North Dakota

Farmers talk of their frustrations and opportunities in this personal glimpse into rural life today. Readers will discover insights into the expensive, complicated and often emotional business of farming and ranching. "One way to understand what is happening in farming today is to listen to those who are involved in it," write Green and Coomber. That is what they do, and invite their readers to do, in Unwanted Bread. Here is the story of farming and ranching today as told by farmers and ranchers, along with astute commentators who know the country well. Visually striking, thought-provoking photographs accompany the interviews and essays. "If we could sit down with a farmer over coffee and listen to his or her story," Green and Coomber say, "we'd begin to understand the challenge farmers are facing today." So pour yourself some coffee, and help yourself to Unwanted Bread.

By:Sheldon Green and Jim Coomber

In April 1909, twenty-two-year-old Robert Silliman Judd, born and raised in Bethel, Connecticut, climbed aboard a train bound for the northern plains where his uncle Elmer farmed in Cando, North Dakota. Robert roamed the prairie with Elmer for six months, observing and collecting birds during the great spring migration.

Decades later, Robert’s granddaughter Margaret Rogal discovered his notebooks filled with detailed records of birds, nests, and eggs, along with his letters and summaries portraying his love for North Dakota and the thousands of migrating birds, alighting, it seemed, at his very feet.

Margaret responded to the trove of documents with poetry; each sample herein is an exploration of Robert’s experience.

A Little Book about North Dakota, Volume 1
6"x 6", paperback, 120 pages, color illustrations throughout

In a small North Dakota town, Sheriff Ray Adams faces the dangers of a changing world where bigotry and violence are fueled by social media. As he confronts these challenges, he reflects upon his own life, the life of his ex-wife--a former Miss Rodeo North Dakota--and the prejudices faced by their daughter growing up in a small town on the prairie. The peace is about to be shattered, and there will be blood. The Last Dakota Cowboy is a deeply moving story about love, loss, and betrayal in uncertain times. 

"Paul Legler's The Last Dakota Cowboy centers on a rough-and-tumble sheriff dealing with a broken marriage based on a near fatal attraction. At the same time, the oil boom brings big changes and shady characters to his small Dakota town. Heartfelt, full of the hard history of this country, and action packed, it's a natural for the legion of fans of Yellowstone and Madison and the Longmire series."
--Pete Fromm, five-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award. 

ISBN: 978-1-946163-84-4

Page Count: 148

Picture Count: NA

Paperback

Publication Year: 2026

Over seventy years after his debut on KTLA in Los Angeles, and nearly decades after his debut on ABC in 1955, Lawrence Welk's unprecedented and almost continuous run on network, syndicated, and now public television confirms his place in American entertainment history. From his childhood in a small, German-speaking immigrant community on the North Dakota plains to one of the richest and most recognizable entertainers of his generation, Lawrence's story is a microcosm of the national experience during the American Century. 

By telling his story, author Lance Byron Richey came to understand the experience of assimilation and secularization, war and peace, and Depression and prosperity that his generation of Americans lived through in the twentieth century. In the process, the supposedly traditional and timeless values Lawrence mythologized for his audience were revealed as just as time-bound and transient as those of the Baby Boomer generation that supplanted him and his generation as the arbiters of cultural taste. 

Most importantly, though, as a man, Richey came to see Lawrence in his moral simplicity and personal complexity, a deeply good and decent man whose family often paid the price for his unquenchable desire for success and security, which his childhood on a North Dakota farm had implanted in him. In short, Welk's story is a quintessentially American story.

The first edition of Champagne Times is limited to five hundred numbered copies, all of which have been signed by the author. The book covers are SKIVERTEX Vellin #5517 blue casing, premium grade, simulated leather material debossed with gold foil. They are designed by Deb Tanner; printed and bound by Thomson Reuters Core Publishing Solutions. 

Lance Byron Richey serves as President of the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he also holds the rank of Professor of Theology. A graduate of Furman University (B.A. in History, 1988) and Conception Seminary College (Certificate of Pre-Theological Studies, 1991), he studied both Philosophy (PhD 1995) and Religious Studies (PhD, 2004) at Marquette University i Milwaukee, Wisconsin; he as published widely in both disciplines. Lance and his wife, Carol, have five children.

LCCN: 2025938196
ISBN: 978-1-946163-76-9

Volume 1: Fire in the Belly (1903-1945), 400 pp., 37 b&w photos
Volume 2: Evening Star (1945-1963), 416 pp., 39 b&w photos
Volume 3: A Rock in the Storm (1964-1992), 424 pp. including 16 color photo pp., 36 b&w photos  

Hardcover, packed in slip-case, limited edition, signed and numbered
Publication Year: 2025