Tonight, December 29th, we begin our annual look at the top local news stories of the year.

Over the next several nights, we'll remember what was making news in 2008.

First off, we recap the biggest stories of January and February.

The year began with construction work starting on a new ten million dollar marina at Fort Stevenson State Park near Garrison. The new marina was needed to deal with record low levels on Lake Sakakawea and offered the promise of being useful no matter how low the lake dropped. The project cost was cut by getting the Corps of Engineers to agree to a plan to build up the base of the project using rocks collected from local fields rather than bringing in more expensive quarried rocks from Minnesota.

North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan called on the US Geological Survey to conduct a new study of oil reserves in the Bakken Shale Formation - which spreads across western North Dakota and eastern Montana. Meanwhile, oil companies were moving rigs to the region as drilling continued to rapidly increase. Corps of Engineer officials reported receiving requests for permits to drill under Lake Sakakawea - requests that were often granted.

A group supporting the construction of a community bowl, multi-sport facility in Minot took a trip to Minnesota in January - touring two complexes that were similar to the community bowl they had in mind for Minot. The group looked at covered fields in St. Cloud and the Twin Cities, hoping to use the information to help develop a promotional plan to convince voters to support the bowl.

With 2008 being a presidential election year, North Dakota lawmakers started lining up behind candidates - and some did so early on. North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad and Congressman Earl Pomeroy came out in support of Barack Obama early in the process - a fact that some analysts say helped Obama sweep to an easy primary election win over Hillary CLinton on February 5th.

In late January, longtime minority leader in the state House Merle Boucher announced plans to run for governor. Those plans changed a bit in the spring when Boucher was defeated in his bid for the Democrat nomination by Tim Mathern. But Boucher became Mathern's running mate for the governor's race.

Former governor Ed Schafer agreed to help his friend and fellow former governor George W. Bush and was nominated to become US Agriculture Secretary. Schafer won easy confirmation in the US Senate.

A federal judge ruled that the Northwest Area Water Supply project, NAWS, could not move forward with bringing water from the Missouri River to Minot until a full Environmental Impact Study was completed. That meant a year-long delay in work related to treatment of the water for the project. By year's end, the E-I-S had been completed and a treatment plan has been recommended that may allow construction on water treatment facilities to begin in 2009.

A B-52 bomber from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana made an unusual stopover on February 22nd. The huge bomber landed at Minot International Airport after its crew declared an in-flight emergency due to a malfunction and deteriorating weather conditions. The bomber was repaired and took off from the airport after less than 24 hours.

Faculty members at Williston State College passed a vote of no confidence in the president of the college, Dr. Joe McCann in late February. Dr. McCann announced later in the year that he was retiring from his position, but said the decision was unrelated to the faculty vote.

And, as the first two months of 2008 ended, we had a once-every-four-years event - February 29th. And leap year babies were of interest. We talked with the parents of two babies born on the extra day at Trinity Hospital.

And that's a look at January and February 2008. Jim Olson, KX News. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list