Page 4
The Star
July 19, 2021
The death of
man and the
low.
side of Highway 14.
mg.
$500 each. ‘
cide.
front of Ravnsborg’s car.
tion, he has earned our utter contempt.
(202) 225-2611
SHO0T1N6 STAR?
‘ From tee off until the last putt rolls into the
hole, odds are that something funny, strange,
putlandish or a combination all three will hap—
pen during a senior golf tournament.
g3. There are the “unfindable balls” that show
in the middle of the fairway. The shots that
ricochet off a tree to within inches of the hole.
There’s even events as unfathomable as two
golf balls colliding in mid air after being hit off
separate tee boxes.
' Then there’s what happened to me on hole
No. 3.
It was a near-perfect day for a golf touma-
ment as around 50 players from at least four
different counties teed off in a shotgun start at
the Rolla Golf Course. The lush, green track is
attracting quite a few first-time visitors this
year as word has gotten out about its pristine
conditions and challenging layout.
Quite a few first-timers ‘left the Turtle
Mountains with a lighter bag after lofting their
share of balls into the trees, creeks and ponds
\ that are around every corner. I was looking for
one of those errant shots when fate struck.
of power by another
Summary: One state is attorney general is sinking to a new
It’s not what you know, it’s how low you can go
Let’s just call this what it is an abuse of power.
In one of the strangest 'and lengthiest investigations of what is most
certainly a crime on one level or another, the South Dakota attorney gen-
eral is trying to get away with killing someone. ‘
The attorney general in question is Jason Ravnsborg, who faces three
misdemeanor charges related to his driving when he struck and killed Joe
Boever during a fall evening in September 2020.
Ravnsborg was driving home alone after attending a GOP fundraiser
at a bar on September 12 when he fatally struck Boever, 55, along the
Ravnsborg told officials he never saw Boever and thought he struck a
deer. Hyde County Sheriff Mike Volek responded to the scene and let
Ravnsborg drive his car home to Pierre. Ravnsborg said they didn’t
real—
ize he hit and killed a person until he returned to the scene the next mom-
Then came what is perhaps the biggest “benefit of a doubt” decision
in the history of charges filed. Ravnsborg was charged with three 2nd-
class misdemeanors for his role. The charges are: operating a vehicle
while using a mobile electronic device, illegal lane change and careless
driving. Each carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and fines of
one
abuse
We were immigrants. High on
hope and strong on expectations.
A barren prairie just waiting for
the rails and the plow.
So we came. All immigrants.
By Lloyd 13. Omdalil
Have we forgotten two generations?
Other Views
dial spirit that welcomed us.
In North Dakota, we have a trou-
blesome undercurrent of opposition
to the kind of immigrants that want
the opportunity for a new beginning
The first of us were Yankees, Scots
Beadle County State’s Attorney Michael Moore, who was part of a
team of prosecutors who worked on the case, explained that Ravnsborg
could not be charged with vehicular homicide because such a charge re-
quires the driver of the vehicle to be intoxicated.
That’s pretty hard to prove when someone leaves the scene of an ac-
cident. Ravnsborg should have considered himself very, very fortunate
but now he’s adding insult to death. He is attempting to access any psy-
chiatric or psychological records of the man he struck and killed along a
highway, alleging in court documents that the death may have been a sui-
and Irish.
Then the Germans and the Scan-
dinavians poured in. There were
Black Sea Germans,
Volga Germans, Galician Germans,
Bohemian Germans, German Hun-
garians, German Mennonites and
Volhynian Germans.
Hutterites,
(The ethnic researchers included
NDSU Sociologist Father William
Sherman, UND Historians Playford
Thorson and Robert P Wilkins, Bis-
marck State College Historian War—
ren Henke, UND Political Scientist
Theodore P. Pedeliski and NDSU An—
thropologist Timothy Kloberdanz.)
Immigrants with Dreams
Every immigrant family came
—- the same kind of opportunity ini-
tially provided to us by free or cheap
land. And the new immigrants aren’t
asking for free land — they are willing
to work hard and add to the prosper-
ity of the state.
Teaching English
When the children of immigrants
came to public schools, many could
not speak or understand English so
6,800,000 Germans
A motion filed recently alleges a pattern of alcoholism and prescrip-
tion drug abuse by Boever that caused at least one family member, a
cousin, to believe that a depressed Boever killed himself by jumping in
Ravnsborg’s attorney, Tim Rensch, disputes law enforcement’s find—
ings that Boever was struck on the shoulder of the highway and instead
believes he was hit on the roadway, according to the court filing.
While German immigrants were
spread throughout the state, concen-
trations could be found along the
southern North Dakota counties —Kid-
der, Sheridan, Emmons, Logan,
McIntosh, LaMoure, Dickey and
Richland among others. With around
6,800,000 since 1841 , they constituted
the largest number of immigrants.
with a dream for which they. were
willing to work from dawn to dusk,
endure the biting cold winters, and
bear the loneliness of the flat barren
land. Yes, our immigrant families set-
tled the land and launched a state.
Gratitude for cheap land and the
chance to begin anew flowed from the
many ethnic immigrants who pros-
school boards needed bilingual teach-
ers able to bridge the language gap.
On the streets of Pisek, Czech was
the common language; in Tagus, it
was Norwegian; in Wishek, it was
German. Today, we make a federal
case out of immigrants bringing their
languages and using them until they
can make the transition to English.
First of all, the attorney general should be on his knees, thanking what-
'ever higher power he worships that he and he alone really knows what
Coming from Scandinavia were
pered in North Dakota.
Grateful Grandparents
happened that night. Secondly, instead of taking his medicine like a man
and like the men and women he’s prosecuted, instead he reverts to the
slimy tactics of a politician desperate to save face.
No one should be surprised at the depths politicians will sink, espe-
' cially censidering the shenanigans of the past five years. This,
however,
is in line with the worst of what humanity has to offer. .
Each charge against the attorney general carries a maximum penalty
of 30 days in jail. A trial is scheduled to begin August 26.
Ravnsborg deserves everyone of those days in jail and more. In addi-
How to contact your North Dakota delegation
Sen. John Hoeven
G11 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: 202-224-2551
Sen. Kevin Cramer
B40C Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2043
Rep. Kelly Armstrong
1004 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes,
Firms and Icelanders; among the
Slavic immigrants were Ukrainians,
Poles, Czechs (Bohemians, Mora-
vians and Slovaks) and Bulgarians;
Seasoning the Mix
Less numerous were Italians, Ar-
menians, Greeks, Lebanese, Dutch,
French, Jews, Japanese, Chinese,
Spaniards and Mexicans.
This was the North Dakota melting
pot, documented by six distinguished
scholars in 450 pages of “Plains Folk,
North Dakota’s Ethnic History” pub-
lished in 1988 by the ND Institute for
Regional Studies at NDSU.
Starting from sod huts two or three
generations ago, we immigrants laid
the foundation for Twenty-first Cen-
tury prosperity. Many of us are more
than half as old as the 1889 founding
of the state. Grandparents can still re—
late stories about their own personal
experiences and hardships encoun-
tered in the settling process. ‘
Gratitude 'lhrned Cold
Even though this generation is still
close to the founding, the gratitude of
our immigrant settlers has dwindled
and our sympathy for newcomers has
grown cold. In two generations, we
have forgotten the free land and cor-
If the hopeful immigrants of today
had shown up in our frontier days,
they would have been welcomed with
open arms by our grateful-.grandparh
ents. In fact, North Dakota had an im—
migration bureau to invite and
welcome immigrants for the 13 years
between 1919-1933.
Looking back, the skills and hard
work of immigrants made North
Dakota the “land of opportunity” we
claim it is. We can still gain from
more skills and more hard work. Or
have we become a generation of self-
ish ingrates after only two genera-
tions?
The case against Congressional term limits
Advocates of congressional term
limits have strong arguments, as we
observed last week of the ongoing ef-
fort to impose a ceiling on the num~
ber of terms that members of the US.
House of Representatives and US.
Senate can serve. But the arguments
against term limits are also strong,
and find support in the founding of
our nation and in current debates.
The framers of the Constitution
did not impose term limits in mem—
bers of Congress, just as they re—
frained from constitutionally limiting
the terms that someone might serve
as president of the United States. The
discussions and debates in the Con-
stitutional COnvention and the vari-
ous state ratifying conventions reflect
familiar themes.
The founders subscribed to the
theory that the essence of popular
government was captured in the right
of voters to elect their representa-
tives. Limitations on who might seek
office, beyond the Qualifications
Clause of Article I, which set forth
David Adler, The Aituras Institute
David Adler answers your Constitution question;
Send them to this newspaper.
the age, citizenship and residency re-
quirements for representatives in the
House and Senate, seemed foreign to
. the founders. Their reasoning was re-
iterated by President Woodrow Wil-
son, who wrote in 1913: “By seeking
to determine by fixed constitutional
provision what the people are per-
fectly competent to determine by
themselves, we cast a doubt upon the
whole theory of popular govem-
ment.”
A constitutional ban on reelection
struck many of the founders as coun-
terproductive to good government.
There was a widespread belief that
service in office for a reasonable
number of years was a prerequisite to
the acquisition of knowledge neces-
sary to become a good representative
skilled in the art of making laws and
policies. It was believed, moreover,
that frequent elections — two-year
terms in the House and six years in
the Senate —- insured accountability
to the people and that poor perform-
ance could be corrected at the ballot
box. At all events, they regarded
elections as term limits.
The founders never contemplated
the desire of anyone to serve lengthy
terms in office, far from family and
professional concerns. They believed
that short terms would produce rota-
tion in office, which would, they fur-
ther believed, protect against
corruption and the arrogance of
Limits
(Continued on Page 5)
Hole No. 3 is the bane of a lot of golfers in
Rolla. There’s one or two spots on the 454-yard
par five that are level, otherwise the ball is
below or above your feet. The most level spot
is near the water and the friendly
groundskeeper always forgets to mow that
area, leaving the golfer ankle deep in a lush car-
pet of grass.
In short, the second shot leaves one looking
at woods and a slough on the left, a large ever-
green guarding in the center guarding the green
and thick brush, trees and more water On the
right. It’s a boot shaker.
One of our playing partners succumbed to
the nerves and bounced one down the right
side, which of course slopes toward the brush.
We began searching for the ball. That’s when I
went from a participant in a senior golf touma—
ment to a victim of one.
Walking close the edge, I felt a small pinch
on the back of my legs. Almost immediately
after I began tipping backwards. Reaching back
I felt the hard plastic of a golf cart hood that
was going faster than the pace of my stroll.
Then, as soon as it started, it was over. The
cart jolted to a stop, but I kept going forward,
eventually coming to rest of my backside.
There was a moment of silence, I think to see if
the old man would be able to rise up again.
The driver of the cart was aghast. He too was
looking to the right for the ball and didn’t see
me in time to stop. From the first bump, he pan—
icked a bit and hit the gas instead of the brakes.
He quickly came to my aid, embarrassed,
worried and overly apologetic. I started laughing
about the incident and its setting when I looked
up at an old veteran of senior tournaments and
asked: “Have you ever seen this before?”
“Nope,” he said, and that’s all he needed to
say. The driver remained shaken for a couple
more holes and said the word, “sorry,” way too
many times. I told him after the 18—hole round
that it was worth it. We’re going to laugh about
this for as long as we’re able to remember it.
Pages from
the past...
July 18, 2011
10 years ago
Piece by piece, items that made up
the school in Rock Lake were auc—
tioned off last week, the final bell for
a district that has been saying good-
bye for nearly a year. The sale marked
the end of the school as many knew it.
Christian Davis of St. John and
Royce Poitra, Jacob Knife and Ryley
Bercier, all of Belcourt, competed in
the Down Under Games in Australia
' on July 3—5.
The Rolette School received a
More for Everyone award. Kyle Roll-
ness, an InVigor sales representative
from Bayer CropScience, presented ~
the award. Sara Clemens, the new Ro-
lette Vo-Ag teacher, and Mike Mon-
geon, a local producer, received the
check of $2,155 on behalf of the
school.
Kinsey Oakland, daughter of
Steven Oakland of Rock Lake and
Kandy Held of Cando, recently par-
ticipated in North Dakota State Uni—
versity’s spring 2011 commencement
exercises, held at the Fargo Dome.
Kinsey was presented with a Doctor
of Pharmacy degree.
July 22, 1991
30 years ago
Last week, Rock Lake’s volunteer
medical assistance unit known as the
First Response Unit was officially cer-
tified by the State of North Dakota as
a full-fledged ambulance service.
The yard of Senia and Wesley
Bykonen at 212 2nd St. SE. was cho-
sen as the “Yard of the Week” in the
program sponsored by the office of
the Rolla Economic Development
Coordinator.
On Saturday, July 6, the family of
Rosie Fagerlund held an open house
at the Rolla Community Center in
honor of Rosie on her 90th birthday.
About 100 friends and family mem-
bers attended.
TSGT Michael A. Tuomala has
been awarded the North Dakota Na-
tional Guard Achievement Ribbon for
exceptional service.
Lori Mickelson of Rolla has been
accepted to attend the University of
North Dakota School of Law. Mick—
elson graduated magna cum laude
from UND on May 12 with a degree
in accounting.
Five area studentsattended the an-
nual Busmess Challenge sponsored
by the Greater North Dakota Associa-
tion at Dickinson State University. At-
tending the session were Carrie
Longie and Erin Vining of Rolla High
School; and Kimberly Bauer, Chad
Slyter and Garrett McArthur of Dun—
seith High School.
Kristie Hetle of Dunseith is attend-
ing the summer Indians Into Medicine
(INMED) program at the University
of North Dakota, Grand Forks.
The Rolla Babe Ruth baseball
team punched their ticket to the state
Babe Ruth Class B tournament this
week in Dickinson by posting a 9-1
victory over Langdon of the Northern
Lights League in Devils Lake.
Rolla’s Brian Tupa and Belcourt’s
Keith LaVallie joined the North team
for conditioning and practice this past
week as both players will play in the
annual North-South Shrine Football
Game to be held Friday, July 26, in
Grand Forks.
July 20, 1961
60 years ago
Philip Belgarde, custodian of the
Turtle Mountain Agency office at Bel-
court, was presented with a $200 in-
centive award at a brief ceremony last
Thursday. It was granted on recom-
mendation of the Turtle Mountain
Safety Committee.
Harvey Bailey and Harlan Lipp of
the Rolla Country Club entered the in-
vitational golf tourney at Towner Sun-
day, and Bailey walked off with a
“foursome” trophy in the champi-
onship flight.
Letter rules
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letters must include the author’s
signature, address and phone
number for verification of author-
ship. Mail them to:
The Turtle Mountain Star
PO Box 849 Rolla, ND 58367
We reserve the right to shorten
letters, edit out factual errors and
reject those deemed libelous, in
poor taste or of a personal nature.
We will not run letters from the
same author two weeks in a row.
All opinions expressed are those
of the author and do not represent
the opinions of The Star. E-mail
us at:
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