Jun 29, 2008 - 04:07:17 CDT
Compiled by LAUREN DONOVANBismarck Tribune
Bidding on an expanded Rough Riders Hotel in Medora opened recently and the project is on track, so far.
The hotel in downtown Medora will be expanded with a three-story annex that will include 51 guest rooms, year-round fine dining and a meeting center.
Any construction that affects the existing landmark hotel on a busy corner in town won’t be started until after Labor Day, so summer tourism isn’t affected.
Jim Fuglie, who’s directing the project for the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation, said the most noticeable change will be the closing of the hotel in September, rather than November, to accommodate the work.
The $9 million project will be done in two phases.
The dining room and convention center should open in the spring, and the guest rooms will be constructed and open in summer of 2010.
Foundation president Randy Hatzenbuhler said, “Everything is right on schedule.”
— Billings County Pioneer
Race to the veggies
Anamoose is done horsing around.
Now, it’s planting vegetables instead.
Community residents have turned to a horse paddock and pasture just outside Anamoose to plant seeds provided by the North Dakota State University’s Community Garden project.
For years, the land had been owned by Rudy Wohl, who picked it up after World War II for parking his trucks and keeping horses.
Recently, the land was resold to Woody Selzer, whose wife, Kathy, along with Patty Reeves of Anamoose, got to talking about connecting the land with the local farmer’s market and making plots available to residents.
A contact with the NDSU program resulted in seed packets of garden plants, some established and some test varieties, all color coded to match plastic spikes.
NDSU wants people to test the produce and flower quality and then report their findings on such things as germination, growth, health and production time.
Now, the old horse paddock is planted with squash, melons, cucumbers, colorful sunflowers and other flowers for home display and drying.
Local gardeners have added their own tomatoes, zucchini and winter squash.
— The Herald-Press
Angels everywhere
Joanne Rauh of Garrison has a hearing disability, so a houseguest at her bed and breakfast business took the phone to write down what a phone caller was trying to tell her.
Rauh’s son, Joel Stockdill, had fallen 40 feet to concrete and was in a San Francisco hospital with crushed vertebrae, a broken pelvis and a broken ankle.
The houseguest was supposed to have come and gone long before the phone call, but the fact that she lingered on for coffee, was there to take the call and drive Rauh to Bismarck was just the first of several “touches from an angel” that Rauh said happened to her that day.
Within 12 hours, she was at her son’s bedside.
Along the way, other angels helped.
A friend who is a flight attendant arranged for Rauh to fly standby from Bismarck to Denver.
At the Denver airport, a woman who overhead what was going on happened to be employed by a cab company and gave Rauh a card for a free ride from the San Francisco airport to the hospital.
Another woman told Rauh her home was near the hospital and offered a free room.
When the flight landed, the flight attendant asked all passengers to remain seated so Rauh could hurry to her injured son.
At the hospital, the main door was locked and a man in a wheelchair appeared and helped her find an emergency entrance.
Guardian angels all along the way? “Absolutely, there’s no doubt in my mind,” Rauh said.
She said her son is recuperating well after two surgeries.
— McLean County Independent
Doug vs. Doug
Two of Medora’s well-known “Dougs” went head-to-head in the town’s mayor race, and one Doug won by only one vote.
Doug Ellison, a write-in, beat the incumbent Doug Walker by a vote of 20 to 19 in an election held with the primary. A third candidate, Olie Golberg, received 14 votes.
Now that Ellison’s got the mayor’s spot, he’ll have to resign the city council seat he holds and was re-elected to in the same election.
He said he went after the mayor’s seat by campaigning around town, with the help of others, because he felt he could offer some new views.
Ellison said he’ll promote citywide recycling and improved housing in the community.
He and his wife, Mary, owned the Western Edge Books, Art and Music store in Medora and he’s also known for character portrayals in the Footsteps into Medora’s Past program.
In other Billings County news, incumbent county commissioner Joe Kessel was unopposed in the June 10 primary and got 86 votes. However, write-in Allen Thompson received 29 votes, and both now will face off in the general election in November.
— Billings County Pioneer
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