Lucid Thomas

11/7/2017: If anyone visits North Dakota, it becomes apparent that many of the communities have a strong focus on church life. One shining example are church suppers, held every year, usually in the fall.

11/3/2017: Jennifer Grosz was born May 5, 1973, in Bismarck, North Dakota. For the first few years of her life she lived many places, including Ansbach, Germany, Kentucky, and Dickinson before finally moving back to Bismarck where she attended school until she was 13. At that age, she suffered a tragic accident that left her disabled. Nothing seemed unusual on this date in 1986, but for Jennifer, it marked the end of her life as typical teenager.

11/1/2017: In the military, combat arms are the units that work on the ground, such as the infantry or artillery. One tactic employed by strategists is called combined arms. The idea of this tactic is to attack using differing units in such a way that the opposing forces, in defending against one of the attacks, becomes vulnerable to the other. It is a highly effective strategy and one of the primary tactics employed by the North Dakota National Guard. However, this strategy was not always part of the Guard’s training. We can credit Robert Schulte for introducing the strategy.

10/13/2017: Here is a true North Dakotan horror story for Friday the 13th

10/11/2017: In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church and Congregational Christian Churches came together to form what is now known as the United Church of Christ or UCC. This branch of Christianity sought to not only be united, but uniting, and today welcomes people of many backgrounds and ethnicities. They believe that while the scripture is 2,000 years old, it is not set in stone and can still shift. This sentiment is reflected in their most well-known saying, “God is still speaking.”

10/6/2017: Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship models, or “QSAR” models, are ways of analyzing data used in biology, chemistry, and engineering. It first sums up the relationship between a molecule’s chemical structure and biological activity, then it uses that information to make predictions about chemical reactions and help analyze biological effects. For instance, if a new drug had horrible side effects, a QSAR model can help scientists investigate how to chemically change the drug to help alleviate side effects while still retaining the helpful qualities. This model has been revolutionary in the field of molecular chemistry, and its creator was born right here in North Dakota.

10/5/2017: Budd Reeve first platted the land for what would become Buxton, North Dakota in 1880, about halfway between Grand Forks and Fargo. At the time, the only sign of life there was a Norwegian family on a sod shanty homestead.

10/3/2017: People have always found different ways of relating to the Earth around them. That’s why, around the world, there are hundreds of religions. However, even within these religions, different denominations are formed, such as Catholicism and Lutheranism. And within those denominations, still more variations arise. One such subgroup is the Lutheran Congregations in Missions for Christ, or LCMC, formed in the hope of acknowledging differences while still uniting all their congregations by adherence to the Old and New Testaments and the Lutheran Confessions.

9/27/2017: It was September 22 when Lance Koenig was driving near Tikrit, an Iraqi city about 100 miles north of Baghdad. He pulled over to inspect a suspicious roadside object, only to discover too late that it was a roadside bomb. It exploded, making him the third member of the 141st Combat Engineer Battalion to be killed in Iraq. He was only 33 years old.

9/21/2017: The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa is comprised primarily of three bands: the Pembina Band, the Red Bear Band, and the Little Shell Band. Whether the Little Shell group is properly included has been a legal problem that has its roots in the late 1800s.