Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a lovely rainy day to talk about a criminally fun (and free) event thanks to a UND student group, as well as a van delivering North Dakota produce around the state.
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.
As you know, North Dakota Today is filmed live. There are no do-overs on live TV, which is the best part of live TV, like, 99% of the time. Within that 99%, it’s wonderful not to…
Our eleven-year-old is in the thick of the annual youth musical production at the Firehall Theatre. His first show was The Wizard of Oz: Youth Edition; last year was Finding Nemo Jr. (despite the title, the…
I’ve written a North Dakota-y ghost story for the past few Halloweens – here’s one and here’s another and here’s the one from last year – and in the spirit (cackle cackle) of keeping that going,…
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…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a lovely rainy day to talk about a criminally fun (and free) event thanks to a UND student group, as well as a…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a beautiful October day to talk about Mandan High School’s first-ever state tennis championship, as well as an event this week to unveil…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a beautiful October day to talk about Mandan High School’s first-ever state tennis championship, as well as an event this week to unveil…
Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a beautifully foggy October morning to talk about how the community of Mandan is bringing warmth in dark times, and an awesome way…
As a self-professed expert on niceness, I sure do love Halloween. For one glorious evening, our community becomes a shared experience. We cover our front steps in carved pumpkins and fake spiderwebs, “ooh” and “ahh” over the parade of costumes and fill the sidewalks and the air with fun and free candy. It’s collective magic-making, and I’m very grateful for it.
I’m also incredibly impressed by how many of our fellow Grand Forksers go above and beyond — or boo-yond — to make the holiday special. Last year, I wrote about how the neighborhoods of Belmont Road and Reeves Drive transform into a Halloween Hallmark movie. This year, I’d like to tell you about another kind of movie masterpiece — this time, on Desiree Drive.
There’s nice, there’s really nice, there’s North Dakota nice, and then there’s the Greater Grand Forks Sertoma Club. Founded by Jay Seeger on Nov. 1, 1958, under the motto “Service to Mankind,” the Sertoma Club has lent its hearts, hands and wallets to generations of Grand Forks residents. The work club members do is big in both impact and scale. For 68 years, they’ve lit up the Fourth of July skies with spectacular fireworks shows — the club’s weekly lunchtime meetings open with a prayer for “no rain on the Fourth of July” — and hosted an annual Independence Day festival that has been a community tradition for more than three decades. They are the organization behind Sertoma Park, one of the largest parks maintained by the Grand Forks Park District and home to a Japanese Garden, arboretum, Greenway-connected trails and Ali’s Boundless Playground, which was the first playground in North Dakota designed to be accessible to people with disabilities.
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 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!
