At the small, rural school in Anamoose, a young girl runs to the cafeteria door with a giant smile and tiny brown seed in hand. She politely asks for a plastic bag to take her trophy home – a pepper seed she found during lunch – so she could plant it and grow peppers.
Miranda Reider, assistant cook and the school’s “bread master,” happily obliges, explaining this is a common occurrence at the Anamoose-Drake Elementary School.
High above the ground with a sweeping view of the North Dakota prairie is right where Jacob Lund is meant to be.
As a journeyman lineworker, Lund is often 35 feet in the air, working on the high-voltage electrical infrastructure that powers the lives of his cooperative’s members. And there’s no place he’d rather be.
North Dakota Living was wowed by the amount and quality of the photo entries submitted in our first ever photo contest! We received almost 300 submissions depicting the life, love and land of the great state of North Dakota.
We had a heck of a time choosing the winners.
Thanks to everyone who particpated and congratulations to the winners of the 2025 North Dakota Living Photo Contest!
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Watch for information on the 2026 contest later this year.
A magazine readership survey conducted in August shows familiarity and satisfaction with North Dakota Living are trending upward.
In May 2020, 48% of readers said they were very familiar or familiar with the magazine, while 29% were not very familiar. Familiarity with North Dakota Living increased to 64%, while unfamiliarity dropped to 17% in August 2024.
Similarly, satisfaction increased six percentage points in four years, with 66% satisfied or very satisfied with the magazine. Readers who said they were unsatisfied fell from 6% to 4%.
“It’s kind of scary thinking about traveling an hour plus to get the care we need,” Marketing and Human Resource Specialist Lauren McClintock said at the Aug. 27 grand opening for the new Rugby hospital. “We want to think about the future when we think of health care, and we want to think about our communities and what can help us the most.”
With a mission to create healthier food options, three sisters – Annie (Sproule) Gorder, Mollie (Sproule) Ficocello and Grace (Sproule) Lunski – are transforming the way people think about pasta, one nutritious meal at a time.
After growing up with a deep passion for farming instilled by their family, the Sproule sisters ventured one-by-one to college at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn. However, it wouldn’t take long until whispers from the Red River Valley beckoned them back to the fertile fields of home, Sproule Farms near Grand Forks.
More than 60 years after Capt. William Richardson’s F-106 aircraft crashed into the frozen prairie near Flasher in 1963, a memorial saluting his sacrifice now stands alongside Highway 31 in Grant County.
Richardson’s daughter, who was 2 years old when her father died, tearfully attended the memorial’s dedication, as a 21-gun salute sounded into the pristine sky and a P-51 Mustang roared overhead in a flyover.
The soldier’s ultimate sacrifice has been honored in a warm embrace by the state, even though he was not a native son.
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.
