Rutland, ND

June 7th and 8th are free fishing days for all North Dakota residents. That’s the weekend for Dad and the kids to get out there and enjoy the sport.  How about nearby Silver Lake?? Sorry Dads (or should I say Moms!), it’s not Father’s Day weekend this year. Non-residents are required to have a North Dakota fishing license.

Boats are required to have current registration and numbering, personal flotation devices (one per person), a throwable for boats larger that 16 feet, fire extinguisher for boats having permanently installed tanks or enclosed flammable storage, and an audible whistle for boats larger that 16 feet.

Send us your fishing photos!!

The Big “C” … Cancer.  That word makes us shiver in our boots.  My dad died of lung cancer in 1991 and my mother has successfully beaten cancer of the vocal chord and is now recovering from having her cancerous bladder removed.  Practically everyone has some story to tell about their family’s fight with cancer.  June 20 is the Sargent County Relay for Life.  Pam Maloney (Chairperson), Joan Lee, Diane Smith, Hilary Mehrer and I met on Wednesday after work to decide on a name, slogan, fundraising, and advertising among other details, for the Rutland Community Club sponsored Relay for Life team.  We are the Rutland Rockets (That used to be our basketball team.) and we will “Rocket to a Cure” as we work toward raising money for research of this terrible, frightening disease.  Other members of our team are Larry Christensen, Shannon Mehrer, Taryn and Brianne Maloney and Ione and Val Pherson.  We will be making theme baskets to raffle and hope to have the baskets available by May 19.  They will be in the Sargent County Bank in Rutland, so make sure you stop by and see what we have to offer.  On June 8 June 15 we plan on having a diner-type 50’s meal from 5:00 to 7:00 with hot dogs, hamburgers and root beer floats available for a free will offering.  It will be at this supper that the names will be drawn for the winners of the baskets.

The Rutland General Store is also sponsoring a team for Relay for Life.  Their slogan is “Love Me Tender”.  Members of their team are Laurie Greene, Shauna McKinney, Gretchen Van, Debra Liermark, Margie Johnson (Chairperson), Bertha Siemienieski and Renee Cramton.  They have begun their fundraising efforts with a garage sale.   They also have a canister in the General Store for people to drop change into, if they choose.

 Of course, both of Rutland’s teams will be selling luninaries.  We are working hard to raise lots of money for cancer research, but we’ll manage to have a lot of fun doing it.

A Rural Community Forum will be offered on Friday, June 13, 2008 from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm (CDT) at the ND Heritage Center, 612 East Boulevard Ave, Bismarck, as an informal opportunity to learn from each other. Various panels will be there to offer experience and group discussion around a number of issues including; re-use of school buildings, community operated cafes, stores, local foods, learning based vacation opportunities, and community endowment funds. The registration fee is $20 to cover lunch and the registration deadline is June 1. A registration form is available on the ND Community Blog site (click here).

The Rutland/Cayuga Rural Fire Department recently received a donation of $2,000 from Dickey Rural Networks (DRN) to be used towards the purchase of a new fire truck.  The Department request of $10,500 to purchase a first response vehicle from MyHometownHelper.com (aka Hamburger Helper) is presently being reviewed; the site will announce awards in about one week.  Keep up the good work guys!

Americans grow happier as they grow older, according to a University of Chicago study that is one of the most thorough examinations of happiness ever done in America.

The study also found that baby boomers are not as content as other generations, men are less happy than women, happiness can rise and fall between eras, and that, with age the differences narrow.

“Understanding happiness is important to understanding quality of life. The happiness measure is a guide to how well society is meeting people’s needs,” said Yang Yang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and author of the article, “Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States, 1972-2004: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis,” published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, the official journal of the American Sociological Association.

The research relies on data that social scientists consider the gold standard of happiness research—responses to questions about contentment with overall life gathered in the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center, which the National Science Foundation supports at the University of Chicago.

In another study in the same issue of the journal, University of Chicago researchers reported that, contrary to popular thought, older people do stay social as they age, often volunteering, attending religious services, and spending time with their neighbors.

Did they tell Rutland residents anything new???? (You can read more from this article through the University of Chicago.)

The United States is nearing the start of a tremendous demographic shift. Beginning in 2011, the first of 78 million baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) will start transitioning into retirement, kicking off an expansion in the number of elderly people that will continue for decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one out of every nine baby boomers will live to be at least age 90.

According to the Administration on Aging, our Nation will benefit in many ways from a larger population of older adults, a group that constitutes one of our greatest resources. Older adults support our society by providing millions of hours of volunteer, community, and civic service through formal organizations and a variety of informal arrangements. They enhance our communities and personal lives by sharing and transferring knowledge of cultures, values, and life experiences among generations. Thankfully, the contributions of older adults will continue to flourish in the coming years, since older citizens of today and tomorrow promise to be among the most active and engaged older adult populations in our Nation’s history.

This information is not new to Rutland as it is the “older adults” that are active and helping to revitalize our town to make it viable for future generations.

Bill Anderson’s pen has dried up. “The Rooster Crows” column ceased as of April 25, 2008. After more than 11 years, Bill retired from writing his weekly column which covered a lot of Rutland news as well as providing a spin on politics. Anderson began writing the column in 1988 and 1989. He resumed it again in April 1997. The column, featured in The Sargent County Teller, was something I looked forward to reading weekly. Lately I had been checking out “The Rooster Crows” directly online. Jeanne Leinen has gratiously taken the helm to get the Rutland news in The Teller (and also will be contributing to this blog soon).  Now we’re just hoping that Bill will take us up on contributing to this Rutland blog. How about it Bill?