North Dakota
Sen. John Hoeven announces $100 million UAS investment in Grand Forks
GRAND FORKS — Over $100 million in federal funding will be going toward Grand Forks’ UAS and aerospace tech network, including $4 million to bring an Albuquerque-based innovation hub to the region to help develop local programming for startup companies.
The HIVE will partner with Q Station, which primarily works with space and aerospace technology companies in New Mexico, and the funding will be used to help Q Station expand its operations into the area and help support new and emerging UAS companies.
“Q Station will help us accelerate our growth in attracting these entrepreneur companies that want to make things happen,” U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, said at an event at the HIVE on Monday, Feb. 16.
Q Station is also a partnership intermediary of the Air Force Research Lab.
Thomas Swoyer, president of GrandSky, the sister company to the HIVE’s management company GFHive Management, said he’s excited to begin working with Q Station.
“It’s such a gift to be able to work with a partner that has such good capability and experience in exactly the areas that we need to deliver some of that capability at the HIVE,” he said.
Q Station will be helping to develop programming and support the HIVE’s accelerator programs, Swoyer said, which will allow GFHive Development to focus on bringing in more members to the hub and building more partnerships with other companies.
He added Q Station has recently started expanding into the UAS market, and this partnership would also allow the HIVE to help Q Station as it expands into that industry.
Randy Trask, CEO of Q Station, was also present at Hoeven’s presentation about the investment on Monday and expressed his excitement for the upcoming partnership.
“The momentum and the energy is contagious, and we’re really excited to get behind this mission that you created,” he said.
Some of the programming Trask said Q Station plans to implement includes events that can connect early-stage companies with investors and resources, business consulting, UAS challenges for not only local companies but also companies nationally and internationally and STEM education and outreach in public schools and at UND.
He also hopes Q Station will be able to help bridge the UAS sector and the space sector, highlighting the overlap those two industries are already seeing in technological challenges and solutions.
Along with announcing the HIVE’s partnership with Q Station, Hoeven also announced several other aspects of the Grand Forks Tech Ecosystem that will be benefiting from federal funding. That ecosystem includes the University of North Dakota, the UAS Northern Plains Test Site, GrandSky, Project ULTRA and several missions through the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
Half of the total $100 million will go toward supporting the Space Development Agency’s low-Earth orbit satellite mission in Grand Forks. That funding will connect satellites at the Air Force base to ground receivers to increase the flow of information from space.
UAS and counter-UAS research and development in North Dakota will receive $33 million, with local companies and entities like Ideal Aerosmith, UND, Space Dynamics Laboratory and more eligible to receive that funding.
Technology Applications Group, a Grand Forks company manufacturing corrosion-resistant magnesium coatings for parts used in things like drones, will receive $10 million out of a total $20 million meant to support the development of similar protective coatings for equipment and vehicles for the Department of War. That grant is in addition to $6 million that Hoeven secured for TAG last year to help build a new production line for the company.
“We’re going to put an addition on this building that we’re in now … so that we are truly sustaining for the military, so they know that there’s going to be a place where they get the absolute best coating,” said Bill Elmquist, president of TAG.
Other funding that would benefit the local UAS market includes $18.5 million for research and development of hypersonic technology and $37.5 million for other defense research and operations in the Red River Valley.
Some of the funding will also benefit UND’s programs for aerospace research and studies. Mark Askelson, associate vice president of research-national security at UND, said that funding includes $3 million will go to the university’s Vets2Wings Program, which helps veterans receive flight training and transition to the airline workforce; $1 million for helicopter training; and $2 million for food safety resilience for the military.
“It’s an amazing thing, as part of my career, to have an opportunity to be a part of what’s growing here,” he said.
North Dakota
The Democratic Spirit: Reflections on North Dakota History and the Declaration of Independence at 250 – America250
A state and national public forum comprising a lecture, and then a question-answer session. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture commemorates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and explore its enduring significance in American life. Appiah’s scholarship on ethics, identity, and cosmopolitanism offers a unique lens for examining democratic ideals in a diverse society. By connecting these themes to North Dakota’s historical narrative, the forum fosters civic engagement, intellectual discourse, and cultural understanding within our community.
FARGO — Drivers can expect to see a slight uptick in gas prices as a result of the Iran conflict.
As of Monday, March 2, the average for North Dakota is $2.65 a gallon. While that is a $0.13 increase from a month ago, it is significantly lower than prices a year ago.
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GRAND FORKS – The Study ND, formerly Humanities North Dakota, has received $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for a statewide theater and humanities initiative in recognition of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
This commemorative investment is meant to bring historical events and figures – such as the framers of the U.S. Constitution – to life through virtual and live performances that celebrate the nation’s history.
The grant, along with funding from private sources, has made it possible for The Study ND to host “America 250” activities after the organization sustained a considerable cut in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities last year, according to Brenna Gerhardt, The Study ND executive director.
“We absorbed a 50% budget cut, resulting in a loss of $467,645 in funding,” Gerhardt said. “As a result, we had to significantly scale back our American 250 initiatives focused on American history and civics education.”
Funds received from the National Endowment for the Arts will be used to present public readings, theatrical portrayals and guided discussions to encourage audience members to reflect on the nation’s founding in 1776 and on its democratic ideals, while engaging in contemporary conversations about civic life.
All of the programming in the series organized by The Study ND, titled “American Heroes,” will be livestreamed statewide.
In the grant application submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts, “we framed the project around a simple idea: democracy requires more than information, it requires citizens who can think historically, listen well, and argue in good faith,” Gerhardt said.
“This series uses living history performances to bring consequential figures into the room, then turns the room into a civic space through moderated dialogue and related public events. We define ‘heroism’ as civic courage under pressure, the willingness to contend with hard truths, and the capacity to enlarge a community’s moral imagination,” she said.
“The project does not ask audiences to agree on a single interpretation of a figure. It invites them to grapple with complexity together, and to connect the past to the responsibilities of the present.”
When Gerhardt and her colleagues received the application for grant proposals from the National Endowment for the Arts, “we were already planning a line-up of America 250 events and it fit perfectly with what we were already planning, so then we just wrote the grant,” she said.
Private funds, including matching funds from the Bismarck-based Tom and Frances Leach Foundation, have also been provided for this project.
Details about all the events will probably be posted on the website
www.TheStudyND.org
in March, Gerhardt said.
The America 250 events, which are planned to take place at Bismarck State College, are 5-6 p.m. July 8, “Reading of the Declaration of Independence, with John Adams,” and 6-7:30 p.m. July 9, “Alexander Hamilton Speaks,” both performed by William Chrystal.
The Living History programs are planned for 7-8:15 p.m. Sept. 17, “Thomas Paine,” performed by Doug Mishler, and Oct. 6, 7-8:15 p.m, “Frederick Douglass,” performed by Nathan Richardson. Both will be moderated by Susan Frontczak.
The performers Chrystal and Richardson live in Virginia, Frontczak in Colorado,and Mishler in Nevada.
Another program, “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” is set for Sept. 16-18 at Bismarck State College, Gerhardt said. “It is part of our broader Chautauqua/living history programming connected to America 250 … (and) will feature performances and discussion centered on Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, using their lives and writing as a way to explore major questions about American identity, war reporting, public memory, and the stories we tell about freedom, conflict and responsibility.
“What I am excited about with this event is that it gives us a way to approach America 250 beyond founding-era material. In other words, it helps us show the American story is not just about 1776, but also about the generations that followed and how Americans wrestled with democracy, power, truth and moral courage.”
This program “expands the initiative beyond commemoration into reflection, dialogue and interpretation, which is where the humanities are especially valuable,” she said. “It helps us reach audiences who may be drawn in through literature, journalism and performance, not only traditional history events.”
The Hemingway and Gellhorn program fits in with America 250 in that “it broadens the frame and adds depth to the larger effort.”
Gerhardt is hoping that these activities will give participants “a better understanding of all the debates and issues going on when our country was founded, and how those debates are continuing today,” she said, “and just to be more thoughtful and informed citizens.”
College students and members of the general public will also be invited to participate in a workshop aimed at teaching participants how to build a living history performance from primary sources and historical research.
Last year, The Study ND lost a substantial amount of funding – nearly $468,000, about half of its annual budget – from the National Endowment for the Humanities for its fiscal 2025 year.
The loss of that much funding was discouraging, Gerhardt said. “Very much so, because we had a lot of activities planned for America 250 and we had to cancel a lot of them, or – like in this case – seek other funding, which we were lucky to get.”
The Study ND currently has four full-time employees, she said. “We eliminated a part-time marketing position after the cuts.”
A nonprofit organization, The Study ND provides civics, arts and cultural education programming. The organization’s programs – which include online classes, book talks, lectures and more – reached about 24,000 people in 2024, Gerhardt told the North Dakota Monitor in April 2025.
During the summer, the organization hosts a civics education program for high school and middle school social studies teachers, she said.
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