Linton, ND

Friday, June 6th is getting closer each day and the dairy and ag days committee met today. Current progress includes the Midwest Dairy Association who is looking for candidates, the Emmons County Farmers Union continuing organizing the parade, Emmons County Extension looking for someone who knows the art of balloon twisting, Linton High School FCCLA program organizing the lunch, Emmons County Record organizing the fundraising and advertising, the Linton Senior Citizens organizing the supper at the Knights of Columbus hall, the Linton Catholic cluster of Hazelton’s St. Paul and St.Michaels youth group organizing their beverage kiosk and the major instigator the Linton Chamber organizing games for the kids.

The University of North Dakota Clinical Education program held two human rights workshops in Linton on Wednesday, April 2. The first workshop was presented at Linton High School to the Senior Class. Thirty-five students and faculty attended. The second workshop was open to the public and was held at the KEM Building. Twenty-two community members attended. Both audiences were highly involved in the workshop discussions, which focused on the importance of international and local human rights issues.

Both workshops explained what Human Rights mean internationally, across the United States and here, in North Dakota. First, Human Rights are universal rights. This means that time, place and circumstances do not matter; the rights belong to every human as an individual. Some of these rights are benefits that the government has a duty to provide, such as the right to education. Other rights relate to circumstances that the government has a duty to prevent, such as freedom from discrimination. According to the United Nations, “human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.”

During the workshop, it was explained that the United Nations is the main international body associated with Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons in all countries of the world. This Declaration expresses 30 distinctive Human Rights, including the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and right to life, liberty and security of person.

While there are many Human Rights violations occurring throughout the world, many violations are happening around the United States, and even in North Dakota. If you believe you have faced discrimination or civil rights violations, you can contact the North Dakota Department of Labor Human Rights Division at 1-800-582-8032. The best way to protect the Human Rights of all is to understand what your rights are, stand up for yourself or others when those rights have been violated, and educate community members about Human Rights. For more information, you can contact the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition at (701)239-9323 or http://www.ndhrc.org/ (click on link). The NDHRC works to effect change so that all people in North Dakota enjoy full human rights.

Presenting the information to us was Justin Keppinger, Sarah Schaar (formerly of Linton), Johnny Palsgraaf and Tali Best.

Extension Agent Kristen Vetter educated students in March 2008 on the art of photography. More than 300 students enjoyed the availability of 9 digital cameras, a photo printer and photoprint paper made possible through North Dakota 4H. Discussed and studied were 4 rules of photography: Contrast of Color, Focal Point, Zooming In, and the Rule of Thirds. The first three are a bit self explanatory in that you want contrasting color, you need to pick a focal point and you want to zoom in as much as possible without losing the focal point that you want. But the Rule of Thirds is a bit foreign to most. What this means is that you want to imagine a tic-tac-toe board on the display of your camera……Where the lines intersect are called the sweet spots and you want your focal point to be on our around these areas of intersection. What do you think? Are you a scrapbooker or a closet photogorapher? Is this something that you know about? Kristen would like to know. Stop by at her office the next time your in at the NDSU Extension office.

Linton, ND is a small town but not all kids have a parent at home after school. Although afterschool program are still a farily new idea in the Linton area, The Methodist church has been providing this service for a couple of years. Grades k-6 use this opportunity to make crafts, have a snack and perhaps finish homework on a busy homework day. Extension Agent Kristen Vetter occasionally provides educational opportunities for this service. This is an excellent opportunity that is safe for children to go to while parents finish their late afternoon hours at work.

Also, down the street is St. Anthony’s Catholic church that provides an afterschool opportunity for grades 7-12 that is also supervised. This environment provides a unique environment with security cameras and an adult volunteer that supervises them for the hours of afterschool until they go home. The recreation room has a kitchen table and chairs, a small refrigerator, a large sectional, 10 bean bags, a big screen tv with DVD and VCR players and vast array of DVDs. The area is carpeted with subdued colors for relaxing enjoyment. The room also dorns a foosball table, a pool table, a basketball hoop game with two hoops, and a ping pong table. The church is always looking for adult volunteers to supervise the students via security cameras while the JH/HS kids use the facility.

Lessons on stargazing was the topic of choice in Hazelton, Strasburg, Linton and Bakker during the month of January. Students learned about constellations and a website called Stellarium.org>This website downloads a great piece of software depicting a lifelike planetarium to learn about constellations. The main subject of the lesson was to use the software to find Polaris (fancy name for the north star) at any time of the year. We also learned the scientific names of big and little dipper. Do you know these? If you do, prizes await you. Please email your answer to Extension Agent Kristen Vetter kristen.e.vetter@ndsu.edu or stop by the NDSU Extension office at the courthouse in Linton. Other great things learned during the lesson plan are all the other constellations that you can find in the sky and furthermore the importance of space exploration.

Lessons about corn and its origins were given at every school in Emmons County during the month of November. Corn was essential to the native way of life. The Native Americans educated pilgrims when they arrived about how to cook with corn and all its other far reaching benefits such as heat during the winter and artwork for enjoyment. One other item of interest is that the word ‘maize’ is a universal word for corn meaning ‘primary national crop’. For example the maize of China is rice. The maize for North Dakota is wheat. (although quickly changing to corn:) Back in the era of the Native Americans the maize of their nation was corn therefore pinning the name of maize to the modern word corn. The School children ages 5-13 in Hazelton, Strasburg, Linton and Bakker enjoyed the education as well creating ‘corn bracelets’, giant pieces of popcorn to hang from the ceiling and to not forget the real popcorn that was popped in the microwave for a snack:.) yum?yum!

In October of 2007, 8th grade Science Teacher Kevin Oien and Extension Agent Kristen Vetter partnered together to develop a geocache in Linton, ND. 8 visitors have come and checked it out over the winter. It is exciting to think that Linton may have new visitors over the summer too. Perhaps we have ‘closet geocachers’ in Emmons County. For those of you that don’t know geocaching is a sport that utilizes GPS equipment to find camouflaged treasures around the world. You can participate in this sport practically in all countries of the world to all counties in every state. Besides little treasures called ‘geocaches’ created by locals there are waypoints created by surveyors throughout history including Lewis and Clark. When the Louisiana Territory was surveyed they planted waypoints to mark various geographic borders such as the Canadian/US border. Locally waypoints that you may find are ‘right of ways’ marked for roads and railroads! Each geocacher hikes or drives to each point. After you find a manmade geocache/waypoint you can write about it online. If it was a manmade geocache, there is probably a notebook for you to sign, a little treasure for you to take, and perhaps you came prepared with a little treasure that you can leave…..like a keychain, a pen or something else about yourself.

Hague will be 100 years old! Much is planned for the upcoming event. Emmons County Farmers Union President Andrew Vetter and the board of directors have joined in this great event by organizing fun entertainment for children at the Hague Centennial (pronounced hag). The Farmers Union board of directors has asked Emmons County Farm Bureau to partner together to share labor and expenses. Both organizations are looking forward to joining in the celebration and being a part of this great gathering in Emmons County. Hague’s Centennial is set for the 4th of July weekend 2008.

A small group of Linton Residents met to discuss the beautification process of the city of Linton and also the two parks within the community.  Many ideas have been tossed around in an effort to get the ball rolling on this project.  A future meeting will be held with collaborators to secure designs for the community and the hope is that a theme will evolve for the community to follow.  This is a high priority to the residents of Linton and its exciting to see new developments with this project.  Stay tuned for further progress on this exciting venture!

The Linton Senior Center Members have been on the move raising funds for their new building project.  In the short time they have been fund raising, they have managed to secure over $25,000.00 to put towards the project.  This does not take into consideration the time, effort, and supplies that have been donated to the project.  A meeting has been planned to include the youth of the community in the decision making to come up with new and innovative ideas for the center.  A tour has also been planned to a neighboring community for ideas and advice on how to run the center.  Other developments on the project are in the works, so stay posted for future updates!  If you would like to help out with this project, feel free to contact the Emmons County Extension Service for more information.