My best friend, Raemi, is the author of the Martha’s Vineyard Murders book series. Her latest, Deadly Tides – “The best of an excellent series,” according my dad, a prolific mystery reader – was released a month or so ago and I read it, because obviously, and also because she has taken to unduly thanking me in the acknowledgements and I’m an egomaniac who likes to see my own name.
A situation…
Read onI created this website in 2017 to tell stories about nice people, and North Dakota, and nice people in North Dakota, and myself. Thank you for reading, and feel free to send me a message about whatever is on your mind (especially if whatever is on your mind is something I can talk about on North Dakota Today or write in the Grand Forks Herald). If you want to vote on Sundays for the outfits I wear on TV, follow me on Facebook.
My best friend, Raemi, is the author of the Martha’s Vineyard Murders book series. Her latest, Deadly Tides – “The best of an excellent series,” according my dad, a prolific mystery reader – was released a…
A chilly September rain had been tap, tap, tapping Grand Forks all evening; but inside the Kosior house, things were really heating up. “This is for tomorrow’s breakfast,” I announced loudly as I pulled a loaf…
It didn’t take long after that fateful day when I wept in the DMV as Fifteen was handed his driver’s license to realize there are some pretty sweet benefits to having another driver in the house. …
If there was an award given for the biggest wuss of all wussy times, I would win it. I would win it a lot. I’d win it for every horror movie I got peer pressured into…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a gorgeous day to talk about the books up for vote to represent North Dakota, as well some helpful hands (and pumpkins) in…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a cozy day to talk about Joe Sticker, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as the fantastic way the Grand Forks…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a cozy day to talk about the community of Grafton, my Nice People of the Week, as well as an awesome partnership between…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a perfect late August day to talk about Wendy Nelson, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as some lovely facts about…
Cancer has a way of making a person feel like the loneliest member of a large club. Even for those surrounded by the very best family, friends, coworkers and community, there are still moments when it seems no one quite understands what someone is going through. Sometimes, what a person needs most isn’t another medical explanation; it’s another individual who can hold their hand and say, “Yep. Me too.”
That’s what makes a cancer support group so special. It is a place to truly answer the question, “How are you doing?” It’s a place to cope with the side effects of treatment. It’s a place to work through practical problems, like balancing work and personal care. It’s a place to communicate fear, anger, and sadness.
“Coming from a school size of about 70 and a class size of seven, many people assume that small schools lack opportunity, but they are dead wrong,” said Jade Uhlich, senior at Drake-Anamoose High School.
Jade is the dictionary definition of opportunity. She has participated in every single extracurricular activity available through school, including Future Business Leaders of America, Future Farmers of America, Students Against Destructive Decisions, 1ACT, Science Olympiad, Cyber Madness, Student Council, 4-H, Academic Challenge, National Science Bowl and volunteering at the school library, to name a few. She has served as the state and local officer for FBLA, and held the title of National Resource Director for the National Mountain Plains Council. And, if that wasn’t enough, when a program didn’t exist that she wanted to do, she created it — like reading to special needs students every Wednesday.
I’ve been writing about kind and warmhearted people for almost a decade, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that like attracts like; shake a tree to get one nice North Dakotan, and a whole bushel will come tumbling out.
For example, a lovely resident of Valley Senior Living in Grand Forks named Wendy wanted to support the Grand Forks Public Schools’ Giving Tree Pantry, and so she held a necessities drive at the facility — and because the staff and the families of Valley Senior Living wanted to support both Wendy and Grand Forks Public Schools, they donated in force. Wonderful birds of a feather flock together.
And, sometimes, they throw Frisbees together.
In college, I almost accidentally majored in archaeology. It happened my freshman year, while I was hunting through the coursebook trying to figure out a workaround for a math requirement and stumbled upon Introduction to Archaeology. Intro to Archaeology led to Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, which led to Mycenaean Civilizations, and on and on for every semester of my undergraduate degree. Somewhere around the deciphering of Lost Languages and the emergence of the Ancient Mayans it became evident that a career in archaeology was not in my future — archaeology is for people who don’t avoid math — but it did lead to a lifelong of love for the profession.
At least a dozen times a year, longtime readers of the Grand Forks Herald will come up to me and ask, “Are you Big or Little?” I am not the first member of my family to write a regular column for the Grand Forks Herald; I am the second. My mother, Robin Silverman, shared her own stories with the region starting in January of 1986. Many of those columns featured my younger sister and me, affectionately named “Little” and “Big,” respectively. My mom clicked her last clack of the typewriter on her column in 1994 when I, the Big — by then 14 years old and 4 inches shorter than Little — deemed her stories “too embarrassing for words.” Fast-forward 32 years and hundreds of my own authored stories about my ridiculous self and it turns out there were plenty of words left. Sorry, Mom.
In a digital world where outrage often travels faster than compassion, Tyler Brickley had a simple question: What if kindness won? That question became the foundation of the Kindness Mob, an online movement Brickley launched on…
A wonderful reader of ND Nice – and a retired master chief petty officer of the Navy – has become my pen pal. He sent a few reflections on his now-shuttered hometown church and cemetery as…
You may know a lovely reader of ND Nice named Esther Donohue through her own blog, The Phat Hen, or through her food truck, Sweet Prairie. Esther is a rural North Dakota homesteader, educator, and mother…
A wonderful reader of ND Nice – and a retired master chief petty officer of the Navy – has become my pen pal. He sent a few reflections on his time in the service, and has…
If you are ever in a conversation with one or more people and the conversation inevitably turns to area fairs (as it should), I can almost guarantee that someone will say, “The best fair is the…
Here’s a fact about rhubarb: it’s an excellent source of fiber, calcium, and vitamin K. Here’s another fact about rhubarb: University Lutheran Church has been celebrating this vegetable (another fact! It’s not a fruit) for 32…
Remember when I talked about the Lindaas Barn Dances on North Dakota Today? Of course you do! As you know, the Lindaas Barn Dances are free old-fashioned family-friendly dances hosted over the summer by the lovely…
I bet you were just saying to yourself, “Man, I wonder if there is something awesome happening on Saturday, June 6, 2026? WELL WONDER NO MORE – it’s SMALL TOWN SATURDAY in Climax, North Dakota!
