Bowdon, ND

The Beautification Task Force that came out of the Bowdon Horizons Community Visioning applied for and received a $500 grant from the Sheridan-Wells Chapter of Thrivent for Join Hands Day, and what a day it was! Twenty-five hardy souls gathered together to beautify Bowdon’s Main Street with barrels of flowers, a complete relandscaping of the front of the Community Center and the planting of four memorial dogwood trees to the south of the Community Center.

We had children, students, young mothers, contractors, retired people, and the “able elderly” out digging, scraping away old soil, cleaning rocks, and planting perennials and annuals up and down the street.

Still to come is the relocation of the “Welcome to Bowdon” sign from the highway to the edge of town (a larger sign which will be easier to see from a distance will be erected by the highway); flowerboxes for the old grain wagon located between Jones’ and the Cafe (thank yous to Brian Tebelius for loaning the wagon to us); and the relighting of the school evergreen in seasonal lights.  We’re also on the lookout for more wagons, manure spreaders, or other antique farm implements to grace Main Street.

The final activity of the day was the planting of four dogwood trees in memory of Tim Reberg, Wade Unterseher, Jim Fike, and Dick Martin, who are missed greatly by the community.

I just want everyone to know that the Housing as a Tool for Rural Community Success in Steele was a great learning experience for me. The idea of a STAT team representing all facets of ND housing related offices is a great idea. I’m hoping to spend a half hour at a future Bowdon Development meeting to educate the board on possible surveys and analysis of our community housing needs and what we can do to improve the housing so more people will stay in Bowdon and new people will have housing opportunities.

I’ll write more about this later, but I must tell you that the BDCI sponsored benefit last Thursday was very successful. I just wish it could have been, as originally planned, to help Tim and Ruth Reberg defray the unexpected costs of replacing their freezers and cooler compressor, instead of helping Ruth and the girls through this terrible time of losing Tim so suddenly. Please keep Ruth, Dawn, and Faith, as well as Tim’s extended family, his church, and his community in your thoughts and prayers.

You can find and article about the benefit at this Bismarck Tribune link.

As a direct result of a Horizons Program based initiative–publication of the Bowdon Guardian–BDCI is the recipient of 200 sturdy, new folding chairs for the Bowdon Auditorium. After receiving the first issue of the newspaper, a generous former Bowdonite gave a challenge grant that was matched by other local groups and people for the purchase of chairs. This means that there will be no more moving of chairs to and from the Community Center or borrowing them from the local churches for large occasions. How nice and convenient for our next All School Reunion!

Thank You!

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.

Feedback from readers of the newly resurrected BOWDON GUARDIAN is challenging the staff of volunteers to top their first issue printed in January, 2008.
Here is an email from the former pastor of the Lutheran church in Bowdon: “We have moved to Idaho last May, where I am pastor at a little congregation in Horseshoe Bend; but we continue to have a heart for the vitality and prosperity of Bowdon and the people. I want to tell you how excited I was to read through every word of the Bowdon Guardian. Your hard work and talents for this newsletter shine through every page. I am directed to resources and contacts in a clear, easy format. The layout is inviting and easy to read. The photos add a rich dimension to the articles. I like your business spotlight, as just starters. The articles reveal spirit of optimism based on concrete action. Anyway, I could go on, but suffice it to say, how welcome your work is. I believe your work will make a huge difference in the future of Bowdon. Communication is so important in gathering people together.” Rev. Marilyn deVeer
In a letter from Moorhead, Minn. Paul Eidbo writes,: “I have met and talked with many people with former ties to BOWDON and in every instant they are still very interested and in many cases I am sure they would be willing to help support you in these projects as I am if they were informed of them. Enclosed are my membership renewal dues for 2008. Keep up the good work!!”
As well as a glowing write-up on the new Guardian in the Harvey Press by Heather Knodel Melson, the editor of the former Willow City Centurion, Mildred Rothgarn, wrote to offer her congratulations.
Tenuous connections to Bowdon of readers from out of town and out of state, such as great aunts who used to live in Bowdon, have been renewed through the Guardian. Requests for subscriptions accompany many letters of encouragement.
Dues paid to BDCI automatically put you on the mailing list. BDCI, PO Box 314, Bowdon, ND 58418

I am pumped up!! Laurel Jones and I attended the Miner County presentation at Gackle Thursday night. We saw old friends from Leadership Plenty training, were inspired by the story of dedicated people in Miner County who are reinventing their future, and Laurel sold 16 “Believe in Bowdon” Raffle Tickets at $20 a shot. She assured the good folks in Gackle that at least one would win and good enough our friend Mary Conrad did just that in our first drawing yesterday in Bowdon.

Two things really impressed my about Miner County. 1. Their original program was youth driven. 2. They focused on the impact that 10% increased purchasing would do to their community. Someone had suggested that very idea for increased patronage to our local grocery store. Now we have proof from our friends in South Dakota that buying local has great impact!

Lance Brower, NDSU Ext. agent with an emphasis on economic development, can help Bowdon do a similar assessment. I will be taking the idea to the marketing task force soon and with their approval will anticipate some very helpful feedback through Lance’s assessment.

By the way Kurt S.– thank you for your blog and the suggestion for our grocery store. I am looking forward to the day when the Bowdon community will be celebrating the outcome of its new found loyalty to present and new business entities.

I just got back from a three week plus trip to the East Coast to visit friends, and while it was nice to see them and sample some of the fresh seafood that’s always available, I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it was to get back into the wide open spaces of North Dakota and home to Bowdon.

Just to illustrate the contrasts in “lifestyle”, let me tell you about traffic. After leaving a shopping mall at a little before 4:30 one afternoon, I managed to drive 5 miles by 7:00. Now I have to admit that the roads had iced up and many ramps to the highways had been closed, so what seemed like a bazillion cars had to get to their destination on surface roads, but I think I could have walked home faster! The next instance was driving from suburban Washington, D.C. to suburban Baltimore, MD–a whopping 50 miles–at 1:30 on a partly cloudy afternoon. The trip took over three hours and the only thing contributing to the delay was cars, trucks, vans, and busses, waaaaaaaay too many of them for my taste. During one of the many times I was at a dead stop on the Capital Beltway, an interstate highway, I took the picture that accompanies this blog.

Now when I got back to North Dakota on Tuesday, February 19, I drove Loren and Patti Patrie’s van back from Bismarck; from Steele to Bowdon, about 60 miles, I had the road to myself–I didn’t meet, follow, or get followed by one car! Granted, it was the coldest night of the year, so most people with any sense were home keeping warm and toasty, but I cannot tell you how relaxed and free I felt not being surrounded by people, people, people and cars, cars, cars.

We here are so blessed to be living in such lovely surroundings with our wonderful friends and family in communities that are working to always be a little bit better.

Current equipment available in the Bowdon Fitness Center:
A Bowflex Sport, 2 Treadmills, 2 Cardiogliders, Eliptical Machine, Rowing Machine, ab lounger, ab swing, schwinn air bike, bike
We have a tv with a vhs recorder and a dvd player, so come and workout on the treadmill or bike while watching a movie. Before you know it, you will have walked those 4 miles or rode those 6 miles.
We also have a cd player available, so bring your favorite cds with and listen to music while you workout on all the machines.
Currently there are 9 members using the Fitness Center.