Twenty-vehicle crash, brewery closure, Columbia Mall foreclosure among Herald's best-read stories of 2023
Dec. 27—GRAND FORKS — On Sept. 14, a Thursday afternoon, phones throughout the region began to ring with a call nobody wants to receive.
At about 3:45 p.m., a school bus carrying members of the Hatton-Northwood co-op volleyball team collided with a pickup truck on Highway 32, about 45 miles west of Grand Forks, and rolled into a ditch. The driver of the pickup died at the scene. For several hours, the condition of the passengers on the bus was unclear.
As concern and grief poured in from around the region, the story the Herald produced that night — headlined "
Injured passengers in fatal pickup-bus crash in North Dakota brought to Altru; 100 or more Altru staff assist"
— generated 41,535 pageviews.
The crash also was named the Herald staff's Story of the Year, meaning it was declared not only the highest read story of 2023 but also was determined by the staff to be the biggest community news of the year. Sometimes, those choices don't match.
The Herald's breaking news and subsequent coverage of the Northwood-Hatton bus crash made up four of the Herald's top 10 most-read stories of 2023.
Along with the aforementioned story that was published the evening of Sept. 14, the other top stories related to the crash included:
* An early report by WDAY, headlined "
1 dead after school bus carrying volleyball team strikes pickup in Nelson County
;
*
"25 students aboard bus that crashed; 'someone was looking over us,' superintendent says'
";
* and "
After bus crash, support rolls in for Hatton-Northwood volleyball team.
Between them, the four stories generated more than 93,000 page views.
Aside from stories related to the school bus crash, the Herald has compiled a list of the top-read stories of the year. They are listed below.
A North Dakota hamlet was renamed Homesteaders Gap following a Jan. 12 vote by a U.S. Department of the Interior board to remove its previous name. Homesteaders Gap was one of seven unincorporated U.S. places instructed to sunset their previous names, which had included a racist and sexist Indigenous slur.
Community members residing in Homesteaders Gap selected the new name as a way to honor their local history, according to the Department of the Interior. The decision came after a year-long process to remove the slur from more than 650 federal sites.
Homesteaders Gap is one of
six sites
in North Dakota that were renamed in the decision.
Adam Nelson purchased two car dealerships on Grand Forks' south side in August. Nelson and his family have been in the car business since 1992 and also own dealerships in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and Williston, Dickinson and Watford City, North Dakota.
When he bought the Lithia Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram dealerships, he said he planned to expand Lithia's service department by adding technicians and customer support staff.
Eight years after becoming Grand Forks' first microbrewery, Rhombus Guys Brewing abruptly closed its downtown taproom and announced it would cease brewing operations immediately. Rhombus Guys continues to operate its pizza restaurant.
The July closure came amid a tightening market for microbrewers nationwide. In the initial closure announcement, co-owner Matt Winjum said the owners hoped to spend more time with family — but in a
longer conversation with the Herald
in the weeks that followed the closure, he said the writing had been on the wall.
"We wanted to be able to make the decision ourselves," he said at the time. "We didn't want to have to be put in some position where we had to make some sort of decision."
The owner of Half Brothers Brewing Company, now one of two brewers left in Grand Forks, told the Herald that Rhombus Guys isn't the only business in town
feeling the squeeze
. The downtown brewer
has reduced its hours
amid labor shortages and continues to seek ways to draw patrons to its taproom.
A 26-year-old Little Falls, Minnesota, woman was killed in a highway crash on Feb. 20 five miles southeast of Thompson. The crash, which also involved a semi truck, was one of several crashes in the treacherous winter weather. At least 21 cars were involved in accidents that day, according to North Dakota Highway Patrol.
"Visibility was extremely poor and deteriorated very quickly as the snow continued falling," NDHP Sgt. Christopher Schaefer said at the time. "It almost seemed isolated to that area and that stretch of road. ... You didn't really see much else happening around the Red River Valley at that time — it was just that stretch of road."
In March, the Hyslop Sports Center on the UND campus was declared to be "beyond its useful lifespan" and unsafe to be used. The center, which housed athletic administration offices, academic support services for UND athletes and the university's department of kinesiology, was closed and demolition was scheduled for summer 2024. The demolition will accommodate
planned additions
to the College of Engineering and Mines and UND's national security corridor.
The decision was met with concern from the community about the loss of a local aquatics facility. In Grand Forks, the YMCA and Choice Health and Fitness both have pools, but they are not Olympic-sized and are not deep enough to host diving competitions.
The announcement was also met with surprise from many community members, including
some former UND athletes.
For many, the closure highlighted a need for more
indoor sports complexes in Grand Forks
, a conversation that
in part propelled
a proposed sales tax to victory in a
special election this fall.
The extension of the 0.75% sales tax
clears the way
for the new $100 million
Altru Sports Complex
, which is
expected to break ground by 2025.
On Feb. 18, the Herald looked into the barbecue restaurant industry in Grand Forks, where a number of restaurants have opened and closed, including the national chain Famous Dave's.
Among the restaurants featured in the story was the Red Shed Smokehouse, which opened March 1 but later succumbed to the trend and closed in the
fall, despite being named the
2023 Best BBQ Restaurant
in Greater Grand Forks by the Herald in September.
The owner of the now-closed Joe's Diner and the Wake 'n Bak'n Cafe was arrested on Jan. 3 on suspicion of theft and misapplication of entrusted property. An affidavit in the case said a woman told Grand Forks Police on Nov. 23 that her former employer, 21-year-old Joe Bushaw, had deducted money from each of her weekly checks for child support payments.
In the theft and misapplication case, Bushaw ultimately
pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to 360 days in prison with all but one day suspended.
Willow Larson of Fertile, Minn., has been selling her art since she was 12. She started with paintings, and moved on to mugs when she was 13.
Now 16, Larson has made something of a name for herself selling mugs celebrating towns across the upper Midwest. The mugs, which she sells through her art business Ivory and Sage, can be found in Scheels stores, and in addition to the Herald, she's been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Inspiring Teens Magazine and Scholastic Books, as well as other regional media throughout the Midwest.
She told the Herald in October that she's undecided about what she wants to do after high school — but no matter what, she hopes to continue selling art through Ivory and Sage.
B&N Oil, which has operated on Grand Forks' DeMers Avenue and Washington Street for more than 60 years, was sold to Casey's on Aug. 29.
Crookston native Ivan Nelson originally opened a Carter service station at that location in 1959. He opened B&N Oil Company in 1961.
The business was run by Ivan's son Greg Nelson and his brother Michael until they handed the keys over to Casey's, a chain convenience store.
Yvonne Nelson, Ivan's wife, said when she found out the business was set to be sold, she cried.
"It was something he started," she recalled. "He had so much ambition."
In May, a North Dakota bank claimed parties with ownership stakes in Grand Forks' Columbia Mall had defaulted on a loan and filed a foreclosure case in Grand Forks district court.
It was the latest in a yearslong line of woes for the Columbia Mall, including the closure of anchor stores
Macy's
and
Sears
and
followed
by other smaller
retailers
in the
building
.
The retail exodus from the Columbia Mall prompted
fear from remaining business owners
about their futures in the space, and in 2020, city leaders met with Columbia Mall owners GK Development, a Chicago-area firm.
At that time,
discussions covered the potential development of the sprawling mall parking lot, the use of tax-relief policies to help boost the mall's appeal, and a nationwide trend toward mixed-use development, which includes retail and residential space in one location, such as the
Pure North development in downtown Grand Forks.
All parties reported
feeling optimistic
following that meeting.
GK Development appears to be named in the foreclosure case — co-defendant Columbia Grand Forks LLC lists the same address as GK Real Estate. In November, the case was settled, and a portion of the mall, including the former Macy's department store, was foreclosed. The property
will go to public auction
at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 23, 2024.
The Herald's Maxwell Marko contributed to this report.
