North Dakota
Roots matter for award-winning regenerative North Dakota ranch family
MADDOCK, N.D. — On any given day, rancher Brian Maddock is out in the drift prairie near the town of Maddock that bears his family name, dropping hay bales on wind-scoured hilltops and hardpan soil where little else will grow.
From there, the cattle do the rest of the work. They eat, they trample, they fertilize.
Green rings begin to form where nothing grew, soft swells of emerald where cattle will graze again after they’re rotated in again from another paddock.
The soil, after years of careful management by the Maddock family, breathes again.
For that work, Brian and his wife Vicki, along with the entire Maddock family, recently received recognition as recipients of the Leopold Conservation Award, making them part of a growing lineage of farmers and ranchers proving that working lands can also heal themselves.
The transformations to the Maddock family’s 4,000 acres of ranchland didn’t come from a one-season fix. They were constructed one fence, one water line and one holistic grazing decision at a time.
For the Maddock family, it has been a way of life since the early 1990s when land they farmed near Devils Lake became inundated, forcing a shift to rotational grazing and other regenerative ranching practices.
The Leopold Conservation Award, administered by Sand County Foundation, is a nationally recognized honor celebrating outstanding voluntary conservation.
Named after conservationist Aldo Leopold, the award is now presented in 28 states. This is the 10th time the award has been given in North Dakota.
“We’re excited about the things we’re doing, raising the cattle the way we do, and we’ve changed so many things over the years,” Brian Maddock said. “In a lot of ways, it’s not more work, it’s easier.”
A pivot born of necessity
After attending a course on holistic land management through the Carrington Research Extension Center around 40 years back, Brian came back home with eyes wide open to a shift the family needed to make away from crops and toward cattle.
“That opened my mind up tremendously,” Brian Maddock said of the course.
The farm was struggling financially at the time, he said.
“He came back from that course and said we need to make changes in how we farm or we’ll have to quit farming,” said his son, Travis Maddock. “He realized, once he started looking at the whole of things, that as a farmer, he was failing to try to raise crops. He wasn’t making any money. It wasn’t going to work out.”
That soul searching led his father to understand where his strengths lay, which was managing cattle and grass, Travis said. The family looked at the land they had and saw a lot of dirt, but not much quality soil left.
“All the tops of these hills are blown right down to the clay. Can we build some soil? Can we look at that? So we start putting a lot of these principles into place,” Travis said.
From there, they started installing cross-fences, developing water systems and rotating cattle through around two dozen paddocks, eventually shifting marginal farmland with soils too thin to support crops to ones that can support cattle. That’s helped restore fertility to the land.
“That land is really designed to support cattle,” Travis Maddock said.
Through practices like livestock impact on the grassland and bale grazing, the family has been able to transform the land, he said.
“You put the bales out there and let the cattle graze them down,” Travis Maddcok said. “That gives you your soil health principles, you’ve got cover, you’ve got living roots in there, you’re increasing your water cycle, your nitrogen cycle. Underneath there, you get your microbes rocking and rolling, and they’ll build soil for you. That’s how you build soil.”
Travis talks about how, as a regenerative rancher, you really have to think about the two herds you need to manage.
“We’re feeding the cows, but we’re also feeding all those microbes in the soil. We need to feed them too, and they need to be thriving,” he said. “As long as we can have symbiosis between those two things, we have the opportunity to create something where good things are happening, whether it’s financially or ecologically.”
Since the first Leopold Conservation Award was given in 2003, the award has spread to recognize the positive things farmers and ranchers were doing across the country in stewarding working lands.
Lance Irving, vice president of Sand County Foundation, calls these recipients “quiet heroes” for the work they put into their farms and ranches.
“This is an opportunity to recognize actual working farms and ranches, where their livelihood is tied to their productivity, and how conservation is a tool in their toolbox to not only make them more environmentally resilient but also economically resilient,” Irving said.
Award winners are chosen by panels within their state designated by local partners that include the North Dakota Association of Conservation Districts, North Dakota Grazing Lands Coalition, and the North Dakota Stockman’s Association.
What stood out about Brian Maddock, Irving said, is that he’s never satisfied and always looking to improve his processes.
“He’s not doing it for himself, he’s thinking, how can I make it better for my kids, how can I make it better for my grandkids,” Irving said. “Folks of his generation willing to change what they’ve done for the last 40, 50 years, to try something new, is not something you see all the time, and that really stands out to me.”
Irving also points out the Maddock family motto of “Soil. Cattle. Family.” sums up their philosophy.
“If you take care of the soil, the soil will take care of the cattle. If you take care of the cattle, the cattle will take care of the family,” Irving said. “But that initial building block is taking care of the soil. You can’t do the others before you take care of the soil.”
Darrell Oswald, district manager for the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District, helped bring the award to North Dakota in 2015.
Judging is done by local leaders from agriculture, conservation, and state agencies.
“One thing I’ve noticed about all of the winners over the years is they all think holistically,” Oswald said. “They’re early adopters. They think outside the box. They’re not afraid to try things.”
The Maddock family is no exception, he said.
“Brian was an early adopter of multi-paddock adaptive grazing systems, and was thinking outside the box,” Oswald said. “They’re in an area where ranching is secondary to farming. They’ve carved out a living there, where annual cropping is generally king.”
As the
10th North Dakota family to receive the award
, the Maddocks join a roster of producers helping to shape regenerative agriculture in the state and region.
Other recent winners include Heaton Ranches in McKenzie, Bartholomay Kattle Kompany in Sheldon, Spring Valley Cattle in Glen Ullin and Sand Ranch near Ellendale.
“These are the elite of the elite of producers, in my mind,” Oswald said. “They’re profitable. They’re putting resources first. They’re in it for the long haul. They’re generational, and in theory, they want to farm and ranch forever and are working towards that. What they’re doing with the soil and resources is allowing them to do that, and that’s important.”
This mirrors national trends. Many Leopold winners began changing practices when their backs were against the wall — financially, ecologically, or both. Once they saw it work, they became advocates, showing neighbors what’s possible.
Irving notes that today’s regenerative ranchers don’t fit old stereotypes.
“The general public’s notion of what a farmer or rancher is not actually indicative of what this next generation is,” Irving said. “These are tech-savvy folks.”
Irving mentioned how they’re adopting GPS grazing collars, innovative water systems, soil sampling and tissue testing, and that there is more of this than ever before.
“In a way, agriculture kind of has its back against the wall, and you have to figure out how to do it, because not only is our food system relying on it, but also our rural communities,” Irving said. “Farms and ranches are the backbones of rural communities, and without them, that’s an entire way of life that becomes harder and harder.”
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a non-profit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org.
This story was originally published on NewsCoopND.org.
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BRECKENRIDGE — Coaches, teammates, friends and family gathered in the south parking lot of Breckenridge High School for another state tournament sendoff.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
This year, it was Troy Berndt taking the ceremonial convertible ride. He is headed to St. Michael-Albertville High School for the Minnesota Class A State Track and Field Meet on June 4-6.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
He will be running in the third heat of the 400-meter prelims, scheduled for 4:52 p.m. June 4. There are seven athletes in each heat, 21 total, and nine will advance to the finals at 6:20 p.m. June 5.
The top two finishers in each heat advance, along with the next three best times. Berndt’s personal best time of 50.67 has him seeded 13th, but the 10th-, 11th- and 12th-seeded runners are less than five hundredths of a second ahead of him. The eighth- and ninth-seeded runners are also close, at 50.33 and 50.39, respectively.
Berndt dropped nearly seven-tenths of a second from his previous personal best at the Section 6A West Subsection Meet on May 21, running 51.35, and shaved another 0.68 seconds off at the Section 6A Championships on May 28 with a time of 50.67. If he keeps lowering his time, he will have a shot at reaching the podium against the best runners in Class A.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
Results and photos will be available online immediately following the race June 4 and in the June 10 print edition of the Wahpeton Daily News.
Corbin Lee is a sports reporter for the Wahpeton Daily News and Richland County News-Monitor. Corbin can be reached by calling (701) 291-3551 or emailing corbin.lee@wahpetondailynews.com.
On this day in 1971, Rugby repeated as North Dakota’s high school sand greens golf champion behind medalist Dwight Stempson’s winning performance.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Rugby Repeats As Sand Greens Golf Champion
RUGBY, N. D. — Rugby repeated as North Dakota high school sand greens golf champion here Wednesday, posting a four-man total of 293 strokes for 18 holes.
Led by medalist Dwight Stempson’s medalist 36-35 — 71, the Panthers were eight strokes ahead of runnerup Stanley, which had a 301. Following were Garrison 311, Beulah 315, Leeds 322, Ashley 323, Bottineau 328, Pembina 329, Tioga 332, Parshall 341 and Hettinger 342.
Stempson and teammate Bruce Carlson each had one-under par 71s, but Carlson was unable to be at the regional and wasn’t qualified for individual honors.
Rounding out the Rugby totals were Delwin Wilson 40-37 — 77 and Dennett Hutchinson 35-39 — 74. Gary Kirchoffner, 41-39 — 80, was Rugby’s fifth entrant with the best four-of-five scores counted.
Runnerup Stanley was led by Steve Springan’s 34-38 — 72 and Joe Springan’s 36-38 — 74. Their two-man total of 146 strokes was good enough for the doubles title. Two strokes back with a 148 was the duo of Stempson and Wilson. Stan Saathoff and Mike Stepina of Garrison each had 76s for a 152 total and the Ashley combo of Steve Maier (76) and Dave Kretschmar (78) was fourth with a 154.
Stempson was the driving contest winner with a distance of 280 yards. Chris Knutson of Garrison headed the pitch and putt competition.
Kate Almquist is the social media manager for InForum. After working as an intern, she joined The Forum full time starting in January 2022. Readers can reach her at kalmquist@forumcomm.com.
Walhalla keeps the oldest buildings in North Dakota, fur-trade posts from the 1840s still standing near the Canadian line. Medora sits out in the Badlands, where a French aristocrat tried to build a beef empire in 1883. Garrison fishes one of the largest reservoirs in the country, and Jud has turned nearly every wall in town into a mural. The frontier era left marks across North Dakota that most of the Plains has paved over, and these ten towns still carry them. Each one holds a specific piece of the state’s history and geography.
Garrison
Garrison sits on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir the Garrison Dam holds back on the Missouri River and one of the largest reservoirs in the country. Anglers come year-round for walleye, northern pike, and chinook salmon, and the lake also draws boaters, campers, and shoreline hikers. In town, the open-air Heritage Park Museum preserves a one-room schoolhouse, a railroad depot, a country church, and a homesteader cabin from the turn of the last century. Fort Stevenson State Park, three miles southwest, marks the site of an 1860s military post with an interpretive guardhouse, a marina, a campground, and lakeside trails. Garrison leans into its self-declared title as the Walleye Capital of North Dakota with Wally the Walleye, a 26-foot fiberglass fish on Main Street.
Mayville
Mayville State University anchors this Red River Valley town in Traill County. The public four-year college opened in 1889 as one of the six original state normal schools authorized at North Dakota statehood, and its calendar still drives the town through Comet athletics, theater productions, and the annual Festival of Trees. Island Park, set along the Goose River where it runs through downtown, holds the town’s main recreation space with picnic areas, playgrounds, and a community pool. The volunteer-tended Rainbow Garden along the riverbank mixes themed plantings with folk-art sculptures. The Mayville Water Park runs its pool and slides from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Lisbon
Lisbon grew up along the Sheyenne River in Ransom County as a Northern Pacific Railroad town, and its 1889 Opera House, now restored and on the National Register, still hosts theater and music. Brick storefronts from the same era line Main Street. Just south of town, the Sheyenne National Grassland protects 70,000 acres of tallgrass prairie, the largest publicly owned tallgrass prairie in the country, with trails open to hikers, riders, and limited hunting. Prairiewood Vineyard, about six miles out, grows cold-climate grapes and pours tastings on weekends.
Fort Ransom
Fewer than 100 people live in Fort Ransom year-round, deep in the wooded Sheyenne River Valley. Fort Ransom State Park preserves the site of an 1867 Army outpost built to guard settlers and the wagon route toward the Black Hills, and it now offers camping, paddling on the Sheyenne, and cross-country skiing. The park’s Sodbuster Days each September run horse-powered farming, threshing, and traditional-craft demonstrations, and the Sheyenne Valley Arts and Crafts Festival fills it over the Fourth of July weekend. The town anchors the Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, a 63-mile route through some of the most varied terrain in the state.
Devils Lake
Devils Lake takes its name from the Dakota “Mni Wak’áŋ,” or Spirit Water, and sits beside the largest natural lake in North Dakota. Between 1993 and 2011, floodwaters more than doubled the lake, swelling it from roughly 70 square miles to over 200 and swallowing roads, farms, and woodland as it rose. Today it holds one of the most productive perch and walleye fisheries in the Upper Midwest. Graham’s Island State Park, on the western shore, is the main access point, with cabins, a campground, a swimming beach, and boat ramps. Fort Totten State Historic Site nearby preserves an 1867 military post with sixteen original buildings restored to tell its story through 1890.
Medora
Medora is the gateway to the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, set in the Badlands of western North Dakota. The Marquis de Mores, a French aristocrat, founded the town in 1883 and named it for his American wife, Medora von Hoffman; his Chateau de Mores hunting lodge still stands as a state historic site with the family’s original furnishings. The Maltese Cross Cabin, near the park visitor center, is the cabin Theodore Roosevelt used during his 1880s ranching years, the period that shaped his later conservation work. Each summer the Burning Hills Amphitheatre stages the Medora Musical, a Western-themed show running since 1965 in a natural bluff theater over the Badlands. The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame keeps permanent exhibits on ranching, rodeo, and Indigenous horse culture.
Walhalla
Walhalla, founded in 1845 on the banks of the Pembina River, is among the oldest towns in North Dakota. The Kittson Trading Post, built by American Fur Company agent Norman Kittson, stands at the Walhalla State Historic Site and is often called the oldest building in the state; the nearby Gingras Trading Post, the 1840s home and store of Métis trader Antoine Blanc Gingras, holds an equal or older claim. Pembina Gorge State Recreation Area cuts the deepest canyon in North Dakota, carved by the Pembina River, with trails for hiking, biking, and ATVs. Frost Fire Mountain runs downhill skiing and snowboarding in winter and an outdoor theater season in summer.
Valley City
Valley City earns its nickname, the City of Bridges, from the eleven bridges that cross the Sheyenne River and its tributaries within the city limits. The Hi-Line Railroad Bridge, finished in 1908 and listed on the National Register, runs 3,860 feet across the valley and stands 162 feet above the water, one of the longest single-track railroad bridges in the country. The town sits at the eastern end of the 63-mile Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, and Valley City State University, founded in 1890, keeps the local calendar busy with Vikings athletics and the annual Hi-Liner Days festival.
Jud
Jud holds fewer than 100 residents in LaMoure County and is named for Judson LaMoure, an early state legislator. Since the early 2000s, residents and visiting artists have painted murals across nearly every building in town, including the post office, the grain elevator, the fire hall, and several houses, turning the place into a walkable open-air gallery of prairie wildlife, rural scenes, and abstract patterns. The annual Jud Art Festival each summer brings in regional artists and live music. Most travelers come for the murals and the sight of an entire town organized around one creative project.
Bottineau
Bottineau sits a little over ten miles south of the Canadian border as the gateway to the Turtle Mountains. Its mascot, the 30-foot fiberglass Tommy the Turtle, went up in 1978 riding a 34-foot snowmobile and is billed as the world’s tallest turtle statue. Pride Dairy on Main Street is the last small-town creamery still operating in North Dakota, known for its Juneberry ice cream. Lake Metigoshe State Park, about fifteen miles north, offers boating, kayaking, fishing, and winter ice fishing. Bottineau Winter Park, the largest ski area in the state, runs ten runs across 200 vertical feet plus a tubing hill, and Dakota College at Bottineau, established in 1906, anchors the campus side of town.
Where The Frontier Still Shows
What these ten towns share is how much of the frontier they kept. The Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea shaped Garrison. The Sheyenne River Valley runs through Fort Ransom, Lisbon, and Valley City. The Pembina Gorge holds Walhalla on the Canadian border, the Badlands hold Medora, and the Turtle Mountains rise behind Bottineau. Each one still keeps its 19th-century buildings and the kind of small-town institutions that have closed almost everywhere else.
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