Business

What can other towns learn from Bowdon and its meat processing cooperative?

“It gets back to the basics of the game, the baseball analogy: Too many are shooting for the grand slam when they could be really focusing on these types of base hits,” says Ellen Huber, rural development services director for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives (NDAREC). “Big things get all the attention, but this is an important incremental small business step a community was known for and made sure they could continue to stake their claim.”

What is your town known for?

Jamestown is the buffalo city. Bottineau takes “pride” in its ice cream. It’s hard to beat a steak in St. Anthony. And Stanley has the Sibyl Center, a small-town beacon of arts and culture.

For Bowdon, it was its meat plant and locker.

“There’s been a meat processing plant in Bowdon as long as anyone can remember, probably well over 100 years now,” says community member and local farmer Bob Martin.

As the sweet vanilla scent of the Bells of Ireland fills the air and the morning dew settles on the ranunculus blooming among many specialty flowers on their 11-acre farm, the Dessonvilles start each day deeply rooted in the glories of nature.

A 5-gallon bucket of carrots, “unwashed and dirty,” and three ice cream pails of chokecherries.

“That’s how my business got started,” says Diane Schmidt, recalling her first sales attempt at the Mandan Farmers Market nearly 40 years ago.

Schmidt was a single mom at the time. She’d haul kids and carrots to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. She can still picture her young boys, in 1986, sitting on the curb while Mom made sales.

You’ve likely heard the old adage, “They don’t make ’em like they used to.” And when it comes to frozen confections, the people of northwestern North Dakota know that sentiment to be true. That’s because the small town of Stanley is home to a nostalgic ice cream treat – one that can only be found at Dakota Drug.

Marlo Anderson is living proof there’s reason to celebrate every day. As founder of the National Day Calendar – the official, authoritative source for fun, unusual and unique national days – Anderson has built a wildly popular national brand around celebration.

Anderson’s curiosity popped in 2013, as he searched for information on the internet about the national day dedicated to his favorite snack – popcorn (the movie-theater buttered kind, preferably).

Technology is not just impacting rural communities: It's empowering them. By embracing innovation, rural residents can unlock a future of economic opportunity, improved education and health care, and enhanced connectivity.

A U.S. Marine Corps veteran with a worldly palate, Jayson Parsons put a pinch of this and a pinch of that into a seasoning jar for an outdoor survival trip, and discovered the recipe for a new business.

Originally from Arizona, Parsons and his family had moved to Hebron, where he and one of his sons explored the outdoors in survivor style.

“Not many people get mad at the guy making coffee,” Travis Helfrich jokes.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being mad at a guy like Helfrich, who not only makes good coffee, but helps make the electricity Americans depend on to power their lives. He’s a coal worker, then a coffee roaster. In that order, for now.

While adjusting to a shiftwork schedule in his mid-20s, Helfrich picked up a coffee-drinking habit.