Lawrence Welk was, in some ways, North Dakota’s first celebrity. The famous bandleader was born on his German-speaking family’s homestead near Strasburg in 1903, but his dreams of music led him away from North Dakota. Welk worked and played local dances for four years to repay his father $400 for his first accordion. He left North Dakota at age 21 and pursued professional music, growing in popularity as his career progressed, playing dances, ballrooms and resorts, then to television and the long