WHEN FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, businessman Howard Dahl boards a plane for the East Coast or flies to Europe and beyond, he is often struck by the views of the people he encounters, especially their preconceptions about his part of the country. "There's a lot of condescension. You'd think no one here ever read a book," Dahl says, "or ever had a thought about anything. They think we're religious fanatics."To Dahl, a successful international exporter of agricultural technology, this contempt is sometimes hard to understand. A devout Christian who spent three years at a Lutheran seminary, he comes from an increasingly...