Cavalier County
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Republican
Single Copy Volume 135
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In this issue:
Copyright © Langdon, North Dakota
Legislative updates from Senator Myrdal and Representative Monson can be found on Page 4. Find Girls Basketball District coverage on Page 10.
Index
OPINION AG CHURCH COMMUNITY PRO DIR PN SPORTS CLASSIFIED
PAGE 4 PAGE 5 PAGE 6 PAGE 7 PAGE 8 PAGE 9 PAGE 10-12 PAGE 13
Monday, February 22, 2021
Number 8
St. Alphonsus School exceeds goal on Giving Hearts Day By Linda Timian Republican Writer
Find the latest from the Cavalier County Commission on Page 3.
Official Newspaper of Cavalier County Published since 1889
Giving Hearts Day is an annual 24-hour fundraiser founded in 2008 for charities in North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. It was held on February 11 this year and raised $21,933,941 from 41,960 donors throughout the area. St. Alphonsus was one of the non-profit organizations involved for the first time this year. Principal Carrie Hope heard about Giving Hearts Day from Nyk, her husband, who heard about it on the radio. Hope’s friend, Sarah Hinnenkamp, also brought her more information on the program. Hope and Hinnenkamp investigated the process of being involved and dove in. “To start the process, you must fill out an application and then participate in a phone interview,” explains Hope. Once you are accepted in the Giving Hearts Day program, you attend training webinars to make sure you are prepared for the big day.
There are deadlines for the different steps along the way. “I was very lucky to work with a supportive school board and Sarah Hinnenkamp,” said Hope, “and together we did all the behind-the-scenes steps necessary to have a very successful first year! Sarah was so much help, and her wonderful talent was much needed and appreciated. We all worked together as a team to have lots of fun, make great memories, and have a successful event.” Hope promoted the event through newspaper articles and social media posts. The school board promoted the event through talking with commu- came, everyone wore red, en- made with the students in it. nity members. Students were joyed heart cookies for dessert “All the money that is colalso involved. When the big day at lunchtime, and a video was lected through checks for Giving Hearts Day is sent directly to our s c h o o l ,” s a i d H o p e . “Through the Giving Hearts Day program, we set up a profile that was linked for donators to make donations through their webcont. on page 2
Health advocates urge suicide awareness instruction for grades 7-12 Cardinal Vision TV streams LAHS activities Senate bill aimed at helping students with mental health issues Cardinal Vision is channel like to manage the channel this allow for school districts to collaborate with other districts and provide instruction through virKennedy Gjovik told a North tual learning. Heckaman said Dakota legislative committee the bill was modeled after Gjothat she attempted her first sui- vik’s personal experience as someone who didn’t get help at cide at 10 years old. “I was in the third grade when school. The North Dakota Youth Bethe cyberbullying started,” she havior Risk Survey of 2019, the said. “I was added into a group chat that kids from my previous most recent survey conducted school were in. The first message was, ‘Why don’t you go kill yourself?’” Gjovik, now a college freshman, testified in front of the Senate Human Services Committee on February 9 in favor of Senate Bill 2311. The bill sponsor, Sen. Joan Heckaman, D-New Rockford, said the bill would get mental health re- by the North Dakota Departsources and information to stu- ment of Public Instruction, suggests Gjovik is not alone. The dents. “It should be taught directly survey showed 30.5% of high to students,” she said. “An as- school students reported feelsumption that if the resources ing sad or hopeless for at least are out there, students will ac- two weeks in a row, an increase of 1.6 percentage points from cess them, seems a little thin.” SB 2311 would require all 28.9% in 2017. Nearly one high schools to add to their health school student in five, 18.8%, curriculum instruction on men- said they had seriously contemtal health awareness and sui- plated suicide in the 12 months cide prevention, instruction on leading up to the survey in 2019, identifying risk factors, identify- a 2.1% increase from 16.7% in ing at-risk peers, and availability 2017. “That is telling us right now of resources. The bill also would
By Dylan Sherman NDNAEF
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we haven’t been going in the right direction,” Heckaman said. “This is very sad in the day and age that we live right now. There are plenty of things we can do.” Gjovik said she hopes this bill can help students who face similar mental health issues as she did while in school. One way would be to make sure that school personnel notify parents or authorities when they believe a student is at risk. “In sixth grade, the school guidance counselor found out I was self-harming,” she said. “The guidance counselor did not tell my family or the authorities.” When she was 14, Gjovik said, she had a friend who took his own life. “I didn’t know how to handle [the situation],” she said. “If I had more information, maybe I could have saved my friend.” Gjovik said it was difficult for her to tell her family about what she was going through. “I didn’t want to let them down or see me struggle,” she said, adding that she believes the proposed cont. on page 2
578 on United Communications television service. It is a dedicated channel for the Langdon Area School designed to give the school the ability to put live content like sports and concerts as well as pre-recorded content on the television for the community. The channel has proven beneficial during the COVID-19 restrictions. “It allows many fans to watch games that previously may have been restricted in attendance,” said LAHS Principal Ethen Askvig, “and provides other local area fans the ability to watch events without having to travel to the school.” A team from United Communications met with the LAHS administration and the business education teacher, Tanner Groth, to see if they were interested in the service, which they were. United donated the equipment and service at no cost to the school and contracted a person to train Mr. Groth, who integrated the curriculum into his multimedia class. LAHS student Lexi Olson took that class last spring, and Askvig asked her if she would
year. She is taking the individual technological design class taught by the technology and engineering teacher, Rich Olson, and working on Cardinal Vision is a portion of that class. “I write a report every week for it,” said Lexi, “what I did, what I accomplished, new content I’ve done, what I’m going to do next week, my goals.” Lexi creates a pre-recorded loop that plays on the channel continuously until streaming a live event takes over. After the live event, the channel goes back to playing the loop. The live event is recorded while streaming, and Lexi edits it for content later, taking out spaces and adding transitions. She then adds that recording to the loop and takes out old, recorded content from the end of the loop so that it stays up-to-date. Lexi enjoys creating original content and editing the recordings using tools and skills that she has learned throughout the process. “My original content shows are one of my favorite things
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