North Dakota
Business Pitch Competition open to South Central North Dakota residents
JAMESTOWN — In 5 minutes, you could pitch a business idea that could win you $1,250.
The Jamestown Regional Entrepreneur Center is hosting a Business Pitch Competition for entrepreneurs in December.
“That’s a great way for, say, somebody who is a hobbyist and thinking about starting a business to get some feedback from a panel of judges who represent both entrepreneurs and academics in the field of business,” said Katherine Roth, executive director, Jamestown Regional Entrepreneur Center, of the competition.
The competition is open to anyone living in the South Central region, Roth said, which includes nine counties: Barnes, Dickey, Foster, Griggs, LaMoure, Logan, Stutsman, McIntosh and Wells.
“So it can be somebody at the university level or they’re not in school,” Roth said. “They could be retired and looking to start something new. It’s really open to anybody who feels that they have a business idea that they’d like to pitch and they’re comfortable with sharing that.”
Roth said last year, there were 18 entrants for the prizes.
Gage Thompson of Valley City, North Dakota, was a student at the University of Jamestown when he won the competition in 2022, which came with a $3,000 prize. He graduated that same year with a degree in financial planning and wealth management. Thompson, owner of Thompson Hay at Valley City, said he pitched the expansion of the business, which launched in 2021. He said he’s still in the start-up phase.
“We’re an alfalfa and grass-producing farm,” he said. “We sell a lot of our products to the equine market and we also do some specialty packaging and ship … miniature bales or boxes of hay or bags of hay all across the United States” used for rabbits, guinea pigs and smaller exotic animals. They also provide products to cow and calf operations around Valley City.
… It’s really open to anybody who feels that they have a business idea that they’d like to pitch and they’re comfortable with sharing that.
Katherine Roth, executive director, Jamestown Regional Entrepreneur Center
Thompson said participating in the Business Pitch Competition and winning helped in several ways.
“The funding — it did help with offsetting my cash rent for the acres that I rent,” he said. “So that helped a little bit with that. But it also gave me, I guess you could say … the confidence, you know, to go in front of these lending institutions and seek that money for expansion.”
He said he later presented the plan to a bank and it was approved. He said he enjoyed the Business Pitch Competition.
“Going through the process of planning something and presenting it and then eventually after that, executing the plan, it was a lot of fun to do it,” Thompson said.
Prizes for the 2023 Business Pitch Competition, available through a grant from USDA Rural Development, are first, $1,250; second, $1,000; and third, $750. Prizes for fourth and fifth place are $500 scholarships offered by the University of Jamestown, Roth said. The university offers certificate programs and classes that the scholarships can be applied to, she said.
The deadline for entries is Friday, Dec. 1. Business Pitch Competition submissions are reviewed by a panel of judges and finalists will be chosen. Presentations should be emailed to
Katherine.Roth@uj.edu
.
A presentation event date will occur between Dec. 1-15 based on the schedules of finalists and judges. Each presenter will have 5 minutes to present a business idea virtually to the three-person panel of judges. The judges will have 4 minutes to ask questions to understand more about the viability of the business. Each individual or team may present one idea or concept.
Roth said previous judges have included a marketing professor, a consultant who has been a trainer for the Small Business Development Center and an entrepreneur who has received state grants.
“They’ve gone through the process, they know how it is,” Roth said.
The nonprofit Jamestown Regional Entrepreneur Center is also offering a free workshop on Nov. 13 on “How to Write a Business Plan,” which Roth said “is a great way to really put those thoughts together” before the competition.
For complete rules and more information on the Business Pitch Competition, visit
https://bit.ly/45EWuQP
Kathy Steiner has been the editor of The Jamestown Sun since 1995. She graduated from Valley City State College with a bachelor’s degree in English and studied mass communications at North Dakota State University, Fargo. She reports on business, government and community topics in the Jamestown area. Reach her at 701-952-8449 or ksteiner@jamestownsun.com.
North Dakota
Illinois State Gets 1st Win Over North Dakota, 35-13
(AP) — Wenkers Wright ran for 118 yards and two touchdowns and No. 13 Illinois State knocked off North Dakota for the first time, 35-13 in the regular season finale for both teams Saturday.
The Redbirds are 9-2 (6-2 Missouri Valley Conference) and are looking to reach the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2019 and sixth time in Brock Spack’s 16 seasons as head coach.
Illinois State opened the game with some trickery. Eddie Kasper pulled up on a fleaflicker and launched a 30-yard touchdown pass to Xavier Loyd to cap a seven-play, 70-yard opening drive.
Simon Romfo tied it on North Dakota’s only touchdown of the day, throwing 20 yards to Nate DeMontagnac.
Wright scored from the 10 to make it 14-7 after a quarter, and after C.J. Elrichs kicked a 20-yard field goal midway through the second to make it 14-10 at intermission, Wright powered in from the 18 and Mitch Bartol caught a five-yard touchdown pass from Tommy Rittenhouse to make it 28-10 after three.
Seth Glatz added a 13-yard touchdown run to make it 35-10 before Elrichs added a 37-yard field goal to get the Fighting Hawks on the board to set the final margin.
Rittenhouse finished 21 of 33 passing for 187 yards for Illinois State. Loyd caught eight passes for 121 yards.
Romfo completed 11 of 26 passes for 135 yards and a touchdown with an interception for North Dakota (5-7, 2-6).
Illinois State faced North Dakota for just the fourth time and third time as Missouri Valley Conference opponents. The Redbirds lost the previous three meetings.
North Dakota
Photos: Championship scenes from North Dakota Class A, Class B state volleyball
FARGO — Top-seeded Langdon Area-Munich lived up to its billing Saturday night at the Fargodome.
The
Cardinals earned a 15-25, 25-16, 25-15, 25-16 victory
against No. 2-seeded South Prairie-Max to earn the North Dakota Class B volleyball state championship.
Bismarck Century spoiled West Fargo Sheyenne’s bid for a three-peat. The
Patriots scored a 25-21, 18-25, 25-15, 25-22 victory
for the Class A state championship.
Century won its 10th state title in program history.
Below are championship scenes from Saturday night at the Fargodome:
Peterson covers college athletics for The Forum, including Concordia College and Minnesota State Moorhead. He also covers the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks independent baseball team and helps out with North Dakota State football coverage. Peterson has been working at the newspaper since 1996.
North Dakota
North Dakota Badlands national monument proposed with tribes’ support
A coalition of conservation groups and Native American tribal citizens on Friday called on President Joe Biden to designate nearly 140,000 acres of rugged, scenic Badlands as North Dakota’s first national monument, a proposal several tribal nations say would preserve the area’s indigenous and cultural heritage.
The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would encompass 11 noncontiguous, newly designated units totaling 139,729 acres in the Little Missouri National Grassland. The proposed units would hug the popular recreation trail of the same name and neighbor Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th president who ranched and roamed in the Badlands as a young man in the 1880s.
“When you tell the story of landscape, you have to tell the story of people,” said Michael Barthelemy, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and director of Native American studies at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. “You have to tell the story of the people that first inhabited those places and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the landscape, how the people worked to shape the land and how the land worked to shape the people.”
The U.S. Forest Service would manage the proposed monument. The National Park Service oversees many national monuments, which are similar to national parks and usually designated by the president to protect the landscape’s features.
Supporters have traveled twice to Washington to meet with White House, Interior Department, Forest Service and Department of Agriculture officials. But the effort faces an uphill battle with less than two months remaining in Biden’s term and potential headwinds in President-elect Trump’s incoming administration.
If unsuccessful, the group would turn to the Trump administration “because we believe this is a good idea regardless of who’s president,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said.
Dozens if not hundreds of oil and natural gas wells dot the landscape where the proposed monument would span, according to the supporters’ map. But the proposed units have no oil and gas leases, private inholdings or surface occupancy, and no grazing leases would be removed, said North Dakota Wildlife Federation Executive Director John Bradley.
The proposal is supported by the MHA Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe through council resolutions.
If created, the monument would help tribal citizens stay connected to their identity, said Democratic state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, an MHA Nation enrolled member.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service. In a written statement, Burgum said: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly develop our vast energy resources.”
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven’s office said Friday was the first they had heard of the proposal, “but any effort that would make it harder for ranchers to operate and that could restrict multiple use, including energy development, is going to raise concerns with Senator Hoeven.”
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