Fall festival honors rural school tradition

By VICTOR MEZA III
People gathered around the Bloomfield #1 Schoolhouse in Hillsboro last Sunday for the Traill County Historical Society’s 4th annual fall festival at Heritage Park.
The Historical Society puts on the carnival not just for kids, but also to create an awareness of the rural school museum by sharing activities familiar to the 1920-circa school building.
In decades past, rural schools put on carnivals in the fall to raise money for books and other teaching materials.

September 28, 2007

50 YEARS AGO
September 26, 1957 — A minor flu epidemic among high school students forced the postponement of a football game between Mayville and Hillsboro. The game was rescheduled for 10 days later.
A record number of entries were exhibited at the annual county 4-H Achievement Days. More than 800 entries prepared by 500 4-H club members were on display at the three-day event in Mayville.
Hillsboro Banner editor William Kremer noted in his weekly column the need for additional housing in the city. He pointed out that the shortage was problematic but if the town were to expand the shortage would soon become critical.
The Haga Blacksmith Shop in Reynolds was razed. Mr. Haga died in January 1957. He had been the town’s blacksmith for 40 years.

Bringing order to city’s ‘cop chaos’

Bringing order to city’s ‘cop chaos’
There’s enough blame to go around.
Given the softly-spoken regrets and hushed embarrassment, we trust that at least a few valuable lessons were learned, too.
Hillsboro’s recent “Cop Chaos” drama can be labeled with several telling subtitles: “How not to discipline an employee” . . . “Tell the truth — even if it hurts” . . . “Best of intentions or personal vendetta?”
Hillsboro’s embattled chief of police Ray Weber is back on the beat as of Tuesday night. As the top gun in the two-man department, he is expected to begin training a new patrol officer soon. By all outward appearances, things are back to normal. We suspect, though, the recent events will quietly reshape the police department and the city commission. We hope that both can say the changes are for the better.

Timberrrrrrrrr.

Timberrrrrrrrr.
Paul Bunyan, I’m not.
I don’t swing an axe or handle a chain saw. I’m really good at picking up sticks, though.
Giant elm trees once stood outside the back door of my parents’ house — but no more. Dutch elm disease had taken their toll on the beautiful trees that had perfectly shaded the grassy yard and wide steps. The inviting hammock lost its dense canopy overhead and now the bright sun glared down on the once shadowed sidewalk.
Dad hired the Tree Guy to drop the faded green giants. The clean-up has been a family affair with each of us kids and grandkids taking their turn in the woodcutting business.

Hardly News

By MICHELLE MCLEAN
Hillsboro city commissioners pounded out a 2008 budget in a four-hour special meeting Wednesday night.
The final $3.2 million budget is expected to be approved at Monday’s regular meeting. By comparison, the 2007 budget called for $2.5 million in expenditures.
A special budget hearing is set for Monday at 7:30 p.m. at city hall.
The budget increase can be traced to two major items — debt retirement for recent street and water projects and additional expenses in the electric department.

Your irregular news quiz this week is no nail-bitter…

…but challenging, just the same. Grab your No. 2 pencil and have at it.

q Too Tall Tom Szymanski has been shown the door. However, the question remains: Why was the highly-visible and popular TV weatherman dismissed?
A) The recently lowered ceiling in the TV studios couldn’t accommodate his 6-10 frame.
B) He was too popular.
C) His simple daily quiz was embarrassing the news team.
D) Corporate greed.

School board approves $3.9 million budget

By Michelle McLean
Hillsboro School Board members approved a $3.9 million budget for 2007-08, an increase of about $300,000 over the last school year’s budget.
Revenues for 2007-08 are forecast at $3.7 million, up about $50,000 from last year. Reserves amounted to $970,000 in June. Bitz expects to end the 2007-08 term with about $766,000 in reserves.

Christmas Cash 2007 promotion starting Oct. 15

Hillsboro’s hugely successful and much anticipated Christmas Cash promotion will start on Oct. 15 this year.
Hillsboro community residents last year spent $161,975 in Christmas Cash with Hillsboro Business Association stores.
The HBA-coordinated 2006 interest-free loan promotion recorded $147,000 in loans, a record year for the 19-year-old program.
Adding the free money offered by the Hillsboro Economic Development Corporation and the grand total spent in Hillsboro last year before Christmas reached nearly $162,000.

Bohnsack named bank president at Wells Fargo

Ryan Bohnsack has been named Community Banking president for Wells Fargo, Hillsboro.
In this role, Bohnsack has management responsibility for Wells Fargo Community Banking in Hillsboro and Casselton, N.D.
“Local businesses and agribusiness initiatives drive our economy and are important to keeping our community strong,” said Charlie Ewalt, Community Bank president for Wells Fargo in Valley City. “

Coins to sell; stories to tell

By ANNA AUSTIN
Whether you fancy old pennies or African execution knife currency, Les Ashe has nearly everything that a new or experienced collector could want.
If not, he’ll help you find it.
For the past two years, Ashe has owned the store “The Plain and Fancy Antique Mall,” located on South Washington St. in Grand Forks.
Previous, he had owned another antique store in the Grand Cities Mall.
Grand Forks, however, isn’t where his business originated.