Lidgerwood, ND

Our city is having elections soon. We have many city council seats open this year. Our past leaders have done a great job. They have given others the chance to step up to the plate. Yes, the people listened and have done this. We have people running for all of our open seats. This is a great time for our town. New ideas and energy are always needed and appreciated. I would like to think that our Horizon project has had some impact in bringing our needs to the forefront. Thanks to all who are participating in the upcoming elections.

Last week our main street was a sea of orange vests and men holding strange stick like objects. They talked to each other with walkie talkies and took time to visit with the kids and I. The State of ND is mapping the area. Planning for a new surface for our main street which is also a state highway. This will have an impact on our community in several ways that are obvious to me. Business will be disrupted for a time for all our merchants. This also brings to the forefront the obvious cost of a project of this type. If we do our Main Street does this also open the door for other street projects? Can we affoard this? Can we affoard not to do this? I will be looking to our City Council for answers.

A meeting on June 3, 2008 will explore the idea of starting a friends of the library group.
Other communities in our area have support groups for their libraries. The groups provide support in funding, program ideas, and collection improvements. Our group will start at the beginning. We will work with the library board to identify needs and then move to help accomplish some exciting things for our library and community.

As the new City Auditor I am face with many new experiences. One that I am looking forward to is the upcoming city election. I will be Lidgerwood’s election inspector. It sounds scary but I have a group of voulenteers that hve worked elections in the past and I know they will help me through. We dodn’t have any big issues on our ballot this year so I am hoping for a big turnout without too many problems. I hope the members of our comunity come out to show support of their community by voting. I hope to see some of the yourger people in town voting too. I’ll write an update after its all over and let you know how we all faired.
Till later,
Kristin

My mother does some outreach at the local retierment home, doing some range of motion exercises. She has taken my three girls along with her the last few times and they LOVE it. They ask all the time if it is exercise day yet. I’m not sure yet who enjoys it more the girls or the residents. I’m planning on putting in an few pictures and a video if I can figure out how to do it. Till then it was a good time for all of us. They are eagerly wating for next Monday, “Exercise Day”!

What a difference a few days makes. Just recently several city council people resigned. Our community needed new leaders. The word got out and we have more that a few new people ready to accept leadership in our community. Every community needs willing people to help and take the time to make their town better. Hats off to all the folks who will be on the ballot in our city election in June.
Kathy

Kathy Skroch has been involved in the Horizons project from the begining. Computer education is an area she and many others in our community are intrested in having. Our Richland County Extension Agent has been helping her accomplish this.
12 laptop computers are available for use by county residents in an education program. Kathy is working out the details to offer this program to our Senior Citizens and many others in our community who don’t have access to this knowledge. This program should be available this winter into spring. Way to go Kathy!!!

Our book club is a fun group. We do eat chocolate along with our book discussion! So far we haven’t read the same book to discuss, rather we share the books and authors we have enjoyed the past month. Many of us love mysteries. The book club is open to young and not so young. We meet at the Lidgerwood library. Our next meeting is in February. We’d love to see you there!!!

One of the most impressive action items to come from the Lidgerwood Community meeting was for the high school students to be moved to action!!

A major issue that came from their computer chat was that the students wanted Lidgerwood to celebrate homecoming again. For the past few years the majority of the homecoming events were celebrated in the neighboring town of Wyndmere. Lidgerwood co-ops with Wyndmere for some athletics.

The students felt they needed to renew school and community pride. They felt very passionate about creating this kind of change. Students presented the meeting document to faculty and requested they consider allowing homecoming activities in Lidgerwood once again. Their request was granted! They initiated an old fashioned homecoming parade down mainstreet. One comment made to me was “the street was lined with business people and residents cheering and applauding the students” Way to go Cardinals!!
They also had a bonfire as well as numerous other activities.

I just heard today that a welcome committee that was formed at one of our study groups has now put together a Welcome to Lidgerwood Packet. This contains a News-Monitor and church bullitins (neither of these are necessarily recent.) Included are maps of the tri-state area, brochures of the local area, info on our school and info on the Lidgerwood website.
Just stop in at City Hall to say hi! to Kristin and pick up a packet.