If you are interested in EE major, you have certainly skipped an option: Mankato,->U of M->???->NDSU. What's that town between the Twin cities and Fargo/Moorhead? 
I never was able to make it to the events. I am 3 hours round trip as well.
Most 1xx-2xx level electronics courses are not very interesting. You do circuit analysis on paper over and over, then breadboard circuits a lot. What arduino brings to the table is sensors and actuators and all the programming that makes a few separate pieces electronics into a system that does something. You will have to wait until 3xx level to get some similar enjoyment out of your formal ECE coursework, unfortunately. If you like Arduino, take plenty of programming courses. You might want to consider computer engineering, which is a major within most ECE departments. BTW, I don't know about electronics industry in ND but there are companies in the Twin Cities. It probably won't matter to hiring managers whether you get a degree in state or out of state but I imagine you get a bigger alumni network in Minnesota if you attend a school in Minnesota. Minnesota used to be the center of semiconductors before the silly-con valley. The next place with some EE work may be many states away, in all directions 
Regarding the Blue Earth company, the boards dated back around 199x so maybe that company was long gone and their assets were sold and eventually made their ways to surplus stores such as Axeman surplus, which is where I picked up a few.