North Dakota
High school students fill UND Memorial Union to compete in North Dakota Esports Tournament
GRAND FORKS – Evan Guilmino, a sophomore from Minot North High School, sat studying the skills and strategies of possible competitors in the Super Smash Bros video game as he prepared for a championship game Saturday afternoon, March 29, in the North Dakota Esports State Tournament at UND.
“This is my first year (in esports),” said Guilmino, who specializes in the character King K. Rool in the Super Smash Bros game. But “I’m also getting good at Mortal Combat.”
These are a couple of the seven games that students in grades 9-12 were competing in, either individually or in teams, during the state tournament.
Guilmino was one of 268 high school students at 36 schools throughout the state who gathered for the tournament Friday and Saturday, March 28 and 29, hosted by Fenworks at the UND Memorial Union.
“I get to meet new players from around the state,” he said, “and get to show off a little bit.”
Pamela Knudson / Grand Forks Herald
“Esports,” which is short for “electronic sports,” involves organized, competitive video game competition. It engages students in an environment steeped in “camaraderie and community,” said Hayden Sherva, marketing coordinator at Fenworks. “Of course, there are rivalries, like other sports, but (esports) is bringing them together.”
“It aligns very closely with other traditional sports,” Sherva said. “Everyone likes to have something they’re good at, that they can invite their families and friends to, invite new friends to, and show off the skills they’re learned.
“It brings a lot of students out of their shells,” he said, recalling the story of a very shy student who transferred into a Dunseith, North Dakota, school. He was so proficient in video gaming he was asked to be captain of the school’s team.
The student underwent “radical change,” Sherva said. And “he played a big role in helping the GM (general manager) organize esports” at that school.
Esports is “very communication-based,” he said, and offers students an avenue to “befriend others in their school that they may not have met before.”
Sherva’s employer Fenworks, a Grand Forks-based company, promotes esports career pathways to students. This is the fourth time Fenworks has hosted the North Dakota state competition in Grand Forks. Earlier this year, it hosted state tourneys in Wyoming, Minnesota and South Dakota, Sherva said.
Surveying the Memorial Union filled with esports tourney participants, UND President Andy Armacost said, “It’s incredible to have all these students here. There’s such a sense of teamwork and camaraderie.”
Having walked by a winning Minot team, he said, “you can see the pride (on their faces).” UND launched a bachelor’s degree in esports about five years ago, but esports draws interest from majors and non-majors alike, he said. Several esports labs are available for student use in the Union’s lower level.
“It draws (students) from all over campus,” Armacost said.
In the past, video gaming was viewed differently than it is now, Sherva said. The stereotypical notion of a young person spending time isolated in the basement playing video games is no longer true thanks to esports.
The skills students learn from participating in esports – such as strategic thinking, leadership and effective communication – are applicable to many careers fields.
Students benefit from enhanced “self-confidence, which is so important for every single aspect of life,” Sherva said. “And the team-building aspect is there.”
Pamela Knudson / Grand Forks Herald
In addition to “soft skills,” students learn to become more comfortable with technology and more digitally literate, preparing them for work in “really anything STEM related,” he said. “In most workplaces, it’s hard to get a job if you don’t know how to use a computer.”
And esports presents a wide variety of job opportunities including photography, live-streaming and “casting,” a role similar to the announcer at a sporting event.
The field offers an abundance of “real-world opportunities to get a real job” in today’s market and in the new careers that are unfolding, Sherva said.
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.
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