Author: Jim Fuglie

Jim Fuglie is a native of Hettinger, N.D., a U.S. Navy veteran (1968-1972) and majored in communications at Dickinson State College (now Dickinson State University) in Dickinson, ND. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, as a speechwriter and communications director for North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Myron Just and as Executive Director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party. He worked at the Herald from late 1975 to early 1976. In 1985, Jim was appointed North Dakota Tourism Director by Governor George Sinner and served in that post until 1992. He later worked as Development Director for the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation and as public relations director for Kranzler Kingsley Communications in Bismarck. He retired in 2009, and he and his wife Lillian, the retired Director of Library Services at Dickinson State University, now live in Bismarck and spend much of their time exploring the back roads and trails of the North Dakota Bad Lands.

Unheralded

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — What If They Gave An Election In North Dakota And Nobody Came?

Posted on November 11, 2022November 15, 2022 by Jim Fuglie 3 Comments

Headlines from this week’s papers: “GOP grows supermajority in North Dakota’s Legislature; Dems have ‘collapsed completely’” “North Dakota sees worst voter turnout this millennium” “DFL wins full control of Minnesota government” “Minnesota voter turnout shaping up to be highest in nation yet again” The Democratic-NPL Party (my party, sadly) in North Dakota is now almost nonexistent. The number of Democrats …

Continue reading

Unheralded

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Term Limits? We’ve Already Got ‘Em

Posted on November 5, 2022 by Jim Fuglie ,Leave a Comment

Everybody’s talking about term limits this week, in the leadup to Tuesday’s election. Well, not everybody, but it certainly is the topic of discussion at coffee klatches and business lunches. Even one of my lawyer buddies walked up beside me on the track at the Y this morning and asked “What do you think is going to happen with the …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Twin Buttes: Wilderness And Maybe A Few Sharptails

Posted on November 3, 2022November 15, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

This article first appeared in the November, 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine. Long ago, way back in the 1970s, I lived in Dickinson, in western North Dakota, and was a writer and editor for The Dickinson Press. My regular working hours were 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. I was a recently returned Vietnam veteran who needed …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — There’s Going To Be An Election; Ho Hum

Posted on November 1, 2022November 5, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

There’s an election coming. It’s a pretty boring one. In North Dakota, all the Republicans will win, except in Fargo and a few other places in the Red River Valley. And maybe one Democrat in Bismarck. District 35 Sen. Tracy Potter. I think District 35 is the only district west of U.S. Highway 281 represented by a Democrat except for …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Attorneys General — Good Guys And Bad Guys

Posted on October 3, 2022October 3, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

This article is reprinted from the October 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine.) OK, I know, I know, I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But I’m going to a little, this month, and then I’m going to offer some praise for the living. And no, it’s not dead critters or fish like you’ll read about elsewhere in …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Another One Bites The Dust

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Friends have been notified that Hal Simons, 73, died at his home this past week, after a long battle with cancer. A memorial service is being planned for late October. Hal was a longtime friend, dating back to our newspaper days in the 1970s. He was a member of a loose-knit group of friends who occasionally sat around a table …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Long X Divide Offers Wilderness Hiking

Posted on September 10, 2022September 11, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

There’s something almost magical about stepping onto the prairie and knowing that it’s possible — even likely — that you’re the first person who has ever put their foot down on that spot. Ever. One of the places you can do that is on the Long X Divide, near the extreme north end of the North Dakota Badlands. Long X …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Seventy-Five

Posted on September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

On a warm summer evening in late August 1947, young Phyllis Maxine Boehmer Fuglie stood on the platform of a Chicago train station and kissed her husband, Whitey Fuglie, goodbye. Just 22 years old and heavy with child, she boarded a train for North Dakota, where her mother and his mother waited to help her with the birth of her …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — PPP Follow-Up

Posted on September 2, 2022September 2, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

On Wednesday, I wrote an article about Gary Berube, the fella who writes the right-wing stink letters to the editor to all our state’s papers pretty frequently. I wrote about the hypocrisy of him criticizing the proposal to forgive college loans in a recent letter to The Forum when he had taken a free $20,000 PPP loan forgiveness from the …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Glass Houses, Candy And Ice Cream And Hypocrisy

Posted on August 31, 2022September 1, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I’ll make this short and sweet. There’s a fellow over in Mandan, N.D., named Gary Berube who’s a stockbroker and a slumlord and a frequent right-wing contributor to the state’s newspaper editorial pages. If you read North Dakota’s newspapers, you’ve seen his rants. His most frequent one appeared in Tuesday’s online edition of The Forum. It read: Democrats Are Trying …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Bad Lands Updates: Drew Wrigley, Meridian Energy Group, Land For Sale

Posted on August 26, 2022August 26, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Drew Wrigley: Case Closed As I write this Friday, it has been exactly 10 years and 27 days since four western North Dakota counties — Billings, Slope, McKenzie and Golden Valley — filed a lawsuit to try to get access to section line roads inside four parcels of land being protected by the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency that …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — ‘HE LOST’

Posted on August 12, 2022August 12, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Saturday will mark the three-week anniversary of the day my friend, Darrell, fell through a hole in his deck. You’ll recall that I wrote about it a couple of days later. And in that story, I asked you to speculate on what Darrell’s last words were as he headed for the deck below. I had already asked Darrell if he …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — I’m Home, Not Quite OK, But Home

Posted on August 5, 2022August 5, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Last Sunday, I woke up a little later than usual. I don’t go to the Y on Sundays — church day. I woke up shaking and shivering like crazy — I was freezing. And I had intense shooting pains in my right leg. Uh-oh, I said. The cellulitis is back. Damn. I got up, took a hot shower to try …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Day Darrell Fell Through A Hole In The Deck

Posted on July 25, 2022July 25, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

HIS LAST WORDS BEFORE HE HIT THE GROUND WERE _________________________! Saturday was just a typical quiet midsummer weekend day at our house — I should say MY house because it’s been all mine for more than a week as Lillian traveled to the West Coast with her friend, Christine. I picked raspberries in the morning, stopped at the Bismarket and …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — If You Live Long Enough, Good Things Can Happen

Posted on July 13, 2022July 14, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I’m going to take a little time out today from politics and saving the Bad Lands to get a little personal. A good thing has happened for me this summer, a reunion with an old pal, and I’m feeling pretty happy about it. So I’ll tell you the story. Those of you who know me know that my heart slides …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — ‘Peaches Help You Poop’

Posted on July 1, 2022July 4, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

On my first trip to the grocery store, or to anywhere besides the recliner in my living room, after a 10-day hospital stay and 10 days of home confinement for treatment of a badly infected leg, I bought four peaches. California peaches, it said on the little label, not Georgia or Washington, the ones we prefer. But they were the …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Victory For The Bad Lands

Posted on May 31, 2022May 31, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I know, I’ve written about this legal battle in this space before, but it’s such good news — for now, at least — that I just can’t quit sharing it. Below is an article that appears in the June issue of Dakota Country magazine, on the newstands and in the mail right now. By the way, if you aren’t a …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Laundry Lament

Posted on May 10, 2022May 16, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

My wife, Lillian, is an Anglophile. For at least as long as I’ve known her, she’s been fascinated by anything involving England or Great Britain, especially royalty, especially female royalty. Also British history. Our library is full of books about England. So a few summers ago, she took a dream trip, a three-week tour of England and the British Isles, …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — What Larry Woiwode Did

Posted on May 1, 2022May 1, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Why not? Why not scribble down some thoughts about Larry Woiwode. Nobody else seems to be doing that. He deserves better. Larry was one of those people who drifted in and out of my life. Our meetings were almost always by chance. The last was a couple of years ago in the parking lot at Menard’s in Bismarck. It delayed …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Redcoats Are Coming! The Redcoats Are Coming!

Posted on April 18, 2022April 19, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Dang! Dang! Dang! When you’re old and retired, it’s hard to keep track of what day it is, and what the date is. Today was one of those nice Spring days when I hardly had a care in the world, and we kept busy, even a road trip to Dickinson, N.D., for supper and back, until just before bedtime Lillian …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Another Not-So-Little Win For The Bad Lands

Posted on April 17, 2022May 1, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I’m sitting in my office on a clear, crisp, Saturday morning (I know it’s clear because the sun is shining in my eyes through my office window, and I know it’s cold because I went out looking for three or four days’ issues of the Bismarck Tribune in the snow, to no avail) reading a 17-page decision handed down by …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — North Dakota Republicans Riding High (But Welcome Back, Potter, And So Long, Ricky)

Posted on April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I think I’ve gone to a political convention of some kind in almost every even-numbered year since 1972. That year, 50 years ago now, I came home from the Navy and went to my district Democratic-NPL convention, and someone said, “Hey. We’ve got a Vietnam veteran here today, let’s send him as a delegate to the State Convention.” That’s a …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Little Missouri Bridge: Let The People Decide?

Posted on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

The folks out in Billings County in the North Dakota Bad Lands might get a chance to vote this fall on whether they want their county commissioners to use their power of eminent domain to condemn some of their neighbor’s land to build a bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River and roads connecting it to state highways. Or …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — America The Beautiful

Posted on March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

“As we write this, America is engaged in an all-hands-on-deck effort to defeat a deadly pandemic and tackle the climate crisis. Our president has laid out a vision and a plan that will re-power America with clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home and abroad, create millions of good-paying jobs and — importantly — conserve and restore the lands …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Best Ukrainian Story Ever (Well, At Least My Favorite)

Posted on February 24, 2022February 24, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Ukrainians are much on our minds right now, with the Last World War apparently beginning in their country. North Dakota has a smattering of them. I’m going to tell you the best Ukrainian story ever, but first a little background. Where I grew up in Hettinger, in extreme southwest North Dakota, there were no Ukrainians. We were Germans and Norwegians, …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — DD 214

Posted on February 15, 2022February 15, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

There are anniversaries, and there are milestones. In the past month or so, I’ve noted a couple of them. In December, I celebrated 50 years since my return from Vietnam. In January I celebrated 20 years since I met Lillian, my “current wife,” as Dean Meyer likes to say. Today is another of those red-letter days. Fifty years ago today, I stood on …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Body And Soul

Posted on February 14, 2022June 21, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Everybody in my family joins the family of Dr. Joe Mattson on this Valentine’s Day in mourning the loss of a great North Dakotan, who left us last week, and who surely had a straight shot ticket to heaven after a life well-lived. Here’s an article I wrote about him and my mom about a dozen years ago. I’m thinking …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Big News For The Bad Lands

Posted on February 6, 2022February 7, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

(This article first appeared in the February-March issue of Dakota Country magazine, which should be on the newstands now.) I’d like you to take five minutes to read about two nonprofit organizations that are doing important work for the North Dakota Bad Lands. Hey, it’s February. It’s cold outside. Get a cup of coffee and sit down. The two organizations …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — So Long, Wayne

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

North Dakota sits in stunned silence this morning, trying to make sense of the unthinkable loss of a 68-year-old lifetime public servant. Wayne Stenehjem was my friend for many years — I wonder how many people have said THAT this morning — although that friendship was a little rocky the last few years. The last time we visited in his …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — ‘The Wings Have Come Off This Pig …’

Posted on January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

If you’ve got any friends or relatives out in Stark or Billings Counties, around Belfield, N.D., tell them to start getting ready because Meridian Energy Group is going to build them a refinery as a neighbor. It’ll be there in just three years, 10 months and 15 days — on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. That’s what Meridian CEO William Prentice …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Best Day Of My Life

Posted on January 19, 2022January 23, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

Today I am celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Best Day Of My Life. On Jan. 19, 2002 I met the most extraordinary, fascinating, person I have ever known. Two years, two months and two days later, I married her, in the same place I met her. Her name is Lillian Crook. I love her. In early January 2002, I was …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Bridges, Oil Wells And Open Meetings

Posted on January 15, 2022January 16, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

I’ve written about the proposed bridge across the Little Missouri State Scenic River north of Medora, N.D., enough times that I don’t need to go into a lot of background to bring you up to date on the project. I decided this past week that I needed a little Bad Lands time, and the Billings County Commission was going to …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — One More ‘Last Dance’ For The Sage Grouse?

Posted on January 1, 2022January 4, 2022 by Jim Fuglie

“I’ve shot probably half-dozen, or maybe as many as 10, sage grouse in my life. I’m likely among a small group of North Dakotans alive today who can say that. And that group is not going to get any bigger. Ever. Because there’s an awfully good chance we’ll never have another sage grouse season in North Dakota. In fact, I’ve …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — 50 Years … And Counting

Posted on December 19, 2021December 19, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

At about 2 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 18, 2021), my friend, Rick Maixner, and I poured a couple ofshots from the bottle of cognac he keeps stashed at the Sunset Nursing Home in Mandan, N.D., and toasted the fact we are still here, 50 years after we walked off the gangplank of the USS Oriskany, CVA-34, at the Alameda (Calif.) Naval …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Damn, It Hurts To Bury A Friend

Posted on December 12, 2021December 14, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

I wrote here a few weeks ago that you can’t really understand COVID-19 until you’ve sat at the bedside of a good friend on a ventilator. I can say now that even then I did not understand it completely until I buried that good friend this past week. Until I watched that coffin being slowly lowered into the ground, as we all …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Remembering Ardell Tharaldson

Posted on December 6, 2021December 6, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

I’m thinking today of an old friend, Ardell Tharaldson, who left us 10 years ago, Dec. 6, 2011. Our friendship dated back to Democratic-NPL politics in 1972, when he ran George McGovern’s campaign for president in North Dakot MS, which confined him to a wheelchair, and cancer, which killed him. He wrote a good book, “Patronage: Histories and Biographies of …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — ‘Scumbags’

Posted on December 1, 2021December 1, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

Some random thoughts, most of which appeared in an article in the December issue of Dakota Country magazine. How do you go about summarizing a year like 2021? Try this: It’s December, the year is almost over, and we’re still here. I’m still writing. You’re still reading. Y’know, considering everything, not much else seems very important. Like me, I’m sure you’ve lost …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Is A Refinery Really A Good Investment?

Posted on November 18, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

I have a friend who is an investment banker. I don’t know much about his business because I don’t have much to invest. But he’s been keeping track of the articles I’ve written about Meridian Energy Group, the company that wants to build a refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. From time to time, he sends me a letter …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Highland Acres Historic District Is Becoming A Reality!

Posted on November 17, 2021November 17, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

About 3½ years ago, a few residents of the Highland Acres neighborhood in west Bismarck sat down with some staff at the State Historical Society of North Dakota and began discussing the possibility of creating the Highland Acres Historic District and to nominate it for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Today (Nov. 17), the Bismarck Historic Preservation …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Refinery Update: Another Day, Another Lawsuit; Ho Hum

Posted on November 15, 2021November 17, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

If you happen to be in Texas, in the Houston area, the first week of January, and you’ve got a little time to kill, you could probably stop by the 215th Judicial District Courthouse for a little entertainment. There’s going to be a trial going on that might interest you. Lawyers for this company called Meridian Energy Group that I’ve been writing about …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Sadness And Anger

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

You can read all the newspaper stories with lists of vaccination and testing sites, and death counts, and you can watch the incessant pokes-in-the-arm on the 6 o’clock news, but you can’t really understand COVID-19 until you’ve sat at the bedside of a good friend in the intensive care unit of a hospital and watched a machine pump oxygen in …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The PPP Has Been Very Good To North Dakota

Posted on November 5, 2021November 5, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

Well, my e-mails have sure been interesting since I wrote about the Paycheck Protection Program gifts earlier this week. The first was just after I wrote about Rick Becker’s plastic surgery clinic getting a couple of loans: “Hey, what about his bars and restaurants?!?!” Oops. I checked. Yes, he is the registered owner of a couple of places in downtown …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Augmenting Your Business With A PPP Loan

Posted on November 1, 2021November 1, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

This might be the shortest story I ever post here. While doing some research for an earlier story I wrote, I came across the website that apparently tracks every single “loan” made under the pandemic-inspired Paycheck Protection Program. That’s the program that was passed by Congress in 2020 to help keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic. Businesses went to their …

Continue reading

JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The PPP Has Been Really Good To Meridian Energy

Posted on October 29, 2021October 29, 2021 by Jim Fuglie

Just when you’ve got a sore neck from shaking your head over the stuff you read and learn about Meridian Energy Group, the company that wants to put a refinery beside our national park … there’s this. In spite of the fact that there is no oil refinery, and the only business the company seems to be doing is selling …

Continue reading

Copyright Unheralded.Fish

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: NewsBD24 by aThemeArt.