MSU’s innovation engineering will benefit ND

Loren W. Anderson

Minot

Minot State University, Minot, Ward County, NW North Dakota, and indeed the entire state, stand to benefit from the Innovation Engineering Program currently under consideration at MSU. North Dakota, and specifically the university community, is fortunate to prosper from the excellent thinking and action of an outstanding president who understands the future as well as the current value of education and is responsive to the economic and professional needs of our state and nation.

The Magic Fund exists to provide seed funds for sound, durable investments in our community that will return economic value, goodwill, and expertise for many decades. I urge every citizen to contact Minot Mayor Jantzer, MSU President Shirley, Magic Fund committee members, Ward County Commissioners, ND State Congress members, and anyone you think may assist in bringing this program to fruition.

Native peoples are part of America’s past, future

Lisa Finley-Deville

Mandaree

The United States is 250 years old.

As our nation prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026, I believe our tribal nations should reflect on what that means for us. We also have a duty to tell a more complete story. Patriotism is not weakened by truth and on these lands, it is strengthened by it.

Across North Dakota, few names are celebrated more than Theodore Roosevelt. His legacy is written into our history, and an entire national park bears his name. Yet Roosevelt spent only a brief period in North Dakota. Long before he arrived, my people, the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and other Tribal Nations had lived, governed, hunted, traded, prayed, and cared for these lands.

The story of the 250th should include the boast of westward expansion. Tribal nations are pushed out of their homelands, forced into reservations, and introduced to devastating diseases by Europeans. Our sacred places became commodities, and the Earth became something to be bought, sold, and exploited for profit.

Our history did not begin in 1776. Our ancestors had already lived on these lands for thousands of years. They built governments, established trade routes, cared for the earth, and passed down traditions and oral histories that continue to guide many of us today. Yet our stories are treated as a footnote.

The lands that visitors admire today were not empty frontiers waiting to be discovered. These are our homelands.

Recent discussions surrounding our national parks and the history of these lands should raise an important question: Should visitors learn only the parts of history that make them feel proud, or should they also learn about the people who paid the price for the nation’s expansion? National parks should tell the complete story, and one story should not erase the other.

As Native people, many of us believe that the earth is not a source of wealth or something to be consumed. It is a relative. We belong to it as much as it belongs to us. That understanding shaped our way of life long before America’s founding and remains just as relevant today.

The 250th anniversary of the United States should be that opportunity to tell the truth about how we arrived at this current day. That truth must include our continued existence on these lands despite the many attempts to erase us.

Through disease, displacement, broken promises, boarding schools, and generations of devastating Indian policies, our Tribal Nations are still here. Our languages are being revitalized. Our ceremonies continue. Our governments remain. Our young people are reclaiming their identities, and our elders continue to pass on the teachings that have sustained us.

We are not relics of the past. We are part of America’s present and its future.

As our nation marks these 250 years, I hope we celebrate not by silencing difficult history but by embracing it. The American story is stronger, and more honest when it includes the voices of the First Peoples.

The United States is 250 years old. Our nations have been here since time immemorial. There is room in this country to honor both histories.