Rolette, ND

I come from a larger town and in that town our churches all have their separate holiday services.  I like that Rolette brings every church to the table and shares a true Thanksgiving. This is an awesome town!  The following review of the community Thanksgiving was submitted by Pat Beaver. Thanks, Pat!  The Community Thanksgiving service was held at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Gail Tastad played the prelude music.
Father Phillip Chacko(from the Catholic Church) greeted the crowd followed by a congregational hymn. Tim Johnson representing the Ebenezer Lutheran Brethren Church gave the first reading. Reverend Gene Wilson of the Assembly of God Church gave the second reading. Reverend John Hesford of the Valle Lutheran Church gave the sermon talking about the pilgrims leaving their land in seek of religious freedom. He related it to our current situations here and around the world feeling the threat of terrorists. Also talking about the “first potluck” meal shared by our ancestors.
The community choir directed by Sue Boucher accompanied by Lavonne Ivey sang Grateful to by American and In Thanksgiving Let Us Praise Him. Choir members included Faith Knudson, Denise Foss, Beth Mongeon, Pat Beaver, Gail Tastad, Janet Arstein, Joann Oakland, Virgie Erikson, Lois Hesford, Johnnie Fossum, Howard Lemieux, Bob Gilje, Pete Solberg, Father Phillip Chacko, Harold Thompson, Steve Gilje and Eldore Gilje.
Pastor Hesfod gave the prayer of offertory. The donations were directed to Dakota Prairie Food Pantry. Pastor Wilson read the prayer of petitions. Father Chacko gave the benediction. The choir lead the closing hymn along with the congregation singing America the Beautiful.
A lovely luncheon of followed in the fellowship hall served by the Sacred Heart church work group.
Join in the holiday spirit by singing traditional Christmas carols. Practice will begin November 26 at 7:00 p.m. at Sacred Heart church. Performance will be on December 8^that 2:00 p.m. in the Rolette mall. Everyone is welcome.

The horizons directors met last night and approved the final final version of the vision.  Can you believe it!  From the first stages of the action forum all the way to the visioning phase seems like a few things have changed but we have not strayed from our action statements.  The Vision statement will be “The people of Rolette seek to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life through promoting community spirit, sponsoring economic development opportunities and expanding community resources and services”!  Doesn’t that look and feel great?  Don’t you want be apart of this community?  I am glad that I am!  I think Pastor Hesford might be as well?????  We will let him answer that one!The goals that we have decided on shouldn’t be new, they are the ones from the action form!  See how we listened to the community?  They are Goal 1 to reduce mental and physical poverty in Rolette. Goal 2 Create a community gathering place. Goal 3 Strengthen the Rolette Community Economically. (this stretches into 5 sub goals from supporting new businesses to promoting hunting in the area). If you have any questions please ask us.  There is a lot of information out there; I just don’t want to bore you!

….Pete is!  Rolette is a thriving town, lots of great people doing lots of great things for their community.  Check back often to find out what’s happening next!

This is one of the pictures from the training almost a week ago now. In the picture from left to right is Mike Miller (standing) Steve Gilje (seated), Pete Solberg, Me, and then Gary Linson.  The training was very useful and this was the first time I had been in this lovely training room we have in Rolette.  A week later and I still think the training was helpful, I can’t wait to get more pictures. We are going to try and go back in time; showing off some of our major accomplishments that we have achieved during the Horizons project. Thanks for reading!

Since this is the “About” page, and these are our first blog entries, it may be worthwhile to give a little detail about our town.  Rolette is a small  community of about 550 people in North Central North Dakota.  What we lack in size, we make up for in terms of ambition and determination.  We can learn to live without things like traffic, crime and shopping malls and learn to accept other wonders such as glorious sunsets, clean air and front-row parking at high school football games. 

Every community has its own unique set of challenges and assets.  Ours is no different and certainly there are concerns about the future, but on balance, we look forward to strengthening our little town and making it an ever better place to call home.

For more information on Rolette - check out our city website.

Gary Linson fought the computer and won last nite at the Rolette Training and Techinical Center. There was a group of 13 people learning how to BLOG for the Horizons program. Steve Gilje, Pete Solberg, Jo Gilje and myself Grace Brown completed the Rolette group. Others included people from Cando and Rock Lake.  Soon I hope to see the pictures we took last nite and to have them on this BLOG. For the effort that it took On Tuesday night, the Rolette community was given a digital camera to assist with developing a wonderful BLOG.