Key Ingredients Community Pages

by Jessie Veeder Scofield

Jessie Veeder Scofield is a singer, songwriter, photographer, and writer who lives and works on her family’s 3,000-acre cattle ranch in western North Dakota with her husband Chad. She keeps a record of ranch life on her popular blog, Meanwhile, back at the ranch..., provides regular commentary on Prairie Public Radio’s program Hear it Now, weekly columnist for the Fargo Forum, and performs her original music throughout the Midwest. Visit veederranch.com for more information.

Medina, ND

October 20, 2012 - December 2, 2012

Driving through the neatly kept streets of Medina, population 355, past the even lines of a new corn field and the granary near the railroad tracks, one might be inclined to label this a quiet place. But inside the cabs of tractors just off of I-94, between the walls of farmhouses, schools and the café on Main Street, there exists a passion for a heritage and lifestyle that is responsible for feeding the world.

Welcome to Stutsman County, where the people don’t take this duty lightly.

“This is a community rooted in agriculture,” said Sue Balcom, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for FARRMS, a local organization that provides education in organic farming and processing. “This is Medina!”

Balcom speaks enthusiastically among the community members she’s asked to gather around a table in the back of the Medina Café where each Wednesday they serve homemade chicken and dumplings and run out before the noon hour is over.

And the town comes to life as each character who contributes to an area rich in heritage and uncertain about the future introduces themselves as retired teachers, historians, a CEO, a restaurant manager, a former cheese factory owner, and third-, fourth-, and fifth-generation farmers.

They have all gathered in the name of community-minded pastor and friend, Karl Limvere, who recently passed away and left them with the determination to continue to pursue Limvere’s passion for agriculture and community conversations about their role in the food supply.

It’s a topic familiar to an area that once laid claim to several large dairy producers, a cheese factory, and now boasts a population of certified organic farms second nationally only to California. Medina is also home to the International Certification Services (ICS) office that provides agricultural and food operations with the proper certification.

And as the corn along the edge of town reached toward the early summer sun, talk around the table moved from farming to Medina’s rich German heritage and the roast beef dinner served every year at the Fall Festival. There was a discussion about how they used to haul 500-pound barrels of cheese out of town on semis and trains and how important the railroad had been to the town’s establishment in 1881. Someone mentioned the difficulty that came with the arrival of the interstate and soon talk turned to the future.

It turns out the interstate that sent travelers one mile north of Medina in the early 1960s wasn’t the only change that had an effect on the growth of this agriculture community. Although most of the farms in the area have remained in the family, the operations are growing larger, the equipment is more expensive, and the option of CRP is allowing people to stay on their farms longer.

Regardless of how time has changed the industry, Becky Heupel Reich, a dairy farmer who lives and works alongside her husband and eight children on the family’s farm, believes that those with a passion will work hard to remain in the industry.

"People have farming in their blood and will do what it takes to stay here,” said Heupel Reich.

Committed to the lifestyle, the Reich family schedules events around milking and gets their children involved as soon as they are old enough to feed calves.

“We are the only people we know who are college-educated, have worked for 30 years in the same job, and who are still getting paid the same,” said Reich, in a voice filled with urgency. “It’s a result of a disconnect in the understanding of how food gets to our plates.”

This is the issue that the people of Stutsman County are working to combat. And they are starting with future generations. In a school of 155 students, 95 percent of them are actively involved in the Future Farmers of America and 4-H programs and many continue participation into the last year of high school.

The schools in Medina also work with Balcom’s employer FARRMS by participating in the organization’s Farm-toSchool Program, a program that connects schools and local farms with the objective of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias.

FARRMS also works to educate the public on starting their own small farming operations and to encourage them to learn about their food supply.

“People in our state have knowledge about farming that we are going to lose,” said Balcom. “We need to educate young people, let them get their hands dirty.”

With that, each person at the table in the Medina Café, the people who have collectively made one man’s mission their own, nod their heads, stands up to say goodbye while they make plans for the next 4-H meeting, to help a neighbor get their cows in, and to meet on Wednesday in the café for homemade chicken and dumplings.

Bottineau, ND

December 8, 2012 - March 10, 2013

Gerilyn Shepp shuffles through a stack of papers on her desk as she sits at the front of a humble building along the streets of Lansford, North Dakota. Every morning Shepp wakes up before the sun to fulfill and deliver thousands of orders for homemade wet salads throughout the tri-state area.

Shepp’s kept this schedule since opening Shepp’s Deli 17 years ago as a dream, not only for her family, but for the future of her community as well.

“I love rural living and I wanted to keep my business here to provide this area with jobs,” Shepp said.

And Shepp, who grew up cooking and gardening with her mother on their family farm, has fought to keep her business, not only operating, but thriving, in a town with a population of only 300. Throughout the history of Shepp’s Deli, Shepp has grown her business from two employees offering two products to today’s operation of 27 employees working to prepare and distribute 65 products, many made with North Dakota agricultural products.

In one week Shepp’s Deli processes 15,000 pounds of North Dakota-grown potatoes, all eyed by the hands of the dedicated employees Shepp is proud to call family.

“The people are the best part of my job,” said Shepp.

Entrepreneurs like Shepp seem to embody the spirit of Bottineau County, an area rich in Scandinavian, German, and Native American heritage that holds on tight to the traditions of faith, family, and fellowship, with food as the glue that keeps it together.

You will find Shepp’s passion and vision under that lid of potato salad you purchased for your 4th of July picnic, but it turns out that same dedication can be found in a cup of gourmet coffee at a hotel in Minneapolis, on top of an ice-cream cone and in the wheat used to make your bread.

Take a close look at your plate, from breakfast to dessert, and it is quite possible that you’re about to indulge in creations from the kitchens and harvests of Bottineau County.

“There’s something so natural about feeding people, getting back to the earth and doing what’s been done for decades,” said Nick Dreyer, a fifth-generation Bottineau County farmer whose connection to agriculture and the landscape keeps him traveling nearly 70 miles on weekends and evenings to help his father plant and tend to his crops.

Call it connection or tradition, but that same drive doesn’t end with harvest. At the edge of the wheat fields you can find entrepreneurs like Jo Khalifa of MoJo Roasters, Inc., embodying the community’s spirit and giving it wings to fly beyond the rural roads of central North Dakota.

The mother of seven discovered a passion for roasting coffee while experimenting in an old cast-iron pan nearly 20 years ago. Today she can be found in a small renovated out-building on her farm near West Hope, roasting some of the finest coffee beans from around the globe and filling orders for major hotel chains, restaurants, and customers from across the country.

And like many of the hard-working business owners in Bottineau County, for Khalifa, there is much more to her work than the coffee she makes.

“It helps me connect with people,” said Khalifa, “There is a great story in coffee.”

Perhaps no one understands the importance of that connection better than Jeff Beyer, who built a successful business based on the nostalgia of a community after he purchased Pride Dairy from the coop in Bottineau.

“[The Dairy] is a big piece of Bottineau’s history and I decided to take on the challenge of keeping it open,” said Beyer. “There used to be 167 active creameries in the state of North Dakota. Now there is one, and it is us!”

Beyer will tell you keeping Pride Dairy open in Bottineau is important for the community because it provides jobs and distributes quality dairy products throughout the Midwest, but one taste of his chokecherry ice cream, a recipe the dairy has been using since 1940, and it quickly becomes apparent that the man is in the business to make people happy.

It’s the same reason Colette Shimetz and her family have kept the doors of Reid’s Place open and in the family since 1981. In a town of 800, the drive-in and neighborhood hot-spot is a fixture of summer in the prairie town of Dunseith, North Dakota, and the family takes great joy in preparing some of the best hamburgers in the county.

Perhaps it’s what the people of Bottineau County have in common, the joy they find in connecting with people while they work to keep a tradition alive, feed the neighborhood, or feed the world. And we can smile knowing that when we bite into that hamburger or dish up our potato salad this summer, we are sampling little pieces of Bottineau County and the spirit of those who have prepared it.

Underwood, ND

March 16, 2013 - April 28, 2013

When the residents of Underwood learned that the town’s only restaurant had to close its doors this winter due to a fire, it didn’t take long for the community to come together in the name of a mission—to make sure their town, population 788 and growing, had a place for people to gather and enjoy good food and good company.

“There was a bit of a panic,” said Becky Bowen, Underwood’s Economic Development Director, who worked with a community group known as Underwood Commercial Properties, Inc., to get a new restaurant up and running.

The organization, which formed four years ago with the mission to purchase and repurpose empty buildings on Underwood’s Main Street, was the driving force behind the restaurant build. Thanks to their efforts and community support, within six months, a cozy restaurant, serving soups and sandwiches during the day and dinner and drinks in the evenings, was open for business.

The foresight that helped open the doors on the Underwood Grille seems to reflect the mentality of the residents of a town that holds on tight to what makes the community special while working together for a vision of reaching their full potential.

It’s a mindset reflected in the excellent educational system, the economic development efforts, active churches and the farms and ranches that have stayed in the family because those who live here love it, and those who grew up in the area, appreciate the simple comforts the community provides.

If you don’t believe it, just ask Jane Rademacher. You can find her working behind the counter of Sodas and Things, one of the state’s only original soda fountains and a business that has kept its doors open since the 1920s, despite multiple changes in ownership.

“It’s a community gathering place,” said Jane Rademacher. She has stayed happily behind that counter for nearly 20 years because she enjoys hearing the stories and memories the customers have attached to this place.

She goes on to talk about the coffee group that meets in the mornings, the local kids who stop in for ice cream after the swimming pool closes and the tourists who swing in and are delighted by the nostalgia of the counter.

It’s the regard for the past that helps Underwood move toward an energized future. Once a bustling railroad town rich in agriculture and boasting seven general stores, three lumberyards, five livery barns, six elevators and a newspaper, Underwood was known as a “metropolis with a future” in the 1900s.

Fast forward to today where trucks and cars drive by the small town on US Highway 83, a four-lane highway that connects Bismarck to Minot, with Underwood standing proud and full of potential in the middle.

Where Underwood’s location was once an advantage, today’s easy access to larger towns finds the residents working to capitalize on what makes their town unique.

One of those opportunities lies in a 1940s Quonset-style movie theater, recently purchased by the newly formed Underwood Arts Council to be used as a cultural events facility.

It’s all a part of Underwood’s plan to keep the community a vital place to live, work and shop. And there’s excitement in the air as young families are moving back home or into the area from other parts of the country in search of the comfort and security of small-town living.

Long-time residents are excited about the population shift and are confident they can provide that friendly atmosphere and quiet lifestyle, but they also understand that just as they are in the middle of two of North Dakota’s largest towns, they are also located adjacent to the state’s largest energy companies. Combine the employment opportunities that Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Power Plant and the Falkirk Mining Company provide, with the recreational opportunities of the nearby Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea, and you can see why Underwood is quickly becoming one of North Dakota’s gems.

But at the heart of it all lies the spirit of the people who built this town on the promise of good crops, good neighbors, and good faith. That culture is still thriving in Underwood where residents who have roots here embrace them and welcome those who have found a new home in Underwood.

One of those people is Harmony Higbie who moved to Underwood from Los Angeles when her husband took a job as a pastor at a local church. In addition to falling in love with the landscape and the friendly small town atmosphere, Harmony was excited to have the opportunity to be involved in making a difference in a community that shares vision and is full of potential.

“In a small town we are able to make a big difference,” said Higbie.

It's a difference that Bowen expects will help keep Underwood vital for years to come.

Ellendale, ND

May 4, 2013 - June 16, 2013

Between the walls of the historic buildings in Ellendale, you will come to know a place through the quiet discussions of the people who inhabit it. Listen and you will hear residents talking over the price of the wheat that grows in waves along the edges of the town, worrying out loud about their children’s 4-H steer as they check out at the grocery store, or arguing with passion about who sells the best kuchen in town at the local bakery.

Ellendale, population 1,500 and holding, is rich in agriculture, strong in education, and holds true to the familiar comforts of many small towns in North Dakota. But at the heart of this town lies a passion for the traditions and unique character of their past that keeps them rooted.

Established in 1882, Ellendale was once a bustling gateway to North Dakota situated along the lines of the Milwaukee and Great Northern Railroads. The county seat of Dickey County, Ellendale was home to a Normal and Industrial College, a flour-mill, and many successful service businesses that served local farmers in the area.

“It was a wealthy community, a community that had much influence on the beginnings of North Dakota,” said John Boekelheide, who grew up in Ellendale in the ‘50s and ‘60s and returns in the summers to renovate and live in his family’s Craftsman-Style home in his hometown.

“I remember being on Main Street as a kid in the late ‘50s and hearing many foreign languages,” said Boekelheide of the out-of-town farmers who would make the trek on Saturdays for supplies, and who were, during those times, still using the language of their ancestors out on the farms.

The memory Boekelheide shares of a diverse and dynamic history explains why he and his community are dedicated to the monumental task of reviving the Opera House, a three-story brick structure built in 1908 that was home to plays, graduations, dances, boxing matches and social events until a leaky roof forced it to close its doors in the 1980s.

The Opera House was a vision that the residents of Ellendale held as it built the city and it remains an important piece on the landscape today as the volunteer members of the non-profit organization O.P.E.R.A., Inc., have worked to raise funds to get people back inside its walls to pay tribute to their past.

“This building was the cultural center of our community, it holds our history,” said Jeanette Robb-Ruenz, president of O.P.E.R.A., Inc. “It’s important to keep our story alive.”

In order to achieve the organization’s goal of a complete renovation and keep guests coming through its doors, Robb-Ruenz uses the tools that have been tried and tested in the community for years.

Her motto, “If you feed them they will come,” has helped raise funds for the organization by hosting innovative food-related events such as a homemade soup kitchen, a tax day buffet and even a zucchini party.

Down the street inside the Fireside Family Restaurant, Peggy Gilbert— famous for her homemade soups, pies and caramel rolls—works every day to create a comfortable place where her community can gather.

“The town needs a restaurant and meeting facility and I like taking care of people,” said Gilbert, who worked as a waitress in the evenings while her five children were growing up, before being approached to help keep the restaurant’s doors open. “I like making people happy.”

And Gilbert puts in the hours to get those smiles, even going as far as learning how to cook homemade German dishes to be featured on her popular monthly German buffet.

“If you want to see the entire town of Ellendale in one place, go to the Fireside on German Night,” said Larry Davis, a community member who, enticed by the idea of small-town living, moved to Ellendale from Seattle a year ago.

Because even as the world spins around the town of Ellendale, the values and traditions this community was founded upon seem to remain an easy constant that’s hard for the residents themselves to explain.

But you don’t need them to tell you. You can see it for yourself reflected in the faces of the 4-H students waiting to show their projects at the county fair, enrolled in a program that continues to flourish despite the decline in the number of family farms in the area.

But the strong thread that weaves through each resident is reflected in the conversations that take place over a slice of Gilbert’s rhubarb pie and inside the walls of Main Street’s Bakery each morning when Davis stops for coffee and marvels at how everybody knows his name.

And the heart of Ellendale sings from the walls of the old Opera House filled with memories and potential, standing strong and proud as a fixture of a community rich in history with a future full of promise.

United Tribes Technical College

June 22, 2013 - August 4, 2013

There’s a vegetable garden growing just outside the doors of the United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) teaching kitchen in Bismarck. In between the brick buildings and asphalt, the hot summer sun works to warm the leaves of the strawberry plants and gently beckons the tomatoes to ripen in time for classes to start in fall.

Because when the students arrive, that garden will be a teaching tool in college nutrition and wellness, foodservice and culinary arts classes that lead to an Associate of Arts degree. Students will slice cucumbers for a salad or experiment with pickling recipes, add peppers (Jalapeno, banana or green peppers) to salsas and compare cooking methods for the winter squash grown in campus gardens.

“This is our kitchen garden,” said Pat Aune, UTTC Land Grant Program Director, as she walks past commercial refrigerators, stovetops and prep sinks to open the door that leads to the small and bountiful plot growing outside.

According to Aune, UTTC is the only tribal college in the country that has an accredited degree program in nutrition and foodservice. The college is home to the only full-fledged teaching kitchen in Western North Dakota’s higher education system. In addition to the associate degree program UTTC has an extension program providing community education for youth and adults. Gardening, nutrition and wellness, cooking skills, food safety, and food preservation are just a few of the topics taught by extension educators in food and nutrition, horticulture and food safety.

Take a walk through the UTTC campus and you will feel the history and culture of the plains pulsing around you. Owned by five tribal nations within the state, UTTC is one of the larger tribal colleges in the country and one of the few tribal colleges not housed on tribal lands. In fact, UTTC was built on the site of an old military post where the brick and mortar from the buildings of Ft. Lincoln II serve as dormitories and student service centers as new buildings slowly spring up along the edges of campus. All are necessary additions to host a student population studying a curriculum as diverse as the over 70 different tribal nations they represent.

But it’s what’s between the buildings that really reflect the traditions and cultures this campus community works to keep alive. It resonates in the fruit trees and in the small garden plots growing outside the elementary school where children of college students grow their own vegetables. Community gardens provide a growing spot for families. The vegetable and fruit research garden called Dragonfly Garden produces an abundant crop to be shared with students, staff and faculty or served for lunch or supper in the campus cafeteria or given to the community food banks.

“The kids are so excited about the gardening. They squeal with delight when they pick the first green pea or cucumber or strawberry,” laughs Aune, who says it’s a blessing to be able to work with the children and teach them about local food, how it is grown and how to use it for healthy meals and snacks.

Aune believes strongly in the importance of supporting the knowledge and traditions of the Native American food culture within the college curriculum to ensure the knowledge is not lost. “I am a believer that children and adults are more confident and contribute to their communities when they are connected to the wealth of knowledge and skills that is a part of their heritage.”

UTTC’s food and nutrition programs focus on the benefits of local food sources including those that are native to these prairie lands. Food sovereignty means we manage our food environment. Hunting and gathering of traditional foods, medicinal uses of native plants, gardening, local food production, food security and traditional knowledge of foods, plants and animals are included in food sovereignty discussions and study. Nutrition research identifies the value of Prairie Turnip, Cattail Shoots and Stinging Nettles.

“Take a look at the reservation communities and other rural communities you will find that many are isolated and food resources are limited,” said Aune. “We are working to help people increase their food options. They might plant a garden or help with the community garden. When they go to the nearest grocery store they buy vegetables and fruits not just snacks or highly processed foods. A family activity could include a day of picking native fruits and plants.”

Aune explains that this does not mean ignoring the realities of the full time working families. Increased knowledge and skills provides families with the tools to make better choices, a home cooked meal, ready to eat in less than one hour is a possibility and a real feast when family members have the skills and the confidence to make those choices.