Dr. Steve Hoffbeck

Whooping cough was among the scariest of childhood diseases. Known also as pertussis, whooping cough came from the bacterium “Bordetella pertussis.”…

Harold Schafer loved the idea of the “American West,” just as he loved the reality of the West. Schafer (1912-2001) will always be remembered as the…

In the heat of summer in 1885, at Fort Abraham Lincoln, on the west bank of the Missouri River, Captain Macauley saw something he had never seen…

For many decades, a barn was the most important building on North Dakota farms, protecting the livestock from the harsh weather. Pioneers built simple…

History sometimes doesn’t seem historic when it is happening. The significance of events can be elusive, slippery. Yet some far-sighted individuals can…

You don’t need a calendar to tell you when Dakota’s summertime has arrived, you can hear it when a meadowlark’s flute-like song reaches your ears.No one…

Today’s story is about Vencel James Shorma, who was born in Rovno, Poland, in 1889. He was still a child when his family moved to Russia, and in 1904 they…

The most despised insect in North Dakota has been the mosquito. Always humming in your ear, with bites so itchy and painful, you slap yourself to kill…

The very best tall tale about North Dakota’s gigantic mosquitoes came from Martin N. Johnson, a Congressman and storyteller. Johnson often repeated his…

Mosquitoes are pesky, pestiferous, and pestilential, besides being prolific.One of the most-plentiful mosquito species in North Dakota has a scientific…