Merry Helm

3/31/2017: On this date in 1951, The Fargo Forum ran a big spread titled, “Orchestra Success Regarded by Outsiders as Astounding.” The story, written by Roy P. Johnson, celebrated the symphony’s 20th anniversary.

3/24/2017: On this date in 1902, word came from Lisbon that a woman had been found dead near Velva. Elaine Lindgren wrote about it in her book, “Land in Her Own Name:”

3/15/2017: On this date in 1977, the trial of Leonard Peltier was in its second day. Peltier was an activist in the American Indian Movement or AIM and, in 1972, he took part in a 71-day standoff with FBI agents at Wounded Knee. The years after the standoff were marked by violence between the tribal administration of Dick Wilson and his opponents, who were supported by AIM.

3/14/2017: Leonard Peltier has become larger than life since receiving back-to-back life sentences for the murder of two FBI agents in a shootout in Pine Ridge, South Dakota over 40 years ago. It was on this date in 1977 that his trial in Fargo began.

3/8/2017: Today we learn of several lady bowlers who made their mark in the sport. First is Amy Lybeck, who was born on this date in 1916 in Heimdal, and grew up with her eight siblings on her parents’ farm near Maddock.

2/10/2017: It was this month in 1971 that country singer Lynn Anderson’s Rose Garden went gold.

1/16/2017: Michael Vetter was a soldier in the 7th Cavalry stationed at Fort Totten. Today, we bring you excerpts of three letters he wrote to his brother in Pittsburgh in January of 1876, which were translated from German.

1/10/2017: Think of North Dakota boxers, and you probably think Virgil Hill. But Hill is not the only great boxer from the state. Back in the 1920s and 30s, there was Billy Petrolle, a lightweight called the “Fargo Express.” He is ranked as one of the two greatest fighters to have never won a world championship.

12/27/2016: Cooperstown and Hope were once in the same county – Griggs – which was established by the Territorial Legislature in 1881. But that wasn’t to last.

12/14/2016: On this date in 1944, Senator Gerald Nye made news by marrying Arda Marguerite Johnson in Iowa Falls. It had been less than a year since Nye’s first wife divorced him. Nye was a Cooperstown newspaper editor when he began his 20-year U.S. Senate career in 1925 when he was 33 … a Republican endorsed by the Non-Partisan League.