The Extra Newspaper

10/29/2025

10/29/2025

Congratulations, Hannah Griffin! You've won two free beverages from Third Drop Coffee and the FM Extra!

"I love Third Drop's coffee. Best coffee in Moorhead!"

10/25/2025

Rocket Ball Production Gets Rolling

Inventor John McDonough’s Rocket Ball games are finally going into production – just in time for Christmas orders.

Molds are being developed now to mass-produce the bright yellow controllers that define the fast-moving tabletop game. Players use them to snap a ball forward and back on the 2-by-3-foot playing surface, similar to a child-sized pool table. A bell dings with each swat as two players or teams zing the bright red ball past their opponents’ paddles. The lightning-fast action has been compared to a two-person version of pinball.

After four years of tinkering and assembling prototypes himself in his basement in south Moorhead, McDonough is ready to move into full production by Nov. 1. With the support of the Barnesville Economic Development Authority, his team will begin producing games in leased space there in coming days. Manufactured games should be ready to ship by mid-month, “in plenty of time,” he notes, “for Christmas.”

Some of McDonough’s first Rocket Ball orders have been on the books for several years. Seventy percent of players who tried out his prototype two years ago at Gen Con, the nation’s largest tabletop gaming convention,were ready to buy on the spot, McDonough says. Wherever area gamers have tried his prototypes, from Buffalo Wild Wings and local retirement facilities to the Moorhead Business Association and St. Joseph’s School, newly minted fans have asked about purchasing the units.

“People who’ve tried Rocket Ball love it,” the Moorhead man reports. “Kids love it. Parents and grandparents love it, too. It’s something fun to do together that doesn’t involve a screen and electronics.”

Read more about Rocket Ball in the Oct. 28 edition of the FM Extra, on newsstands now, and online at https://www.thefmextra.com/rocket-ball-production-gets-rolling/

10/25/2025

Thousands Gather for 'No Kings' Event

Thousands of Moorhead and Fargo residents gathered peacefully between Fargo’s City Hall, Civic Center and Library Saturday, Oct. 18, to demonstrate their opposition – in the words of organizers — to “the authoritarian overreach of power being exercised by the current administration.”

Crowd estimates ranged from 3,500 to 5,000. Organizer Lyn Dockter-Pinnick said no serious problems occurred during the two-hour rally. Many participants carried signs; some came in costume as frogs, dinosaurs, cats, chickens and axolatls (pink salamanders with exterior gills). Volunteers cleared litter from the grounds before leaving the area at 4.

The community’s second No Kings rally coincided with some 2,700 similar gatherings across the United States, with total attendance estimated at more than 7 million. The FM event was sponsored by the Red River chapter of Indivisible, along with the ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters and MoveOn.

10/25/2025

Moorhead and DGF Present School Tax Levy Referendums to Clay County Commission

Both the Moorhead and Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton school districts are hoping voters will be feeling generous on Nov. 4. The districts are both seeking local tax monies to bolster their suffering operating budgets.

The numbers were presented to the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning at the weekly meeting.

Dr. Brandon Lunak, Superintendent of Moorhead Area Public Schools, was first up to bat.

Lunak first highlighted the laudable successes of the school’s extracurricular programs, as well as the Career Academy. MAPS enrollment has also grown by more than 30 percent in the past decade.

Recent building projects like the new Moorhead High School building in the past few years and the Career Academy have truly moved the district up several notches.

Specialized programs like English Language Learner (ELL) and BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risks).

Read more about the presentatiions in the Oct. 23 edition of the FM Extra, on newsstands now, and online at https://www.thefmextra.com/moorhead-d-g-f-present-school-tax-levy-referendums-to-board/

10/25/2025

Helping Young Spuds with NO HOME To Go Home To

When the school day ends, a torrent of young Spuds heads out the doors of every school in Moorhead. Most head home to families, supper and homework. But for almost 5 percent – nearly one in 20 of the district’s 7,400 students — it’s a different story: They have no homes to go home to.

About 350 boys and girls enrolled in local elementary, middle and high schools are classified as experiencing homelessness. That’s according to Amy Riccio, who has been designated as the local district’s transitional student support specialist, its liaison with students who are homeless.

“Don’t call them ‘homeless students,’” the social worker cautions. “I work with ‘students who are experiencing homelessness.’ That’s different. It doesn’t label them forever. This is temporary … and the solution is getting an education.”

Amy’s job, she says, is to make sure students without permanent homes feel that they belong somewhere – that their school and this community value them and care about them. She coordinates the district’s services for this special segment of its enrollment, particularly those who are living on their own. When the district hired her as its first full-time liaison in 2020, she says, 24 of the 170 identified as homeless were unaccompanied – that is, living without the care of parents or guardians. Last year, 85 of the 350 who were by then defined as homeless were unaccompanied.

Read more about Moorhead schools' homeless liaison and the ways in which help is provided in the Oct. 23 edition of the FM Extra. It's on newsstands now, and online at https://www.thefmextra.com/helping-young-spuds-with-no-homes-to-go-home-to/

10/25/2025

10/23/2025

Join us this Saturday, October 25th, from 10 am to 2 pm at the event! Dispose of your unused medications safely and anonymously.

Take a look inside your medicine cabinet and make a difference! If you have medications you no longer need, haven't used, or that have expired, bring them to the Clay County Law Enforcement Center, 911 11 St N. There is a lobby drop-off bin available 24 hours a day.

Locate a collection site near you: www.DEATakeBack.com

10/18/2025

Friends Lend a Hand to Library

The Moorhead Public Library has plenty of friends who stand ready to give it a hand. For the next week, they’re taking a bow … as some 200 members of the all-volunteer contingent take a bow for the faithful service they’ve been providing the local landmark for more than 20 years.

It’s National Friends of the Library Week. Coordinated across the country by the American Library Association, Oct. 19-26 marks the 20th annual celebration designed to promote and recognize groups like Moorhead’s who support their local libraries through fundraising and advocacy.

Here in Moorhead, library director Megan Krueger says she and her staff rely on the fund-raising and advocacy that the Friends of the Library provide. Large among those services are the semiannual used book sales that often underwrite needs beyond the annual budget – most recently, purchases related to finishing the brand-new regional library that will open late next spring in The Loop, the new community center with which it will share quarters downtown.

“The book sales are huge – more than our staff can handle,” Krueger says. The loose-knit group of volunteers holds two major sales each year, along with several smaller events, an ongoing bag sale and some online selling.

While the library’s modus operandi may be lending books, the Friends of the Library give that a little twist. They sell them, mostly for nickels and dimes. Book sale co-chair Pam Gibbs estimates that each of the big ones offers perhaps 10,000 titles, all in good condition, donated by book lovers throughout the community. “Most of them are priced $2 or less,” she reports.

Read more in the Oct. 16 edition of the FM Extra, on newsstands now, or online at https://www.thefmextra.com/friends-lend-library-a-hand/