DUNN COUNTY - Dunn County, where the Bakken is rockin', is getting attention from around the world.

Last week, it was the London Daily Telegraph.

This week, it's a two-man crew from TS1, a French television network.

The TS1 crew, headed by journalist Bernard Aguirre, said the lure for him is the idea of new oil millionaires in North Dakota.

"It's like a fairy tale on a big scale," Aguirre said.

The segment will appear sometime in September, on Sunday evening's "Seven to Eight," a magazine-style format similar to "60 Minutes."

Dunn County is buzzing with oil activity. There are 14 oil rigs in the county, punching holes two miles deep and another two miles laterally, sucking up oil from the Bakken formation, with its estimated 4.3-billion-barrel oil reserve.

It's been claimed there's a new millionaire made every day in the Bakken, but if they're out there, they're elusive.

One couple - now of Beulah, formerly of Dunn Center - made international headlines because of their new millionaire status.

They are now declining interviews after a deluge of media and solicitation calls, including one from TS1.

Ron Ness, director of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, takes all the calls from national and international journalists.

He's got a long list of journalists, from Australia, Korea, Canada, and England, as well as major American outlets that have featured the Bakken in print and video.

Ness said TS1's millionaire focus is typical for international newspapers and televisions, which are looking for human interest stories that contrast the rural nature of the state.

"They're shocked at how modest people are and that they don't want to talk about their wealth," he said. American journalists tend to want to report the nuts and bolts of the Bakken discovery and opportunity for the oil market, he said.

"It's been good for North Dakota. With all the jobs and opportunity, it really sheds a positive light," Ness said.

Aguirre interviewed LaDonna Klatt and her son, Darv, who live north of Killdeer and who will eventually have a share in four oil wells, some shares larger than others.

Klatt was polite and invited the two to sit at her dining table in the nearly 100-year-old farmhouse she's lived in since 1956.

She said the oil money is going into a family trust and so far, it's amounted to the same income as a part-time job.

She handled Aguirre's questions adroitly.

"Americans don't talk about how much money they make," she said. "One thing about the oil is we don't have good roads anymore."

She admitted the income may be a lot, eventually, depending on how the wells come in. One is only producing 30 barrels a day, though it's scheduled for reworking.

She and her children and grandchildren will use some of the family's oil money to go on a cruise next year, something they've never done before.

The French crew is staying at the Murphy Mountain Lodge, a new venture in the Killdeer Mountains under the name "Burnin' Daylight Adventures."

Fayleen Fischer and Karen Sabrosky handle the bookings and set up side excursions, like a horse-drawn wagon ride for Aguirre and his cameraman to capture local color. They'll go to the annual walleye fish fry and rodeo in Killdeer today.

The lodge is lovely and commands a fabulous view of the mountain's scenery.

Fischer told Aguirre it'll be common for a lot of people in Dunn County to make some money from oil; it'll be uncommon for any one person to make a fairytale fortune, though.

That's because wells are spaced every two sections and now, after generations of inheritances and land sales, there are dozens, if not hundreds of mineral owners who will share in the royalty per barrel. The really big payouts would go to people who own the entirety of the mineral acres in the 1,280-acre well spacing and then, only if the well is a good producer.

Fischer told Aquirre what happened to her when she, in a "guess what, you guys?" moment, shared the news with the women in her birthday club that she was in on a new well.

"One woman said, 'Hey, I'm in that well,' and then another woman said, 'I'm in that one, too,'" Fischer said, laughing. It was funny.

Aquirre caught up with Ted Kupper, who was stacking hay bales right next to an oil well on his land north of Killdeer in view of the Little Missouri River break country. It was a photographer's dream moment.

Kupper hopped down from his tractor, amenable to an impromptu interview. He was an old hand after talking to the London Daily Telegraph, in which he said he was misquoted, by the way.

"I told them now I could fish with a whole worm, instead of a half, and they reported I could fish with live bait," he said.

He listened as Aguirre probed him about his new oil baron status, understandable since the Kuppers will eventually share in six oil wells on and around their land.

"Do I look like a millionaire?" Kupper asked, lifting up his old field sweatshirt, so riddled with holes it looks like it's been used for a shotgun target.

Kupper said he and his wife both worked off the ranch for Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing. They made more than minimum wage and they worked to keep their loans current.

Oil money has changed their life enough so they could leave their jobs behind and do what they love.

"Now we're both home at the ranch," Kupper said. "This is the way it's supposed to be."

It's still a story, maybe not of millionaires everywhere, but of regular folks doing very well.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)