MCVILLE, N.D. — Nobody knows the land around North Dakota better than farmers, and that knowledge proved critical after a bizarre car crash in Nelson County.

Sheriff Kurt Schwind said an unnamed farmer’s help was lifesaving after rescue crews called off an initial search for the occupants of the vehicle and nearly halted a second one.

If the second search had been called off, Schwind said, two men likely would have frozen to death.

County dispatch received the call about the crash around 6 a.m. on Dec. 9; the caller became disconnected.

“Says he was sleeping, he was in the car with a couple guys, he was sleeping, woke up they were gone, the vehicle was crashed so he started walking,” Schwind said.

The call came from a refurbished phone, so officers were not able to call the person back, but a cellphone ping brought them to the farmstead.

Bodycam footage obtained by WDAY shows a Nelson County sheriff’s deputy talking with the farmer, who was curious about all of the police activity on his property.

After searching for about an hour and a half, police called off the search until sunrise.

“It was so dark and we had some blowing snow and stuff like that, so it was really hard to see anything at that point,” Schwind said.

When the sheriff returned after sunrise, the farmer showed him something.

“That’s when the landowner realized that this gate had been broken through,” Schwind said.

The tracks the farmer and police followed for a half-mile through a cow pasture were still visible days later. A wire fence was also driven through. It led investigators to the top of a ravine, and several hundred feet below, they spotted a four-door car.

“How they got through there with that BMW is amazing, because we had to use four-wheel drive, and we struggled getting down there,” Schwind said.

At about the same time, Schwind found the man who called 911. He had climbed the ravine and sought shelter in some hay. He had no shoes or coat. He told police he was alone.

“He was in bad shape. As soon as I got him into my vehicle, he had uncontrollable shivering; he was very incoherent,” Schwind said.

As the sheriff raced the man to the hospital, the farmer, who had stayed at the top of the ravine, made another key discovery.

“He got his binoculars out and saw him sitting in the trees,” Schwind said of another man.

It took rescue crews nearly an hour to rescue the second man. According to WDAY StormTRACKER meteorologists, the wind chill was below zero.

“I think if the landowner wouldn’t have met me back over here, that we would have been recovering as opposed to finding,” Schwind said.

The sheriff said the men were traveling from Grand Forks to Devils Lake, but it’s unclear how long they were in the ravine and how they ended up several miles off the main road.

“They both had phones that had charges left in them,” Schwind said. “For some reason, they didn’t call — they only called that one time and didn’t call again.”

While WDAY News was talking with the sheriff for this story, a deputy found a jacket, boots and phone a couple hundred feet from where the first man was found in the hay. What looked like methamphetamine was found in a pill container in the jacket pocket.

The Nelson County Sheriff’s Office plans on presenting the farmer with an award for his lifesaving help.

The Sheriff’s Office is still investigating to determine if the men will face charges.

McVille is about 67 miles southwest of Grand Forks.

Matt Henson is an Emmy award-winning reporter/photographer/editor for WDAY. Prior to joining WDAY in 2019, Matt was the main anchor at WDAZ in Grand Forks for four years.

BISMARCK — North Dakota’s population count is gaining momentum as it reaches a record of 796,568 in 2024, an increase of over 7,500 people since last year and more than 2% since 2020, according to census data.

According to population estimates released Thursday, Dec. 19, by the

U.S. Census Bureau,

Cass County exceeded the 200,000-resident mark by 945 people and Burleigh County hovered over 100,000 residents with a count of 103,107.

The two counties combined accounted for over 58% of the state’s growth in the last year.

“People continue to discover North Dakota’s abundant job opportunities, low taxes, strong education and health care systems, and unmatched quality of life with world-class outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing,” Gov. Kelly Armstrong said in a Thursday release.

The release also noted a net population increase of more than 18% since 2010, calling North Dakota one of the fastest-growing states in the country, though the Midwest overall had the lowest net population increase.

Most of the 43 states that grew in 2024 were southern states.

North Dakota’s population rise is part of a nationwide trend the Census Bureau attributes broadly to international migration and “natural increase” — when births outnumber deaths.

North Dakota had a natural increase of 2,725, with 6,867 deaths and 9,592 births in 2024.

While the state lost nearly 300 people to domestic migration, it gained 5,126 people by international migration for a net gain of 4,835 people moving into the state in 2024.

The U.S. population surpassed 340 million and grew by nearly a full percent between 2023 and 2024, the highest growth in decades, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Nearly 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million new residents are associated with international migration.

Natural increase accounted for about 15.6% of national growth in the U.S. in 2024, with 519,000 more births than deaths — up from the historic low in 2021 when births outpaced deaths by 146,000.

“An annual growth rate of 1.0% is higher than what we’ve seen over recent years but well within historical norms,” Census Bureau Demographer Kristie Wilder

said in a Thursday release.

“What stands out is the diminishing role of natural increase over the last five years, as net international migration has become the primary driver of the nation’s growth.”

Since the last Census release, the bureau adjusted its migration estimate to account for a “notable” increase in “non-U.S.-born immigration” — the number of refugees, people released by U.S. Border Patrol and by those held on parole by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations.

As a result, the 2024 international migration totals appear inflated in retrospective comparison to totals from previous years.

North Dakota officials see “legal immigration” as an opportunity to address statewide workforce shortages,

as recent population growth isn’t enough to fill the state’s nearly 30,000 job vacancies.

“We look forward to working with the state Legislature in the upcoming session to set North Dakota up for even greater success and population growth, including addressing much-needed property tax reform and relief,” Armstrong said in the Thursday release.

FARGO — A new community coalition is on a mission to guarantee every North Dakota child has access to healthy meals at school, regardless of family income.

The Together for School Meals coalition launched this week with more than 30

local organizations

backing the cause.

Made up of professionals in fields ranging from food security organizations and family advocacy groups to teachers and administrators, the coalition seeks additional support ahead of the upcoming legislative session, which convenes Tuesday, Jan. 7.

The coalition will recommend to North Dakota legislators that they provide $140 million in state funding over the next two years to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free meals to all students.

Formed by Prairie Action ND, the coalition aims to have breakfast and lunch included in the School Meals for All program.

Melissa Sobolik, CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, said more than 156,000 North Dakotans relied on the food bank in 2023. They included more than one in every three children, making a permanent solution to food insecurity urgent.

“It’s the highest ever for those numbers in our 41-year history,” she said.

Robin Nelson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club and Fargo school board member who is a spokesperson on legislative issues, said there are many benefits to every child getting healthy meals at school.

School attendance and academic success typically increase when children receive proper nutrition, she said, and anger issues decline when they’re not hungry and undernourished.

Nelson said it’s important to include all children in meal programs, not just those whose families are in lower income brackets.

“Some families hide that they are having issues with their bills. We just want to make sure that no child is left out, and provide every student with the optimal tools to help them succeed,” she said.

Coalition member Tony Burke, government relations director for the American Heart Association, said the U.S. is looking at a cost of $1.8 trillion for health care around chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, by 2050.

He said much of that is fueled by the increasing prevalence of obesity — a trajectory that could change if all children receive proper nutrition.

“We know everything we go after is research and evidence based. We know that investing now will save us in the long run,” Burke said.

During the last legislative session, a bill to provide free lunches at a cost of $6 million over two years for children in families at 200% of the federal poverty level,

fell one vote short of approval in the state Senate after passing in the House.

Lawmakers did end up allocating $6 million to school meals for qualifying families, but the funding was temporary.

A companion piece of legislation known as the anti-lunch shaming bill did receive approval,

ensuring that children who had unpaid school lunch bills weren’t shamed by being fed an alternate, cheaper lunch.

However, an unintended consequence of that bill, Nelson said, was that school districts were to forgive unpaid meal debt using dollars from the pot of funding that pays teachers.

“We do not want this (free meals) included in the per pupil payment. It needs to be separate,” Nelson said.

Fargo Public Schools currently has unpaid school meal debt of $72,000, which could reach $125,000 by the end of the school year, she said.

A new poll shows North Dakotans largely support state involvement in providing free school meals.

Results from the North Dakota News Cooperative poll released last month

showed 82% of respondents in favor and only 14% opposed. A total of 65% “strongly favor” providing free meals at schools.

Support was generally high among all age groups, while most opposition came from men over 55 years of age, the poll indicated.

Nelson said she and others in the coalition will track and advocate for all free school meals legislation during the session.

“That is the goal of this coalition, to make this a higher priority for our state legislators,” she said.