Leewana Thomas

One of the main characters in the film “The Harder They Fall” is a cowboy named Nat Love. He, like the other characters in the film, was a real person.

4/3/2017: “Go home and slop the hogs and leave the lawmaking to us!” That’s what Treadwell Twitchell, a Republican Cass County legislator, supposedly said to a group of angry farmers in 1915. The farmers were arguing their case for a state-run grain elevator at a legislative meeting. Whether Twitchell uttered those exact words is unsure, but farmers across North Dakota, and across the country, heard the sentiment loud and clear.

3/27/2017: On today’s date in 1918, Mrs. H.L. Peterson and her family from Bowbells, North Dakota were awaiting the April 1st issue of the “Nonpartisan Leader.” Mrs. Peterson had won a Nonpartisan League women’s writing contest with her essay titled “Pay for the Wageless Years.

11/22/2013: Yesterday, we heard that this November marks the 43 rd anniversary of Sesame Street on the air, and the 42 nd anniversary of Sesame Street in North Dakota. We learned that huge amounts of psychological research go into every episode, so much so that a Sesame Street writer named Michael David once called it “perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program.”

11/21/2013: We all know what we can find on Sesame Street - friendly monsters, catchy tunes, and sunny days - even if we still couldn’t tell you how to get there after 43 years of singing about it. That’s right, this month marks the 43 anniversary of Sesame Street nationally and the 42nd anniversary in North Dakota. The children featured in the original Sesame Street theme song could be grandparents now. But with more Emmy and Grammy awards than any other children’s program, Sesame Street seems to be here to stay.

9/4/2012: It's impossible to live in North Dakota today without hearing a lot about oil. Our “black gold” boom has seriously changed the makeup of western North Dakota. Some people are making a lot more money, some are making less, and workers are flowing into the state. North Dakota has a long history of profiting off the “black gold,” and experiencing the cycle of boom and bust.

9/2/2012: On this date in 1892, Fargo North Dakota adjourned an important international conference.

9/1/2012: Did you know that parts of North Dakota have the widest temperature range in the world outside of Siberia? That's why when North Dakotans go just about anywhere else, they can impress the people with tales of frightful cold and stifling heat.

8/31/2012: If you tuned in yesterday, you learned that the Ku Klux Klan had a significant presence in our state. F. Halsey Ambrose, a Presbyterian minister, mobilized his masses to discriminate, especially against Catholics and members of the Nonpartisan League.

8/30/2012: The study of history can be fascinating, fun, and enlightening. Sometimes it can also be disheartening.