MINOT, N.D. (KMOT) – One of the highlights of every North Dakota State Fair is the Fur Traders Rendezvous.

A familiar face returned this year, along with a canoe he made at the fair several years ago.

The rendezvous brings fairgoers back to the time of the fur traders.

Those who take part in the rendezvous live, and even sleep, on the grounds for the duration of the fair.

Jeremy Duckwitz, who is referred to as the ‘brain tanner,’ said he carved a canoe out of a giant log back in 2016.

He said it took him all nine days of the fair, working eight hours a day to carve it.

He brought the canoe back to the fair this year to seal the cracks with his team and have it on display.

“This year I got around to sealing all the cracks with beeswax. There was a larger crack we sealed with pine pitch and wood shavings, and then the rest of it’s all linseed oil so it’s all ready to float down the Missouri River,” said Duckwitz.

Duckwitz said he plans on taking the canoe out on the river in the coming weeks.

The rendezvous is across from the state fair center on the north end of the grounds.

They’ll be open through Saturday.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — For the first time since his Senate career began, Sherrod Brown has failed to earn the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police’s endorsement for re-election — and the union cites the Democrat’s tweet about a controversial shooting.

The Ohio FOP in 2006 endorsed then-Sen. and now-Gov. Mike DeWine, the Republican who lost his seat to Brown in an upset.

Since then, Brown has won the support of law enforcement, deftly navigating the blue-dog politics of an ever-reddening state. But not this year.

“It came down to a tweet,” said Mike Weinman, Ohio FOP spokesman and a retired officer who was paralyzed in the line of duty. “There was a shooting here, and Sherrod, instead of taking time to listen and talk to us and understand the situation, did what all these people do now and got on his phone. Brown made a comment. It’s a shame.”

The incident Weinman refers to dates back to 2021, when Columbus cop Nicholas Reardon fatally shot 16-year-old foster child Ma’Khia Bryant after responding to a domestic-violence call. He arrived at the scene to find Bryant swinging a knife at another young child in the home. 

“When he arrived it was complete chaos,” Weinman told The Post. “She was using a weapon on an unarmed person so he had to unfortunately use his service weapon to neutralize the scene. Nobody in that house including the officer is happy that happened, let me tell you. But Brown spoke out quickly against the officer, and a lot of people I think remembered that during the vote.”

The senator tweeted one day after the April 21, 2021, shooting and tied it to another event that day: a former Minneapolis cop’s conviction for killing George Floyd.

“While the verdict was being read in the Derek Chauvin trial, Columbus police shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl. Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant. She should be alive right now,” Brown wrote.

Bryant’s death also sparked Black Lives Matter protests — she was black, Reardon is white.

But the officer was cleared of wrongdoing, with a grand jury declining to charge him after a review found the shooting justified.

Weinman also says further “statements” from the senator about police may have cost him more votes.

“People here genuinely don’t know where he stands on things like George Floyd and qualified immunity. Our voters know their stuff, and he just wasn’t being clear enough about where he stands. Brown has always been great for supplies, vests, helping us get resources. But I think now our people aren’t as sure they can trust him,” he told The Post.

Weinman explained the endorsement process: An FOP committee screens a small batch of candidates for office. The approved candidates are then brought up for a floor vote. 

“They called his name, and it was time,” Weinman said. “He missed it by four votes.”

Brown’s Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, won’t receive the FOP endorsement this year either, but Weinman says this has more to do with procedure than politics.

“In the past, if a candidate failed to get the votes on the floor, a member could make a motion to suggest a new name, and we could have an immediate, direct vote,” Weinman said. “This year we changed that. Only names from the screening committee could be voted on, and only Brown made it past them.”

The committee passed on Moreno due to his lack of political experience.

“He’s too new,” Weinman said. “Great businessman, potential for sure. But he has to prove it. Like Vance did.”

By this, Weinman is referring to a similar vote in 2018 when then-Senate candidate J.D. Vance was able to win the prized endorsement over more experienced competitors.

“Vance really worked for it. He campaigned. Moreno ran out of time,” Weinman said. 

He also confirmed the Ohio FOP will not be making any additional statewide endorsements for 2024.

Brown is the only prominent Democrat left in the soon-to-be-solid-red Ohio, making his race with Moreno one of the most expensive and closely watched in the nation.

Brown maintains a 6.5-point lead over Moreno, but experts expect endorsements like this one and Vance’s emerging role as a national campaigner to have a significant effect on the Buckeye State.

Gov. Kristi Noem formally requested Friday a major disaster declaration from the Biden administration for 25 counties due to the severe flooding that occurred in eastern South Dakota between June 16 and July 8.

Noem signed an executive order declaring a disaster exists in the following South Dakota counties: Aurora, Bennett, Bon Homme, Brule, Buffalo, Charles Mix, Clay, Davison, Douglas, Gregory, Hand, Hanson, Hutchinson, Jackson, Lake, Lincoln, McCook, Miner, Minnehaha, Moody, Sanborn, Tripp, Turner, Union, and Yankton.

According to the National Weather Service, the rain event that created this flooding was a 1,000-year event.

“Today, we are submitting our request for a presidential disaster declaration to address the damage from a historic 1,000-year flood that impacted South Dakota,” Noem wrote in a Friday press release. “We have been working with families, local governments and officials, and FEMA for weeks to assess the damage. I am so proud of what South Dakotans have been able to do to start piecing our communities back together.”

A presidential disaster declaration provides a wide range of federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including funds for both emergency and permanent work.

The recent flooding inundated communities and damaged infrastructure across eastern South Dakota. The McCook Lake community in North Sioux City was hit by floodwaters diverted from the Big Sioux River on July 23, destroying about 30 homes and eroding roads.

A BNSF railroad bridge used to transport goods over the South Dakota-Iowa border in North Sioux City also collapsed July 23 due to the flooding.

Some parts of Canton also received more than a foot of rain between June 20 and June 22, almost exactly a decade after the 2014 flood that struck the area.

One person died as a result of the flooding. The state Department of Public Safety confirmed the death involved 87-year-old Merlyn Rennich, of Harrisburg, who crashed a UTV on a closed road near Lake Alvin, 5 miles east of Harrisburg. The road was damaged by the floodwaters, and the man died after reversing into the road’s washed-out shoulder while attempting to turn around.

More: DPS confirms fatal crash near Lake Alvin was flood-related

The release from Noem’s Office states that teams from the Office of Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been on the ground conducting thorough damage assessments across the impacted areas, working closely to assess the extent of the damage and coordinate the necessary response efforts.

“This thorough damage assessment was normal protocol for a presidential disaster declaration, and it’s an important part of the process to make sure all eligible counties and citizens are included,” said Kristi Turman, Director of the Division of Emergency Services at the South Dakota Department of Public Safety.

At least 11 river gauges hit new preliminary record-high levels, according to the Governor’s Office. The Big Sioux River at Sioux City crested nearly eight feet higher than previous records. New record crests were set at the following locations:

• Big Sioux River at Canton, Hawarden, Akron, Richland, Jefferson, and Sioux City;
• Vermillion River at Davis, Wakonda, and Vermillion;
• West Fork Vermillion River at Parker; and
• Turkey Ridge Creek at Centerville.