I'm more and more thankful for the well-paying job I have every time I read the classified section of the newspaper. I'm a "Bismarck boy who's come home," and with some wise choices and secrets to contentment, I'm able to raise my three boys here in Bismarck, the way I was raised - with the mom at home, the mom who was the driver for every field trip we took in Mrs. Schimelpfinig's fifth-grade class at Riverside Elementary.

My thankfulness arose again when I saw that Valley City State University is looking for a tenured professor of mathematics who has a doctorate (preferred), with a top salary of $38,000. I thought to myself, Surely this is a typo.

Are we going to get more Bismarck boys home with a whopping $38,000 a year for a professor at a college? That isn't enough money to raise our families the way we were raised, mom will not be driving for field trips or waiting for me with hot chocolate after the normal sled riding trip in Zonta Park after school each day, not if you're only going to pay me $38,000 after I received my doctorate in math. What are we thinking in North Dakota? Let's start being honest with how much it costs to live here and how much it costs to keep our North Dakota values being taught to another generation of Dakota kids.