2026 North Dakota Professional Communicators

It was an exciting year at the 2026 North Dakota Professional Communicators awards, where Dr. Dragseth received 13 awards—six first-place awards, five second-place awards, and two honorable mentions for her work in writing, editing, and photography.

Among the first-place honors were two books celebrating Dickinson State University: 100 Years of DSU Football, coauthored with Jim Dahl and Scooter Pursley, and An Alphabet Book for Little Blue Hawks, coauthored with her son, Michael Dragseth. Dragseth also earned first place for editing 100 Years of DSU Football.

Other first-place awards recognized her feature story, “DSU Cheer: Rising to Number One”; her specialty article, “Barb and Mike Oppegard: Feeding the Blue Hawks with Love”; and Lessons in Leadership, her monthly advice column for The Heart River Voice.