News

The year in review looks back at 2014

By Scott Wagar

01/06/2015

Editor’s Note: The Bottineau Courant will be completing its year in review over what happened in Bottineau County during 2014. This week, the Courant looks at July through December.

As July came in 2014 so did the rain. In late June, going into July, the county received over five inches of rain, which brought considerable damage to infrastructure, cropland and much more.

The county saw flooded basements and walls caving in, communication lines failing, roads being flooded and damaged and crops underwater. 

With so much rain causing chaos in the county, Gov. Jack Dalymple declared a flood emergency for flooded lands in the northwestern and central district in the state. As the summer progressed, the county was able to start to rebuild in all the areas involved in the flooding.

Olive Gibbs was named the American Legion State Auxiliary’s Women of the Year. Gibbs, who is a member of Willow City’s American Legion Auxiliary Post #112, was honored by the North Dakota American Legion Auxiliary for her work with the Willow City Mission Quilters in creating quilts for hundreds of veterans over her lifetime with the Willow City’s auxiliary. In 2014, Gibbs led the WCMQ in stitching together 291 quilts.

July was an exciting month for Annie’s House when Tim 

Sanderson and Larry Marchus held the party of the summer at the Bottineau Winter Park and raised over $40,000 for the Park’s adaptive ski program. 

The end of the month brought the closing of Lesje Lutheran Church after serving the county for 115 years. Over 200 individuals came to Lesje’s final service with the Rev. Mark Narum, bishop of the Western North Dakota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America presiding over the service. The final right in the church’s history was conducted by parish member Lyle Gravseth who rang the church bells 115 times. 

AUGUST

August was a warm month which brought kids to the local swimming pools in the county’s towns and others to lakes in the Turtle Mountain to find some relief from the hot weather.

Father Michael Hickins arrived at Bottineau’s St. Marks Catholic Church as the new priest in early August from Rome, Italy, where he was the spiritual director of the North American College of Seminary. Hickins replaced the Rev. Paul Schuster who accepted a position with St. Michaels Catholic Church as its priest.    

The Bottineau School District held its second vote on a bond issue to construct a new school. The plan called for the construction and to place additions on the present day middle, junior and senior high building so that all grades in the school district could be in one building. 

The first vote, which called for a new elementary school on the east end of town, was voted down in November of 2013. The second vote saw 644 individuals who voted for the $12 million bond issue with 374 yes votes to 270 no votes. 

The bond failed by 13 votes because the school district needed 60 percent of the vote to pass. 

At the end of the month, local pilot, Leo Jostad, received the Federal Aviation Administration’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for completing 50 years of continuous safe operations in aviation as a pilot and promoting aviation.

SEPTEMBER

September was a month of remembrance and bringing comfort to those who had lost a loved ones in their lives. 

In September, The Bottineau County Veterans held the 9/11 ceremony at the International Peace Garden to honor the 3,000 individuals which lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. 

In Westhope, Becky Braaten and Robin Tolstad dedicated the Angel of Hope statue, which is an icon that was established by Richard Paul Evan in his novel, “The Christmas Box,” which brings comfort to those who have lost a loved one. 

Braaten and Tolstad brought the Angel of Hope to Westhope after they each lost a child in their lives and were seeking peace over their tragic loses; and, to grant others in the same situation the same opportunity. 

OCTOBER

October was a month of giving in Bottineau County which started with a new city mural that Michele Anderson and Dr. Lori Witteman painted in conjunction with a new garden for adaptive individuals to utilize.  

This past summer, Anderson has worked on a project called “The Conceptual Garden” for Independence, Inc., an organization out of Minot, which has an office in Bottineau, that provides individuals with disabilities the opportunity to have independence within their lives. 

Anderson, who is employed with Independence, Inc. out of Minot as an independent living specialist, created the idea of the Conceptual Garden which consists of raised garden beds that grants individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities the opportunity to grow and raise edible gardens. 

The mural is a painting of a sunflower and northern lights which hold Georgia O’Keeffe, Vincent van Gogh and George Seurat’s styles in the painting. Individuals can see O’Keeffe’s large and close-up formats of blossoms, van Gogh’s bold colors and Seurat’s pointillism, all created out of the hands and minds of Anderson and Witteman.

In Dunseith, the public school system granted its student a better education through a self-controlled robot. The robot, which the administrator stated was an “iPad on a stick” was operated by an individual in North Carolina who assist the Dunseith instructors in reading and comprehensive programs, which has improved the students educational levels in this area.

Through the funds that Sanderson and Marchus raised for Annie’s House, the two men were able to purchase ski trackchair for the Bottineau Winter Park, which was given to the adaptive ski program in October and has been utilized many times by adaptive individuals. 

The biggest event of giving for the entire year took place in late October when 75 local farmers assisted Ric Johnson in harvesting his crops after he broke both his legs in an accident. 

The ag producers, who volunteered all their time, equipment and fuel came to Johnson’s fields with combines, grain carts, fuel trucks and semis to harvest for Johnson. With 19 combines, the farmers cut 650 acres of soy beans, 270 acres of wheat and 170 acres of flax in one day.

NOVEMBER

In November, Gov. Jack Dalrymple appointed Bottineau resident Myron Langehaug as a member of the state’s Administrative Committee on Veteran Affairs. 

The Courant also learned about former Bottineau High School graduate, Johna Pritchard, who was performing as the understudy Emma who is one of the leads in the national tour of Broadway’s

“Jekyll & Hyde,” along with the part of Lady Beaconsfield and as the exclusive soprano of the production’s ensemble. 

DECEMBER

In December, the Northern Tier Federal Credit Union (NTFCU) announced that they were constructing a new credit union building in Willow City. The move granted NTFCU to be the first business in Willow City to construct a building in downtown Willow City since the 1980s. The move came because the credit union’s present building is older and in need of repair, along with more space needed to operate their business in. When completed in 2015, the new structure will be 1,008 square feet. 

After decades of having the fertilizer plant in Bottineau, the Bottineau Farmers Elevator razed the plant in December due to its age and the new fertilizer plant the elevator constructed which is located across the Bottineau County Fairgrounds. 

The year ended with a Lorie Line Christmas concert at the Holwell Auditorium.