Bowdon, ND

               Entertained by 2/3 of the always wonderful but now disbanded Pea Pickers band, filled with a large variety of potluck dishes reflecting the use of local foods, and superbly informed about the local economy by Lance Brower, NDSU Extension Agent for Stutsman County, residents of the Bowdon area enjoyed the Bowdon Development Center, Inc. (BDCI) Annual Meeting held Monday evening in the Bowdon City Park.

Board secretary Freida Tebelius reported that BDCI has a record number of memberships, spurred by the quarterly issuance of a local newspaper, The Bowdon Guardian. Along with many new members, elections also brought new faces to the board. Two three-year terms were filled by newcomers Pam Stewart and Ellis La Porte, Jr. Vivian Miller was elected to fill the remaining one year term vacated by Mike Weihemuller, while Wayne Fuhrman was reelected to another three year term. Outgoing members LeAnn Hart and Linda Schander were praised for their hard work and outstanding service to the community. The board will be very busy in the coming year with expanding Bowdon’s economic base and serving as the umbrella for grants applications and other programs.

President Patti Patrie outlined the past year’s activities, many of which centered on the Horizons Program sponsored by the North West Area Foundation. The last portion of Horizons consists of applying for an $8500 grant, due by the end of June. Patrie also praised the Campground Board for their ongoing efforts and reported a substantial increase in campground usage resulting in higher net revenues.

A real highlight of the evening was the PowerPoint™ presentation and talk by Lance Brower. Using a sophisticated data analysis tool called IMPLAN and data gathered from BDCI, as well as governmental and other sources, Brower illustrated how each local business impacts other businesses and the local economy. He showed the attentive crowd how the addition of one employee, or better yet, a new business would increase the community’s economic base and have an overall impact. He also explained how shopping at home has multiple benefits for the community and its residents.

 The final—and fun—activity was the passing of the Bowdon Duck and the drawing for door prizes. To the applause of the crowd, Pam Stewart passed the duck to Freida Tebelius for her participation on many boards and leadership in community activities. The lucky winner of the grand prize—one share of equity stock in the Bowdon Community Cooperative—was Lyle Hettledvedt, who now has a stake in the future of the Bowdon community! 

Today was election day in North Dakota–statewide primaries, county and municipal–and the local election judges reported a turnout of over 130 voters by 6:00 p.m. They anticipated that those people who commute for work would be in to vote before the polls close at 7:00.

Bowdon Community Center serves as a polling for an area stretching west towards Hurdsfield, so it’s not just a quick walk down the block to vote for many people. That’s why it’s so heartening to see many voters exercising their rights.

We also have to be grateful to the poll workers who are at the polls all day instructing voters on procedures and overseeing our traditional North Dakota clean-as-a-whistle elections.

Thank you, ladies!

And let’s not forget that leadership, community building, and alleviating hardship and poverty are not just in the hands of our elected officials; each of us has a role to play in our democracy and the first and foremost is to vote.

Thank you, voters!

The Tuesday, June 3^rd meeting at the Bowdon Community Center to form the Bowdon Community Cooperative (BCC) was a huge success.  Initiated by Bowdon Development Center, Incorporated (BDCI) in response to the possibility of the closing of the Bowdon Locker and Grocery, the meeting drew 90 people to hear and respond to BDCI’s proposals.

With the state of the economy and the high price of fuel to consider, the community has come together to address the very basic issue of assuring that all community members can continue to afford to feed themselves. We have many elderly and other people on fixed incomes in the Bowdon-Chaseley-Heaton area who would find traveling 35 to 70 miles round trip to purchase groceries prohibitively expensive. The need of Ruth Reberg to sell the meat plant and grocery store following the untimely death of her husband Tim has proved to be a catalyst for the community to step up to the plate to ensure that Bowdon Locker and Grocery remains open to serve the community. 

Patti Patrie, president of BDCI, and Wayne Fuhrman, board member, presented the crowd with the steps the board has taken and the progress made since the impending closing came to light. So far, BDCI has assisted Ruth Reberg, the current owner, with marketing the business. In addition, the board has consulted Don Frye of Otter Tail and Pat Downs of NDAREC about possible ownership models and possible outside funding sources to help with the purchase and renovations of the business.  BDCI has also retained the services of Jim Lees of SBDC to formulate a business plan and attorney Steve Noack to guide BDCI through the legal steps to forming a coop. Finally, Patti, Wayne, Arlene Furhman, and Laurel Jones toured three communities—Tuttle, Wimbledon, and Binford—who have community owned grocery stores to research what works and what doesn’t work.

Pat Downs then presented the crowd with information about coops in general and how the BCC would work. People had many insightful and probing questions, and it was clear to all that this is a very important process for the community. Don Frye and Pat were extremely helpful in clarifying the issues. It was heartening to hear that other communities hold the opinion that Bowdon has what it takes to make this happen. Pam Stewart reported that people in Harvey are saying, “If it can be done, Bowdon can do it.” Other people from other communities have echoed that sentiment.

Following the clarification of some points and more discussion, over 45 households/individuals signed up on the spot to become cooperative members, with the rest of the people taking their membership applications home to their checkbooks to send back in the mail. In addition, Wayne Fuhrman, Gary Heintz, Allen Hoff, Pam Hoff, Laurel Jones, Cory Kunz, Bob Martin, Patti Patrie and Vinnie Stoen signed on as the steering committee/interim board of the coop to see the process through the next three to six months until coop board elections. They will be coordinating the equity drive that will come soon. They will be assisted by Pat Downs and Don Frye.

 Membership in the BCC is $10.00 per household or individual. Each family may join as a unit for $10.00, or if any person in the family over the age of 18 wishes to hold an individual vote in the coop, he/she may join separately. Membership applications are at the Bowdon Locker and Grocery, the Bowdon Café, First International Bank and Trust, and Bank Forward. If you’re out of town, you may also call Laurel Jones at 701-341-0400 to have an application mailed to you.

What a kick! I was wandering around the house this morning getting ready for church and I started thinking about our situation with the grocery store and locker. I thought to myself, “You know, if people need to invest as a community to keep our store going, would that be so bad?” I calculated that if I had to drive to Fessenden, Carrington, or Harvey once a week to buy groceries, it would cost between $5.00 to $10.00 a trip, and that’s at today’s prices for gas. At that rate, including the 00ps-I-forgot trips, I’d get back a $1,000.00 investment in two years just in fuel savings.

Then, lo and behold, I opened today’s Bismarck Tribune and read an article that was reprinted from the Grant County News. It confirmed in a very vivid and factual way what many of us have been saying all along:  shopping at home makes sense. There is very little price difference in town and out of town, and the cost of fuel negates any savings. In fact, it makes out-of-town groceries prohibitively expensive. If we want to make sure that people on fixed or limited incomes–and I’m one of the fixed–can afford to feed themselves with healthy and nutritious foods, we must work to keep our local grocery store and locker plant open and thriving. 

Be sure to attend the 7:30 p.m. June 3rd meeting at the Community Center to see how you can be involved.

I can’t believe the month is almost over–we’ve been so busy that there has been very little time to keep up with the blogging. We’ve been working on a complete recycling program; the Beautification Task Force organized and ran Join Hands Day with over 25 volunteers; the ecumenical Vacation Bible School hosted over 25 children for a fun-filled, spiritual week; a task force is working on making sure that we keep a grocery store and locker plant in the community; and the Community Garden is growing, growing, growing!

The best part of all of this is that more people are becoming involved and new leaders are stepping forth. Anne Patrie organized the Community Garden, Vinnie Stoen is teaching us how to garden organically, Maria Weis and the Girl Scouts have become involved in community activities and are eager for more, students from Fessenden-Bowdon have gotten us into the geocaching world, and summertime resident Joyce McKee has waded in knee deep to take part in Horizons projects. What fun!

It’s that time of year again when schools let out and Vacation Bible School begins.  I was fortunate to take a small helping part in our community VBS this year.  It’s been a few years since I was involved with VBS and it brought back all the fun and learning that it has to offer.  As is in many smaller communities, our population gets less & less and so the churches combine to put on the VBS.  Different denominations come together to bring to the children a program that is both fun & yet teaches them about Jesus and the word.  Hopefully leaving positive & fresh awareness that will stay with them their whole lives.

Kathy Tebelius did a wonderful job of putting the program together and leading the way with her puppeteer sidekick, Sarah.  Lots of music, storytelling, and activities that not only kept the children entertained, but was very much enjoyed by us adults also.  This year we were in the Rain Forest and the correlation between the rain making everything grow and how learning God’s word helps us to grow in our faith was easy to understand for even the smallest of children.

As part of Bowdon’s Community Vision, we’ve started a community garden. One of our goals is to provide low-cost, healthy food for our residents. What better way than to grow healthy fruits and vegetables right here in our own town? Anne Patrie took on the task of organizing site selection, plowing, compost spreading, and measuring plots. Vinnie Stoen began raising seedlings early in the spring, and in spite of the unusually cold and dry weather we’ve been having, the gardens are off to a good start. As usual, I’m a little behind everyone else, so tomorrow I plant!

We plan for the community garden to be just the start of good, local foods becoming the cornerstone of a program that keeps us healthy and attracts visitors to see where their food comes from aand how it is grown. 

This past week or so I have had several medical tests that I know will all end up being paid by my deductible. I had put off one test for 5 years because I didn’t feel I had money to pay for it. I say all this because it is not fair that I can have the tests and someone else won’t because they don’t have insurance or money to pay for the tests. Part of the Bowdon Horizons plan is to try and find health insurance for small business owners–those who fall between medicaid and medicare. I’m hoping we can rally the troops and work for univeral health care–a North Dakota plan for all–with preventive medicine incentives and early testing. There are Presidential candidates who support this idea. I believe there is a ND governor candidate who believes the same and District 14 may have a few legislative candidates as well. Lobbying and working for law changes is a way to deal with the poverty of medical availability for all. The US should not be “twenty something” in the world’s advanced nations to offer health care to its citizens. We all feel helpless to make an impact on such a huge issue. Let’s start talking about it and voting for candidates who want to make the changes in this country where all people are treated equally. We can start by providing health care to everyone.

Wednesday night, April 2, a group of Bowdonites gathered at the Library and learned about circles–the circles of recycling and composting.

As we move toward a Green Bowdon, recycling has become an important part of our efforts. Angela Boeshans, Executive Director of the North Dakota Solid Waste and Recycling Association, gave us a rousing presentation of all aspects of recycling and how we can easily integrate it into our households, our businesses, our farms and ranches, and our community. We learned that when we recycle, we put our refuse and waste back into the circle of manufacturing and use, instead of having it wind up in the dead end of the landfill. Interest was high, and the group asked lots of questions. The answers will be a great help in moving us forward to becoming the little green town on the prairie.

Following Angela, Ron Wiederholt of the NDSU Research Station at Carrington gave us important information about how we can keep even more stuff out of the landfill and move it back into the circle of life by composting. We found out that composting is simple and easy and will result in a 70% reduction in the volume of organic waste, while helping us to grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers that are vigorous and healthy. According to Ron, anything that is derived from something once living can go into the compost pile/bin/barrel. He did caution us, however, that we shouldn’t recycle potato or tomato vines because of the possiblity of plant diseases. With anything else that goes through the composting process, though, the heat from the process will break down toxins, weed seeds, and all the rest of that bad stuff. What we get at the end is clean, crumbly, rich, organic, earthy-smelling compost–manna for the garden. To illustrate, Ron passed around a two-year-old bag of compost that was made from manure.  It smelled, according to Gary Heintz, “earthy–like rich soil.” The group concurred that it was black gold!

All this information will be a great help in our community gardening and beautification efforts. Thanks Angela and Ron! 

Whew! Sorry I haven’t been doing much blogging lately–March has been a very busy month, and we’ve been doing too much to stop and blog about it!   To illustrate:  Sunday, March 30th, the Bowdon Lions Club held a benefit pancake dinner at the Community Center for Jim Kunz to help defray expenses while he and Sandy are in Rochester, MN for Jim to receive treatment. The food was great and the dinner was well attended. The Lions will have their funds matched by up to $1000 by Thrivent. People working together to help each other.

 Immediately following the dinner, the Horizons Steering Committee held a presentation in the basement of the Lutheran Church on organic gardening. The guest speaker, Dwight Duke, was phenomenal–all that knowledge in one man’s mind is absolutely amazing. I learned more about gardening–organic, sustainable gardening–in that one presentation than I have picked up in a lifetime! What a wonderful boost to our community gardens effort.

Then Patti Patrie and I were off to Crookston, MN, for the Home Grown Economy 2008 Conference at the University of Minnesota Crookston. The theme of the conference was “Connecting Local Foods and Economic Opportunity” which directly relates to what the Horizons Program is doing right here in our community. We learned all about organic gardening and farming, the growth of the local foods movement, sales, and marketing. Lunch was a fantasic spread of locally grown and produced foods, during which we had time to network with many different people, including Shawnn Balstead of the USDA in Minnesota, whose picture is shown here. What a wonderful opportunity to learn about addressing healthy living, growing our economy, and leaving a smaller environmental footprint, while eating tasty, local foods.