Today I read in the Dickinson Press Newspaper that DSU President Thomas Mitzel is leaving Dickinson to go become President of Kentucky Wesleyan College.

When I saw Dr. Thomas Mitzel’s photo above the newspaper headline, I didn’t even need to read the headline, I knew that his resignation was probably coming.  All kinds of people are abandoning ship in Dickinson, and I don’t blame them.

Dr. Mitzel served as one of the wardens of this Dickinson Prison Work Camp hell for the past four years, and now he is free.  Probably no one is more happy about leaving Dickinson than his wife Rhonda.  At this point, Rhonda’s only shopping options for clothes in Dickinson are WalMart, Tractor Supply, and Runnings Farm & Fleet, because that’s all there is.

Dr. Mitzel came to DSU at a time when it was just beginning to recover from at least four major scandals that weren’t his fault:  DSU was caught awarding degrees to hundreds of foreign students who had not completed their coursework;  DSU Foundation was dissolved by the State Attorney General for financial misdeeds;  DSU Foundation had failed to pay for the construction of Hawks Point on the DSU campus; DSU had failed to pay for the construction of the Biesiot Activities Center.

Dr. Mitzel had begun making very good progress towards improving the status, reputation, and enrollment at DSU.  He was part of the creation of a foundation that was organized to build a Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum on the DSU campus.  Dr. Mitzel was also in favor of creating an Associates Degree program in Industrial Technology at DSU that would have educated people in a multi-state area for employment in the oil, natural gas, and other industries.  https://bowmanextra.com/2018/09/21/dsu-looking-to-become-polytechnic/

However, when the Governor of North Dakota stepped in to relocate the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum away from Dickinson, because Dickinson is so primitive, backwards, and dangerous, and there was no state level support forthcoming for the creation of an Associates Degree program in Industrial Technology, the rug was yanked out from under Dr. Mitzel’s feet as far as improving DSU.

When the dead bodies started showing up on the DSU campus and elsewhere Dickinson, it was time for Dr. Mitzel and his wife Rhonda to get out of town, while they still could.

Where Dr. Mitzel and his wife Rhonda are going, Owensboro, Kentucky, the town has a population of 60,000, and the Ownensboro metropolitan area has a population of 120,000.  I looked it up, there are forty clothing stores for Mrs. Mitzel to shop at in Owensboro  https://www.yellowpages.com/owensboro-ky/clothing-stores

The school that Dr. Mitzel will be President of, Kentucky Wesleyan College, it was founded by the Methodist Church in 1858.  Probably the most important thing in this blog post, is to explain what “Wesleyan” means:

For approximately fourteen centuries, the primary representation of the Christian religion was the Catholic Church.  However in the 1500s, a Catholic priest named “Martin Luther” began to reject some of the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church as corrupt.  In short, Martin Luther began to believe that people could attain salvation through faith and reading the Bible for themselves, not through the Pope or doing what the Catholic Church said.  This led to the Protestant Reformation, and the creation of the Protestant religions, such as the “Lutherans”.

Similarly, in the 1700s, a Protestant priest named “John Wesley”, started a religious revival movement called Methodism.  This led to the creation of the Methodist Church.  Since the Methodist Church founded the college in Kentucky, it is called Kentucky “Wesleyan” College.

As a college founded by the Methodist Church, the college publicly states in all of its literature that, “We believe in ‘The Wesleyan Way’ of learning and living. The Wesleyan Way is based on four principles we incorporate into every single thing that we do:

1. We do everything with HONOR.
2. We SUPPORT EACH OTHER.
3. We COMPETE WITH INTEGRITY.
4. We LOVE EACH OTHER.”

For several years in writing this blog, I have tried to explain again and again how different the Catholics in Dickinson are compared to the Methodists in the South.  In Dickinson, the Catholic Church teaches the importance of the Pope, going to Mass, and that fellow Catholics from this area are more important than other people from other areas, to the extent that people in Dickinson think that it is O.K. to take advantage of other people, to be hostile, mean, uncooperative, unhelpful, and unfriendly to others.

In contrast, the Protestant religions in the South teach that everyone is supposed to be helpful and kind to one another, not just in church, but especially in everyday life.

I know that Dr. Mitzel and his wife Rhonda will be going to a much warmer, friendlier, happier, enjoyable life in Kentucky, which they deserve after spending four years in the Dickinson Prison Work Camp.