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10/21/2013: Liquor and prostitution appear to go hand in hand, especially if the liquor is illegal.

10/22/2013: If you could were able to share a meal and talk a little with anyone you wanted, who would you like to meet with?

10/24/2013: On this date in 1882, even before it became a state, North Dakota experienced its first known lynching. Unfortunately, it was not to be the last. Perhaps even more unfortunate, is what eventually happened to the mobs of vigilantes who perpetrated these crimes.

11/11/2013: Good Samaritan homes exemplify "North Dakota Nice." In 1922, the Reverend August Hoeger saw the need for such a facility and opened the first in Arthur, North Dakota. His daughter Agnes was impressed by her father's example, and when she graduated from high school at fifteen, she entered college to prepare for work as a medical missionary. After ten years of study, she was ready. Dr. Agnes Hoeger traveled by land and sea for fifty-one days, then stepped off a ship in Madang, New Guinea on this date in 1935, beginning thirty years of medical work in that country.

11/12/2013: With slogans like “Benjamin Harrison! He’s grand beyond comparison!” and “Let’s put it over with Grover!” still rocking in their ears, the citizens of Dakota Territory on this date in 1888 waited anxiously for the presidential election returns. If Cleveland remained in office, it could be four more agonizing years before they could realize self-government through statehood.

11/20/2013: Harold Schafer, the president of the Gold Seal Company of Bismarck, received a national sales award on this date in 1957 for his ‘Glass Wax Stencils’ holiday promotion. Each year, the national journal Food Topics granted the awards based on the responses of thousands of American food retailers. Out of 16,000 national sales promotions that took place that year, Schafer’s Christmas stencil promotion was one of eight to win an award in the “New Product” category.

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.”

11/28/2013: Twenty-five years ago, the New York Times reported on the North Dakota system of Thanksgiving holiday furloughs for prison inmates. A furlough for an inmate is a temporary, unsupervised release. The state had released fifteen prisoners to spend Thanksgiving with their families. Although many states offered prisoner furlough programs at the time, North Dakota was expanding its program when others were decreasing or eliminating theirs, drawing criticism and casting a spotlight on the state.

12/3/2013: Benjamin Harrison was heading for the White House, and it was an almost a certainty that North Dakota was heading for Statehood. Harrison himself had introduced legislation to allow a single state of Dakota but now recognized that the citizens of both the northern and southern portions of the Territory desired division. But there were a lot of options initiated on the floors of Congress. A bill was introduced to admit a single state of Dakota; another bill to admit Dakota, Washington and Montana, and a still another bill allowing for five new states – adding New Mexico and Utah to the list. There were also bills for a division of Dakota Territory, and even a bill to divide the State of California.

12/4/2013: Melvin Griffin was born into ranching life at Stacey, Montana on this date in 1908 to Rose Anna and Lewis Griffin. Melvin only attended school through the eighth grade, but he started trailing cattle with his dad when he was only ten, and after trailing cattle into North Dakota in June 1926, 18-year-old Melvin saw there was ranch work available. He began breaking horses at Alex LaSotta’s Triple V Ranch, where he became known for having a good eye for telling if a horse was sound or not.