National Affairs: What's in a Name?

Nobody has ever seriously disputed the right of North Dakota to make a present to the entertainment world of bubbly Bandleader Lawrence ("Champagne Music") Welk. Lawrence Welk was merely born in Strasburg, North Dakota, and few at the time ever thought that he would grow up to intoxicate millions of music lovers with champagne music. As it turned out, North Dakota's Welk became an answer to Wisconsin's Liberace. But, after Lawrence Welk, wondered many a North Dakotan, what?

It was a perplexing question. North Dakota's boosters, faced with a continuing decline of population (from...

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