As a cybersecurity specialist at Minnkota Power Cooperative, Justin Haar helps guard the electric power grid from hackers.

Guarding The Grid

All pieces of the puzzle
The pieces of cybersecurity form a triangle, made up of people, process and technology, Haar explains.

“I always view technology as the smallest end of that triangle. It’s 10% of the challenge. If you have the technology set up right, it’s working and it’s going to continue to work. It’s the people and the processes that really drive an organization and can introduce those security threats,” he says.

Edgeley/Kulm/Montpelier's Alex Huber (24) lays one up against Grafton defenders in the semifinal game of the 2021 North Dakota State Class B Boys Basketball Tournament. Huber and the Rebels went on to win the game by three points, earning a place in the state championship game. Photo courtesy Rhonda Tjernlund/Tjernlund Photography

Blurring school boundaries, co-ops become common

That’s when Edgeley and Kulm shook hands to form the first of an ever-expanding sports co-op that eventually stretched to Montpelier for basketball and to Ellendale for football and wrestling.

“We had that relationship that started with basketball and it built its way into the other sports,” explains Adam Schlepp, Kulm High School principal and athletic director.

Across the state in western North Dakota, Grant County High School (GCHS) in Elgin was poised to floor only eight boys basketball players in eighth through 12th grade next season.

Indian Springs Bison owner Roy Krivoruchka and his family have raised bison near Belfield the past 30 years, expanding the ranch’s reach to the consumer with the opening of 701 Meats just a mile down the gravel road from the ranch.

RECIPE ROUNDUP: JULY 2021

“It’s a niche market, but it’s getting more popular,” Jayden says. Restaurants and grocery stores on the coasts have a demand for bison meat, pushing the retail price about $1 a pound more than beef.

Jayden attended Canada’s National Meat Training Center in Alberta and graduated as a professional meat cutter after four months of full-time training. While he was training, he and Roy sent 25 or more sketches back and forth, detailing their dreams of a processing facility.

The plant opened in December 2019, on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic.