People

I don’t remember ever watching my mother, grandmothers or great-grandmothers (how lucky am I to have memories of each!) use pressure cookers. I don’t have a lived traumatic pressure-cooking experience. Yet still, I am downright terrified of pressure cookers!

Why?

I hypothesize we suffer from the generational trauma of pressure cookers. Although I never directly experienced a traumatic pressure-cooker explosion, it’s possible the fear has been passed down from one generation of my family to the next.

Beyond supporting North Dakota’s economy and feeding the world, farming and ranching is a lifestyle – and livelihood. It is a legacy built on generations of hard work, sacrifice and success.

To protect this legacy and family farms and ranches around the state, North Dakota State University (NDSU) Extension, in partnership with North Dakota Farmers Union (NDFU), has developed succession planning workshops to help families transition operations to the next generation.

This year, the United States has used tariffs in unprecedented ways.

In an effort to incentivize producers and consumers to manufacture and buy products in the United States – among other goals related to political negotiations and curbing the drug trade – the United States has implemented sweeping tariffs around the globe. Some target entire countries instead of specific commodities, from as low as 10% to as high as 50%.
What’s the point of tariffs? How are North Dakotans affected?

“They needed people, and we were just kind of a link in a food chain,” Westhope native and Vietnam War veteran Dennis “Denny” McKechnie says. “I didn’t have a choice. I got No. 19 in the lottery, and my buddy got 18. … We knew where we were going, right?”

They were just boys when their country called them.

“I didn’t want to be there, but yet, here I am with 30 guys. They don’t want to be there neither,” Denny recalls of the plane ride to Vietnam in May 1971.

He was only 20 years old.

Carol Crabbe has always been a busy lady.

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam conflict, which concluded with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began in the 1950s and greatly escalated in 1965. In total, more than 8.7 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam era, 2.7 million of whom were deployed to Vietnam.

“When I left for Vietnam and flew out of Bismarck, that's the first time that I saw my dad cry,” Vietnam War veteran David “Dave” Logosz says. “My mom and dad were there, and my grandparents were there, and they were all in tears. I'm sure they didn't think I was going to come back alive.”

But he did.

The Western ND Honor Flight transports America’s veterans on all-expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials built to honor those who have served and sacrificed for the country.
 

HOW TO APPLY AND DONATE
Visit westernndhf.org to apply for your veteran or yourself, to donate today, volunteer or find Western ND Honor Flight events near you.

When you visit Meadowlark Acres just outside of Arnegard, you’ll find more than rows of produce. It doesn’t take long to feel the heart behind it.

Ruth Iversen enjoys reading about others. She’s usually reading a historical book, with a good detective story thrown in on occasion, and recently read Jimmy Carter’s autobiography.

“I like biographies, but his was exceptional,” she says of the former president, who died at the end of 2024 at 100 years old.

Still, Iversen’s not convinced there’s something to write about when it comes to her own life.

“I can’t imagine there’s anything interesting,” she says.