ELDRIDGE, N.D. — Two young boys are dead and six other people are in the hospital after an SUV went off Interstate 94 by Jamestown.

The North Dakota Highway Patrol says shortly after 5 p.m. Monday, July 15, an SUV with one adult driver and seven children was headed east when the SUV went off the interstate and then rolled into a slough.

The 1997 Suburban landed on its side in the water.

Stutsman County Sheriff Chad Kaiser says the slough is about 9 feet deep due to all the rain this summer.

The adult driver, a 30-year-old woman from Cleveland, North Dakota, was taken to a Fargo hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries.

One girl was also flown to a Fargo hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Four other children were taken to the hospital, but are expected to survive.

A dive team located the bodies of the two other boys after a four-hour search in the water.

They were found about 20 feet from the SUV.

Kaiser said the fire department had to drain part of the slough as it was difficult to search due to a large amount of weeds.

The highway patrol says the age range of the children was between 3 and 11.

A family member said that the two boys who were killed were 7 and 10.

Kaiser said a passerby helped one child get out of the water. It’s unclear how the others got out.

Everyone involved is related and from the Jamestown area according to police and family.

The highway patrol says it is too early to say why the SUV went off the road.

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.

DICKINSON, N.D. — The president of Dickinson State University in North Dakota announced his resignation on Monday, days after the school’s nursing faculty quit.

In a video, Steve Easton announced his departure and acknowledged “turmoil between some in the faculty and the administration.”

Seven faculty members resigned Wednesday, KFYR-TV reported. Former Assistant Professor of Nursing Trista Keith told the station that the nursing faculty were notified their accreditation has been in jeopardy in recent years. She also cited insufficient time and resources for faculty to meet the accreditation requirements, among other reasons the faculty resigned.

Easton said the North Dakota Board of Nursing prohibited him and other administrators from looking for new nursing faculty.

“If I cannot do whatever I can for our students, including looking for faculty members so the students can continue their education, I cannot do my job because fighting for students is my job,” Easton said.

In a statement, the board said it did not force Easton’s resignation or disallow hiring but on Friday had issued a standard notice to the university “of multiple nursing program shortcomings for review” at a coming board meeting, due to the faculty departures.

Easton also said he had been told financial supporters of the school might leave if he remained. He said he will stay on through a short and orderly transition. It wasn’t clear when his last day will be.

In statements, State Board of Higher Education Chair Tim Mihalick and North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott praised Easton’s leadership.

Easton was named president of Dickinson State in March 2020 after several months serving as interim. During the 2023 legislative session, he supported a controversial and unsuccessful tenure review bill that opponents said would infringe upon academic freedom and threaten schools’ accreditation.

Dickinson State had a fall 2023 enrollment of nearly 1,500 registered students. Fall semester classes begin Aug. 26.

MINOT — To understand what I’m about to relate to you, you must first understand just who it is that the North Dakota Republican Party sent to Milwaukee as delegates to the GOP’s national convention.

The list of delegates is a who’s-who of the NDGOP’s far-right flank. Among them is Lori Hinz, one of the NDGOP’s national committee members, who has been

outspoken in her criticism of Gov. Doug Burgum

and, specifically, the possibility that former President Donald Trump might choose Gov. Doug Burgum as his running mate. Not among the delegates (they were relegated to alternate status) are Burgum, his wife Kathryn, Congressman Kelly Armstrong, and U.S. House nominee Julie Fedorchak. Just to to put an exclamation point behind that factoid, Burgum may well be chosen as VP at this convention, but was not chosen as a delegate by the NDGOP convention.

Hinz has

lambasted Burgum on social media,

calling on Trump’s vetters to “do some on-the-ground investigation rather than jumping on the bandwagon so blindly, relying on purchased favorable articles, sycophants, and skewed internet searches.”

Also among the attendees is state Rep. Matthew Heilman, state Sen. Donna Henderson, failed U.S. House candidate Rick Becker, Jeff Hinz (husband to Lori), Paul Henderson (husband to Donna), Andrea Toman (who managed Becker’s failed campaign), District 10 legislative candidate Jared Hendrix and a laundry list of other names that anyone familiar with North Dakota politics would recognize as Burgum’s enemies.

These delegates were elected at the NDGOP’s state convention,

which was controlled by a far-right wing of the party

that is deeply out of touch with North Dakota’s larger Republican electorate.

Now, the story: These delegates may be planning a public protest against Trump’s choice of Burgum, if that is indeed the choice he makes.

That’s based on multiple sources in Republican leadership, including some traveling to Milwaukee as alternate delegates.

The concern over these potential protests is so high, one prominent Republican told me, that the North Dakota delegation has been seated at the back of the convention hall. “They’re basically seated in a hallway that’s almost kind of off the convention floor,” one in-the-know source told me. “The only view they have is forward. The only way they can look is forward, and they have two whips assigned to them.”

State Auditor Josh Gallion, who is chairing the delegation, told me he hadn’t heard anything about a potential protest. “I’m not aware of anything like that,” he said via text message while working his way through convention security.

If Burgum is chosen as VP —

and, reportedly, we may get that announcement as soon as today

— you would expect that convention organizers would want his home state delegates front and center in the crowd. It could be that they’re not because Burgum isn’t the pick. Or it could be that organizers don’t want an anti-Burgum demonstration to make the broadcast at the convention.

This sort of revolt from convention delegates against their own party leaders is rare, but not unprecedented. During the 2016 cycle,

North Dakota delegates censured then-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp

for her support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign over that of Sen. Bernie Sanders. The rebuke was so sharp that Heitkamp

did not cast her votes

for the presidential candidate at the convention.

Burgum has been a popular governor. He was elected in landslides in 2016, and 2020, and, had he sought a third term, would have won reelection handily, I think. His aspirations for vice president have the vocal support of North Dakota’s congressional delegation — including Sen. Kevin Cramer, Sen. John Hoeven and Rep. Kelly Armstrong (currently campaigning to be our next governor).

But ironically, despite the effort he’s put in to

ingratiate himself with Trump and his political movement

in previous weeks, Burgum has never been popular with the NDGOP’s Trumpiest factions.