Fargo, N.D. Mayor Dennis Walaker is dubious about earning the
title of “America’s Toughest Weather City” in The Weather Channel’s
online tournament. Fargo faces Bradford in the final round, with
the winner to be announced this morning.

“When it gets down to it, is it any kind of honor to have the worst
weather in the U.S.?” Walaker said in a telephone interview with
The Era on Thursday.

“We actually had The Weather Channel up here for a beach party in
the summer. We had a water slide … everyone wore Hawaiian shirts,
we put on this really neat party. And now we’re in the final two of
this tournament?”

Walaker went on to extoll the praises of the largest city in North
Dakota, mentioning their revitalized downtown and two universities,
saying “To me, it’s a great place to live. We have four distinct
seasons; we live in a valley. It sounds a lot like Bradford.

“I talked to your mayor this morning,” added Walaker. “I said, no
matter if we win or lose, we will exchange more than greetings.
I’ll be sending some of our chocolate-covered potato chips and a
book on our famous 2009 flood. We had a nice chat and I wished him
luck.”

Bradford Mayor Tom Riel said that he hoped to have “a Case knife
and a Zippo lighter, engraved with ‘Second Place’” prepared for his
half of the exchange. Riel said that he also had a “very cordial
conversation” with Walaker on Thursday.

“He (Walaker) told me that he’d rather vote for Bradford than for
Fargo — If they nominate you for an ugly contest and you couldn’t
take your name off it, would you want to win?” Riel asked.

Walaker agreed, laughing, saying “We would be happy if Bradford
won.”

Meanwhile, Riel was cautiously optimistic about winning the
contest, saying “Everywhere I went today, people were talking about
the contest. People were calling relatives in Florida, Texas and
all over … e-mailing everyone on their lists to get everyone to
vote for Bradford.

“The Fargo metropolitan area is over 300,000, but if you look at
the votes, we managed to get double our population (in the last
round) versus a sixth of theirs. Bradfordians in droves are turning
out to vote.”

Finally, Riel said “Even if we don’t win, we’ll still be the
toughest weather city east of the Mississippi. They can have the
rest.”

Voting continues at weather.com until 5 a.m. today. The victor will
be announced on The Weather Channel between 7 and 10 a.m.