North Dakota
Port: On the demise of an important cultural bridge to North Dakota’s past
MINOT — It’s hard to describe how important a cultural event the Norsk Hostfest was.
I say “was,” using the past tense, because news this week is that the annual event, which had just completed its 46th year, is coming to an end.
The event was important to me as a descendant of Scandinavian immigrants. My maternal great-grandparents came to America from Norway, and homesteaded a farm near the Ryder area. The Hostfest was a way for me to connect to their cultural traditions, from food and music to the history of the Norwegian diaspora.
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The event was also important to my family. We spent years attending and working at the event. We were a host family for Scandinavian performers who traveled to Minot to entertain at the event. We even got some local media coverage in 2004 about four generations of my family volunteering.
I have so many memories from the Hostfest. For a while, when I was a paperboy for the Minot Daily News, I would go out to the festival early in the morning to sell newspapers door-to-door in the RV campgrounds. My grandma would tell me stories about her immigrant parents.
And the food! I once ate so much
rommegrot
— a Norwegian dessert pudding — that the resulting gastro-intestinal pyrotechnics are still a thing of family lore.
I even met famed political consultant Karl Rove at the Hostfest one year.
He was there to be inducted into
the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame,
and was being escorted around by former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. Apparently the two of them were friends from their College Republican days. They ran across me working at a booth. I was a part-time political blogger then. I hadn’t yet begun my full-time writing career.
I have so many happy memories from the Hostfest.
Now, it’s over.
“In recent years, the festival has faced significant increases in the cost of nationally recognized performers, as well as insurance, facilities, labor, and logistics,”
a press release from the Hostfest board said.
“At the same time, attendance levels have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, creating ongoing financial challenges that cannot be responsibly overcome.”
The pandemic certainly didn’t help the festival, and I think we can fairly blame some mismanagement, too. As the generation the event originally catered to began to die out there was little effort made to draw the interest of younger generations. It was expensive, too, making it cost prohibitive for younger families to begin the traditions of attendance that cultural event like the Hostfest depends on.
But it’s hard to ignore the involvement of Epic Companies,
which took over management of the event
for a couple of years post-pandemic before the company’s spectacular financial collapse prompted its exit from the arrangement. Epic had tried to take the event in a new direction, away from its cultural roots and toward some sort of a modern music festival, and it just didn’t work.
After years of failing to adapt to modern audiences, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and poor management by Epic Companies, Minot and North Dakota are losing a treasure.
A bridge to our past.
A preservation of an important part of our state’s history.
I’d like to think that the Hostfest will be replaced with something new that will continue to preserve Scandinavian heritage in our area, but it probably won’t be. To be clear, some preservation continues. The
Scandinavian Heritage Association,
which maintains the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, will endure, and that’s a good thing. They do wonderful work.
It’s just not the same.
It feels like we need things like the Hostfest now more than ever. So many in our society, nearly all of them descendants of previous waves of immigration, have adopted a pronounced hostility to new generations of immigrants. They’ve committed themselves to making it clear that those new immigrants aren’t welcome. Which is why it’s important for us to remember our own immigrant past. The joys and the struggles and the warts.
The Hostfest was a part of that. Now it’s gone. So it goes.
Greg Power, fisheries division chief with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, shares information about the new 2026-2028 Fishing Guide and a few new regulations starting April 1, 2026.
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SIOUX FALLS — Ali Stephens had 17 points and 13 rebounds and 8th-seeded Omaha defeated 9th-seeded North Dakota 49-39 in the first round of the Summit League women’s tournament.
The Fighting Hawks had a tough time putting the ball in the hoop all night long, scoring just three points in the first quarter and having only marginally better luck from there.
UND (7-24) shot just 23.5 percent from the floor (12-for-51) and made 1-of-20 shots from outside the arc. Walker Demers and Mackenzie Hughes had 10 points each to lead the Hawks, with Demers adding eight rebounds.
Matt Zimmer/Sioux Falls Live
Regan Juenemann had 10 points and five rebounds for the Mavericks while Avril Smith had seven points and 16 rebounds and Sarai Estupinan eight points, five assists and three rebounds. Omaha (6-26) shot the ball slightly better than the Hawks, going 16-of-53 from the field (30 percent) and 8-of-23 (35 percent) on 3-pointers.
With the win, the Mavs earn a date with top-seed North Dakota State on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.
The Bison won both regular season matchups by more than 50 points.
Matt Zimmer/Sioux Falls Live
Oral Roberts 84, Kansas City 62 — Don’t look now but the team that started the conference season 0-10 and at one point lost 15 of 16 games might be the hottest in the Summit League.
Oral Roberts picked up their fourth straight victory on Wednesday night in the conference tournament opener, routing Kansas City at the Premier Center in the 8/9 “play-in” game.
Ty Harper had 22 points to lead the Golden Eagles (10-22), who took a 44-21 lead by halftime and never looked back. ORU shot 50 percent from the floor and made 13-of-27 3-pointers while the Kangaroos shot just 34 percent and made 6-of-24 from deep. Martins Kilups had 17 points for the Eagles and Connor Dow added 14.
Jayson Petty had 14 points to lead the Kagaroos, who finish the season 4-27. It was their final game under coach Marvin Menzies, whom the school announced earlier this season would not return next year.
With the win ORU advances to face top-seed North Dakota State on Thursday at 6 p.m.
The Golden Eagles lost to NDSU 86-58 in Tulsa on Jan. 24 but they took the Bison to overtime in Fargo on Jan. 3 in a 79-77 loss.
Matt Zimmer is a Sioux Falls native and longtime sports writer. He graduated from Washington High School where he played football, legion baseball and developed his lifelong love of the Minnesota Twins and Vikings. After graduating from St. Cloud State University, he returned to Sioux Falls, and began a long career in amateur baseball and sports reporting. Email Matt at mzimmer@siouxfallslive.com.
North Dakota
The North Dakota Attorney General issued an opinion to the ND State Auditor – North Dakota Attorney General
04 Mar The North Dakota Attorney General issued an opinion to the ND State Auditor
in Opinions
March 4, 2026
Media Contact: Suzie Weigel, 701.328.2210
BISMARCK, ND – It is the opinion that federal law does not prevent the state from auditing P&A and even though P&A possesses confidential records, N.D.C.C. § 54-10-22.1 and 42 C.F.R. § 51.45(c) authorize the state auditor and the employees of the auditor’s office, to review the records without detriment to P &A.
Also, whether Rule 1.6 of the North Dakota Rules of Professional Conduct for licensed attorneys prohibits P&A from disclosing to the State Auditor the contents of a client file for the purpose of conducting a non-financial performance audit under N.D.C.C. ch. 54-10 when the requested file includes information about individuals and businesses in the private sector who chose to contact P &A.
This issue was already addressed in a 1995 opinion of this office regarding P&A. The 1995 opinion highlighted that P&A has authority to contract with private attorneys to represent private individuals. 17 During that performance audit, auditors asked to see billings from the contracted attorneys. 18 P&A redacted the names of the individuals represented by the contract attorneys under the rules for attorney-client privilege or attorney-client confidentiality. 19 The names of individuals seeking services of P&A are protected under N.D.C.C. § 25-01.3. The opinion stated:
Thus, P&A’s records which indicate to whom its services were provided are available to the State Auditor for performance audit purposes. The State Auditor has
been given access by P&A to its records other than the attorney’s billings. Therefore, the State Auditor already has access to the names of the persons to whom P&A
provides services. State law requires that the State Auditor and his employees must keep such information confidential.
Here, P&A has not identified a specific record. Given that, I rely on the past opinions declaring that records made confidential by N.D.C.C. § 25-01.3-10 are available under N.D.C.C. § 54-10-22 to the State Auditor and the Auditor’s employees for audit purposes.
Link to opinion 2026-L-01
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