{"id":60267,"date":"2014-12-06T10:45:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-06T16:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=60267"},"modified":"2014-12-08T07:02:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T13:02:14","slug":"fargo-mayor-walaker-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=60267","title":{"rendered":"Fargo Mayor Walaker Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/walaker.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-60297\" alt=\"walaker\" src=\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/walaker.jpg\" width=\"71\" height=\"97\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>FARGO, N.D. (AP) &#8211; Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, who led the city&#8217;s fight against several floods, was remembered as a North Dakota legend at his funeral.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hundreds turned out Sunday to say goodbye to Walaker. The three-term mayor died Tuesday at age 73, several months after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gov. Jack Dalrymple and U.S. Sens. John Hoeven and Heidi Heitkamp were among those eulogizing Walaker at Reineke Fine Arts Center on the campus of North Dakota State University. A police and fire department honor guard escorted his flower-draped casket onto the stage.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0 Dalrymple said Walaker will be remembered as a true North Dakota legend. Hoeven said Walaker had a gruff demeanor, but was a &#8220;teddy bear&#8221; underneath.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Walaker spent most of his career as Fargo&#8217;s public works director.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Previously&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>FARGO, N.D. (AP) \u2013 Funeral services have been set for three-term Fargo mayor and longtime public works director Dennis Walaker.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Visitation is scheduled for Saturday from 7-9 p.m. at Boulger Funeral Home in Fargo. Visitation will continue Sunday at 9 a.m. at Reineke Fine Arts Center on the North Dakota State University campus before the funeral service there at 10 a.m.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The 73-year-old Walaker died Tuesday in his home, several months after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He told city employees that he was returning to work this week after spending a couple of days in the hospital for an adverse reaction to chemotherapy.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He was the face of several successful flood fights and a fierce promoter of a planned Red River diversion project that would end the almost yearly spring sandbagging efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Previously&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>FARGO (WDAY TV)\u00a0\u2013 Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, 73, who was elected to his third term in June, died unexpectedly at his home Tuesday night, Deputy Mayor Tim Mahoney said.<\/p>\n<p>Walaker died at about 7 p.m., Mahoney said, and the cause could be \u201ca variety of things.\u201d Walaker had been battling kidney cancer for months.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency medical personnel were called but unable to save Walaker, Mahoney said.<\/p>\n<p>Mahoney, who was there when Walaker died, said \u201cDenny has been like a father to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mahoney will take over as mayor. He said a meeting will be held Monday to figure out the next steps.<\/p>\n<p>Walaker was hospitalized over the weekend from a reaction to his chemotherapy and was released from the hospital earlier Tuesday..<\/p>\n<p>Walaker, 73, had been receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments for renal cell carcinoma, a common form of kidney cancer.<\/p>\n<p>He disclosed his illness publicly Aug. 29. Walaker said his kidney cancer diagnosis came after the June city election, when voters elected him to a third and final term.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FARGO, N.D. (AP) &#8211; Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, who led the city&#8217;s fight against several floods, was remembered as a North Dakota legend at his funeral. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hundreds turned out Sunday to say goodbye to Walaker. The three-term mayor died Tuesday at age 73, several months after he was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60267"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60509,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60267\/revisions\/60509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}