PRAIRIE ROSES: To Jason and Dana Mitzel of West Fargo, who are being recognized by the North Dakota Department of Human Services with an award during its annual Adoption Celebration on Saturday in Bismarck. The Mitzels have adopted or are in the process of adopting five siblings, three sons and two daughters, all American Indians. Jason and Dana married in 1994 and graduated in 1996, he from North Dakota State University and she from Concordia College in Moorhead. While waiting to have their own family, they became involved in foster care and became foster parents through the Professional Association of Treatment Homes, a nonprofit organization that facilitates foster care for children with special emotional and behavioral needs. This loving couple has been assisted in the adoption process by Adults Adopting Special Kids, a collaborative program of Catholic Charities North Dakota, PATH and the Department of Human Services. Jason and Dana now talk about how they once thought they would have two children, maybe three, but never five. Now they say they can't imagine life in their "regular" family with fewer than five children. What wonderful, caring people the Mitzels are.
PRAIRIE ROSES: To all those friends who have rallied around the family of Milissa Hartsoch, the 29-year-old Fargo woman who died during childbirth on Sept. 21. Hartsoch succumbed unexpectedly while giving birth to her daughter. Her husband, Mike, a native of Tioga, N.D., is now raising the baby and the couple's 17-month-old son. Mike Hartsoch had been studying toward his journeyman's license to work on a high-line electric job but decided that job was too dangerous for a single father. Jen Pederson of West Fargo, Milissa's friend, says truckers are spreading fliers and donations are coming in from as far away as Canada to help Mike Hartsoch with medical bills and living expenses. And a benefit is slated Nov. 17 at the Teamsters Hall in Fargo.
LEAFY SPURGE: To parents (and sometimes grandparents) who seem to think it's just fine, thank you, for toddlers or even younger children to be disruptive in adult settings. The family that insists on hauling its screaming kids into a usually quiet restaurant is, in effect, disturbing the peace. When kids go tearing through a food store, for example, and rip items from the shelves as they go, Mom or Dad has some responsibility to rein in the youngsters. We're not saying children should be seen and not heard. Rather, children will be children and as such need boundaries and discipline. It's not cute at all when an out-of-control toddler is encouraged to remain out of control
PRAIRIE ROSES: To three metro-area teachers who are among the North Dakota finalists for the 2007 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. Science finalists are Sara Forness of West Fargo High School and Larry Cook of Bismarck High School. In math, Claudia Engelstad of West Fargo High School, Michelle Bertsch of Fargo North High School and Curt Ruud of Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood were honored. One state finalist in each subject may be chosen for the national award and notified this spring by the White House. The administrator of the program, Donald Hoff, an associate professor of science at Valley City State University, compares the award to the Nobel Prize of teaching. "It is the highest honor you can earn in the science and math fields," says Hoff. The winner of the national honor will receive a $10,000 award and a trip for two to Washington, D.C.
Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper's Editorial Board Adoptive parents get big bouquet 20071029
