PLAZA, N.D. (AP) - Keith Hegney hadn’t had much luck finding love over the past five years, so the 27-year-old slipped on a cowboy hat and went to try his luck bidding on a date. He attended the annual singles auction at the Wabek Bar, which for rural residents of communities like Plaza can become a vital way for unmarried people to mingle and perhaps even meet that special someone. “The guys stay home. The women leave for Fargo or other big cities,” said Hegney, one of fewer than 200 people in this town about 70 miles from the Canadian border. “So the best hope we have is Canadian women coming down.”
That gap is wider in many of North Dakota’s rural counties. In Slope County, the state’s smallest county with about 770 people, census figures show 31 percent of the 344 males have never been married, compared with 15 percent of the 282 females. The exodus of young people is putting the biggest strain on marriage rates in North Dakota, Rathge said. During the past decade, the number of adults in North Dakota between ages 20 and 34 fell 16 percent, from 151,888 in 1990 to 127,390 last year. Nationally, the age group was down 8 percent.
At the Wabek Bar, owners Kim and Angie Letvin said they saw plenty of eligible bachelors, but no single women for the guys to take out on a Friday night. So the Letvins started a bachelorette auction three years ago. Each spring, it draws men and women from around the state, this year inviting both to appear on the auction block. All proceeds go to charity. Curt Stofferahn, a rural sociology professor at the University of North Dakota and co-director of the Center for Rural Studies, has heard the stories about young farmers who are having trouble finding wives. Hegney said he doesn’t understand why life in a rural area would be a turnoff for a woman. “I don’t expect her to start running cattle,” he said. “All that matters is that she’s a good wife and mother.”
I heard about something like this in rural Australia. Folks came from far and wide (really far and really wide) to meet at a dating party.
Now, I’d have no problem being married to a farmer as long as there was some city life nearby to offset the cowpies and pig slop. I doubt there’s much of a cosmopolitan nightlife in Slope County, though. I do like living in the boonies, but knowing that Chicago is a 40 minute train ride away makes it infinitely more attractive.
“At the Wabek Bar, owners Kim and Angie Letvin said they saw plenty of eligible bachelors, but no single women for the guys to take out on a Friday night.”
Wow, what a coincidence. I saw the same thing at a cowboy bar in West Hollywood!
They put the 6’4" strapping young corn-fed Midwestern boys on the block too? How much? ::dashes off to tell friends what I want for Christmas::
Seriously though, I ride well enough that I could probably learn to run cattle, and I’ve even got my own horse. But I too have reservations about the “good wife and mother” bit. I have other qualities I’d like to be appreciated for before I get around to reproduction, ya know?
Like the calendar idea though. But I vote to have 'em in jeans, no shirt, and barefoot.
