Compiled by LAUREN DONOVAN/Bismarck Tribune

A New Town family returned from a Thanksgiving trip to find their thanks might have been premature.

In their absence, someone had entered their home and stolen about $17,000 worth of rifles, pistols, electronics, coins and a safe.

Guy Slates is offering a $3,000 reward for information that leads to the recovery of the property and the arrest of whoever stole it.

Most of the guns were antiques, including two Winchesters given to Slates by his grandfather, dating to 1873 and 1892.

The thieves - and there was likely more than one, given the safe alone weighed about 300 pounds - broke a window to get in.

Slates said the thieves took the guns, but left the ammunition behind.

He said he thinks the widescreen television and other electronics were stolen as decoys for someone who really only wanted the weapons.

"They had to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going," he said.

He turned over the serial numbers to tribal police and the Mountrail County Sheriff's Department to track in the event the weapons are ever publicly sold.

Sheriff Ken Halvorson said the Minot office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be involved.

Anyone with information should call the sheriff at 628-2975.

- New Town News

Jobs go wanting

"Help wanted" is becoming a familiar sign around Grant County.

Job Development Authority director Luann Dart said it's a common misconception to think there aren't any job openings around.

"Heath care facilities, small manufacturers and retail businesses in the county seem to be continually seeking employees," she said.

Our Place Cafe has 12 employees but needs more, said Ron and Willie Bartz of Elgin.

Recently, the business ran out of help and had to close early.

"That's the first time we closed early in 20-some years," Ron Bartz said.

Dakota Hill Housing and Jacobson Memorial Hospital are frequently in need of employees, and it pays to check at Stud-D Products or Tuff-E Manufacturing in Carson.

"We're always looking for labor, both skilled and unskilled," said John Clarys of Stur-D products.

Pete Reis at Tuff-E Manufacturing said, "It's always some kind of ongoing battle to find good help."

Dart said it's important for local people - from high schoolers to retirees, looking for a few extra dollars - to step forward and try to fill a need, even if it's part-time.

She said local residents who have family members affected by economic troubles elsewhere in the country could consider encouraging them to move back home.

"Jobs are available here," she said.

- Grant County News

Dysfunctional dads

McLean County Independent columnist Angela Kolden says she's learned that even a dysfunctional family has a lot to give.

Those were her thoughts after a Thanksgiving dinner attended by both her mom and dad and her mom's second husband, the one who makes it a point to invite his wife's first husband to join them.

Kolden said the two men have formed a very close, highly dysfunctional, yet truly genuine friendship over the years.

"This did not come easy," she wrote. "For years, both men tried their best to rid themselves of the other. Some might conclude it's a matter of wanting to keep their enemies close at hand, but I prefer to believe it is because they see in each other the men they were before either of them was broken.

"Both have overcome adversities that have stripped them to their core. It is as though they can identify each other's scars and determine from them exactly how many pieces were needed in order to glue them back together again," she wrote.

As she wrote, Kolden reflected that on that very day her father was in the hospital.

"And at his side are my mom and stepdad, seeing the hard things and making the hard choices.

"The three of them are the most unusual of friends," she said.

Kolden said the lesson she's learned is that while her family is nontraditional, it's being nonconditional that matters most.

- McLean County Independent