Rocklake, ND

Check out the new Rock Lake website. Another accomplishment thanks to the Horizons Program. It’s amazing all the businesses in the community, that you don’t realize, until you look at the list. If you or someone you know has a business that is not listed on the website let me know, so it can be added. The main ones behind this project are Eugene Norheim and Myron Jacobsen.

The community enjoyed an evening at the new beach area to the West of the park in Rock Lake. This was the show off day for one of the Horizons projects that was worked on during the summer and fall months. The event was held on a Sunday afternoon in Sept. Over 150 people from the community and surrounding areas attend the event. There was good food prepared by some awesome cooks!! Games were enjoyed by the youth and whoever was game enough to play and show up the young people. There were numerous positive comments about how nice the beach area looked . Carl Swanson was the man behind the machine that put the landscaping touches to the beach area. The park/beach is a place that if free of charge and is accessible to anyone who would like to bring their family and friends to a nice quiet place, grill some burgers and enjoy the scenery. Bring the binoculars and watch the numerous species of birds on the lake. What better place to spend a day at the beach!!!!

Let me know what you think of the new header or if you got something else to put up there to reflect our community.

This is the new beach at the city park shortly after it was done. This is one of the action ideas that came out of the study circles. It goes to show that you don’t need alot of people on a committee to get something done. The head ones of the beach are Gloria Covert, Guy Mitchell, and Brock Mitchell. When you see them, tell them, thank you.

The beach is a nice addition to the city park. Come and spend the weekend or anytime here and enjoy it.

There was over forty people, adult and youth, at the study circles. They were held in early Febuary 2007. At the study circles we learned there are many different kinds of poverty. We also learned that everyone has many skills and talants that on one knew about. By putting these skills and talents to work we are able to make many structural changes in our community and in poverty. We are able to make this a great community to live in and be a part of. We also learned that we have many leaders in our community that are very good at it. By the end of the study circle we had came up with a list of action items to act on. Of them ideas two of them are up and running already and one more will be up and running in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned to find out which one that is.

The leaders of the study circles were: Jo Ann Rodenbiker, Kelly Mitchell, Mavis Carter, Jannell Lagein, Brock Mitchell, Darrel Lagein.

On Sunday, January 20, Ashley Johnston and Julia Clouse hosted a dessert party with a free will donation with proceeds going to the Rock Lake Cafe. Ashley and Julia did this as a part of the Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) program. They were helped by the other members of the Rock Lake FCCLA chapter. It was from 3 to 5:30 pm at the Rock Lake School in the cafeteria. After the crowd had their dessert, some hung around to play games.

People enjoying the desserts.                                  Ashley and Julia

We received some more training on posting to the blog site. Rolette hosted the event on Jan 24th with a full house. Mike is a great trainer and we did learn how to blog pictures and videos. So there should be some new things added to the blog site. Pass the word about our blog site. Hopefully more information as to the happenings in the community will get posted.

These fine looking individuals represent the Horizons program in Rock Lake and there were a few individuals that were unable to attend the picture taking activity. They have been working hard to look at the poverty issues in the community. And with the poverty issue in mind they are looking at making our community a better place to live and make it inviting for a potential new comer to take a look and maybe stay awhile. Yea Team!!!!

Pictured left to right: Kelly, Cindy, Brock, Kim, Mavis, Gloria, JoAnn, Ron, Danny and Guy. The picture was taken by Mike Savaloja on our new beach front access to the lake.

Vicki Lonier, Danielle Wiener, and Rachael Lagein decided to help their community by becoming community bloggers. Their training session took place Saturday January 19. Their instructor was Darrel Lagein. It was held at the Rock Lake Fire Hall. 

If you would like to become a Rock Lake Blogger, like these three are, contact Darrel.

 Gloria Covert and JoAnn Rodenbiker did great impromtu speeches at the Horizons Partnership Luncheon in Bismarck.  With literally only seconds to prepare before addressing over 200 participants, both gave great summaries of what Rocklake has accomplished with the Horizons project.  In addition, they later told their stories to a TV reporter and were both on the evening news. Just goes to show what great people can accomplish when put on the spot! 

On Friday November 30 the Rock Lake ambulance service went to the Rock Lake school. They told the students & staff what they do when on a call. The ambulance staff showed them how a patient is taken out of a vehicle that was is a crash. The patients were two volunteers from the audience,    one had a broken arm and the other

was seriously injured,    who had to be all packaged up.

  The audience even got to see how the defib can be used to monitor the heart. At the end students & staff were able to look over all the different equipment that the ambulance uses. Now if they need the ambulance they will know what to except & won’t be scared.

The Rock Lake VFW held a blood drive today at the VFW hall.    The blood drive was a big success with donors coming from far and near to donate.

The 26th annual fall fair    was held today in the school gym, which

was very well attended. This is one of the many items    that was there, with a variety of venders there, who had something for everyone.  The cafe served a delicious meal in the school lunch room and served a large crowd. The fall fair was put on by the volunteer fire department and the cafe.

We have our blog site for the community up and running. Horizons have given our community the leadership and tools that a community needs to succeed. What are we going to do with these new found instruments??? Hopefully be a progressive community with a positive attitude for change and development. We have some exciting ideas in progress. A committee for the development of a website for the community is a great way to get information out there in cyberspace. A committee that welcomes new residents to our town and provides them with info that they need. A park/lake committee that is putting a new face on the park with the addition of a beach area with access to the lake. This is just a start as to what the Horizons program has done for our town. This is called working together, communicating together for progress. Please stay tuned for later happenings…………………..