other and all others in this world we collectively steward. We are proud of the High Plains Reader and its role in our community. We are also proud of each of you being part of all this.

Meantime, there will be a burst of change coming at all of us the next month or two. We have a new governor in North Dakota, Doug Burgum. We soon will have a new President, Donald Trump. We have a Legislative Session right around the corner.

We expect that Doug Burgum will prove to be an incredibly capable governor. It would not surprise us, however, to see some turf wars unfold between the new governor and old guard Republican legislators. The sooner they agree to work as a team, the better it will be for all of us.

This is the moment of moments for the GOP in North Dakota. It’s make or break time.

Their futures depend on the leadership they provide, now that they represent an absolutely disproportionate supermajority control.

Let’s hope their deliberations and actions will be focused on the people and the greater public good. Of course, a priority of lawmakers will be budgetary. Oil and ag sector

declines have put immense pressure on the forthcoming state budget.

We hope leaders keep their eyes on that budget first and foremost. Though it’s sometimes intoxicating to go off on directions whereby leaders exert their influence in ways that others directly feel it. Things like women’s health and reproductive rights, for example.

Or eroding public education while decrying that business people can do a better job running our schools. Or declaring that ND desperately needs school choice, i.e. vouchers or charter schools and the likes. Uff da!

Our best advice to the many leaders in Bismarck is to show us how statesmen and women do things and why, especially when the primary motivating force is the desire to serve all equally, and for the greater public good.

As for our new President, we simply are not going to make any predictions, except that we believe Trump will indeed turn politics on its head in our nation’s capital. That alone will be cause for celebration.

People are tired of gridlock and paralysis. They are tired of obstructionism and dysfunction. They elected the President in full faith he’ll address that political vacuum head on, while also benefiting from Republican majority influence in the House, the Senate, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court, this could be the historic moment when our country gets set on a course that’s profoundly good or profoundly bad.

We hope it’s good.

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to all. Watch for HPR’s next issue come

Thursday, January 12.