Aviation mechanic on site at Hillsboro airport

By NEIL O. NELSON
Chad Hanson is familiar with the different highways leading to Hillsboro.
Still, he tells his customers what friends of Hillsboro’s regional airport tell their pilot friends: “Take the high way to Hillsboro.”
Smart guys, these pilots: “Is there any other way?”
Chad Hanson, a Northwood, N.D. airplane mechanic, was lured to Hillsboro by members of the Hillsboro Airport Authority.
The 29-year-old Hanson took the conventional route to Hillsboro, via Hwys. 15, 18, 200 and I-29, on his initial visits to the airport four miles south of Hillsboro.
The invitation to Hillsboro included the opportunity to become his own boss; the airport authority’s new 70 x 100 hangar came with the invite.

Combines on a roll all across Traill County

Harvest ‘07 is on a roll in Traill County.
By the end of the week, the barley harvest in the county should be all but wrapped up, according to Ken Nichols, Traill extension agent.
Rain early Wednesday morning, however, shut down the harvest.
“Now we’re on the front side of the spring wheat harvest,” Nichols said Thursday.
All the crops are looking good again this year, added the county agent.
Generally, he said, we don’t have good row crops when we have a good small grain crop. “This year,” he said, “it looks good all around.”

County, state officials narrow search to Traill bridges

By ANNA AUSTIN
Although what will become of the Blanchard Bridge is still up in the air, local and state officials meeting July 26 in Traill County discussed the high probability of restoring one of the three other bridges in Traill County that remain on the National Registrar of Historic Places.
While the Viking and Caledonia bridges were visited and examined, state funds provided for restoration projects through the state Transportation Enhancement Program will be designated to restore only one bridge.
The fourth county bridge listed in the national register is the Norway Bridge, which is currently open.
“It’s a really touchy subject, dealing with old bridges,” commented Bob Christensen, North Dakota State Department of Transportation cultural resources section leader. “We’re seeing a lot of bridges being replaced because they don’t meet requirements.”

Traill County has state’s first case of anthrax

North Dakota has its first case of anthrax for 2007.
According to the state veterinarian Dr. Susan Keller, a single cow in Traill County had tested positive for the disease. The animal was examined by a local vet who forwarded tissue samples to the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at NDSU. Test results were confirmed the diagnosis July 27.
The Traill County herd of 18 cattle was quarantined and vaccinated.
Keller said that producers should make sure their animals are vaccinated. Vaccines are readily available and effective, usually taking about a week to establish immunity, she noted.
Anthrax usually appears when soil is disturbed during very wet or very dry conditions. The dormant Bacillus anthracis spores in the soil become vegetative. Animals then ingest the spores and are exposed to the disease.

Feel good feeling in city’s building boom

It would be hard, we suspect, to find another time in history when Hillsboro has realized the growth spurt similar to what the city is currently experiencing.
Not in recent memory, anyway.
From downtown to our residential neighborhoods to just outside our town but still on the horizon, where the Alton Grain Terminal is expanding its holding capacity to 4 million bushels, a parcel of bushels already available at the other end of the tracks in Taft, the building boom heralded by this newspaper last week makes for more than just good headlines. It’s good news, all around.
Coincidentally but (trust us) momentarily, we actually found ourselves this week irritated at the traffic downtown. We quickly told ourselves that traffic is good. Feeling guilty, we almost waved at the lineup of vehicles that —again, momentarily —was blocking the accustomed noontime exit from our parallel parking space on Caledonia Ave.

Driven to distraction.

It’s not that I’m hearing voices in my head; really truly, I’m not.
It’s just that I wear “different hats” during the course of the day and my thoughts are forced to hopscotch — and they don’t always keep up.
At any given moment, thoughts coursing through my brain can jump from golf balls to meat balls, to carpet samples to urine samples, deadlines to dead-tired.
When I wake up in the morning, I’m Mom. I make sure the kids who are supposed to be up are up and the ones who get to sleep in are snoring peacefully.
Next I grab the morning newspaper off the front porch. I catch up on the latest news, scan the obituaries and peruse the sports section. I digest it all with a glass of grapefruit juice — I haven’t acquired a taste for coffee yet, although maybe caffeine is what I need.

Good work if you can get it.

After 40-plus years of pushing newspapers, with a marginal payback at best, I have reached the conclusion that I’m not cut out to be a newspaperman.
It’s not as though the industry has passed me by; I’m still a player. But it’s been a far-from-distinguished career that will not merit a gold wrist watch when the curtain falls.
But what of the rewards? you ask.
I’ll be able to wallpaper a room with certificates of excellence, awarded by other directionally disenchanted newspaper editors when in a gracious and forgiving mood, only to be told by Better Homes and Gardens and your neighborhood realtor that I will have to paint over the same walls if this house is ever going to sell.

August 3, 2007

50 YEARS AGO
August 1, 1957 — Wheat harvest got an early start in the county. Meanwhile the barley crop was running about 35 bushels per acre.
The “combination special” at the A&K Dairy Bar was a hot dog and chocolate malt for 39 cents. The Hillsboro eatery urged diners to try their “mouthwatering shakes from our new Sweden Shake Maker.”
Vandals fouled the Hillsboro swimming pool with nine dead bullheads.
The Eldorado Farmers 4-H Club earned kudos from N.D. Highway Patrolman Orvin Anderson for their safety project. The clubmembers erected “dead end” signs on four township roads, including one that had been the site of at least three accidents.

Duane “Dewey” Hovland

Duane “Dewey” Hovland, 79, Fargo, N.D. died Monday, July 30, 2007 at MeritCare Hospital, Fargo.
Funeral services were held Thursday, August 2 at First Lutheran Church in Fargo. Burial was Friday, August 3 in Riverside Cemetary in Hillsboro, ND. Boulger Funeral Home of Fargo was in charge of arrangements.

Edna L. Terry

Edna L. Terry, 71, Grandin, N.D., died Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at MeritCare Hospital Palliative Care in Fargo, N.D.
A memorial service was held Saturday, July 28 at the West Funeral Home Chapel in West Fargo, N.D.
Memorials may be directed to the Palliative Care Unit at MeritCare Hospital.