Saturday, April 07, 2007

Cold Easter brings out snow angel craziness in North Dakota


Yesterday's Bismarck Tribune had an article about a proposal in the North Dakota state legislature to allocate $10,000 for a "snow angel" project.

As it is where I live, Easter weekend is pretty cold, and the unseasonably cold weather has people, at least in North Dakota thinking about the past winter instead of the upcoming spring.

As the paper expains:

Rep. Bob Martinson, a Bismarck Republican who proposed the snow angel funding, said it will help the state take full advantage of its record today and defend it in the future. He said it would be used to pay for promotional items - such as T-shirts, coffee mugs and posters - and for future attempts at breaking the record if another state should reclaim it.

On Feb. 17, North Dakota set the world record for simultaneous snow angel creation when about 9,000 people made angels on the state Capitol grounds. The event, which cost about $1,000, was paid for out of the general historical society budget.

"We already spend a lot of money promoting North Dakota, but we got more international publicity for this than for anything else," said Martinson, a former director of the state tourism department.

Having been to Bismarck, where I took that photo of perhaps the nation's only art-deco state capitol building, I have to say there isn't much to do there. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in the Badlands part of the state is fantastic, and that's what will bring people (other than Minnesotans) to the Peace Garden State.

Others blogging on this topic:

Say Anything

Related posts:

What if they gave a contest and no one came? Over 500 free trips to North Dakota may go unclaimed

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