Anamoose, ND

That’s what we need to get our Anamoose Area Foundation Fund moving. The Foundation concept is simple-to create a fund where gifts from many people are pooled together and professionally handled through the ND Community Foundation.  Each year the income will be used to fund projects in the community.  Through a matching grant program in the ND Community Foundation  we need to collect $25,000 in the first year, and the ND Community Foundation adds $5,000.  In subsequent years, the ND Foundation will match dollar for dollar up to $10,000, with a bonus if we can raise $25,000.

To start, we are using the $10,000 that we will receive at the end of June for our 18 month committment to the Horizons Leadership program.  We have received over $7,000 from businesses and individuals, so we have less than $8,000 to go to reach our goal for the year.  We have mailed out letters to Anamoose area people and businesses, and made some personal contacts.  This week we are mailing out letters to all alumni that graduated before 1971. 

Dennis Zimmerman and Bill Goodwin will be putting up a thermometer on Main St. that will keep track of our Foundation Fund.  Pam Heim is our artist for the project. . 

That is the only way to describe my reaction when I went to Schmaltz’s Greenhouse this morning and saw all the beautiful flowers.  Mike has a huge flower pot filled with Vista Bubblegum Petunias that he said “will trail over the pot 3 ft. by the end of July”.  The greenhouse is open Monday thru Friday from 9am to 8pm, Saturday from 9am-6pm, and Sunday from 12 noon to 5pm, or “until the last customer leaves”. 

Mike employs 4 workers-Monica Schmidt, Tiffani Schmaltz, Rachael Rott, and Brady Schmaltz.  Each year Mike supplies 3-4 different greenhouses.

Pictured are:  Geranium greenhouse/ assortment of flowers/ Mike & large flower pot ( & his dog Rocky)/ Mike & hanging basket of petunias/ Monica & Tiffani triming flowers/ Begonia baskets.

     A small group of crafters met at the Anamoose Senior Citizens Center today for the April Craft’s Class.  The ladies made a photo display using 6 of their personal photos and hanging them on fishing line and chipboard from a 7″ wire ornament hanger.  Participants this month were: Leela Springer, Marlene Whitaker and Kathy Rademacher.  Instructor was Mardi Helm.  Classes are open to everyone and are held monthly.

     St Francis Xavier Catholic Church participated in the First Annual World Wide “Run With Passion” walk from the church to the cemetery on Saturday morning.  Bruce Bachmeier of Fargo, formerly of Anamoose set up the walk and has a web site set up @ http:www.passionistvolunteer.org.  The Passionist are a family of Roman Catholic religious vowed for Gospel life and service.  They are committed to keep alive in people’s hearts the memory of the passion and suffering of Jesus.  Prayers were recited during the walk.  A kind benefactor has sponsored the walk which is a fund raiser.

The city of Anamoose is happy to announce the wedding of Ana and Joe on June 28th, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. at the city park.  Ana is at last joining Joe on the welcoming billboard as you come into town.    A program is planned with speakers, music, poetry, pictures  in the park, mock wedding and a free catered supper.  Shirts and buttons will be sold and the proceeds will go to the Anamoose endowment fund.  We certainly hope that you will mark this day on your calendar and help us celebrate  this great event.

EVERYONE WELCOME!!!!!

I attended the Grant Writing seminar at Devils Lake yesterday.  Lynette Krenelka from UND did an excellent job in explaining the difficult process of grant writing.  She gave us a big fat folder for our evening reading enjoyment.  After the initial planning, the next step (and the hardest) is to find a company that gives grants that fit our needs.

Moose Wally from Walhalla was at the meeting.  At least I know there was someone else there that didn’t have a clue before Wednesday on how to write a grant.  Liann Zeller, Walhalla, said they are going to have to bring Wally to Anamoose June 28th when Joe and Ana-moose are getting married and maybe Wally can find a girlfriend here.  If you have any girl-moose friends please let me know so I can line up a little match making at the wedding. 

Pictured are:  Grant writing class, Towner County at Grant Writing class, Luann & Wally, Dr. Lynette Krenelka & Wally, myself & Wally

The Anamoose Wildlife Club held a hunter education class in the new fire hall this past week. There were members of the Wildlife Club that are certified to teach the class. They were Mark and Corinne Engen, Jackie Martin, Steve Heim, Doian Anderson, Alan Martin, Jeff Lemer, LJ Dusek, and Jason Isac.

Janice Buchholz & I discovered that Anamoose is not the only community with housing concerns.  There were many communities represented at the Housing meeting in Steele yesterday.  It was interesting to listen to the towns tell of their housing situations.  Hazelton had advertised they would give 2 free lots & a cash incentive to people coming to live there.  They got 500 calls!  People told them “we want out of the city-the crime, the cost”.  If any community needs help with housing they should contact: Jolene Kline, 701-328-8072, or 1-800-292-8621 or email her at jkline@ndhfa.org

In Anamoose right now we have some very nice affordable homes for sale.  The ads for them are on the Anamoose web site at http://www.anamoose.com/  You can email aheer@gondtc.com  for more information on homes.  Pictured is 5 of the 7 homes that I know of that are for sale.

Pictured- Back- Kari Weninger, Kellie Sieg, Brianne Johnson
Front- Rachel Rott, Ashley Weninger, Jessica Rott
On Saturday April 5 the Drake-Anamoose High School choir attended the regional music festival in Minot. This festival is very large with many Class B schools throughout North Dakota attending. Only about 1 of 5 songs are allowed to star to go to the State Festival. Two Anamoose Girl’s pieces did star, one being a small group song and the other a duet which both will be going to state on May 3 in Minot.

We are lucky in Anamoose to have a wide age spectrum in our bloggers.  Kaya and Brianne know what is going on with the school and young people activities.  Mardi, Phyllis and I are involved in many Anamoose organizations and activities. 

Pictured are:  Brianne Johnson, Kaya Engen, Phyllis Zimmerman, Alyce Heer and Mardi Helm. 

I can really tell that spring is here when I walk in the early morning.  On the outskirts of Anamoose I hear the geese honking.  Then as I walk the streets in Anamoose I hear different songbirds.  LaDonna Goodwin tells me they are probably meadowlarks and robins singing.  Some are very loud like they are scolding each other, so are probably blue-jays. 

At the Tourism conference in Cooperstown on March 27th,  we hear from Floramay Miller that birding is very popular in ND and birders from foreign lands come to ND.  “Birders” are more avid bird watchers in that they keep lists-how many bird species seen in a year, a “big bird count”, etc.  Seeing 300 birds in a year in ND is good, but one man in Bismarck saw 325.  Seeing 400-500 birds in a life time is good, but now the top number is 600. 

Some birds, like the Harris Sparrow, only fly the central flyway.  Anamoose is in a good location for seeing birds as the birds from the east coast and west coast overlap here. 

We have 3 birding trails in the Anamoose area.  We have a brochure-Central Dakota Birding Drive- that is available at the Anamoose Bakery/Cafe.  In the brochure it lists at least 35 birds seen here, starting with the Piping Plovers, Swainson’s Hawk, short eared owl, Gray Partridge, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Franklins’s Gulls, Black-terns, & on & on. 

The picture shows Floramay Miiler and David Lambeth, speakers at the conference.  I was surprised when yesterday I read in the ND Medicine-UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences about Lambert, PhD.  “For Lambert, who’s retiring in June, birding has offered a much-needed opportunity to recharge his spirit”. 

We had our informational public meeting Saturday on Home Rule.  Jerry Hjelmstad of the League of Cities explained to us how we would benefit from home rule.  He told us that 1/3rd of the ND communities now have home rule and 4 are in the process of setting it up.  The advantages of home rule are: 1.  Flexibility. 2.  More power for us community members as we can refer and initiate petitions.  3.  The city government will have the ability to add a sales tax.  One hundred twenty ND communities now have sales tax.  4.  The city government can combine mills and put them where needed. 

We will be voting on home rule at the regular election on June 10th.  Home rule is one of our goals in our strategic plan. 

The Anamoose Seniors again served food on Sunday when they served Spaghetti and meat balls for their annual spring Sunday event.

There are always plenty of willing workers as you can see in the picture.  Pictured are: Lillian Schmidt, Dorothy Thomssen, Angie Kesler, LaDonna Goodwin, Esther Doubek, Theresa Rudnick, and Janice Buchholz. 

The Senior Citizens had a raffle of two table clothes and napkins.  Pictured are the winners: JoEllen Ehrman(left), Esther Weigelt(center) who made and donated the table clothes, and Angie Kesler. 

Janice Buchholz and I attended a tourism conference in Cooperstown last week.  I just got a new computer so I am finally able to blog on the conference.  Annette Schilling, ND Tourism Dept, told us that ND tourism brings in 3.8 billion dollars.  The average visitor is 41 years old with 64% married & 1/2 are college graduates.  I just heard on TV that a college graduate makes one million dollars more in his life time, so over 1/2 of the tourists have a good income.  Later we learned from Sara Otte Coleman, Director, ND Dept. of Tourism, (pictured below) that we would be paying $636 more in taxes if not for tourism.  For every $1 spent on tourism, we get back $1.35.  ND is promoting the “Legendary theme”. 

Web sites are important to attract tourists.  Fifty two % of the visitors book on the Internet and only 4% book with travel agents. 

Ben Klipfel, UND Marketing Director, gave an excellent talk on Innovative Marketing.  He stressed “know thy community” and know what you are good at.  One place in Alaska charged $5000 a night for a shack to watch the northern lights and people were very willing to pay that amount.  One lady in the audience told how she heard that they were promoting that Japanese children conceived under the northern lights are smarter.  If only we could think of a good promotion like that in Anamoose. 

Tuesday I took this picture of Jonathan Asmus who lived in Anamoose from 1960 to 1957.  He is a typical visitor who comes back to visit friends or family.  Jonathan was on his way to serve as a pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church in West Bank, BC.