Main Street
Bush Fellow Fred Edwards; Opera in Maddock, ND; 3 poems from Studio 47
Support for Prairie Public is provided by StageWest, presenting Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats for 12 performances June 30 through July 18 at 7.30 PM at Ascension Health Plaza at the Lights West Fargo. Jellicle Cats, come one, come all. Tickets and information at westfargoevents.com. [MUSIC] Welcome to Main Street on this Tuesday. I'm Craig Wuhmenschine and we are glad you are with us. In the second half of today's show, great American folk show host Tom Brussoe visits Maddock North Dakota and the Harriman Opera House. And Patrick Hicks gives us three poems from his students that knocked his socks off. But first, my co-host Ashley Thornberg visits with Fred Edwards. He's an educator, activist, and community builder and also one of this year's Bush Foundation Fellows. And just a quick note, this interview contains a racial slur which has been beaved out. Fred, thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, thank you for having me. Congratulations on getting this fellowship. Woo, right? Like that is such a big, big, big accomplishment. It is. Why did you want to go for a Bush fellowship? What was it that drew you to this one specifically? Yeah, to be honest, I think it's the idea of applying for something and not getting it or applying for something and being like, maybe next year. And so the feedback that I got from the two years that I did apply for the Bush fellowship was not that my leadership wasn't something that needed to be worked on, but my idea or my plan or vision for the future was something that needed to be worked on. So it wasn't until this year that I actually wanted to pursue an educational doctor or a PhD, if you will. And so I think that also gave me a little bit of push of helping my leadership journey. To be honest, I think I've always been somebody with a chip on my shoulder growing up on the north side of Minneapolis, losing a lot of my friends, going to college, not necessarily seeing a whole lot of people go to college, become very successful in doing so and continue to do community work. I think for me and failing and not being able to get the opportunity to get the Bush fellowship in the first place, it gave me more reason to work in my community. It gave me more reason to work amongst youth and do sober fun activities and cultural events. And so it's really cool to be around change makers and see different people who have applied to a multitude of different times. Some people was their first time, some people was their eighth time. - Have you always been that kind of person who didn't give up despite this major stumbling block of a lot of people would say, okay, they didn't want me? I guess I'm not good enough. - Yeah, it's funny because I applied on the last day. I had no desire to apply for the Bush fellowship, primarily because I knew we had started a nonprofit, we were trying to make impacts with youth, we got our program accredited in Fargo Public Schools. So I was helping other people apply for the Bush fellowship and then right when I was helping somebody like submit theirs, they were like, all right, I'm not submitting my application unless you apply. - Whoa. - And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? And so this person like texts me all the time, like dang, like imagine if like I hadn't had done that and I'm like, all, all glory to God, but also glory to you as well for like pushing me. And so I think oftentimes we like have these self-fulfilling prophecies and minds was like, I might not actually get the Bush fellowship, so I apply anyway. And so I just push anybody who believes that they're not worthy or cool enough or leadership-licious enough to have the Bush fellowship to apply because you'd be surprised. - Leadership-licious. I've never heard that before. - Shout out to Rachel Stone. That's a piece in Q's etiquette, leader-licious, they got all of that, so. - We're visiting today with Fred Edwards. He is one of this year's Bush Foundation Fellows for his work in, well, how do you describe your work? I should let you do that. - Yeah, that's a great question. I always tell people I wear two hats. My primary hat is Emosia writing workshops. We do leadership. - Emosia means unity. - It does, in Swahili. So Emosia is a work that means to be one or unity. What we do is we activate spaces inside of schools to create problems that students create solutions for. Or we just look at problems in schools or outside of schools and students create solutions with writing, with leadership, with development, and most importantly, with the opportunity to perform. - You know, it's such an intriguing concept to be the educator in that situation because so often the teacher, the educator is the authority figure in the room and the students are just there to learn from the person. Sounds like you are like, hey, these people are leaders and it's my job actually to get out of their way. - Yeah, to be honest, I think that's a very colonized way of teaching, right? Is that the teacher is the authority figure? It's almost like you do yoga, right? And so there's people who have done yoga their entire lives who would never be able to go to any part of India and be like, I'm a yoga instructor because those people may have done it in a permanent sense where it's a lifestyle, it's something that they live. And so me as a teacher, what I'm teaching students is don't fumble the ball when you have the time to run with it. Don't go through my mishaps when I can tell you those mishaps and mistakes. And I think oftentimes school is set up in a way that is so hierarchical that we don't know if our teachers are human or not. And so in my classroom, I am very much human. We break the hierarchy. I'll let students know if I'm having a bad day. I let my students know when my father had a stroke and it'll allow us to go through the classroom in a realistic way that is very decolonized. And so we take out the hierarchy so then students could also teach us. There's so much room for us to be like learners, adult learners, like lifelong learners. And so for our classroom, I think the way that it works is it's culturally relevant pedagogy, mixed with breaking out the hierarchy. So Janille Gibson is the other co-founder of Emosia. We developed this concept of like how do we teach, but also move out the way when it's time for students to teach. And so for us, there is no like authority figure in the room. And most times you'll hear students say like, oh, blank was there. This adult figure was there. This principal was there. We could feel it in the room, how it changed the environment and the structure. - Fred, I'm gonna have our listeners here a little bit more about your background because part of what led to these writing workshops is an experience that you had with poetry and turning grief into poetry. And this is something you alluded to earlier in the interview here is that you grew up in a neighborhood that was awfully tough here. So we're gonna play an excerpt from a TEDx presentation that you gave at NDSU about your background and how it informs how you move through the world. - Let's talk about those days at my friend's house hearing. Why is this nigga in my house? Let's talk about my first best friend having to stop hanging out with me in fifth grade because hanging out with black kids will lead them to trouble. Let's talk about how I have to take my hands out of my pockets before I go to any store just so I won't be convicted of suspicion. Let's talk about how to walk across the street if I see a woman on the same side of the street as me in fear that she is in fear. Let's talk about the accidental mason that happened to me when I sneeze walking past the woman. And maybe she was trying to bless me, but the only substitute she had for holy water was mace. - I wrote that when I was 13 years old, like doing black box theater, the number changed, of course, when I was 18 at that time. I was 18 years old, 45 of my friends, I think I'm at like 53 right now. And I don't say that number to be nonchalant about it, but I say that the things happening in my community are happening all over the United States of America. I think people are just choosing to ignore these things. I think people are like, I call it like voluntarily ignorant, like where because you live in a bubble, because you are safe, because you don't have to think about certain things, like it doesn't matter. And so I think at that age in my life, I was prepared to have those conversations with people. I really wanted to dig into why people didn't know about these incidents or these neighborhoods. And as I get older, I realized like, it isn't that these people didn't know, like they are choosing to be ignorant. Like it feels safe and comfortable to do those things. And so like now, even in talking about race relations, unity, equity, or at that point in my life, like my testimony of why it's important to even talk about these atrocious like situations, like if you listen to that whole TED talk, which almost has like 90,000 views, I was very hopeful that racism was gonna end in my lifetime. Like if you hear that TED talk, you can hear like this young man who is like super not jaded, super like we're gonna take over the world with love. Like and I sincerely at that time believe that. And so I think it's very incredible to just hear that testimony because it just, it gives me chills to hear that young man who had like such a high hope for his United States of America. And this is post like all the things that happened with COVID, with people who are right, like and to be completely honest, like for a lot of people who are not from Minnesota, George Floyd was George Floyd, but for me, Jamar Clark was George Floyd. Jamar Clark was killed five years before George Floyd by the police officers in which he called. And so it isn't a different story for us. I think it George Floyd made like white people uncomfortable, but it didn't change anything for like, I think a lot of other people. Like even with Donald Trump in office, I don't think that changed a whole lot of the world for us. Like I hear a lot of people talk about like divisiveness or like COVID was the most divisive time. And to me, I don't think I agree with that. I think it was just the first time that other people had to feel just even like a whiff of what it means to feel uncomfortable in your own skin and your own environment and your own neighborhood. But to say the least, like the reason why even do a lot of this work, like the reason why I believe equity work is so important that you've get an opportunity to get paid is so important is because people gave me an opportunity in a platform. And so I just want to highlight a few people like Young Life in Minnesota from the north side to the south side. They had some amazing mentors who pushed me. I think about Black Box Theater at Washburn High School, having a poetry, social justice coach, having people come from Penumbra Theater, like all these different theaters, the Guthrie Theater and teach us young kids how to expose our emotions and our trauma in a way that was like in our control. And I think oftentimes in spaces and places like North Dakota, not only do we not care about the arts, but we frown on art that is exposing of oneself or like vulnerable because we're supposed to work hard and we're supposed to get over it. And I think we are about to come to a space in North Dakota where those boundaries are about to shift because more people are going to want to open up and be vulnerable about the situations or the restrictions that they've had on their lives for such a long time. And so I love living here in North Dakota for one reason. It's like a slingshot. You have to pull it far, far, far, far back. And that's where I feel like we are. Like I feel like we're in like the 1970s, the way that we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion. I feel like we're in the 70s, the way we talk about women's rights or reproductive rights or understandings. I feel like we're in the 70s when we talk about youth access to understandings of like equity, racial justice or any of those things. Like we're super far back but as soon as you let us go and you let people like run ragged with these cool ideas that they have, I've seen so many community members like fling us forward with our like forward thinking and our way of experiencing different things. And so that's where I think Emosia is one of those like futuristic programs. It's a preventative program that doesn't say I want to wait until you go to jail. I want to wait until you fail. I want to wait until you don't feel validated. We do these things like prior to that. - It's interesting that you used a futuristic look and then also said preventative. - I think duality is such an important thing. Spectrums are such an important thing. Like to be preventative and to be futuristic, I think are like you need one to be the other, right? Like if we don't have preventative programs, fentanyl is going to run rampant for the next 10 years in Fargo and we're going to do nothing about it but keep on pointing at homeless people for the issues that drugs are creating in this environment. But if we have preventative measures that help people with the fentanyl usage right now, we have places and spaces that are safe downtown for homeless people to go and ways in which they can get programs that can invest into them so they can become greater people. Those people can create solutions for fentanyl happening in Fargo. But that's futuristic and preventative coming together. - Fred, you are also running Fred's dissonance and the term dissonance, specifically cognitive dissonance, it's the mental discomfort that results from holding to conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. - So the idea of like cognitive dissonance came from me, getting my bachelor's in psychology at NDSU and I had heard this term cognitive dissonance and it really kind of reflected on like my favorite leaders growing up. Like I think about Gil Scott Heron, I think about Octavia Butler, I think about like these different people who wanted, like they saw America, like if you think about like Sujuna Truth, right? You think about Harriet Tubman, they saw America for what it is now like years ago, right? Like they had this futuristic perspective and so like to live in dissonance is like to be enslaved but still wish that your ancestors and the people who are oppressed to you like live safely together. Like that is an insane imagination and like an insane amount of like courage, right? And so when I look at dissonance, I think about, and this is just me being very transparent, there are so many young European white kids who love me as their teacher. They enjoy and learn from me in a way that they have not experienced before. And I always go, it's not even that our kids are missing out because they don't get black teachers, other kids are missing out because they don't get black teachers. Like we're talking about 0.3 teachers are black and of that 0.41 are black men. Like we are missing out on educators and that's due to a lot of different systems that took place specifically Brown versus Board of Education and all the teachers being fired right after that. But what I'm saying is like, we have an ability to make a change and I love seeing going to rural communities like Moormont schools or different places in Bismarck or all over North Dakota and people's eyes get different because they never saw a teacher who looks like me but then they leave the classroom learning something. And so it's just that ability to see a possibility model. Like that's cognitive dissonance happening for that kid who has been taught that I might not be blank or I shouldn't be blank. And so I come in that classroom, I disrupt their thinking. And then on the flip side of that, if you look at our events, right, Fred's dissonance events are very diverse in terms of like a very micro level of looking at diversity. From disability, sexual orientation, the different age groups that are there and then race and ethnicity. Like all of those things are hit because we think about it on a micro level. And I love to see that in Fargo. We had 2,000 people out on Broadway Square who looked very different than the normal people who might be there on a normal Saturday. And so for me, I like to show people like, this is what we can work towards, this is what we can be. Sometimes people just gotta get out of their thinking models, right, like it was a safe event. Nobody got hurt, nobody got harmed. These different stereotypes that people place on people. I think we're shattering those. And so that dissonance is literally me saying, hey, I wanna work in these schools that might not value me all the times. Me saying, hey, I want to get degrees that will allow me to find equitable ways of teaching education to students. Hey, I also want to become somebody who learns about the grief in which I'm dealing with and find a way to navigate that. And so dissonance is all of these things, but that's where the Bush Fellowship allows you to process that. - Using so many of the words that you just did, like grief and processing, and you've used words like healing and vulnerability throughout this conversation already, I'm really struck by one of the last sentences in the press release about the Bush Fellowship that you wanna find the time to heal as fully as possible. What does that mean to you? - Yeah, I think about healing on a molecular level, right? I think about if everything in this room has energy, like everything has energy frequency, like what am I doing to allow my frequency to be aligned to like where I am? And so like I think on a metaphysical level, I want to be aligned with my family, I wanna be aligned with my blood lineage, I wanna be aligned with the different people I consider to be chosen people, but then on the caveat of that, I also want to figure out what things are stopping me from being aligned, like grief, like boundaries, like holding walls up, like having different barriers, like I could do yoga with my wife, but I can't deal with other people, and why is that? And just starting to have conversations about different things that I have developed over time that I view as normal, right? And not just de-shackling myself from those mental traps, but finding out what will allow me to be the best person that I can be, so then when I am building a community in two years or three years when the Bush Fellowship is over, I'm a whole nother-heeled person. And so like if I'm able to do all of this and leave with love with all of this baggage, I imagine what would a lighter bag look like and what would these events feel like? What would kids being taught feel like? What would my experiences of the world look like? And so one of the things they ask you in the Bush Fellowship is like, where do you see yourself after the fellowship? And I talked about walking down the street downtown Fargo and seeing young women with her jobs walking past, seeing young people who had never been downtown before because they heard those quote unquote, so dangerous coming downtown. And I talked about being with my wife and my daughter and not being stared at like a spectacle, just being stared at like a normal citizen who lives here. And most importantly, us having our chins held up high because our validation comes from the learning and growing in which we have with one another. And I think for me when you say like what does healing look like, I have to exemplify the healing that I want this world to feel. And so when my TED talk, right, like let's talk about it, me hoping that people could either even understand like a spec of what it means to be a young black man moving from the North side of Minneapolis to North Dakota and like pursuing through it regardless of what has come through my way, not on a bootstrap story, but just in a resilient story and just showcasing the people like it is possible to still lead with love even through all of this. And so I'm just grateful for certain people in the community because they always said like if you need support, if you need help, like ask for it. And you don't always get it. But like at the end of the day, you can still ask for it. And so when I think about healing, I think for the most part, it's like working on inner self on a molecular level, working on things around you that's around your environment. But then lastly, like after two years, I'll be able to ask for a certain level of help that I never could if I hadn't slowed down my workload, right? Like I'm working average like 80, 70, 80 hours when we're talking about equity work. It's a lot more than just planning an event. It's talking about intentions. It's talking about harm reduction. It's talking about making sure people feel safe. If you have trans people performing in your neighborhood and they've been told that they don't matter and that they don't exist, like creating certain things for them. And so like making sure that people know about intentional work and then the secondary trauma that you have to process with working with different marginalized communities. - Rest is a political act. - To an extent, yes. Rest is also a privilege. - What do you mean by that? - The idea of rest is we're talking REM sleep, right? Like REM sleep is something that you cannot always do if you have a post-traumatic symptom, right? Like being somebody who has been hit by a drunk driver, who has survived, shootouts, who has lived in a very racialized, hateful town at times. I think there are things that will allow you to not sleep and not rest, right? Like seeing kids that are homeless and having to think about them sleeping in a tent when you know that it's negative 24 degrees outside. I think some of those things are like you're able to shut off or shut down or turn down, but any officer in this world right now wouldn't tell you that they have like the privilege of just having beautiful sleeps, right? Because of the things that they've seen. And I would equate an activist, a community activist who really does grassroots work to an officer in this community, right? Who has to see that secondary trauma. Who has to make those first responder calls. They don't, neither side of those get the proper therapy that they need. Neither side of those properly get the rest that they need. - It's an intriguing idea, Fred, to be able to build in something like rest. This is a vague thing that you are telling to an organization that's giving you a lot of money. Talk a little bit about how you have to find this balance between specifics, like trying to pursue a PhD in educational leadership, but also a little bit of freedom to explore and navigate and pivot. - Absolutely. That's what I think I'm most excited about. You said something that I think is important. It's this word of pivot. Like what does it mean to have a lot going on that is happening very well and very successful? Like who you are as a leader? That's what Bush always acts about. It's like your track record. Like do you have enough success that we can believe that like you will continue your success? And so for me, I think I have a great track record, but what does it look like to like not give up on everything happening right now, but take a pause or take a slow down from it and start to really put my feet in the soil of the motherland. Like what does it look like to like really connect with my cultural roots and like be in an environment in a space in which the grass is the grass that my ancestors sat in? Like what does it look like to be in different parts of the world where they're navigating coming about civil war? And so one of the parts I wrote about is like going to Germany and like figuring out how did they heal from the internment camps? How did they heal from the Holocaust? What does educational systems look like there when you are living around the oppressed people, right? And so one of the things I wrote about is like just learning about how different people found ways to heal and navigate from a very like international lens. Within the other part that I think is super important is typically in doing a lot of work, you don't take time for your family. And so like for my wife and kid, I'm super excited to just go places and just be with them without work attached, without anything else attached. I think for the last three years, they have been going to amazing places with me, but it's always like work attached, right? It's not like a family vacation. And so I'm excited to spend time with them and really just see what they are desiring to do with life in the future. And so that's what I think is super important about this fellowship too is like I'm super young, I'm 28 years old, but I've had enough work where they can see rest is required to do more and be more. And I'm excited to see where I am at 56. My father always said like you're half of where you want to be. So what are you thinking about now? And so I think about what does a rested 30 year old for it look like? And how does that help a 56 year old for it? And so very grateful for the opportunity. And my cohort is like phenomenal people who will be helping with the healing process too. - Congratulations, Fred, once again, and thank you for being on Main Street. - Hey, thank you so much. - Coming up, the historic Maddock Opera House gets new life. That's after this. Welcome back to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine, great American folk show host, Tom Brusso, dives into the world of opera. You may be surprised how opera influences pop music today. In this excerpt from his show, Tom travels to Maddock, North Dakota to see how an engaged community saved its opera house. - Opera, okay, what is it? What is opera? Literally, it means work, singing, dancing, costume, scenery. Comes from the Latin word opus. It ain't over till the fat lady sings, is a popular expression, though fat is a derogatory term by today's standards. It refers to the end of an opera where I have a set soprano who steps onto the stage to bring the house down for the finale. Opera is so embedded in our brains that even those who claim they know nothing about it, they know what's greatest hits. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) And for those who say they don't like opera, or they loathe opera, okay, they might not appreciate just how much it's influenced pop music. ♪ I see a little silhouette of a man ♪ ♪ Scaramouche, Scaramouche ♪ ♪ Will you do the pandango ♪ ♪ Thunderbones and lightning ♪ ♪ Very, very frightening beat ♪ ♪ Rolly leo, Rolly leo, Rolly leo ♪ ♪ Rolly leo, Rolly leo, Rolly leo ♪ ♪ Let me go ♪ ♪ I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me ♪ ♪ It's just a poor boy from a poor family ♪ ♪ It's fair in his life of his wants ♪ ♪ Ross and tea ♪ Freddie Mercury, so passionately belting out, Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia, on Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975. It's no different than one of opera's biggest names, Luciano Pavarotti, doing the same thing with La Danza, which was written 140 years earlier in 1835, by Georgina Rossi. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) La Danza is a song about a dance at midnight and Bohemian Rhapsody is about, well, it's about the fate of a man's soul. In a nutshell, that's what opera is all about. It's about storytelling. When you think about the opera, what might come to mind is an elegant night out, tux and gown, tickets and a loge, players on the stage singing in Italian. Opera, however, is an all European, could be more local than you think. In fact, it might even be in your own backyard. Here in the Peace Garden State, Opera House is built in the early 20th century, are still around today. In Ellendale, the Ellendale Opera House, the Taylor Opera House, the Lisbon Opera House, the Ray Opera House, which brings us back around to the question that I started with, what is opera? On today's show, we dive into its meaning by visiting Madoc North Dakota, to visit with Jim Gilbertson and Carol Backstrom, who helped form an association, now 160 members strong, in order to save their opera house. (upbeat music) Tell me about the facility, the Harryman's Opera House. What's the history of this building? Well, the building was opened in 1905 in Madoc by Lauren W. Herman, and he originally came from the East Coast, and in the middle 1880s, he came to Minnie Walken, which developed before Madoc, and after having been there for a few years and acquiring land and having some businesses, he came to Madoc when Madoc started, and then put up a mercantile business on the north side of this building, then after a couple of years, then he built the Madoc Opera House. The term opera, I think we tend to think that we're gonna go to a facility that's gonna have singing, and perhaps it's even gonna be in a different language, but from what you're describing, opera, in a different way, is not theater, but mainly theater of life. Did the opera house ever fall into disrepair? Oh, yes, absolutely, yes, yes. Matter of fact, the last use was for a hardware store downstairs, and up here was just storage. We were planning to start a museum in Madoc, which we eventually did. We had no place to store stuff, so we asked the owner of the building if we could store stuff up here since it had no other use, and he said, "Sure, go ahead." So that's what was up here. And when we started the museum, we all level everything out and put it in our museum, but the downstairs was a hardware store until 1974, I think. Then it closed, and by that time, everything was leaking, and it was in a sad state of disrepair. And at one point, I can remember a couple of us asked the city about the building, because we had thoughts of maybe trying to see if it could be a restorative, and they said, "We have already got condemnation papers on it, "and it's scheduled to be torn down this summer." (laughs) - So we asked them if they could give us some time to have some meetings and get together and see if we thought it'd be restorable, and so they reluctantly did that, but they did it. And then we came back and said that we think we'd like to try and restore it, and so if you'll turn it over to us, we'll do the best we can. If that doesn't work, you can always tear it down. - And Jim, what was that like? You had to find a committee, you had to assemble people to make this decision. - Yeah, yeah. - And were these people qualified? I mean, did these, the committee that you assembled, did they know anything about putting a building back together? - Yes, they did. We found people like Donna's family. There's a whole bunch of bathrooms here, and they're carpenters, and the electricians, and a little bit of everything else. And so that part of it was easily handled. And then there were a number of people in the community being a rural community. There were carpenters, and farmers, and just general maintenance-type people. And so we had no problem getting a gang together. The big problem was to try and find money to restore it. We had one public meeting where we had a fellow in to give us an estimate, and I think they built this for 15,000. He said it would be close to a million to get it restored properly, and that's kind of where it ended up. But we were really lucky. We had some general help from the public. We had a $230,000 donation anonymously from a couple of people. And then we had grants that we applied for. Will you talk about MATA North Dakota? What goes on here? And what's the future of MATA North Dakota? Good, we hope. But we're like all small communities. The size of the town, which is at one time in the early 1950s, almost 700 is now down to about 330. And so our school is still viable at this point, but we don't know what the future holds. It's going to be difficult because lots of communities are just like us. They don't have the tax base to support the schools and everything, and it's just not enough students. So I suspect if it gets bad enough for small towns and they start potentially losing their schools, something is going to happen on a state level. But I'm just talking. I have no idea. Do you think about that in terms of who's going to be the next group of people to come in and take over the opera house? Right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The population comes partly from what's happening in agriculture, because it's agriculture town. And there are no longer any 400 acre farms, which was pretty normal around here at one time. Now you're looking at thousands of acres for just about all the farms, and they have to be big because the cost of doing business is so high. So it's a catch-22 situation. So the number of acreage went from 400 to 1,000-- Oh, it's over the well over 1,000. I don't know. More like more individuals having bigger land, less family farming. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But I will say one thing. There's a lot of young people coming back to Maddack. They were raised here, and they went off, and found their careers, and found their spouses. And now they're coming back here. There's quite a few. And we have a little bit of a population boost in babies coming here. Yeah, that's right. But on our board, we try to get at least 50% of younger people than some of us on it to help us with this, so that they can bring in their new ideas. And some things that happen up here this year were just taken over by some of the younger members of the board, and they did it. And we were rejoicing that. Let's talk about some of the programming that you have up here in Maddack. As I mentioned to you before, and I have to share this with our audience, I was-- I don't even know where I was. It might have been in rain, North Dakota. It could have been in Crosby. But I met somebody who was from Maddack. And they told me about this really significant thing that happened, which was the town came together and saved the building. And now it's being used for a number of different purposes. There's a restaurant downstairs, a coffee house. When I came in this morning, you could just smell the coffee. Immediately, I wanted a cup of coffee and a roll. And I knew that you guys were going to be selling rolls down there, too, if you did. So don't think I'm going to leave you without grabbing a roll. OK, I'm going to grab a roll. But then in the library, then we have up here, the space. And to describe it for people who are listening right now, it's kind of like the size of maybe about a half court or something like that. Hardwood floor, exposed beams. And as I'm looking down this way at my guests today in the background is the stage, where the curtains would open and a production or a screen comes down. But what are some of the different uses up here for the opera house? Well, I think we have a lot of musical people in Maddock. And so we have some local things that happen. And that's always exciting, because then families come here to see their family members up on stage. You know, it's kind of exciting. But then we try to bring in people from outside different musicians. I remember during the pandemic, after just getting out of it, we got Laurie Lyon to come here. And to get her piano up to this floor, we had to have a lifter to bring it up through this door here. And then through here and up to the stage. And she said she was out there watching it, because that piano is really important to her. I love it. I love you mentioned Laurie Lyon. Of course, those of you who are listening right now, you know, Laurie Lyon, of course, you know, she's got a beautiful voice, but her dresses and her piano. And just the thought of somebody carrying a piano up those stairs. But you did it. And I bet that was a beautiful show. It was. This was all lit up with her stuff that she brings in. You know, I think that speaks to the importance of the performers. They want to have an experience. I think they tire out playing arenas and stadiums. They look to have an experience. And coming to Maddock must just be incredibly rewarding for the community, but also for the people who are up on the stage when you book them. You don't have a problem getting an audience. They come from miles around. It's a fun time, isn't it? That's right. Grandpa was a carpenter, built half the stores and banks, changed no camels, cigarettes, and hammers nails and banks. We were the level alone, the level. The shape, even, every door. And for that drive in an hour, it calls Lincoln one vote. Carol Backstrom and Jim Gilbertson, well, I want to thank you both again for being on the Great American Folk Show. It was sure a pleasure to have you. OK, thank you. Thank you. Well, he used to sing me blood on the saddle and rock me on his knee. And let me listen to the radio before we got to eBay. Well, he'd drive to church on Sunday, and he'd take me with him too. Stained glass and every window. Here he needed to never review. Grandpa was a carpenter, built half the stores and banks, changed no camels, cigarettes, and hammers nails and banks. We were the level alone, the level. The shape, even, every door. And for that drive in an hour, it calls Lincoln one vote. That was Great American Folk Show host Tom Brusseau. You can listen to the Great American Folk Show on Saturdays at 5 p.m. on Prairie Public. Support for Prairie Public is provided by the Bush Foundation, investing in great ideas and the people who power them. Introducing the recipients of the 2024 Bush Fellowship. Learn more about 2024 fellows at bushfoundation.org/fellows. This is Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine. Poetry from Studio 47 comes to us from Patrick Hicks, writer in residence, and a member of the English faculty at Augustana University in Sioux Falls. Today, he shares three poems that, quote, "knocks his socks off" and that he believes deserves a greater audience than his classroom at Augustana University. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is Poetry from Studio 47. Welcome. Regular listeners know that I usually focus on one poet. I give a little background on that poet's life. I offer a few points of interest about what makes the poem we're about to hear intriguing or thought provoking or entertaining. Today, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to share a few poems with you that you'd almost certainly never run across. Let me explain. I have a very good fortune of teaching creative writing to whip smart college students. I'm often very impressed with the caliber of work that's created in our classrooms at Augustana University. In fact, each year, I run across a number of poems that just knock my socks off. I thought I'd share three of these poems with you today. They all came across my field of vision in the last 12 months and I think they deserve a larger audience than just our tiny classroom. The first poem is "Dad," by Jessica Ruff. I'm always a sucker for poems that are full of raw honesty and emotional bravery. For me, this is the good stuff. If I sense that a poet is being honest on the page, they will probably tell me something about the human condition. This particular poem offers up a childhood memory and it's a memory that continues to burn into the present moment. I don't know how many times I've read it and it gets me every time. Jessica is from Sioux Falls, South Dakota and she recently graduated with a degree in English. This is "Dad" by Jessica Ruff. Growing up, there was a man who arrived on motorcycle, pink Barbie helmet in hand, leather coat, cigarettes, a poke in the side, Jess Jess. Was it my fault I couldn't say it? Dad, always a cold stone, clumsy on my tongue. Even years later, when the police dragged him away, his whiskey breath shouting in the halls of my high school, crying, I love you, I love you. I never said it. And now, alone among the sharp cacti, there is a man underneath a sweltering sun, swinging another cold one, staring across the desert, hollowed and haunted, with only a smoky memory of his daughter, a silent ghost, Jess Jess, wafting upwards from his cigarette. Our next poem for today is "Susanna and the Elders" by Erica Dorset. Erica is a junior, majoring in English. This poem won the Herbert Krauss Award for Poetry, and it was originally published in Augustana University's literary annual "Venture." It's always interesting to read a familiar story told from an unfamiliar perspective. And in this poem, the narrator views a story from the Old Testament from a woman's perspective. In many ways, this is a perfect poem for the Me Too movement. There is a long epigram to this poem, which I'll read now. It's absolutely crucial to hear this if we are to understand what is about to come. Here it is. "Susanna and the Elders" is an Old Testament story in which two lascivious older men accost a young wife, Susanna, who they found bathing in her garden, and attempt to coerce her into having sex with them. This then is "Susanna and the Elders" by Erica Dorset. Older men look at young women like summer produce, iron honeydew flesh and berry stained mouth, eyeing every orifice as a mouse does a hole in the floor. Older men talk to young women like they're tying a cherry stem with their teeth, red syrupy tongue darting out serpentine to taste her scent on the air, perfume, sweat, hair. Older men touch young women like their boys again, dipping their fingers in honey, peeling oranges, puncturing grapes, curling their fists around peach pits, always crawling inside, inside, as if they've forgotten what warmth feels like, as if they never had mothers. Our last poem for today is the wonderfully titled, "To the X Who Told Me I Never Wanted to Date You in the First Place" by Cameron Hay. It's no secret that humor is a great way to deal with pain, especially emotional pain. If you've had your heart broken and really who hasn't, there is power in writing how you feel. In this poem, Cameron Hay writes about all the bad things she'd like to see happen to her ex-boyfriend. It's a cathartic poem and full of witty humor too. Cameron is from Maple Grove, Minnesota. She is a junior at Augustana University, majoring in English. This is "To the X Who Told Me I Never Wanted to Date You in the First Place" by Cameron Hay. For him, I don't hope for misery or an STD. I don't hope for Alzheimer's, car accidents, or jail. However, for him, I do hope for photographs that never capture his good side. I hope for late buses, cold macaroni, shirts that are always a tinch too tight and a radiator with a rattling screw. I hope for taco shells that fall apart with the first bite and keys that disappear when he's late for work on a Monday morning. I hope for him a lifetime of Monday mornings. I hope for many first dates, but not so many second ones. I hope for the friend zone, for his brother to be better at everything and a B+ in every class he'll take. I hope for him a long-term relationship that breaks right around the time his buddies get hitched. That's Patrick Hicks, reading poems from Augustana University students from Studio 47, which is recorded at Augustana University and is produced by Peter Folliard. (gentle music) The Dakota Datebook is next. (gentle music) - Arts programming on Prairie Public is supported in part by the North Dakota Council on the Arts, a state agency developing, promoting, and supporting the arts in North Dakota. (birds chirping) - North Dakota, Native American, essential understanding number seven is about native identity. It states, individual and communal identity is defined and supported by shared native languages, kinship systems, tiohspai, clan structures, traditional teachings, values, sacred laws, and ceremonies. A continuum of tribal identity unique to each individual ranges from assimilated to traditional lifestyle. There is no generic American Indian. In this episode of Dakota Datebook, we'll listen to Dennis Fox Jr. Enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa, a record nation discuss identity crisis. - When I came back to the reservation I, like Charlie said, I grew up in Aberdeen, South Dakota. My parents worked for the BIA. I was in Pine Ridge, I did some ranching. I came back here, worked for the newspaper, and then I went to DC and I worked for the Smithsonian for quite a while and did some work for the University of Maryland, and then came back here, not knowing what I was gonna do, and saw the earth lodge and disrepair, and started working on the earth lodge and trying to repair it. Some people noticed and had an opportunity to work with youth build. Program for troubled young people and help them, whatever was troubling them at that time of young adulthood, get them to be a contributing community member. What we found within that young person coming is that they suffered from an identity crisis. They did know where they fit. They didn't really know who they were to fit. It would come in acting like they were in the rap sort of movement and dressing with baggy pants or cussing every other word that they had a problem with the identity of who they were and where they're coming from, and what we tried to teach them is their history and what it meant to be who they were and how to participate in the community as a tribal member. - I'm Scott Simpson. If you'd like to learn more about the North Dakota Native American essential understandings and to listen to more indigenous elder interviews, visit www.TeachingsOfOurElders.org. Dakota Date Book is produced in cooperation with the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Funding for this series is from Humanities ND, and the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. Support for Pray Public is provided by Bill Dean, real tour with better homes and gardens, real estate alliance group of Bismarck, serving the Bismarck Mandan area from homes and ranches to rental properties. More information at bildeenhomes.com. (upbeat music) - Do you have a favorite love song? Is it a beat? ♪ Can't give up on your life, baby ♪ Better put it on repeat because you may not like the new ones. Researchers say love songs are changing when looked at the billboard top 100. - 86% of them had an insecure attachment style. - What today's love songs say about us? On the next morning edition from NPR News. - 4 a.m. Central to 9 a.m. Central here on Prairie Public. And that's a wrap for today's Main Street. From all of us here at Prairie Public, thank you for joining us today. Tomorrow on the show, we'll learn about Prairie Compost Services. They'll pick up your food scraps and deliver you the composted finished product. We look forward to seeing you again tomorrow right here on Main Street. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)