Dateline–Thompson, After Six Years
On today’s show, I made remarks that will, again, lead me to be accused of “running the school and the sports into the ground” in Thompson.
It seems my objection of homes being rezoned by a tyrant of an ex-mayor (the new mayor is a good one) and describing the exploits of officiating have rubbed many the wrong way. The image I painted was not a positive one, and that bothers some of my neighbors.
I don’t blame them. Upon moving to Grand Forks in 2012, and back in 2014, all I heard about life with a daughter, and another child on the way, was that Thompson is “where it’s at”, a town full of young families moving to find the small school experience they enjoyed as youth growing up in North Dakota and Minnesota. The school was bursting at the seams, and only needed some progressive voters to approve a referendum to do more.
We bought in, literally. After watching a Grand Forks north-end home bought out from under us with a blind “30% above appraisal for cash” offer by a Minneapolis developer desperate to drain student loan money from some UND students, then looking at a Grand Forks home with a destroyed upstairs, then another without a single closet, a wonderful house with a spacious backyard, a swing set, a sandbox, and in our price range opened up, and we pounced. It seemed like a perfect ending.
Not long after, the city of Thompson decided our home and swingset and sandbox was commercial property. The only house south of Highway 15 in town to be zoned commercial was ours. Call me shocked when the new Dollar General that just opened didn’t make us an offer.
I used my platform to voice those concerns. That may have been the first time in a while that the town which enjoyed the family-friendly status it did took a shot of dirty laundry.
There were some that didn’t like it. That was, in their words, running the town into the ground.
Following this, I’ll admit that I had an on-again, off-again romance with Thompson. They had a great run of kids, not just athletes, but great kids that made covering their games a joy, every bit as much as covering a lot of other teams I’ve worked for in my career. When my kids needed a school I could trust, they landed there, and the staff worked in tough circumstances I was partially responsible for to welcome the two Cunningham children through the door.
I thought we might just be okay after all.
But, there was a baseball incident this past summer that basically killed it. And here’s the part that I haven’t shared: it was not the kids that made me leave the field.
It was the parents.
Due to limited availability of umpires, a situation created when Thompson’s Babe Ruth team qualified for a state tournament that started the day their American Legion team played for a regional title, I used paid time off to work the game that was moved up two hours, so Thompson could be in two places on the same day. My wife was working, so my kids, Thompson students and participants in summer activities, made the trip with me.
After a call at first base that not a single Thompson fan could see (I’d absolutely make the same call 100 times over), with my kids watching, I clearly heard at least one parent jeer me by my name. “That’s (expletive) terrible, Cunningham,” was the quote, followed by several other obnoxious comments from charged-up fans watching a game for a state tournament spot unfold.
My kids heard that.
I left the field. The fans cheered.
At that point, I was on borrowed time in a lot of facets of my life. I’ll never step on a baseball field again, after several years of making sure players had an umpire by rearranging vacations to accommodate 100-game schedules for the Greater Grand Forks Baseball Umpires Association.
As I enter this year’s volleyball season, I know that clock is winding down also. I whistled an illegal contact in a recent match, and a coach jumped up off the bench upset. That’s a very normal thing that happens in any match anywhere, but that isn’t what I see, or hear, in those circumstances anymore. I see my kids watching while I hear their last name being yelled at the same time very ugly things unbecoming of our fans are being yelled.
As previously stated, borrowed time.
The clock obviously started on living in Thompson as well. A young, growing family would still do well to live in our house and go to our kids’ school. The teachers there are nothing short of amazing. Early, they identified spots where our kids needed work, then got them that work. Our first week of homework for this school year, our kids second year there, was this week, including the spelling word test that our kids would rather Mom and Dad forget about for their nightly drill.
Yesterday, both of our kids came up aces on their first run of words for the year. It’s not a testament of our kids, it’s a testament of how hard those teachers, and their principals, work so they find success.
These things have been said on the air also. Listeners of my show would back me up on this. It hasn’t been all “running it into the ground.”
Today, however, the conversation circled around what levels service taxpayers of any city should expect from park district-allocated dollars. Specifically, I cited a Grand Forks Herald story regarding the desire for additional dog parks in the city, and I took the approach that dog parks are not necessary expenditures of taxpayer cash. Park district dollars are for people, not animals.
Of those human-related projects, swimming pools are always meat on the bone to be chewed. One man’s opinion, but that’s what park district dollars are for, and pools are not supposed to support themselves financially. Kids deserve a pool, pools cost money, pools lose money, it’s my money, and I’m okay with that.
I have expressed my opinion, repeatedly, that Thompson needs a pool. According to the school district, 652 students call Thompson Public Schools their home, and that number is likely to grow. The latest numbers I could find show Northwood with 334, Larimore with 395, Hatton with 170, Cavalier with 412, Langdon with 386.
All of those communities have a pool.
My wording today stated that it was my belief that, in Thompson, athletic success has been prioritized at a higher level than a well-rounded experience, in town, for the kids. Why do I say that?
During my time in Thompson, we have built a new gym, completely remodeled a baseball field, and refinished a softball field, projects that accentuate the most successful of Thompson’s athletic efforts.
And credit where credit is due, wrestling is on the map in Thompson, which, as someone with a wrestling background, is something that is really inspiring. So many small schools have taken wrestling as the first, or easiest, casualty of the athletic department.
Meanwhile, I see that swimming lessons, and the pool experience, are exported to Grand Forks. The American Legion billboard that people use to advertise events tells me that the drama productions are usually at the Empire Arts Center, in Grand Forks. Thompson has a golf team, but the golf course used for practice isn’t a Thompson one. If I heard correctly, they use Ray Richards, in Grand Forks.
I have dared to lay down a challenge to the city of Thompson: let’s have a goal of not exporting anything.
A texter of the show today said that Thompson can no longer have a pool. Taxes went up, so no pool.
I disagreed. I stated that it should have been part of the referendums that failed. The referendums included classrooms and a gym, I’m sure with a few other details added in. There was never a pool, golf course, anything like that, included. I would (have) vote(d) for that.
To be fair, the new gym may have a stage included. It’s been a while since I looked at the plans, and I seem to recall a stage being part of it. If so, it’s a start, if not, we’re still where we are. Golf courses are hard, I’ve been in communities where they’ve taken on public golf courses from scratch. It’s land, it’s maintenance, and a lot of staff.
But, with 652 kids walking through the doors every day, a pool seems like a no-brainer. There is room at the Southbrook Park complex by displacing one swing set, right between a softball field and a pavilion that has housed plenty of birthday parties for our kids.
And, I’ll stand by my opinion. The impression I get of Thompson, in six years of being there, is that we’re satisfied if we’re winning games with what we house in town, and we’re more than comfortable sending our swimmers and golfers and actors up the road somewhere else.
As a taxpayer and parent, I dared to say that an approach like that shouldn’t be good enough, and I also dared to complain after being jeered off of a baseball field by parents that I thought of very differently.
And I’m the one that runs the town and the sports into the dirt.
As our family makes preparations to sell our home, I’m not sure what message this will leave you with. So, let me clear it up, in black and white. Thompson has teachers that are top shelf, people that care about students, a lot of really great kids, and some really helpful neighbors that will pick up limbs that fall in your driveway during a hellacious wind storm just because they were driving by.
But no official deserves be heckled, by name, by grown men and women standing feet away from that official’s children when he did you a favor, got time off from work, and showed up so you could play early and send part of your team down the road to another tournament.
And yes, Thompson can have a pool.