Thank you, friends, for watching and working for North Dakota Today. It was a cozy day to talk about Joe Stickler, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as the fantastic way the Grand Forks Historical Society recently brought history to life.

If you’re interested in visiting Medicine Wheel Park, click here. I’d also recommend following Valley City Parks and Recreation (here’s their website and here’s their Facebook page) because they post many of the events at the park.

The Grand Forks Historical Society also has so many great things coming up; thank you to Leah Byzewski for the following:

We have a wide range of activities that appeal to all ages and levels of interest in local history. Our summer season is winding down; we close after September 15th, however patrons may still come for tours if they call ahead before winter freeze-up. A tour consists of visitors touring the Myra Museum on their own and then one of us will provide a guided tour of the other buildings.

Soon we will begin the work of setting up our Legends of Terror haunted house which will be October 23-24 this year. This is a PG-13 haunted ghost tour of all of the museum buildings. It starts at the Myra Museum and then groups of six will be sent down a lighted path where volunteers will play out scary scenes in each building. Admission is $10. We have a trick or treat event called the Half Pint Haunt on Oct. 25 from 2-5 p.m. Where younger kids can have fun and it’s not so scary. Then on November 7^th our Craft Guild will have their annual craft sale in the museum that helps fund projects each year.

We have a winter lecture series called “Entertaining History,” that is based on mostly local historical topics of interest to the general public. These are usually the third Sunday of the month November-April but sometimes we adjust due to holidays and speaker availability. We have a holiday open house in early December featuring the Myra Museum decorated, crafts for families and musical entertainment. Then the Campbell House features “Christmas on the Prairie’ and the Lustron Home has “Christmas in the Fifties” with an aluminum tree and other vintage decorations.

In the spring we conduct school tours and kids learn what is unique and great about Grand Forks In May of this year we started a new member appreciation and recruitment event called the Cottonwood Club. The museum became a 1920s era speak easy with live music, games, snacks and adult beverages. It was a lot of fun. Our servers were the cutest flappers.

We provide research assistance to scholars and genealogists from all over the world.  Online services like Ancestry are great but not everything is digitized.  Local experts are still vital for finding information.  We are happy to help.

Also it’s important for people to learn what we are not. We are not the Historic Preservation Commission. We have nothing to do with listing historic properties on the National Register. We do, however, provide research assistance for people interested in knowing more about their homes and other local buildings. We are also not the Myra Foundation. We apply for Myra grants each year like most other nonprofit organizations in the county. We are grateful for each project that is funded by the foundation, however we do not have any control over the foundation.

I just wanted to emphasize that we focus on life – long learning. Our programs benefit all generations. Kids love to see what’s inside the buildings but also if a grandparent is along for a tour they share stories that their kids may not have heard before. We bring generations together and those days are really my favorite.

I hope you enjoy this week’s North Dakota Today segment, which you can watch by clicking below. Have a great week!