April 18, 2026 | Lucy and Landyn light up Valley Senior Living
We have a lot of great kids in Grand Forks, and I want to tell you about two of them. Meet Lucy Restad and Landyn Adams. Lucy is 11 years old and Landyn is 9; in May, they will be named the North Dakota Long Term Care Association’s Young Adult Volunteers of the Year. The award is presented to volunteers under the age of 20 who have significantly contributed to the quality of life of a community’s long-term care residents. Typically, the Long Term Care Association only honors one person each year. Lucy and Landyn, however, are exceptional. Continue reading
April 4, 2026 | Eric Ripley and the new Career Impact Academy are growing region’s next crop of professionals
Back in the 2000s, Sadie Ripley and I sat next to each other during the Grand Forks Chamber Leadership Program. At the time, North Dakota was battling the out-migration of local 20-somethings toward bigger cities and bigger jobs. As Sadie and I were in the early days of our careers — and Sadie had excitedly confided to me that she and her husband, Eric, were in the early days of pregnancy with their first baby — the community was especially supportive of giving us professional opportunities that would keep us in Grand Forks. Continue reading
March 21, 2026 | Blizzards, breaches and being 17: A look back on 1997’s Blizzard Hannah
After a springtime snowstorm, Grand Forksers over the age of 40 are required by social law to turn to their children, grandchildren and younger friends and say, “You know, back in April of ’97, we had a three-day blizzard named Hannah and that’s one of the reasons it flooded.” Continue reading
March 7, 2026 | For the owners of Grand Forks’ Urban Stampede, it’s the beans that bind
My little sister and I grew up in my family’s clothing store, Silverman’s, in downtown Grand Forks. When we weren’t working Crazy Days, wrapping presents or measuring teenagers for prom tuxedos, we were eating kuchen at A Taste of Norway and weaving in and out of the tables at the antiques store. We spent hours upon hours upon hours of our childhood at the City Center Mall, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Continue reading