You may have noticed these red bows along your route as you drive through downtown Bismarck. They’re not left over from the holidays…they’re a gesture by a local girl named Jessica to her fiance, Barry. He gets to see them on his drive to work every morning and know she’s thinking of him. She put them up this year in certain parts of town where she knew he would be driving.

If you watch KFYR-TV news, you may have seen a news story where they interview someone from St. Alexius Medical Center, who says the bows are up because of some sort of heart-related awareness campaign. If that’s the case, then why do they continue down Rosser and go around Medcenter One on 7th Street? Is this some unprecedented gesture of cooperation between competing hospitals? I don’t think so.

I can understand if a local TV reporter gets it wrong…it really happens all the time, especially since the stations rotate so many fresh journalism graduates from out of state. But then for St. A’s to go ahead and say, “sure, that was us” is just plain dishonest. Jessica said she called KFYR-TV to set the record straight, but was brushed off. I guess they already got their story.