MINOT — It’s hard to describe how important a cultural event the Norsk Hostfest was.

I say “was,” using the past tense, because news this week is that the annual event, which had just completed its 46th year, is coming to an end.

The event was important to me as a descendant of Scandinavian immigrants. My maternal great-grandparents came to America from Norway, and homesteaded a farm near the Ryder area. The Hostfest was a way for me to connect to their cultural traditions, from food and music to the history of the Norwegian diaspora.

The event was also important to my family. We spent years attending and working at the event. We were a host family for Scandinavian performers who traveled to Minot to entertain at the event. We even got some local media coverage in 2004 about four generations of my family volunteering.

I have so many memories from the Hostfest. For a while, when I was a paperboy for the Minot Daily News, I would go out to the festival early in the morning to sell newspapers door-to-door in the RV campgrounds. My grandma would tell me stories about her immigrant parents.

And the food! I once ate so much

rommegrot

— a Norwegian dessert pudding — that the resulting gastro-intestinal pyrotechnics are still a thing of family lore.

I even met famed political consultant Karl Rove at the Hostfest one year.

He was there to be inducted into

the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame,

and was being escorted around by former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. Apparently the two of them were friends from their College Republican days. They ran across me working at a booth. I was a part-time political blogger then. I hadn’t yet begun my full-time writing career.

I have so many happy memories from the Hostfest.

Now, it’s over.

“In recent years, the festival has faced significant increases in the cost of nationally recognized performers, as well as insurance, facilities, labor, and logistics,”

a press release from the Hostfest board said.

“At the same time, attendance levels have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, creating ongoing financial challenges that cannot be responsibly overcome.”

The pandemic certainly didn’t help the festival, and I think we can fairly blame some mismanagement, too. As the generation the event originally catered to began to die out there was little effort made to draw the interest of younger generations. It was expensive, too, making it cost prohibitive for younger families to begin the traditions of attendance that cultural event like the Hostfest depends on.

But it’s hard to ignore the involvement of Epic Companies,

which took over management of the event

for a couple of years post-pandemic before the company’s spectacular financial collapse prompted its exit from the arrangement. Epic had tried to take the event in a new direction, away from its cultural roots and toward some sort of a modern music festival, and it just didn’t work.

After years of failing to adapt to modern audiences, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and poor management by Epic Companies, Minot and North Dakota are losing a treasure.

A bridge to our past.

A preservation of an important part of our state’s history.

I’d like to think that the Hostfest will be replaced with something new that will continue to preserve Scandinavian heritage in our area, but it probably won’t be. To be clear, some preservation continues. The

Scandinavian Heritage Association,

which maintains the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, will endure, and that’s a good thing. They do wonderful work.

It’s just not the same.

It feels like we need things like the Hostfest now more than ever. So many in our society, nearly all of them descendants of previous waves of immigration, have adopted a pronounced hostility to new generations of immigrants. They’ve committed themselves to making it clear that those new immigrants aren’t welcome. Which is why it’s important for us to remember our own immigrant past. The joys and the struggles and the warts.

The Hostfest was a part of that. Now it’s gone. So it goes.

Mesa County’s former Clerk and Recorder has for months been a subject of national fascination, as well as a source of consternation for Colorado election officials. But it didn’t start out that way. 

Tina Peters first made national headlines in the summer of 2021, when the state started looking into the tampering of the county’s voting machines. Almost immediately, the county District Attorney’s office and the FBI began an investigation into the release of information from Mesa County’s Dominion voting election system and the role Peters played in it.

At the start of the investigation, Peters was attending a cybersecurity conference headlined by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, and a leading purveyor nationally of false claims about election security. She quickly became a cause celebre on the right in President Donald Trump’s MAGA world, when people like Steve Bannon defended her right to investigate claims of election rigging. But for four years, Trump himself remained silent on Peters, even as his allies continued to claim she was innocent. 

“I’m not overly surprised that he didn’t have much to say during that time just because there was so much unknown, although that hasn’t stopped him in other ways,” said Republican Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, which has long pushed back against Peters’ efforts to try to prove election fraud. 

Peters was indicted by a grand jury from Mesa county and a Republican district attorney prosecuted the case. A jury of her peers later found her guilty on seven counts, including four felonies. 

“Ms. Peters has made this community a joke. She’s made respecting law enforcement a joke, made respecting court orders a joke. She’s not accepted any responsibility and considers this a badge of honor,” said Mesa County DA Dan Rubinstein during Peters’ sentencing hearing.

But even after her conviction and sentencing in the fall of 2024, still no word from Trump. 

“I had hoped that somebody smart was in his ear telling him that all of this was a facade,” said Crane. “She found no evidence of fraud. This is not a person worth getting behind or using calories on because she didn’t find any fraud, and she was a useful idiot for grifters and bad actors.”

Meanwhile, Peters’ supporters wanted Trump to speak out and take action. Scott Bottoms, a Republican representative in the Colorado Statehouse and now candidate for governor, said a team comprised of Peters’ attorneys, members of her inner circle and people like himself staged a campaign to alert the president to her cause. 

Bottoms thinks Trump didn’t initially weigh in because it was a state issue and also because he thinks the media was biased against Peters. 

“The media has been very quiet or very one-sided on the issue.” He said that contributed to Trump not being directly engaged. 

“I mean, how would he hear about a county clerk in Mesa County at the White House unless people had to just be beating on his door with it, and finally he opened his eyes and said, ‘Hey, this is a serious issue going on.’”

Peters’ conviction and sentence have stood out because other legal efforts related to 2020 election tampering have faltered. On Trump’s first day in office in his second term, he commuted the sentences of some of the people convicted of crimes stemming from the U.S. Capitol attack, and pardoned more than 1,200 people for crimes related to the January 6 riot. 

Then, in March, the administration turned some attention to Peters. The U.S Department of Justice decided to review her case, and in May of 2025, President Trump released his first social media post calling for her release. 

He referred to Peters as a hostage “being held in a Colorado prison by the Democrats, for political reasons. ” He asked the state to release her. 

“FREE TINA PETERS, NOW!” Trump wrote to punctuate his message. 

Trump has since ramped up efforts to secure her release, at one point telling state leaders to “rot in hell” and using Peters as a reason to punish the blue state, from efforts to cut federal funds to shutting down the National Center for Atmospheric Research and denying disaster emergency funding requests. Trump issued a symbolic federal pardon for her crimes, and Peters’ supporters are pushing for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to commute her sentence. 

Crane is urging the governor to hold firm and resist pressure from Trump and said any special treatment for Peters would invite people to do nefarious things in the name of proving fraud or “stopping the steal.”

“It shows that you can try to undermine our election community, that you can commit these types of crimes, and that there’s no significant consequence to it … It becomes open season on our elections and our election personnel that you can have somebody now and go and listen to some disinformation, not know their jobs and say, hey, ‘we’re going to go and prove this.’”

But for Peters’ supporters, like Bottoms, Trump’s involvement has been welcome news. Though Bottoms said he is discouraged that federal funding for Colorado is being taken away, he said it’s because of the “leftists and the Marxists who control our state,” and is glad Trump is stepping in. 

Here is a timeline of Trump’s involvement in the Tina Peters case:

Aug. 12, 2024: A guilty verdict

After more than four hours of deliberation, a Mesa County jury finds Peters guilty on 7 charges, including four felony counts. 

Oct. 3, 2024: Prison time for ‘a charlatan’

21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett sentences Peters to more than 8 years in prison. At sentencing, 21st Judicial District Attorney Dan Rubinstein argued for a strict sentence given Peters’ refusal to take accountability for her actions. 

“Ms. Peters has made this community a joke. She’s made respecting law enforcement a joke, made respecting court orders a joke. She’s not accepted any responsibility and considers this a badge of honor,” said Rubinstein.

Barrett lambasted Peters’ behaviour before handing down the prison time, noting that she was “as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen.” 

“You are no hero,” Barrett told Peters. “You’re a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.” 

Mar. 3, 2025: Department of Justice gets involved

The federal government’s law enforcement arm wades into the Peters issue, announcing plans to review the state conviction. The Department of Justice submitted a statement of interest in district court. In it, the DOJ notes concerns about whether the case was political. 

Mar. 10, 2025: Colorado GOP leader calls for federal government to hold back funds

While campaigning to lead the Colorado GOP, Darcy Schoening tells 9News the federal government should pull funding from projects in Colorado, specifically citing Peters’ sentence as rationale.

May 5, 2025: The Truth (social) comes out

President Donald Trump pours fuel onto the Peters issue with a social media post calling for her release. In it, Trump describes Peters as a political prisoner and directs the Department of Justice to “take all necessary action to help secure” her release. 

Aug. 21, 2025: Trump takes aim at Colorado again, threatens harsh measures

Trump again calls for Peters’ release, this time while with a threat of consequences should she stay in prison. 

Sept. 2, 2025: Space command move announced, signs of a pressure campaign begin

Trump announces he is moving Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama. The President did not mention Peters in the announcement, but Colorado Democrats called the decision “political.” 

Nov. 12, 2025: Feds look to move Peters out of state custody

The Federal Bureau of Prisons sends a letter to the Colorado Department of Corrections requesting Peters’ be transferred to a federal facility. Such transfers from state to federal custody are rare and usually are reserved for cases involving long-term safety and security needs. 

Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser and 21st Judicial District Attorney Dan Rubinstein would later co-author a letter to the governor asking Polis to reject the request, saying it was an attempt to circumvent the prison sentence Peters received. 

Dec. 8, 2025: Federal court rejects Peters’ habeas petition

A federal judge declines to consider Peters’ appeal, saying the state courts must settle the matter first. Peters’ legal team had been arguing that she should be eligible to post bond while the state appeal played out. 

Dec. 11, 2025: Peters pardoned, kind of

Trump claims on social media to have pardoned Peters. The action is met with skepticism as Peters was convicted on state charges, and the presidential pardon is commonly understood to be limited to federal crimes. 

Peters’ attorneys argue they have found a new read of the presidential pardon powers that could be read to apply to state charges as well. 

Dec. 16, 2025: Trump administration vows to dismantle NCAR, Dems think Peters issue to blame

In another blow to federal funding in Colorado, the Trump Administration announces plans to cut funding to the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat whose district includes Boulder, suggests it’s retaliation for Peters still being in prison. 

Dec. 24, 2025: Peters’ attorneys ask appeals court to review presidential pardon

Just ahead of scheduled oral arguments, Tina Peters’ attorneys ask the Colorado Court of Appeals to consider whether they still have jurisdiction over the clerk’s case in light of Trump’s pardon. 

Dec. 30, 2025: Trump vetoes Arkansas River Valley conduit

The bipartisan legislation would have helped finish a critical water project to benefit southeastern Colorado by giving local communities 100 years to pay back no-interest loans. 

Dec. 31, 2025: ‘May they rot in hell’

Trump takes to social media to call Gov. Jared Polis a “scumbag” and says Rubinstein, the district attorney in Mesa County, is “disgusting.” He concludes the post: ‘May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETERS!” 

Jan. 6, 2026: More cuts, more pressure from Trump Administration

The federal government freezes some childcare and food funding intended for Colorado. 

Jan. 8, 2026: Colorado AG ratchets up legal challenge

Weiser expands the scope of a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that the cuts to Colorado funding amounted to a pattern of unlawful behavior. 

Jan. 8, 2026: Polis renews attention of his clemency powers with “harsh” comment

After publicly calling Peters’ prison sentence “harsh,” Polis kicks off a new wave of speculation that he might commute some of her sentence. 

Jan 9, 2025:

Tina Peters’ attorney, Peter Ticktin, tells CPR News that her legal team has applied for clemency.  The Governor’s office later told CPR that it could not confirm a request for clemency for Peters because and said under state law that clemency applications are not a public record. 

Jan. 14, 2026: Peters’ case heard by Colorado appellate court 

A panel of three Colorado Court of Appeals judges hears arguments as to whether Peters received a fair trial and sentence at the district court level. 

Jan. 18, 2026: Peters is involved in a prison scrap 

Peters is seen involved in a tussle with another inmate at the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo.