5 things to know today: Bubba, coronavirus ready, mental health, robotics, endangering charges

File photo of UND head football coach Bubba Schweigert. Nick Nelson / Grand Forks Herald

By Staff reports and Lori Weber Menke

March 03, 2020 at 7:23 AM

1. UND football coach Bubba Schweigert signs extension

UND football coach Bubba Schweigert will enter the Missouri Valley Football Conference with a little more job security. Schweigert was awarded a four-year contract extension, announced Monday, that would keep him in Grand Forks through the 2023 season.

2. Grand Forks readies itself for coronavirus

3D print of a SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—virus particle. The virus surface (blue) is covered with spike proteins (red) that enable the virus to enter and infect human cells. (Submitted / National Institutes of Health)

As the coronavirus heads ashore in the Pacific Northwest, Grand Forks Public Health Department workers’ efforts to contain the virus amount to reminding residents to wash their hands , cover their coughs, and so on. They've also kept in contact with their counterparts at the North Dakota Department of Health in Bismarck, among other health agencies.

3. Grand Forks schools lead community mental health education efforts

030320.N.GFH.Hegland — Mercedes Hegland, a senior at Community High School, explains the eight "sources of strength" -- mental health, family support, positive friends, mentors, healthy activities, generosity, spirituality and medical access -- using a basketball in her school counselor's office.

When Mercedes Hegland started going to therapy, she didn't think it was that common – after all, she rarely heard her peers at school talk about their mental health. When she transferred to Community High School, and especially when she joined Sources of Strength, that began to change.

4. Hatton/Northwood robotics team to head to world championship competition

030320.N.GFH.Thunder Robotics.jpg — The Hatton/Northwood robotics team, Thunder Robotics, pose after being named Event Champion at the FIRST Robotics Great Northern Regional competition held at the Alerus Center on Feb. 28-29. (submitted photo)

The Hatton/Northwood public schools robotics team made a triumphant return home Saturday night with a fire department and ambulance escort, after being named one of the three event champions at the Great Northern Regional Robotics Competition.

5. Adams, ND, man pleads guilty to barricading himself in Grand Forks residence, threatening to make it 'go boom boom'

File photo. SWAT team surround the house where police say 33-year-old Patrick Aune barricaded himself in the basement. Photo by Ken Chase/Forum News Service.

An Adams, N.D., man pleaded guilty on Friday, Feb. 28, to barricading himself in a University Avenue home last year and threatening to burn the house down. Patrick Donald Aune, 34, accepted a plea agreement for two counts of endangering by fire or explosion and one count of assaulting a peace officer.