ndflagBISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – North Dakota demographer Richard Rathge has seen the state’s population go from record lows to record highs.
 
     The 62-year-old professor of sociology at North Dakota State University in Fargo is retiring next month after 32 years of tracking population and economic trends in the state.
 
     The New Mexico native came to North Dakota in 1981 and plans to retire to the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
 
     Rathge says he came to North Dakota when people were leaving the state. And now he is leaving while a record number of people are coming to North Dakota.
 
     Rathge says the number of residents in the state is at an all-time high, thanks to an oil bonanza in the western part of the state.