Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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Despite recent federal and state approval, construction of a controversial 226-mile transmission line is once again paused in parts of the Sandhills - the latest stumbling block in a 14-year battle. A federal judge issued a partial preliminary injunction on June 8 in response to a lawsuit brought by local ranchers, historic organizations and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. They're seeking to block the 345-kilovolt electric transmission line proposed by the Nebraska Public Power District. Known as the...
Regina Sullivan’s phone kept ringing as she worked from home on June 23, 2020, but she didn’t look, because she was on the clock. Then the knocking on her door started. She walked up the stairs just before 11 a.m. and looked outside to see officers from the Lincoln Police Department. Immediately, she had a sick feeling that she knew what they would say: Marvin Lee Sullivan, her son, had died. “I was no good,” Regina said. She broke down in the doorway. Her daughter, who was sleeping upstair...
When Nebraska's Department of Health and Human Services announced its plan to divvy up millions in opioid settlement money, one recipient stood out: The Central Wyoming Counseling Center. The Wyoming nonprofit is the only out-of-state organization slated to receive some of Nebraska's Opioid Treatment Infrastructure Cash Fund, receiving $3.4 million to build a crisis stabilization center in Kimball County, which borders Wyoming. The Central Wyoming Counseling Center's former acting CEO: Steve...
Alonzo Denney sets his phone on the conference table, pulls up a family photo and starts counting. There are 11 living relatives, including him, now sharing ownership of 80 acres along the Bazile Creek in Knox County, land originally allotted to their ancestor by the federal government. Then Denney does some quick math. He might, he says, be paid around $25,000 if this land, now mostly flooded and unusable, was placed into a flowage easement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Denney,...
There's a map tacked up on the wall in Kameron Runnels' office – squared lines and small text showing who owns what pieces of the Santee Sioux reservation. Six of the squares, big chunks of land, are labeled the same: "school land." Runnels, the tribe's vice chairman, said he always wondered what exactly that meant. Two of the squares are colored in green – land the tribe pays the state almost $65,500 per year to rent and farm, even though it's within reservation boundaries. When Nebraska was...
Rancher Lemoyne Dailey says he's careful about how he "makes his footprints" when he works on his land near Thedford. The rolling Sandhills are fragile, Dailey said, the grasses and sands easily torn up and tough to restore. Over the past decade, Dailey has been fielding visits from utility workers surveying his land, planning a power transmission route and asking for a signature on the dotted line. He's one of a group of Sandhills landowners steadfastly refusing to sign. "You don't know the...
