The candidate who nearly unseated North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson two years ago wants to try again. Menoken, N.D., farmer Doug Goehring will seek the Republican endorsement at the state party convention March 31 to April 2 in Minot.

"I don't know if it means that I should have worked harder last time," Goehring says, "but I think one of the opportunities that exists this time is I've already built a lot of name recognition, and I think that'll help."

Sporting cowboy boots with a well-tailored sport coat, Goehring describes himself as a third-generation farmer who is worried about the relationship between ag producers and the rest of the world.

"My concern is, as each generation moves further from their agrarian roots, a distorted view begins to form of our business and how we function," Goehring says. "We must re-establish an understanding of how we are interconnected, and what that relationship brings to North Dakota's economy and future."

Goehring also plans to push for crop insurance reform, and says his current position as president and board chairman for Nodak Mutual Insurance Co. has equipped him to pursue that goal.

Goehring, who is president of the Menoken School Board, also is a committee member with the North Dakota Soybean Council, State Board of Agricultural Research and Education and a biodiesel task force.

Goehring will compete for the GOP endorsement against Jim Lee, a rural Max farmer and Ward County commissioner, who has been publicly critical of Goehring's work as chairman of the board of Nodak Mutual.

Lee announced his candidacy last week, saying his ability to win election to the Ward County Commission shows his vote-getting skills. Lee has a home-field advantage; the state Republican convention is being held in Minot, March 31-April 2.

Lee and the Ward County Farm Bureau fought Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman in court over Poolman's decision to take administrative control of Nodak Mutual in September 2002. The North Dakota Farm Bureau founded the company, and its directors at the time oversaw Nodak's operations.

Poolman took the step, he said, to quell a "civil war" between Nodak board members and top managers. Goehring was chairman of Nodak's board of directors at the time. The supervision ended in July 2003.

Poolman sued the Ward County Farm Bureau in an attempt to stop the organization from distributing proxy ballots for a new election of Nodak's board of directors. The organization responded with its own lawsuit, seeking a delay in the election, which a judge refused to grant.

Later, Lee and the Ward County Farm Bureau sued Poolman in a bid to overhaul how Nodak Mutual's directors are picked. A judge dismissed the lawsuit, and a Supreme Court appeal is pending.

"Now that Doug Goehring has put in his name for public office, actions in preventing Nodak policyholders a say in running their own company should be answered, in court as well as the court of public opinion," Fjeldahl said.

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