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Articles by Brandi Malarkey
‘Girl With a Piano’ fine tunes community by bringing music to others
Kari Del Rio calls herself a girl with a piano. “My parents’ first date was a Carole King concert,” Kari confides.
Kevin Carollo’s new hybrid memoir restores faith in humanity one mile at a time
Like so many of us, when COVID-19 hit in 2020, writer, accomplished distance runner and MSUM English Professor Kevin Carollo’s plans went awry. Instead of spending several months of his planned academic sabbatical in Italy, he ended up on his couch. “And I've been there ever since, really,” Carollo laughs while discussing his new book, “SHRED! Running and Being,” published by NDSU Press earlier in 2024.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Canopy Medical Clinic
Connection is at the heart of every community—and the foundation of the Canopy Peer Navigation program run by the Canopy Medical Clinic located in Fargo. “Some participants have some pretty long-term friendships from being in this group together for so long. They call each other. They text each other. They ask each other for rides. They’ll pick each other up from the airport. It’s a really well-established community,” said Athena Sfeir Canopy’s program manager.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: The Tell
Courage? Vulnerability? Active self-empowerment? The TELL brings individuals together in a community built on sharing personal experiences. Originating in 2012, the unscripted storytelling event was one of many community gatherings that ended abruptly at the beginning of 2020 with the COVID-19 outbreak. Now, four years later, enthusiasts are looking at a reboot of this unique community experience.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Life Care Unites Foundation
In January 2021, the Robinson family (Katrina, Jeremy, and their four children: Asia, Scott, Bryce, and India) created the Life Care Unites Foundation as a way to give back to the community. With the assistance of Chisom Housing and The Arbors at McCormick Park they were able to set up a Relief Shopping and Hot Meal program to help provide for the growing number of community members who needed help but didn’t qualify for assistance.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Freds Dissonance
“I call it a one-day Jubilee,” said Frederick Edwards Jr., the founder of Fred’s Dissonance, of the 5th Annual Fargo Juneteenth Celebration that will be hosted at NDSU’s Renaissance Hall. Fred’s Dissonance is organizing the event on June 15 to celebrate African American impact and promote cultural exchange and understanding.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: The League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley
In a political climate where polarization appears to be the norm and misinformation can spread quickly, it can be easy to look at local, state, and national elections as something to dread rather than a right to be exercised. However, for many in the community, it is a reason to celebrate, “For many New Americans, getting their citizenship and being able to participate in our democracy, is exciting for them,” Fowzia Adde from the Immigrant Development Center said.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: C.A.S.A
Casa = Home. Learning to live in a new place can be complicated. Learning how to make a new place into a home can be even more so. Minnesota nonprofit, C.A.S.A. (Cultura (Culture), Amigos (Friends), Salud (Health), and Ambiente (Environment)) aims to help members of the area’s ever-growing Latino community feel more at home by providing practical support and a sense of belonging.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Benjamin Ockert
One man, one bike, one camera. In his last year of a physics and computer science degree, Benjamin Ockert is a man of spreadsheets and numbers.
Dive Into the Arts! Theaters in the Metro
Engaging in the arts holds significant value for individuals and communities alike. From a young age, involvement in the arts fosters creativity, encourages expression, and promotes an appreciation for diversity and the broad spectrum of human experience. This is especially important for children. Thankfully, the Fargo-Moorhead community has a plethora of options for people looking to get involved.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Fargo-Moorhead Gay Men's Chorus
The call of the loon is more likely to conjure images of Minnesota lakes than medieval castles, but this November, the old and the new will be paired in a unique benefit concert on behalf of the Fargo-Moorhead Gay Men’s Chorus.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Rodney Haug
Armed with a pile of napkin sketches and $1200 worth of stainless steel and aluminum rings, Rodney Haug is taking his first steps to fulfill a lifelong dream. A nationally known kaleidoscope artist based out of Hawley, Minnesota, Rodney purchased his first kaleidoscope in 1983 while on a date with his (now) wife. He had so much fun with it that he started collecting them, which led, eventually, to building his own.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Ocean Stars FC
Longtime friends Abdikarim Ibrahim and Abdi Isaack were on a trip to Minneapolis together when they discovered they had each come up with the exact same idea on the exact same day. Enthused, the two teamed up to create Ocean Stars FC.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Franklin Ugochukwu
Minnesota-based visual artist Franklin Ugochukwu wants to take Moorhead’s inner beauty and put it on the outside. Just last year, Franklin helped lead the band of artists and volunteers who created six murals at the Churches United homeless shelter. “It was a very big community project. We made the designs of the surroundings and paintings so that people could see themselves in the art, and identify hopeful messages.
Awesome Foundation Grant Winner: West Central Regional Juvenile Center (WCRJC)
BY Brandi Malarkey, Owner, It’s All Malarkey When a teen who had recently stayed at the West Central Regional Juvenile Center (WCRJC) described the available selection of books as “Chicken Soup books and about a million Bibles,” Jenna Kahly knew it was time to help the center refresh their collection. Located in Moorhead, the WCRJC is one of the shockingly few resources available in Minnesota to provide services for juveniles with behavioral, protection, dependency and delinquency issues.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Box of Balloons, Inc.
Balloons, presents and cake are standard hallmarks of a birthday that can become cherished memories for a child. Unfortunately, for a large segment of Fargo’s children, such a simple joy is beyond reach. Box of Balloons, Inc. wants to change that. Entirely run by volunteers, Box of Balloons has already provided over 400 birthday parties to area children since the Fargo chapter of the national nonprofit was founded in late May of 2020.
Nine-person hip-hop collective to host Hiahli’s Good Party music festival Jan. 6 at the Aquarium in Fargo
FARGO — Five bands from Fargo-Moorhead and the Twin Cities will grace the stage at The Aquarium on Friday night, Jan. 6, for Hiahli’s Good Party , a mini winter music festival produced and promoted by local music collective Hiahli. It’s an ambitious but totally doable post-pandemic project, considering Hiahli had all intentions of breaking into the local music scene in the spring of 2020 when everything closed due to COVID-19.
Giraffic Media owner Andrea Engebretson’s website designs are often influenced by local art
FARGO — Artist Andrea Engebretson sits behind the computer in her home office where the walls and furniture are bright and clean. Neatly organized stacks of paper are interspersed with multi-colored post-it notes while a photograph of a giraffe blowing bubbles looks on. Her large monitor displays the recently redesigned website for The Arts Partnership , one of Engebretson’s latest design creations as part of her business, Giraffic Media.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Mental Health First Aid
Does it hurt? Are you okay? Should we get you to a doctor? These phrases are almost automatic when someone stumbles, falls or otherwise suffers a physical injury. Most people don’t hesitate to reach out, offer assistance or ask how you are doing. Yet when someone is struggling mentally or emotionally, a majority of Americans pause—it feels uncomfortable to inquire or offer support.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Without a Blemish
A kitchen hand-mixer isn’t usually associated with quality skin care, yet Amna Millewa’s home experiments have led to the November launch of her new business, Without a Blemish. “Shea butter is solid. It’s like butter, but harder. Imagine trying to make eight, eight-ounce bottles of whipped shea butter using a cake mixer with only one beater!” Amna said.
Gallery 4 November Artist Feature: Dennis Krull
“I didn’t see you there,” is an unusual compliment. However, to Dennis Krull, a multi-disciplinary artist from north Moorhead, it’s a compliment that indicates he is succeeding at his photographic work. While Dennis does professional headshots, commercial and advertising work, where his event photography is concerned, being unnoticed helps him provide unique views of any occasion. “I don’t direct people, I just watch and record. My job isn’t to interrupt, it’s to capture what’s there.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Be SMART
This past Halloween the Fargo Moorhead Local Group of Be SMART took to the Red River Zoo’s ‘Boo at the Zoo’ event in an unusual Trick-or-Treat initiative—handing out gun locks. “To kids, we handed out Smarties candy rolls with a postcard that explains what Be SMART is, and those kids usually had adults with them.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Pencils Plus
Jayme Burlison stands in the middle of the Wahpeton Community Center. Organized groups of backpacks line the walls while the center of the room is filled with what appears to be a small mountain of cardboard. Jayme and her co-worker, Becky DeVries of the Three Rivers Crisis Center in Wahpeton, ND, have just finished filling the last backpack with supplies for the Pencils Plus: Richland-Wilkin School Supply Drive.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Pencils Plus
Jayme Burlison stands in the middle of the Wahpeton Community Center. Organized groups of backpacks line the walls while the center of the room is filled with what appears to be a small mountain of cardboard. Jayme and her co-worker, Becky DeVries of the Three Rivers Crisis Center in Wahpeton, ND, have just finished filling the last backpack with supplies for the Pencils Plus: Richland-Wilkin School Supply Drive.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: House of Everyday Learning
Swinging in hammocks, painting in nature and fishing the Red River as a pediatric Occupational Therapist, Joni Hjalmquist already knew that play is the most important occupation in a child’s life. Now, she is taking that knowledge and combining it with the outdoors to provide unique experiences for kids of all ages in the community, from preschool all the way through middle school.
Artist Feature: Kathy Luther
With a cheerful combination of patterns, textures and colors, artist Kathy Luther brings a modern twist to an ancient art. As a retired art teacher trained in multiple art mediums, Kathy is best known for the original mosaic works she creates in her home studio from earthenware tiles.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: FargoMoorhead Rocks
Em Christie has been bringing art to the community for the past four years through an unusual art medium—rocks. “I was looking for artistic things to do that were community-centered, and when I stumbled upon the FargoMoorhead Rocks group, I dove in headfirst. It was immediately something I identified as an approachable art medium,” Em said. “Canvases can often be really intimidating. There’s pressure to create ‘art with a capital A’. However, a painted rock is just such a low-pressure medium.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Red River Rainbow Seniors
Red River Rainbow Seniors is working to bring the history of a hidden minority into the open with their oral history project, ‘Breaking Barriers: Harvesting LGBTQ Stories from the Northern Plains’. In 2016, Red River Rainbow Seniors was created by local activists with the support of North Dakota AARP to provide support, education, and social activities for older LGBTQ individuals in the Fargo area.
Artist Feature: Scott Seiler
Award-winning Fargo photographer Scott Seiler laughs at what seems on the surface to be a harmless quirk, yet is really one of the secrets to his success. Never miss an opportunity—yet his stunning images are hardly impulsive, as he will often revisit a site multiple times in different lighting and seasons to get his “one perfect shot.” “I like going out hunting and searching for a view that gives the landscape personality,” Seiler said. “Maybe it’s an angle no one has seen before.
"Artists on Main Street" ~ Historian Tom Isern ~ "A Night of Great Jazz" ~ A Tell Tale Folklife Oral History
Tuesday, August 9, 2022 - The North Dakota Department of Commerce is inviting communities to apply for the “Artists on Main Street” program, which offers technical assistance and funding for local art projects. Each year a different community is selected. The first of the 5 planned grants went to Bowman last year. Special contributor Brandi Malarkey went to Bowman to gather interviews about the project for a feature we first aired earlier this summer.
Artist Feature: Marcy Dronen
Painting Memories “Don’t share this, people will think I’m weird,” Marcy Dronen laughs brightly as she displays two different sketches of a row of wishbones she saved from cooked chickens. The sketches are part of a “homework” assignment from a recent Zoom class she attended—doing three 5 minute sketches a day to help refocus her brain on her art. “I love taking classes.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Fargo Moorhead Humans of Color
With vaccinations to help mitigate the effects of the COVID virus, and warmer temperatures to lure people outside, the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo area has seen a host of varied events over the past few months. One noteworthy event was the First Annual Spring Fling (2022) hosted not by an organization or business, but instead by members of a local Facebook group. The Fargo Moorhead Humans of Color Facebook group began when Lynnea Eckhoff accepted a job and moved to the FM area.
Healing, helping and hoping drive the music of Sarah Morrau
FARGO — Healing, helping and hope summarize the life of singer-songwriter Sarah Morrau . By day, Sarah is a needs assessment counselor at Prairie St. John’s , where she has worked for the past 15 years. “It’s good, meaningful work. I love that I get to help people get the help they need," she says.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Resplendent Residents
Photographer Brittany Johnson is aiming to help people realize they are beautiful no matter what shape, size, or gender and her current passion project, Resplendent Residents, is bringing that message to the elderly and disabled.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Casual For A Cause Closet
The staff at Preference Employment Solutions are turning an empty room into an additional opportunity for giving. An initiative to earn money for a local non-profit by paying to wear jeans on Fridays swiftly turned into what the Preference Employment Solutions’ staff calls their “Casual for a Cause” program.
Artist Feature: Judi Koehmstedt
“I call it ‘Spool Samples,’ ” Judi Koehmstedt laughingly displays a small painting of the spools of thread she recently found in her mother’s old sewing machine. The play on words and cheerful colors are characteristic of an art career that has spanned nearly 50 years. As one of the current members of the artist cooperative, Gallery 4, located in downtown Fargo, Judi has come a long way from her first art lesson.
Math and music add up for Fargo professor and bassist
FARGO — For reggae bass player Jason Boynton, the three things he’s always been able to count on are math, music and community. The associate professor of mathematics, staple part of the Fargo music scene and community organizer addressing food insecurity stays fairly busy and is proud to call Fargo-Moorhead home. A Florida transplant, Boynton has lived in Fargo since 2007 when he took what he thought would be a one-year teaching gig at North Dakota State University.
Fargo photographer Lynn Fundingsland travels the world for ‘picture a day’ opportunities
FARGO — For Minot-born Lynn Fundingsland , a career developing local housing in Fargo has resulted in an art portfolio that has circled the globe. For 15 years, Lynn worked in housing in Detroit Lakes, Minn., before becoming director of the Fargo Housing Authority, a position he held for 17 years. In his capacity as director, he developed new housing and apartment buildings for low-income families and managed over 50 employees.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: REC
May 2022 featured the grand opening of Recovery Engaged Communities (REC)’s physical space with an event featuring food, drink, live music, games, and art. As an organization devoted to promoting recovery from substance use, the celebratory event highlights REC’s goals to continue as they’ve begun—with a focus on building connections and community.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Professional Lunch
Ricot Aladin is proving that sometimes the simplest ideas can have the greatest impact by turning the common act of going out to lunch or coffee into a widely sharable learning opportunity. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in the field of Communications, Ricot initially started inviting people he knew out to lunch to discuss their varying professions as a way to build his personal network and practice his communication skills. “When I started Professional Lunch, it was just me being curious.
Landscape photographer Scott Seiler finds inspiration in community and volunteering
FARGO — Fargo-based photographer Scott Seiler is well-known in the local arts scene for his sweeping landscape images of North Dakota and Minnesota. His use of lines and geometry are surprisingly emotional and helps to showcase the personality of the spaces he captures with his camera. An artist whose work often requires long stints outdoors by himself, Seiler’s other side is a bit more social.
Fargo musician and DJ Josh Melby discovers deep vibes on the high sea
FARGO — After traveling the world as a cruise ship musician, Josh Melby has finally docked in Fargo. For over eight years, Melby worked as a contract bass player and manager with different bands on commercial cruise ships, an experience that expanded his musical mind to oceanic proportions. “I’d mostly work in the evenings, and we’d dock into ports early, so I’d get a lot of free time to get off the ship and explore,” Melby says.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: CAPLP
For the first time since 2018, the Lakes and Prairies Community Action Partnership (CAPLP) will be inviting young people from around the country to come to Minnesota to participate in the Group Workcamp Home Repair project. CAPLP has been running the Group Workcamp Home Repair project every other year since 2003. They run the project on alternating years with their sister agency, West Central Minnesota Communities Action, which serves south, west and central Minnesota out of Elbow Lake.
The artists who inspire Moorhead painter Emily Williams-Wheeler
Emily Williams-Wheeler is a well-known artist and painter based in Moorhead. Contributed / The Arts Partnership MOORHEAD — Whether it’s teaching art enrichment and creative thinking classes out of her Moorhead studio or serving on the board of the Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, Emily Williams-Wheeler has built an art career that is defined by whimsical creations and an enthusiastic smile.
Awesome Foundation Grant Award Winner: Jasmin Child Care and Preschool
When looking for learning opportunities with an eye to a career in international childcare, Fargo, ND may not be the first place that springs to mind. However, Hyokyung Kwak found the perfect learning environment when she became a teacher at Jasmin Child Care and Preschool. Originally from Seoul, South Korea, Hyokyung became a student in Early Childhood Education at Minnesota State University Moorhead in 2019.
Moorhead artist Dennis Krull does a ‘little bit of everything’
Dennis Krull has built a diverse art business in Moorhead. Contributed / The Arts Partnership MOORHEAD — Under the moniker 5 Foot 20 Design Lounge, located in Moorhead, Dennis Krull has built a diverse art business over the past decade or more. His illustrations have graced children’s books, magazines, and CD covers. His graphic design skills have lent themselves to everything from corporate reports to large signs and billboards.
Artist Feature: Shelli Fenske
It may seem difficult to imagine that a thriving business creating original jewelry would have its roots in a childhood love of caring for horses on the edge of town, but Shelli Fenske credits growing up in Marion, ND, with the inspiration for the bulk of her unique and original designs. “I love working with wire,” Shelli laughs as she carefully untangles a new batch of wire-wrapped necklace and pendant sets. “I have always loved the outdoors and designing and arranging and organizing.
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Peggy Lee called a North Dakota State University fraternity guy 'the first love of my life'
SAE member Curt Stofferahn (left) makes Peggy Lee an Honorary SAE Little Sister in 1975.
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