The Williston Wire

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This is quite a nice story; brings a lot of the past, present, and future together:  

The Williston Sea Lions will celebrate the grand opening of the new 50-meter Olympic sized pool at the Williston Area Recreation Center with an Olympic Gold Medalist!  Katie Ledecky, the swimming phenomenon who won the 800-meter freestyle during the 2012 Summer Olympics, will help dedicate the EJ Hagan, MD Natatorium, on Saturday, March 29, beginning at 10:15 a.m. The pool, which is housed in the Williston Parks and Recreation District's ARC, is named after Ledecky's grandfather, the late EJ Hagan.

Sean Hannity, host of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show and FOX News' Hannity with Sean Hannity, will be a keynote speaker at the 22nd Annual Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. Hannity will join several oil and gas industry leaders and CEOs to address this year's theme, "Bakken Strong," and discuss the role oil and gas has in strengthening our state and nation's economy, job growth and energy security.

While Cash Wise grocery store is preparing to open in Tioga's north side, an adjacent strip mall is also taking shape.  Slated for occupancy in the 10,000 square foot strip mall is an Anytime Fitness franchise location, a China Express restaurant and a Cash Wise Liquor store, said Jay Moore of Oppidan Development.

Oil companies asked, and Sanford Health listened.  In a step to meet the tremendous challenge of providing health care in the booming oil fields of western North Dakota and eastern Montana and after working with leaders in the Bakken, Sanford Health is introducing an innovative new service - O.P.C. mobileMED. The service will provide health care services directly in the oil fields for oil-producing companies (O.P.C.) and their subsidiaries.  Sanford Health will deploy two mobile clinics on wheels and one modular clinic - initially in Watford City.

With no affordable rental housing available in Bainville, the school district is considering building two apartment buildings with two to four units each to accommodate housing needs for new teachers.  School trustees considered options during their monthly meeting recently.  As the oil boom spreads across the state line into eastern Roosevelt County, real estate and rental housing prices have risen due to the demand caused by oilfield workers looking for housing in Bainville and Culbertson and commuting to oilfield jobs at Sidney and Williston or farther.

For a group of self-described "over-educated and underemployed" young men from Minnesota, the lure of an "urban legend" is too great to ignore. That's why members of the team first came to the oil patch about 18 months ago and why they've returned this spring for another look. Everywhere in Minnesota, it seems, someone knows someone who went to the Bakken for a good-paying job, finding along with it high housing costs, long hours and a culture under siege.