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5 things to know today: Father sentenced, Flood preparedness, Exploited students, Helping families, Auctioneer champ

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Christopher Lee Devine appears for sentencing Monday, Jan. 27, in Cass County District Court for fatally injuring his 7-year-old son and critically injuring another son, then 5, in a March 23 DUI crash in south Fargo. Michael Vosburg / Forum Photo Editor

1. Fargo dad sentenced for fatal DUI crash

Imagine your first-born son brain-dead in a hospital bed as he takes his last breath, while your other son lies in the next room fighting for his life after the two boys were in a drunken driving crash, their father at the wheel.

Kristen Sande wanted those images to be visualized by those sitting Monday, Jan. 27, in a Cass County Courtroom. It's how she felt after Christopher Lee Devine, 33, decided to shoot whiskey with a friend, put his and Sande's children in the back seat of a vehicle and drive down South University Drive last year before crashing into another vehicle.

"Imagine your heart sink at the thought of losing both of your sons," Sande wrote in a letter read by prosecutor Ryan Younggren. "Imagine feeling your heart sink again, having to tell your baby's best friend his confidant, his idol, his hero, his heart, his love, his everything was no longer on Earth."

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2. Fargo officials urge flood preparedness

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Greg Gust of the National Weather Service in Grand Forks during a standing-room-only informational meeting about spring flooding hosted by the North Dakota State Water Commission and Department of Emergency Services on Monday, Jan. 27, at Fargo Cass Public Health. Michael Vosburg / Forum Photo Editor

Twenty-two miles of permanent flood protection barriers have been built along the Red River in Fargo since the record 2009 flood that required six million sandbags to hold back.

The city has been working steadily over the past decade to improve its flood defenses, in concert with the planned $2.75 billion metro flood diversion project.

In 2009, the city had to scramble to build 47 miles of emergency levees, city leaders were told on Monday, Jan. 27. The construction of 22 miles of protection, at a cost of $295 million, means only 1 million sandbags would be required if the city were to face a flood comparable to 2009, which reached 40.84 feet.

"You're moving ahead, you're doing a great job," Mayor Tim Mahoney told Nathan Boerboom, a city engineer who oversees flood projects. "You're getting this whittled down, whittled down, whittled down."

More from The Forum's Patrick Springer

3. Study: 5,000 Minn. students believed to have been sexually exploited

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Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm on Monday, Jan. 27, 2020, shared the results of an analysis of students that self-reported experiencing sexual exploitation. Dana Ferguson / Forum News Service

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An estimated 5,000 Minnesota high school students report that they have exchanged sex for something of value, according to an analysis released Monday, Jan. 27, by the Minnesota Department of Health and University of Minnesota researchers.

The state for the first time last year asked high school students as part of the Minnesota Student Survey whether they had traded sex for money, food, drugs, alcohol, a place to stay or something else of value. Minnesota is believed to be the first state in the nation to ask such a question of public school students.

Of the ninth and 11th grade students who took the survey, 1.4% said they'd had sex in exchange for one of the listed items. And from there, health experts determined that around 5,000 Minnesota high school students (at a minimum) had been subject to exploitation, based on that proportion factored across the census estimate for 15- to 19-year-olds in the state.

Under state law, minors who've been subject to sexual activity in exchange for an item of value or promise of such an item, are eligible for public health services and are exempt from prostitution charges. And that exchange when it involves someone 24 years or younger who engaged in, agreed to engage in or was coerced into sexual contact is considered sexual exploitation.

Read more from Forum News Service's Dana Ferguson

4. Crisis of missing Indigenous people sparks activists, searchers to help

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Lissa Yellow Bird-Chase gave up her career as a welder to search for missing and murdered Indigenous people across the country. Natasha Rausch / The Forum

Half a dozen Native and non-Native women alike sat around a table in the lobby of the Plains Art Museum for their monthly meeting on missing and murdered Indigenous people, or MMIP.

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Their group was formed shortly after a local Native American woman, Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, was brutally murdered in August 2017. The members of the group, known as the Fargo Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force, have a shared trauma, said Ruth Buffalo, a member of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation and a Democratic state representative for Fargo.

They all joined in the search for LaFontaine-Greywind, whose body was found by kayakers along the Red River nine days after she disappeared. The river, which runs from southern North Dakota into Canada, has been the dumping site of hundreds of Indigenous people’s bodies over the years, according to the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a group working to document such cases in North America.

Read more from The Forum's Natasha Rausch

5. Minn. farmer becomes a champion auctioneer

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Andrew Jossund, 25, of Gary, Minn., was named Champion Auctioneer at the Minnesota State Auctioneers Association convention on Jan. 16 in St. Cloud. He's pictured in a shop building on his family's farming operation near Hendrum, Minn. Chris Flynn / The Forum

Andrew Jossund turned a trait often frowned upon in the school classroom into a unique skill and livelihood.

“I’ve always talked too much, I guess,” said Jossund, who works as a licensed auctioneer.

“I’m just glad I found a way to use it productively,” he said, with a smile.

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Jossund, 25, not only makes a living at auctioneering, but is winning awards doing so.

He was recently named the 2020 state champion auctioneer at the Minnesota State Auctioneers Association convention in St. Cloud.

In the contest of auctioneering speed, salesmanship, stage presence and poise, along with a short question-and-answer session about the industry, Jossund came out on top.

More from The Forum's Robin Huebner

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