Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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Federal grants often serve as the backbone of rural library services. Without their local library, many communities would lose access to basic resources. However, recent federal actions have placed critical funding for public libraries and museums in jeopardy. Following an executive order from President Trump, the future of the Institute of Museum and Library Services has been uncertain. Staff were placed on administrative leave, and grant processing came to a halt. The consequences are...
The start of summer brings a sense of excitement for many teens. Take a moment to reflect back to your teen years. As we reminisce, we can likely all say that our adolescent years were a unique and informative time of our life. Mental wellbeing habits are often formed during this time as teens strengthen their social and emotional skills, laying a foundation of habits for the rest of their life. Consider what habits you perhaps formed during this time and what supports you had or needed when...
"I am concerned your symptoms are due to Parkinson's disease," is something I have said to numerous patients over the years. This is a degenerative neurologic disease which is common enough that most patients have heard of it or even know someone living with it. Most commonly, the patient or their family might have noticed classic symptoms: a tremor, difficulty with movement like walking, or balance problems. Importantly, not all tremor is Parkinson's, though that is typically the biggest...
With the exception of being a state trooper, the toughest job in state government in my estimation is working as a corrections officer in a state prison. You're dealing with a population of men and women who, for the most part, are adept at manipulation and have some history in assaultive behavior. Corrections officers deal with a difficult group of people while trying to steer inmates to a better, law-abiding life. It's a tough job, made tougher by the decades-long overcrowding to state prisons...
A funeral celebration of life service for John F. Kiley, 91, of Orchard, will be at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, May 27, at Orchard United Methodist Church in Orchard. Celebration of Life visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m., Monday, May 26, at Orchard Community Center. Private family burial will be in Orchard Cemetery. Snider Memorial Funeral Home in Orchard is handling the arrangements. John died May 14, 2025, at Antelope Memorial Hospital in Neligh. Condolences may be directed to the family at...
As a school psychologist working for a small public school, I remember a teacher asking me to observe a student in her classroom. She expressed concerns about an elementary student's unusual behavior, lack of playing with classmates, lack of communication and even some unusual motor movements, including flapping her hands. This was in 2001, and I was experiencing my first referral for a student who would eventually receive an educational diagnosis of autism. At that time, autism was considered...
Dementia is a progressive condition that results in decline in cognitive function. People with dementia have increasing difficulties with short term memory, thinking, and reasoning. For family members it can be hard to watch the decline in a loved one who is struggling with dementia. Interacting when someone has dementia can be difficult. Following these three Golden Rules can help. Rule number 1: Do not ask direct questions. Asking someone with dementia if they remember your name or remember...
Spring is finally here, and for many of us, that brings the joy of returning to outdoor activities, planning summer vacations, and … well, allergies. Depending on the allergen, people can suffer from allergies any time of year, but spring is a particularly common time in our part of the world to hear my patients complain of seasonal allergies. Allergic rhinitis most commonly manifests as runny nose, congestion, and sneezing. Other symptoms can include cough from postnasal drip or worsening a...
Those of us who make our homes in the rural midwest understand that we face medical challenges our countrymen in more populated areas don't. For example, there are two pediatric rheumatologists in the whole state of South Dakota ... and they are both based in Fargo. In contrast, there are 10 in the Twin Cities with the University of Minnesota alone. In Winner, South Dakota, you are nearly 150 miles away from emergency access to a neurosurgeon, assuming you can go by air. No matter where you are...
Carolyn Fiscus knows where her aunt, Mildred Lowe, spent her final days. She knows the 12-year-old Winnebago girl became gravely ill in the winter of 1930 at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial Boarding School. She knows Mildred died. She does not know where her aunt was buried. It's a mystery Fiscus pondered as she sat in a folding chair beneath the sweltering sun in July 2023 and watched as a small team of archaeologists dug into the hardened Nebraska dirt. They were searching for the graves of...
When I first moved to Brookings, the primary care physicians took care of their own patients in the hospital. We would round on patients in the morning before clinic or try to sneak over during lunch or after clinic. While I loved taking care of patients in the hospital, it was hard to juggle the responsibilities of both giving my attention to the patients in the hospital while seeing people in the clinic. Any time the hospital nurse had a question, my clinic nurse would have to interrupt a...
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and women. The lifetime risk of developing colon cancer is 1 in 24 for men and 1 in 26 for women. Early detection and treatment are instrumental at improving survival rates and regular screening decreases the risk of colon cancer in the first place. Colonoscopy remains the gold standard for colon cancer screening. While detecting cancer early on is important for survival from any cancer, detecting and removing precancerous...
This past week, the Judiciary Committee heard testimony on my bill, LB73, relating to law enforcement continuing education requirements. This legislation is the result of conversations I had with area sheriffs last year regarding law enforcement staffing shortages. In 2021, the Legislature passed LB51 which increased the amount of continuing education each law enforcement officer across the state must take each calendar year from 20 hours to 32 hours. LB51 was brought to improve law enforcement...
St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but as always, you probably saw buttons reading "Kiss me, I'm Irish" from all sorts of people, Irish or not. We are all Irish on St. Paddy's Day, they say. But according to U.S. News & World Report, only about 9.4% of Americans are of Irish descent, yet 61% of us planned to celebrate on March 17. It all got me wondering, how Irish are Nebraskans? Back in the day, I did a story on this topic and found that, be gosh and begorrah, the "Irish Capital of...
Over 100 years ago, the gold mining industry of South Africa had a problem: too many workers were dying from pneumonia. They turned to Dr. Almorth Wright, a British physician who had successfully created a vaccine against typhoid fever that saved countless lives of British soldiers in World War I and other wars. Wright and his colleagues developed an inoculation of killed pneumococci bacteria which resulted in a substantial reduction of cases of pneumonia and death in the miners. Pneumonia is...
A request for Holt County Supervisors to sign a resolution regarding mandatory electronic identification livestock tags will wait, following discussion at the March 17 meeting in O'Neill. Roland Paddock of Ainsworth, secretary/treasurer for Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska, addressed the board, noting that ICON and R-CALF USA are against the mandatory tagging process. He said Wyoming and South Dakota officials "saw the law coming" and made voluntary tagging part of their respective state...
It's tax season, and who doesn't dislike filing their taxes? It takes time away from things like checking on the latest Husker football recruit or seeing what new fight we're having with Canada. And it's a messy, mathematic-heavy task, requiring a lot of wading through regulations. But there's one thing I detest more, and that's when people don't pay their taxes, unlike you and me. If I gotta pay, I reason, so should everyone else. On the federal level, it's estimated that nearly $600 billion a...
For more than 15 years, the brick building in south Lincoln has served as a local hub for the U.S. Department of Agriculture - a place where farmers meet face-to-face with federal workers overseeing complex conservation projects on their land. But last month the Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, moved to cancel the building's lease months early and claimed it saved taxpayers more than $62,000. DOGE reports on its "Wall of Receipts" to...
Effective medical diagnosis depends not just on looking, but on truly perceiving. Recognizing this, many medical training programs have adopted Visual Thinking Strategies discussions about art to enhance students' skills in nuanced observation, inference, and communication. In 2004, Harvard Medical School pioneered use of VTS within medical education to refine the diagnostic and interpersonal skills of future healthcare professionals. Now, VTS is embraced in over 30 medical schools. Through...
The Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board met on Feb. 28 and voted to increase revenue projections for the upcoming 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 fiscal years. The board forecasted, in October of last year, that the state was facing a budget shortfall of $432 million. With the latest forecast, Nebraska is projected to receive up to $165 million in potential new revenue, reducing the state’s budget shortfall to about $198 million. Revenue projections for the current fiscal year were raised b...
It's daylight savings time, so let's turn back the clock ... to four years ago when the state was still contending with the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a silver lining of sorts to those awful days – a huge influx of federal funds to keep the economy going. And state senators met on how to spend that glut of money with plans to finally make Nebraska a more attractive destination for new residents, and a place where more tourists will spend their vacation cash. Lawmakers even had a flashy name f...
When businesses support working parents, they're not just boosting their bottom line – they're helping prevent child abuse and neglect. In South Dakota, 72.5% of all children under age six have all available parents in the workforce, making family-friendly workplace policies crucial for our state's families. Research shows that workplace policies like flexible scheduling, paid family leave and childcare assistance significantly reduce major risk factors for child maltreatment by decreasing p...
Atrial fibrillation is probably a diagnosis you have heard of, if not because a friend or family member has it, because it has been mentioned in a public advertisement or pharmaceutical commercial. Atrial fibrillation (or "A-fib") is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, a condition estimated by the American Heart Association to be present in more than five million Americans. A-fib happens when abnormal electrical signals occurring throughout the cardiac atria (upper chambers of the heart)...
Cornerstone Bank is thrilled to announce the 2025 Travel Club lineup, offering well-planned travel opportunities for our communities and customers across Nebraska. Open to all ages, this program is perfect for those who love to explore new destinations without the hassle of planning. "We've partnered with Gannon Travel Associates of Grand Island to provide expertly curated trips, ensuring a seamless and memorable experience," said Mandy Hengelfelt, Vice President of Marketing & Business Developm...
When Ewing Police Chief John Shaver asked Summerland fifth-grade students if they have felt stress, hands shoot in the air and eager students share a range of experiences. The discussion was one of 10 Shaver has with students about responsibility and decision-making as part of the D.A.R.E. program. This is not your parent's D.A.R.E. program from the 1980s and 1990s that focuses strictly on drug, alcohol and tobacco use. While those elements are covered in the first two sessions, today's...
