My son, Jeff, graduated from Seneca in 1991, while I was teaching at Louisville Manual Magnet School, and he had also heard it all and was very much aware of the North Dakota thing. He later got to know one of my former students, Rob, and began hanging with Rob's group of close friends. North Dakota came up and Jeff remarked that their really is no North Dakota. A number of the group turns and said something like, “Not you , too.” Jeff replied, “where do you think Rob got that stuff? From my dad.”

Rob related to me a story of how he and his friend, another of my former Seneca pupils, Susan, got into a discussion of how to pronounce the capital city of South Dakota. They even went so far as to call the governor's office to ask. When the receptionist answered the phone they actually asked to talk to the governor to solve their disagreement. Amazingly, the receptionist informed them that the Governor was out of town but they could speak to the Lt. Governor if they liked. You must be kidding me. When else and where else other than 1990's South Dakota can that happen. They were thrilled and asked the Lt. Governor how to pronounce his capital city. “Peer,” he said. I don't who won the argument. They conversed with the Lt. Governor for a few minutes and finally said, “ we had a history teacher who claimed that North Dakota was a myth and did not exist. Without hesitating, the Lt. Governor of South Dakota replied, “ As far as I can tell, he is absolutely right.” does it get any better than that. Now I have over 800 Facebook friends, about half of which are former pupils of mine and the concept has gone, at least in a local sense, viral.