America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Illuminating Rural North Dakota: The Power of Electric Cooperatives and Community Spirit
Unlock the power of community and innovation in rural North Dakota as Cally Peterson, editor of North Dakota Living Magazine, joins me, Jim Sabby, for a riveting exploration of Rural Electric Cooperatives. Listen to compelling stories of the brave farmers and ranchers who banded together to light up rural areas, overcoming harsh winters like that of 1977-78. This episode shines a spotlight on the enduring cooperative spirit, celebrating the unsung heroes who keep North Dakota’s lights on against all odds.
Explore the dynamic landscape of electricity in rural America, where demand is soaring with the advent of smart technologies and electric vehicles. Cally and I discuss the intricate challenges posed by the shift from traditional power sources to renewables. Despite the complexities, we bring promising news of how electric cooperatives are stepping up with strategic plans to meet future energy needs, ensuring continual reliability for rural North Dakotans.
Step into the heart of rural communities, where the cooperative principle of concern for community thrives. Together with Cally, I highlight the integral role of cooperative employees and the charm of local museums that weave rich tales of North Dakota's past. We encourage active community engagement, inviting listeners to contribute to the vibrant tapestry that makes rural life unique. Join us in this celebration of community spirit and shared efforts that keep rural North Dakota flourishing.
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Contact the team at Pifer's
Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for this fine Saturday morning in February, after having a beautiful warm-up day here on Friday, you know, into the 40s. Now we're Saturday morning and we're looking into the 40s and 50s. But we've got a lot to talk about on this Saturday morning with Americans Land Auctioneer. My guest today is Callie Peterson, who is the editor of the North Dakota Living Magazine, which most rural people will get, and it's a great magazine to visit around the table with. She's got a lot of great recipes in there and I've had to sample some of them for her. But she does a great job with this. But I wanted to bring her on today kind of explain the co-op system with the Rural Electric Cooperatives and what it started out to be and now where the direction they are going, which is a fantastic story for any company in America.
Speaker 2:But you know, I believe we got electricity on our place back in the late 40s, early 50s kind of, when it come through our area. And now you look what we have. I mean we got some of the greatest. I mean we got electricity. Very seldom are we out with electricity but we do have those days where we do have that, then all of a sudden the guys are out in extreme weather weather trying to get the electricity back on for everybody. So let's get back in and if you want to just basically introduce yourself, and then what you do and I know you're married to a great guy over there from Robinson, north Dakota, but just tell us a little bit about that and start where the co-ops began many years ago.
Speaker 3:Sure, jim. Well, thanks so much for having me. You're right, I did marry a great man who outkicked his coverage when he married me. I am Callie Peterson and it's a beautiful Saturday morning here in Steele, north Dakota. I would say I'm not wearing shorts, but a lot of North Dakotans, jim, probably are, because that, you know, 70 degree swing, that's that's a warmup, and we like to wear shorts when we can here in North Dakota. But, yeah, so appreciate you for having me.
Speaker 3:You know, actually, before I started as editor of North Dakota Living, we're the state's largest circulated publication. We're also the rural electric cooperative magazine in the state, but I did work in radio before this, and so this is a fun to get to visit and put my old radio producer hat on. So this is a lot of fun. But I've been in this job for I'm a writer, not a mathematician, jim but I've been in this job since February 2019. So it's gone pretty fast and I work, you know, at the behest of the rural electric cooperatives in the state of North Dakota, and our job in North Dakota living is to tell the story of rural electrification, to talk about cooperatives and the electric industry, some of the challenges we face and some of the opportunities.
Speaker 3:But I'm also here to tell the stories of rural North Dakota. Um, you know, I always like to tell the story. I was like two weeks into the job and my dad gosh, god bless his soul he would text me story ideas like just constantly, nonstop, for like the first two weeks of the job and finally I was like dad, I love you. But one thing I understand is there's no shortage of story ideas for the North Dakota Living magazine, so you can just dial it back a little bit. But but there's a lot of great stories to tell in North Dakota and I think rural electrification is is one of them.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's been a long history and you know, and every area has its story, you know. You know I grew up with Slope Electric out of New England, north Dakota, and now they've got an office down here in Bowman because of the oil thing that expanded so fast down here. But you know, everybody knows our linemen. You know that's in our area and I'll never forget the winter of 77, 78 when we had horrible winters. You probably weren't even born then. Winter of 77, 78, when we had horrible winters. You probably weren't even born then, but it was a horrible winter.
Speaker 2:And finally we were out for about two weeks and the guys got to our place at about two in the morning and we saw the trucks pull in and and they worked for about an hour and my dad went out there and visited with them and about an hour later they showed up. My mom and my dad cooked them a big meal at about 3.30 in the morning and you know they've been out for hours and so sat and visited with them. But you know they're our local people in our local towns. They do a lot of work behind the scenes that we don't see. But when it comes to that cold weather or burn big fires at the poles holding down. They're the first ones out there to get to work, so we got to appreciate how this system works and how these people work for the system.
Speaker 3:And Jim, I just love how you talk about that because that really is how it got started. It was farmers and ranchers who weren't being served by investor owned utilities, by folks that were returning money to shareholders you know far away, not North Dakota to bring you electricity. And so it was farmers and ranchers and rural people banding together to say, hey, we want to, we want an equalizer to the urban areas and that equalizer is electricity. And so they threw five dollars and a handshake.
Speaker 3:That $5 in the 30s and 40s you know World War Two eras when we're talking about when we got electricity in rural North Dakota I mean, $5 was a lot and you didn't have anything to go on other than your neighbor was telling you this was going to bring us electricity. And I believe in my neighbor, I believe in our community and we're going to shake on it. You know the REA. If you talk to people like your parents, you know in that generation and we've lost a lot of you know that World War II generation and those people who remember where they were when the lights went on. Yeah, and Jim, you'll know this, when you were bringing electricity to a farm and ranch, where did the lights first go on?
Speaker 2:well, it was already on when I got there.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was, but that was all the stories, I think. Are they remember where they were on the farm when the lights?
Speaker 2:were on and they came on in the barn first because they were just saying the barn, or their, their light pole, right by the barn, exactly. But the barn was first that was their livelihood.
Speaker 3:It was the, the barn, the livestock it was. That barn was first, that was their livelihood. It was the barn, the livestock it was that was most important. And so they prioritize getting electricity to the barn versus their homes.
Speaker 3:And so I always think that, just, you know, talks a lot about the spirit of rural North Dakota too. And, and you know, when you talk about our line workers, like you say, in bad storms, you know they're like our firemen, our policemen, when there are bad things happening. You know, when you talk about our line workers, like you say, and bad storms, you know they're like our firemen, our policemen, when there are bad things happening, you know they go to the fire, you know they go to the outage. They're going out in these 40 below temperatures to make sure that you have power on.
Speaker 3:And I guess one thing that I worry about and not so much in rural places, because I think we still understand that history and that heritage, and that's part of what we do in North Dakota living is we honor that and remember that. But as we get further and further away from the generation that remembers what it was like to live without electricity, you know we take it for granted. I would say, you know, I and a lot of people today don't understand all the people and all the links in the power supply chain, from, you know, generating at a coal plant, I'm, you know, charging my phone at my home or talking to you on my computer, you know, because of electricity, and so there's just a lot of people that make it work and it's something we take for granted, you know. I guess I'll ask you one other question, jim, because I like to ask this when do you think people today think about electricity?
Speaker 2:Actually, the only time they think about it is when they can't use it.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:It goes out. You know, and we see that all the time. You know, and I remember when we had it out at the ranch and it went out, I didn't have a generator in my place but my dad did. But you'd still walk into a room and flip that switch, even with electricity been out for 12 or 14, 15 hours. You know, it was just a habit for me.
Speaker 2:And now if you took electricity from everybody in America, now I still think I can get by without it. I don't want to do that, but there's gonna be a lot of people that can't. And when you look at when electricity first came to these farms and ranches, you imagine what that housewife went through in the changes she had in there, that for cooking and basically doing everything in that house. You know it had to have been a big change for her. I don't know, maybe at first it wasn't a welcome change because you know this is the way we've always done it, that kind of scenario. So we're going to stay this way. But look what the housewife had to go through all those years and then finally get electricity, where you know they probably still use the propane stove, but the electricity for everything else in the house.
Speaker 3:Well, I just like to think about it that you know electricity brought so much opportunity to rural America that wasn't there before. You know today a lot of working farm families, you know the wife or maybe the husband will have an off farm job right to kind of support the family, and that was impossible before electricity. You know that you could send your son or daughter to college. That wasn't possible because they were needed to milk the cows on the farm or do whatever. But you know, electricity really was the equalizer in rural America and it just brought all this opportunity and so I think it's great. You know, thinking about the housewife there's still in North Dakota living, there's still. We have some of those pieces where we're talking directly to the farm wife, but now it's not just the farm wife but in our recipe section it's still our beloved, really popular section of our magazine and I love looking back at some of those old magazines and some of those areas where we catered to the women on the farm as well.
Speaker 2:You know, and, and what I really liked is going through, you know, after my parents had passed away, but there was always a section in the back with the kids in it and you know, and I just was looking there and it's still there. But you know, I remember my daughters got in there one day and I don't remember even what year it was, but one of them might have but we were picking sweet corn and you know the corn was nice and well, the sweet corn was typically five, six foot tall, but everything else around it was about 10, 12 foot tall and there's a picture of my kids doing that. But that's a great section. You think about it, how those kids are growing, or like my kids and now my grandkids are growing up with it, and it's really going to be interesting to see how this next generation handles what's going on with electricity and everything else handles what's going on with electricity and everything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's part of the challenge in my job, which today, is how do we tell the story of rural electrification, electricity to today's generation that maybe wasn't on the farm or is two or three generations removed from the farm? They're living in Fargo in an apartment, those sorts of things, and so I got to interrupt you here for a minute.
Speaker 2:We'll get into this in the next segment, but again, it's a lot of interesting stories that we're talking about and we've got three more segments to fill this out with. But again, I'm Jim Sadway, the American Land Auctioneer. I want to thank all of our sponsors, which is a great team at pipers with. I tell you what our realtors, our auctioneers, our land management and all the staff they help pay for this ad um, this radio show every saturday morning, and nobody does it better than pipers and folks get on piperscom, check out our website and you'll see all the new sales coming up in the near future. And again, this is jim with America's Land Auctioneers.
Speaker 1:I'm making about $2,000 a bit. $2,000 worth $1,750 here now Do so Wait for $1,700 to be.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Entrepreneur. I'm Jim Sabby, your host this morning, Beautiful Saturday morning down here in Bowman, and I'm talking to Callie Peterson in Robinson, North Dakota, who is the editor of the North Dakota Living Magazine, and we got kind of interrupted because we needed to take a little break here for our sponsors. But let's keep rattling about this rural cooperative. When electricity came in and how all the generations are kind of a little bit different about it. And I'll never forget, around our place you shut the light switch off all the time. You didn't leave a light on because that was expensive back then and it was cheap really. But I mean, when you look at, nobody really had a lot of money. So it was one of those deals where you always shut lights off, no matter where you know. And I always asked my dad well, why is the yard light get to be on all night? He says so you can at least see around the yard. But I mean, so what? What do you? What do you hear from these younger people versus the older generation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's one thing that we're always trying to do in the magazine in North Dakota Living Gym is provide some of that education, because I think there's really. You know, electricity is complicated. Our grid, our power grid, is very complicated and you know, I've been in this job for six, seven years now and I'm still learning about it, and so it's how do we resonate with younger people with things that they're going to care about? And it kind of goes back to when I think people think about electricity. It's you said it earlier it's when the power goes out, and the other time is when they pay their electric bill, and I think those are the two times that people really think about electricity and and, and part of the reason that is is because we as cooperatives have done such a good job delivering affordable, reliable service that when you expect that light to come on and and in some ways maybe we've almost been not our own worst enemy, but that's been you know something that we have been providing a service that's so quality and so reliable that you expect it to come on. So when it does go off, that's when sometimes there's chaos, right, Because people expect their lights to turn on, and I think one of the biggest issues facing the industry now is we are at a place where the demand for electricity is higher than ever.
Speaker 3:We're seeing electrification in our homes with smart home technology. We're seeing electrification on the road with EVs, electric vehicles. We're also seeing electrification in big commercial industries, whether it be ag, processing, the data centers coming on. That's one of the big talking points now in the industry, just because the demand for power is something we've never seen before and we are able to serve that, but not necessarily.
Speaker 3:But our infrastructure needs to be built up for the demand that some of the data centers, the power that they're requiring. There's going to have to be a lot more generation built is. You know what's carrying the power from the coal plant or the wind turbine, whatever it might be, from the generating source to through the transmission lines to the distribution lines which are your local electric cooperative, you know down there slope electric cooperative that's going to bring it to your farm and home. So I think there are a lot of challenges and kind of explaining some of that in terms of electricity, but it's top of mind, I feel like more than it ever has been, because you know things aren't you know, we know what the price of eggs are right now. Things are expensive.
Speaker 3:And so if someone's seeing their price of their electricity going up, they're feeling that in their pocketbooks in rural America and in our country, and so they want to know why. And I think you know explaining some of those factors that are impacting demand. And also on the supply side, when we talk about electricity, you know in the last five to 10 years a lot of our reliable baseload generation, so that's that it's available 24-7, 365, regardless of the weather condition. We're talking about coal, natural gas and nuclear. They've retired many coal plants in this country. A lot of them are reaching the end of their useful life. Some of it has to do with some of the transition into more renewable fuel sources. But as we're retiring some of that reliable generation, we're adding on to the grid more intermittent and not always available sources of power like the wind and solar.
Speaker 3:Because you know, we knew this week the sun wasn't necessarily shining all the time here in North Dakota and the wind's not blowing all the time. Thank goodness in North Dakota the wind's not always blowing all the time, Gosh. Goodness in North Dakota the wind's not always blowing all the time, gosh. If we would have had wind this week, jim, in addition to these pretty low temperatures. It would have been. That would have been an energy emergency for our grid. It would have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so just kind of. You know they're bigger industry things. But I guess my message at the end of the day for rural North Dakotans and for people who are members of electric cooperatives is you can rest assured that your co-op knows what they're doing, and there is a network across our nation of cooperative folks who are planning for generation, they're planning transmission. They're way smarter than I am that are making sure that behind the scenes they're doing what needs to be done so that you and I can turn our lights on when we want to.
Speaker 2:The one thing you mentioned in all of this is the reliability, and now in our area we have a great service with Slope Electric. If our electricity goes out, they're out getting it fixed. I mean, it's a lot of times it's on very shortly afterwards, Just depends on how many lines are down or poles are down or whatever. But I live pretty close to the South Dakota state line and they have an area down there that it can be the 5th of July and 80 degrees and they'll lose electricity. You know they, just they have I don't know if it's their, how their power grid is, but I do know a lot of it like in the storms in the wintertime or spring is they lose a lot of poles. It's wide open country down there in Harding County, South Dakota, and so they lose a lot of poles all the time and they're getting fresh poles, seems like every other year, but they don't have the reliability that we have up here. But what everybody does now is everybody gets those really nice generators and sets on their place, Cause you can't be without, especially all the time, but you can't be without water for livestock, and so you know something's got to drive those wells and the end of the pumps and make that work, and and so we're. We're very blessed that those are available.
Speaker 2:But everything comes at an inopportune time, you know. It's just like the other day when things were freezing up. You know it wouldn't have happened in July but something else might've happened. But you know, guys were fighting water here this last week and, and I'm very glad my kids put in some new fountains, that and basically they go in the ground like 10 feet and there's. They're made in Canada, so those people should know how it works, um, for freezing up. But it's just like a culvert comes up and and, uh, you know it's great water and they just got to pull a little ice off of it some mornings and and so things are getting better. But the reliability we have with electricity, um is, I think, by far the best thing that I've ever seen in my life. You know, if we're out, we're not out very often.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's just not true. With Slope Electric Cooperative you can look up the reliability of your local electric cooperative. They're in the 99.9% range for reliability. I mean, if you put all the time in a year and consider that you're maybe only out of power 0.1% of your entire year, you know that's incredible and and for me that gives me as a member of ChemElectric Cooperative, living also in rural North Dakota, that it gives me peace of mind knowing that you know in those really bad storms, even if I am without power, it's not going to be long and you know it's. And also knowing just co-op people.
Speaker 3:I know you've talked about the line workers, but my husband actually Darren, your buddy, he also with Pfeiffer's Auction Realty. He went to lineman school, so his dad was a lineman for Northern Plains Electric. His older brother, dustin, went to lineman school, so his dad was a lineman for northern plains electric. His older brother dustin went to lineman school and so darren did the same thing, went to lineman school. He worked for a company out of halstead, minnesota, and then he got hired with our local telecom cooperative. So he didn't do that. But his brother is still a lineman. He has his dad's old job in robinson. He's the northern plains electric cooperative lineman there and you know the one thing I know about those Peterson men they love to work and honestly it's it's. They get all a little nervous when there's a bad storm because they know there's going to be a call, but they're ready to go, they're ready to respond.
Speaker 2:You know they take that really seriously and that's let's continue this into the's, let's continue this into the next segment, because I agree with you that we have that here with these guys too. I mean, they're geared up and ready to go. But again, this is Jim Sabby with America's Land Auctioneer. Our great partners today are the auctioneers from Pifers, the realtor from Pifers excuse me and land management.
Speaker 1:So, folks, this is American Land Auctioneer and we'll be right back with our third segment.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. It's Saturday morning in Bowman, north Dakota, and I'm visiting with Callie Peterson. She is the editor from the North Dakota Living Magazine and we've been kind of reminiscing and it always gets back to this. You know how people are connected in your communities, but the people that work for and I'm going to use ours because I know ours best Slope Electric here, they're embedded in our community. Whether you know, they're helping with the wrestling tournament. The head coach from Bowman is the lineman and head of the department right here in Bowman, north Dakota, for Slope Electric and he's a heck of a young man but he puts time in. He's donating his time Well, I shouldn't say donating, but working at the school with kids. Other guys worked at the fair board or on different committees throughout their area and we see that all over. But these people want to live here, raise their kids here and you know they said their families sacrifice times when there's no electricity.
Speaker 3:I just, I love that, jim. You just get it. I'm going to record this and we're going to share this other places because I mean, you're nailing it. You just understand what cooperatives are and what cooperative employees do. Cooperatives are often one of the best employers in a rural community and my family's living proof of that my late father-in-law who was a lineman, my brother-in-law who was a lineman.
Speaker 3:But the difference between a cooperative and an investor-owned utility is that cooperatives are guided by seven cooperative principles, and that seventh cooperative principle is perhaps the one that every cooperative employee also lives. This principle, it's concern for community, and that means that we are here to first and foremost, yes, deliver reliable, affordable and safe electricity, but we also contribute to the communities we live in, because we live in them too, electricity. But we also contribute to the communities we live in because we live in them too, and so we are going to be the real fire. You know, be a first responder as well. We're going to coach our kids little league team. We're going to donate to the fireman's pancake feed. You know, we're going to do those things because it's our community we care to, and that's just, I think, what has.
Speaker 3:That's the spirit of rural America. I really see rural America and cooperatives as as one, because it's rural people. Cooperatives work in rural America because it means, you know, the free market maybe didn't serve us the right way. So our numbers, we came together so to make things work in rural America. And that's what you have to do as rural people, cause we don't have the services. We have way more challenges in rural communities, whether it be just the sheer distance to get to places to get goods and services, and so there are real challenges and they've only ever been surmounted because of the spirit of rural people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we get into the spirit of rural people. Yeah, and so we get into the spirit of rural people. And this is we could probably do 10 segments on what you guys did with this Hello Magazine and it's the official travel guide in North Dakota. You know, I'm one of those. I want to see everything in North Dakota before I go other places and I think you know your husband can probably say the same thing, but we've been on about every road, dirt road, wherever we're at in the state. But there's so many things to see. You know, whether you get up to Pemina Gorge or you know, it just doesn't matter. There's places that you got. That church, I'm trying to think it's a Catholic church down by Wichita. There's a Catholic church down by Wishick.
Speaker 2:There's a little town down there, hague and Hague, hague, north Dakota. I mean that is unbelievable what that church is like. And you know, darren and I were doing a machinery sale for a family and they were talking about when the church was going around asking for donations and the lady said you know, my folks didn't have any money, you know, and what we did have was mom tucked away in a jar somewhere so nobody could see it. But the priest came and asked for five dollars to help finish paying for the altar and she reached in that jar and gave the preacher or the priest that last five dollars. There was no other money there, they had nothing left and she gave it to the priest.
Speaker 2:And so there's so many stories out there. But there's so many places you people can go. Look, you know you can spend a day down in that Strasburg and and and Hague area, it doesn't matter. You go over by the river. You got a lot of things to see. You get out. In my country, you know we got a great museum in Marmoth, north Dakota, that I'd say 90% of the people have never seen. I would put it up against anything in Minneapolis, chicago, denver, maybe even LA, but it is a Western museum right in Medora or, excuse me, marmoth, with a bunch of antique cars in it, and so this magazine shows everything where people can go and take a look. Hey, if you only got two days, go someplace close and go visit that. So I appreciate what you guys did on that part of this travel magazine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, and that's actually a testament. That's the North Dakota Department of Commerce, the tourism department. They put out their travel guides so if you go to a rest area in North Dakota you can pick up one of these, and so you know a lot of the travel guides that they print there. We're trying to attract out of state visitors into North Dakota but we in our February issue we attach that travel guide to the issue of North Dakota living, the February that you're getting, because we think exactly what you think there's a million wonderful places that you probably haven't experienced and don't know about and your family would enjoy if you visited and stayed in North Dakota. So our pieces were also encouraging that kind of in-state tourism and exploring in your own backyard. And one of the best parts about my job, jim, is I get to go to all these communities.
Speaker 3:When I have a story and I'm, you know, headed to Crosby or my, I had my intern and so I've got this intern who she's never. She grew up in Bismarck, so she hasn't had a lot of experience in rural North Dakota. The first day it was a 13 hour day. I had her in Watford City. I had her with a neighbor of mine. I said, yeah, I need you to take some harvest pictures. So I lined up my neighbor to take her for her first ride in a combine. She was tickled pink. I had her at Theodore Roosevelt National Park out in Beach, north Dakota, taking photos of the wild horses and entering in cowboys from Western North Dakota who still are cowboys and she said it's just, it's the best job she could have ever asked for. She's learning so much about North Dakota that she didn't know, and I think that's when we actually get out to some of these small communities and just visit with people. There's a lot of great things happening in our communities that we should celebrate and we should support.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a lot of things in these communities that go on throughout the summer and it seems like some places are getting to be less and less people go to them because everybody well, let's go to the hills out here, let's go to the hills for the weekend, or let's go to Billings and or Bismarck, but you have to support what's here and again, like I said, I know the cooperative people do that a lot, the rural people do that a lot, but when you see what we have all over the state, I mean you don't have to go into Bismarck, Mandan to take a look at stuff and you can go anywhere along Highway 21 and Highway 14 going north. It's got it all, you all. But there's some beautiful landscape. You get up in that Washburn area when you're on top of Washburn looking down at that river. That's a beautiful sight. I always think that's one of the prettiest things.
Speaker 2:And the Cheyenne River Valley, that is beautiful over there. So people have got to. You know you don't have to spend a lot of money on this either. You get into those smaller towns and they're liking to see people. You know your food is going to be cheaper and it'll be the best conversation you get to ever have in your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if I could just plug, this is a good segue. I'm just going to plug our upcoming issue, our March issue of North Dakota Living Gym that we just sent off to the printers yesterday. So I'm feeling good, met another deadline. But we're doing a special issue this year called our Go West issue and we're focusing on western North Dakota and so one of the exciting things happening in North Dakota this year it's the 60th anniversary of the Medora musical. That's quite a milestone, and so we did a story on that.
Speaker 3:But there was some of these pictures. They had volunteers, people that actually were in the musical, and then they had boys from the home on the range that actually carved out If you've ever gone to the musical, where the bleachers are, they were just wooden planks but they carved out that seating, they carved out that amphitheater in in, you know, out of a Butte. It's. It's incredible. But so it's 60 years of the medora musical and we're also featuring some really cool, amazing community investments that have been made um in three western north dakota towns and dickinson, um legacy square. It's this multi-purpose community facility where they're having concerts bringing in tiger, lily and warrant and, um, you know, scranton native cat perkins, I think was there as well last year.
Speaker 3:Um, and in watford city they've got they invested in their fairgrounds there. They now have this mckinsey county ag expo incredible facility. There's two farmers in williston who started a malting plant and they're growing custom-made barley to put in craft beer. I mean, there's a lot of great things happening in western North Dakota specifically that I'm excited to feature and I know I'm preaching to the choir. You're, mr Western North Dakota.
Speaker 2:You know we live here and we take everything for granted. But you know we take the back roads up to Medora along the Little Missouri River and it's called the East River Road and so we get to go along the river all the way up into Medora and I'd rather do that than take the highways. Anyway, I like back roads. But you look at what we have there. Then you get on the West River Road side. But you know Gulliver, north Dakota, and I'm still going to preach again about the Marmoth you cannot beat the museum in Marmoth, north Dakota. I don't care where you're from, you'll never see one like it. It's just unbelievable and it's great to go there. There's not a lot in Marmoth but they still have the Mystic Theater there and they have a bar and a world-renowned steakhouse in Marmoth and there are probably maybe 80 people live in Marmoth but it is full all the time. We go over there quite a bit just to have a good steak. But you go to everything there but that kind of loops you around up into Medora and there's so much to do and then you get north. I could stop every 100 miles, it seems like, and take another look, but you ever follow me on Facebook. I've got pictures of most of this. I always say this is my office for the day, a picture of the Badlands, or I'm in Medora, or I'm in Marmoth. You get to see a lot of things that we don't get to see normally.
Speaker 2:But you know, we're going to get up to close to our fourth segment here. We're going to end this one here. But I close to our fourth segment here. We're going to end this one here. But I got Callie Peterson, uh, editor in North Dakota living magazine. We're reminiscing, we could carry on. You know, we could probably do a whole day show here and we always said we should do a podcast about things and we've talked about that before, but it'd be kind of fun to go to. All these places are so much to do and and uh. So again, we're sponsored by all the ranchers excuse me, ranchers all the auctioneers and agents in Pipers. And we'll be right back after this message.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host today, and we've got Callie Peterson from Robinson, north Dakota, and we're continuing our virtual tour in our minds through America, and mainly north dakota, what we have to offer. And so in the break I was kind of talking with callie that you know my uh, daughter and son-in-law. They have registered red angus. So we were into a sale yesterday at richardton for wassons red angus up there and and my grandson asked me if he could borrow some money from me to buy a replacement heifer, a yearling heifer, and I said yeah. I said how are we going to pay for this? And he said, well, I'll pay you back. It's a loan. And he said but if she has heifers I want to keep them and expand my herd, so then when I get my first bull then I'll pay you back. The kids got it going for him.
Speaker 3:He's a rancher and a salesman. It's like Grandpa Jim.
Speaker 2:He's pretty smooth. So anyway, we get there and Scott Bachmeier is our ringman in our area and if you don't know, scott Bachmeier, a great guy, helps us out, but he ranches in the Amidon area up towards Medora, a beautiful place up there. So Scott asked me. He said are you going to bid or is Little Max? I said no, little Max. So I had Little Max on my knee and I said, uh, max, you can bid now. And he raised his hand and held the number up. But he also had been at enough auctions. But he thought he was a ring man and he goes, yep. And I thought, oh my gosh, everybody in the crowd turned in and just not really laughed, but they just thought that kid's got it going, you know. I mean, he knew what to do, you know no one in the crowd bid after him.
Speaker 3:They're like that little guy can have that for that price.
Speaker 2:He didn't have to bid very often but he got his registered Red Angus heifer from Wassums and he's good friends with them and they're good friends with our family, so it really turned out well. So you see that in every town and I'm going to use Richardson but they have this Wicks Barn south of town where there's weddings. They have this Wicks Barn south of town where there's weddings. It's kind of a barn and set up for selling cattle but people use it for weddings and different things like that and you're seeing more and more of that in our small communities. So people are using them quite a bit. And so there's again.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things to do in the state of North Dakota. I'm not just going to use western North Dakota, but I'm glad you brought up the Western part. But there are so many stories out here. Last summer, basically our museum, they do a side-by-side tour every summer and they were south of Scranton and down on our place. And now we have a wagon train trail that goes from Deadwood to Dickinson through our place and we also have an Indian burial ground on our place and then it stops at Haley, north Dakota. But the history of everything around our area with the Indians and the cavalry and the settlers. I mean this could have been a five-day presentation with just what's going on here, you know. So it's a lot of things happening in these small areas. Go to your local museums. Bowman's got a great one here, the one in Marmouth is really good, headinner's got a good one down there. But when you're in these towns, stop at these museums. That tells a story of what has actually happened in our area.
Speaker 3:And if you got five bucks to spare that woman you talked about who gave the last $5, take $5 out of your penny jar and give it to these local museums. You know I did a story in the magazine in July. I went down to Ashley Actually I was born in Ashley so I went down to Ashley and the McIntosh County Heritage Museum Heritage Center there is incredible. It has, you know, a lot of that German, russian heritage history and they're piloting a project. But just to talk about the amount of work that a lot of people in a community do and it's usually retired folks to keep the local museum going and the extra time that they put into it, you know if you can put five bucks in a jar, that's going to make a difference.
Speaker 2:You know it does in these small communities just to help keep the lights on with electricity. You know we're rolled right back into that thing, but you know, what else do you see in the future? You know we've got about four minutes, four and a half minutes, with your magazine and with what's happening with rural electric cooperatives.
Speaker 3:It's a good question, you know. I think obviously we talk about electricity. I think one of the big ones is going to be how we build out that system to continue to meet the demand that our members need, because people are requiring more and more power. And you know, cooperatives have made in North Dakota alone it's like I want to say it's have made in North Dakota alone, it's like I want to say it's I don't want to say the wrong number, but it's several billion dollars of investment in rural North Dakota in electric infrastructure and just based on a cooperative, in the next five years is expected to, I think, make like $5 billion more of investment in our rural areas. And so you know that signals to me people need more power, whether it's more people, more industry. There are things happening here because we wouldn't have to be investing in this amount of infrastructure other than maintenance to keep our system up if there wasn't a need for more power. So that says there's some very exciting things on the horizon. There's probably a lot more great story ideas for North Dakota living coming down the pike. For me is what that means, and you know, I'm just excited to tell them all, you know.
Speaker 3:The other thing I would like to make a plug for, when we talk about making things work in rural communities and how cooperatives are.
Speaker 3:A part of that is, if you have a willingness to serve, a desire to serve, but you're not really sure what you want to do, take a look at your local electric cooperative board.
Speaker 3:There's other opportunities within a local electric cooperative. Most of our cooperatives participate. They have an operation roundup program, and so that's something where members voluntarily elect to round up their electric bill to the nearest dollar and all those cents and pennies go into a trust. And then there's like an operation roundup board that then makes donations to local community ventures or to local people who are undergoing an illness or a hardship. So you know, co-ops do a lot, and there's a great opportunity to get involved that way too. Um, we're always looking for folks who are interested to run for um, their co-op boards, and, and you know, a lot of the people that have served on co-op boards have done so a long time and they deserve to retire too and spend time with their grandkids or whatever it might be. And so, you know, take a look at that if you have some time to spare. I think it's a really great opportunity and a way to serve your neighbors.
Speaker 2:You know and you're right the board of directors. You know they went on this for a purpose to keep the electricity coming, making it right for our rural area in southwest North Dakota. I'm going to use that again, but they've put a lot of time and invested into this. You know. I know they go meetings elsewhere, whether it's in Bismarck or wherever, but they spend a lot of time and you know we've got a good system going here and we just need, when these people are retiring, we need good people to get back on and serve with the purpose of let's keep electricity going here in our rural electric. And rural electric does a lot of great things and again, we can't talk enough about their employees, what they do for the communities in our area. But there's a certain stem of responsibility where we need to do that if you want to keep things alive.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I will just give one other. We've talked a lot about line workers who deserve the praise, or co-op employees, but you know you mentioned your mom and dad making a meal. I can't tell you the amount of times when line workers come back from storm jobs and they say we had a farmer get his tractor because we got stuck right when there was a lot of snow in the ditch and they pulled us out. Or there was a snow plow driver who plowed the road so that we could get by to turn the power on it it goes way beyond just co-op employees.
Speaker 3:It's about community and what those people do. And you know, from the farmer and rancher to the snow plow driver, just there's just a lot of people that are making things work in rural America and you know we have to thank them all because you know if they hadn't have taken care of the land and done those things, I mean we wouldn't be selling land and farm equipment, right? That's great.
Speaker 3:The reason that I think you and I both are where we are today, Jim, is because there were rural people before us that did a lot of things right and cared about community and doing things that were going to make a difference.
Speaker 2:You know and I want to end the show on that and Callie, we could go on here for hours and days and maybe that'll be our new segment coming up someday our podcast. But again I want to thank you, my guest, callie Peterson, from Robinson, north Dakota If you ever get over there, look her and Darren up. Great people Love the people in that steel Robinson area. Always been good. But again, america's Land Auctioneer is sponsored by. You know all the great people at Piper. So land managers, the real estate agents, the auctioneers, you know what. Nobody does it better. So make sure you get on our website at hyperscom and we'd be glad to help you out. Look at what you need or give one of us a call. There's a number there. You can look at us all and you know I'm the ugly one in the cowboy hat most of the time, but you know what. Check that box and give me an email. I'd be glad to help. Again, this is Jim with America's Land Auctioneer 1,000, not a bit of down.
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