The March 12, 1955, front page reflected North Dakota’s passion for high school basketball. The story captures the excitement of the 1955 North Dakota Class A high school basketball championship, where Dickinson and Minot emerged as the top contenders after thrilling semifinal victories. With thousands o,f fans eagerly watching, the stage was set for a dramatic showdown at the University of North Dakota Fieldhouse.
Meanwhile, a more ominous event loomed over the eastern United States. A massive radioactive cloud drifting over the region, a result of a nuclear test explosion in Nevada. While officials reassured the public that the cloud was harmless and unlikely to cause significant fallout, its presence served as a stark reminder of the nuclear age’s reach. Together, these articles capture a moment in history where local sports fervor coexisted with the broader anxieties of atomic testing.
PUBLISHED ON MARCH 12, 1955
Big Radioactive Cloud Hangs Over East U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP story as published by the Obituary on March 12, 1955) — A radioactive sea of cloud about 1,000 miles long and 200 miles wide hangs harmlessly over the eastern part of the United States, the Weather Bureau reported recently.
It is impregnated with particles from the giant atomic explosion in Nevada Monday, March 7, 1955. By Friday night, the bureau said, it will have drifted out over the Atlantic.
The mass of radioactive moisture and dust now stretches out about two miles high from near the New Jersey coastline west to about Nebraska.
In the eastern part of the country, a weather bureau spokesman said, it will not extend farther south than northern Virginia.
The bureau said a higher-flying, faster-moving stream of radioactive cloud reached the Atlantic around noon Tuesday and sped out to sea over the Carolinas. This layer, he said, was some eight miles up, and its height and eastward speed probably meant that virtually no radioactive particles fell from it to the earth over this country.
The lower layer, the spokesman said, is moving more slowly, but will result in very “very little, if any radioactive fallout.” The spokesman added that the cloud has become so strung out that it is probably too diluted to be of any danger.
Dickinson, Minot in Big Game
Midgets Edge Walsh Aggies In Overtime
The 1955 North Dakota Class A high school basketball title rests somewhere between Minot and Dickinson today (March 12, 1955) —depending on where your partisanship lies—before tonight’s big battle at the University of North Dakota Fieldhouse.
Minot defeated Williston, western division titlists, 71-61, and Dickinson squeezed past the Walsh Aggies, eastern finalists, in a 63-59 overtime game Friday night in semifinal rounds.
Championship play starts at 9 tonight, following the 7:30 third-place game between Williston and the Walsh Aggies. Wahpeton, ousted earlier in division play, is defending state champion.
Play Consolation
Valley City and Bismarck met this afternoon for the consolation title. Valley City took a 55-51 contest from Grand Forks and Bismarck defeated Fargo, 55-44, Friday afternoon.
Friday night’s semi-finals saw the biggest crowd of the tournament to date, some 8,000 screaming partisans, witness two thrilling contests.
Minot pulled away in the last quarter to subdue Williston, which once again can’t win a state title after having taken four consecutive Western division crowns.
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READ MORE HEADLINES FROM MARCH 12, 1955 HERE
Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.