Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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As the weather warms, more Nebraskans head outdoors to enjoy activities such as fishing, hiking and camping. But they're not alone. There's another creature that's most active during spring and summer months. Nebraska is home to a growing number of tick species. When these arachnids cross paths with humans, consequences can be dire. "Tickborne disease is on the rise in the United States. We have more tick-borne vectored disease than mosquito-borne vectored disease. We tend to think about mosquit...
Hadley Cheatum represented the Summerland girls' track and field team in two finals, Saturday, at the Nebraska School Activities Association Class C State Track and Field Championships, in Omaha. She finishes her high school career by adding two additional state medals to her collection. During Friday's prelims, Cheatum had the fourth fastest qualifying time in the 100m hurdles, running 15.55. In Saturday's final, Cheatum finished where she started, earning the fourth-place medal after running...
A sophomore and a senior punched their tickets to the 2023 Nebraska School Activities Association Class C State Track and Field Championships after qualifying at districts, last Thursday, in Atkinson. Bailey Ahlers claimed gold in high jump. She cleared 5' 3. Caydence Schumacher finished fourth and Lydia Robertson, fifth, in the event. Both cleared 4' 11. Cheatum won the 400m dash, setting the pace at 1:00.02, a season record for the University of South Dakota track commit. Cheatum hit gold a...
The recipients of the 2023 4-H Council Senior Scholarships are Lillian Hoerle and Levi Cronk. Applicants must have exhibited 4-H projects four years during 7th through 12th grades, as well as other criteria. Applicants were required to write about their 4-H career and how the organization has affected them. Hoerle, of Amelia, is the daughter of Mark and April Dexter and will be graduating from Chambers High School. She has been enrolled in 4-H for 15-plus years. During her career, she showed dai...
The year 2023 marks a milestone at Northeast Community College. On Fri., May 12, the college will hold its 50th commencement ceremony to celebrate the success of its graduates. Three commencement ceremonies will be held in the Cox Activities Center on the Norfolk campus at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 3 p.m. At 9 a.m., nursing graduates will receive their nurse pins and participate in commencement. The ceremony at 12 p.m., will award credentials to graduates in applied technology and health and public...
SUBMITTED ARTICLE North Central District Health Department announced, May 9, that Heidi Kuklis will serve as the district's newest executive director. Kuklis joined the NCDHD team in February 2023 and is already familiar with its operations, as she previously served as the emergency response coordinator for more than five years. "Kuklis brings a wealth of energy, knowledge and expertise to the team. She is extremely active in the community, is a member of various organizations and boards and is...
Lauren Behnk, of Clearwater, always knew she wanted to travel and experience life outside of Nebraska, especially in a Spanish-speaking country. Several people introduced travel as a way to study on Behnk's radar. Leenda Thiele, Behnk's high school Spanish teacher, shared her journey of coming to the states from Puerta Rico. Thiele encouraged her to experience travel for a better opportunity to learn. Behnk's cousin, Valley, also traveled and spurred her interest in seeing the world. Finally,...
The Appropriations Committee advanced its finalized recommendations for the Fiscal Year 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 biennial budget to the full Legislature. This proposal calls for an average increase of 2.3% in spending over the next two fiscal years. The main differences between the governor's proposal and the Appropriations Committee proposal are that lawmakers included an additional $80 million to increase both (A) the reimbursement rates for providers of Medicaid services by 3% this year and...
Each year, the Upper Elkhorn Natural Resources District awards three scholarships to graduating high school seniors in the district. "These are students who have chosen to pursue a career in a field related to agriculture, natural resources or the environment," said Beth Walsh, UENRD information and communication coordinator. This year’s recipients are Kade Youngblood of Chambers High School; Levi Cronk of Summerland High School; Tucker Stagemeyer of O’Neill High School; and, alternate Ashley Pischel of Summerland High School. Kendra Youngblood...
The Legislature's Appropriations Committee has signed off on providing the funds to build a $366 million prison in the Lincoln-Omaha area just as the Department of Corrections brings on a new director who appears to favor programming and investing in the humanity of the incarcerated. That brings some hope to a small but fierce band of senators who don't think building is the best way out of the problem for the nation's most overcrowded prison system. The money is a big part of the budget which...
Last summer, Imperial farmer Dirk Haarberg made the hard decision to let some of his milo crop die. The heat and the wind had proven too much and Haarberg needed to save water for his other cornfields. Haarberg's water pumps also ran nonstop, he said during an interview, drawing more water than usual from the Ogallala Aquifer to feed the thirsty crops he was keeping alive. "We don't overwater, but when it was as dry as it was last summer, there's not much you can do but just water 24 hours a...
The play of the Husker football team won’t be the only thing under scrutiny during Saturday’s Red-White scrimmage at Memorial Stadium. A new and improved Herbie Husker is set to take the field. Herbie’s makeover includes ditching the jeans and polo shirt and donning overalls from the mascot’s 1970s debut. Only this time, Herbie has obviously embraced a Keto diet, his features more refined than rugged. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Husker fan still carries an ear of corn in his left hip pocket, al...
The forest green roof and pair of bronze stags frozen in combat are impossible to miss as you drive down Interstate 80. So are the two corporate buildings – 550,000 square feet of nearly empty office space, long offered for a $1 a year lease. The water tower looms overhead, painted in the same green, heralding what once was: "Cabela's World Headquarters, City of Sidney." For 54 years, Cabela's made its home here, a juggernaut that kept the town humming. But in 2017, the sporting goods store s...
Two Lady Bobcats returned to Summerland with two medals from the 2023 Dan Lennon Track Invitational, held at the University of South Dakota, in Vermillion, March 28. Senior standout Hadley Cheatum, a USD track commit for next season, earned bronze in the 60m hurdles, finishing in 9.88. She placed fifth in the 400m, running 1:02.86. Bailey Ahlers finished fourth in high jump, clearing five feet. In the majority of events, more than 100 athletes participated in the Class B division, featuring schools from Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. Raina...
I’ve never considered myself a Jays fan. I couldn’t name any of the team members. Greg McDermott’s the coach, right? Kyle Korver is greatest example of what it means to bleed blue, right? (I did catch his inspirational locker room speech.) Over the weekend, though, for a short time, I balanced on the precipice of becoming a Jaysker. I didn’t take the deep dive, though. My tribe of Husker fanatics kept me in check. A screenshot of Nebraska’s 63-53 victory over the Bluejays, on Dec. 4, provided...
When reporter Eva Mahoney arrived in Valentine in 1930 to profile America’s next great mystery novelist, she found Mignon Good Eberhart in a “pleasant little home,” struggling to visualize her next murder. Bewitched by her new surroundings, the big skies and grassy dunes, the author had contrived a remote hunting lodge in the Nebraska Sandhills as the site for her fictional crime. It had log doors, “a great, deep fireplace made of native, unfinished rock,” Eberhart wrote, and a hodgepodge of antique pewter lamps, a quirk of the cabin’s late own...
Two years after Donald Trump won the 2016 president election, four Nebraska women joined to form a progressive political group in the state dedicated to holding lawmakers like those in the Nebraska Legislature accountable. "Something physically in my body had changed and I was compelled that I was never going to feel that way again," co-founder Christi Bradley said of the 2016 election. "I was never going to feel like I hadn't done enough to prevent something terrible from happening." The...
My dreams of Nebrasketball landing a spot in the National Invitational Tournament shattered into a million intricate threads, faster than a glass photo frame dropped on a tiled surface breaks into multiple shards. Sunday’s news that Fred Hoiberg’s crew did not make the cut and have an opportunity to bounce back from an unnecessary - and costly - loss in the first round of the Big 10 Conference tournament leaves me feeling, well, broken. You cannot fall to a less-than-mediocre drove of Min...
Funeral services for Aaron Kinnan, 37, of Oakdale, will be Saturday, March 18, at 10:30 a.m., at the Oakdale Fire Hall. Pastor Bruce Phillips will officiate, with burial in Oakdale Cemetery. The service will be livestreamed on Aaron's page on brockhausfuneralhome.com. Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m., Friday, March 17, at the fire hall. Brockhaus-Harlan Funeral Home in Tilden is in charge of arrangements. ~~~~~ Aaron James Kinnan was born June 7, 1985, to Gene and Sharon Kinnan at Antelope...
It came down to Ron Hull. In September, the seven members of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission met in Lincoln to decide whether to induct civil rights leader and Omaha native Malcolm X. Three members were in favor of his induction. Three were opposed. After years of debate and several failed attempts to get the slain civil rights leader into the hall, the long-controversial effort now would be decided by one man. It was up to Hull, a silver-haired 92-year-old, a longtime Nebraska Public...
Yuliana Olivan, a junior at Summerland Public Schools, will represent Clearwater American Legion Post #267 Auxiliary at the 2023 session of Cornhusker Girls State this June. Auxiliary president Shirrale Legate told SAM she was notified Monday of Olivan's acceptance. Olivan, daughter or Regino Olivan and Graciele Reyes, of Clearwater, is active in a number of school activities, including Dance Catz, speech, one-act and SkillsUSA, in which she qualified for national competition in 2022. As a...
When you think of 4-H, do you image a farm and exhibiting animals at a county fair? Well, think again. 4-H is about learning lifelong skills, creating new friendships, discovering new opportunities, exploring projects and so much more. 4-H offers a wide variety of project interests such as consumer and family sciences, communications and expressive arts, animals and plants, healthy living, environmental sciences, science and technology, career and college readiness, agricultural literacy, citizenship and leadership. In fact, there are more than...
The state of the state on its 156th birthday. It's still a very red, heavily conservative and largely Republican mecca situated in one of those mostly square states out west that a lot of people couldn't find on an unmarked map. And we like it that way. Well, a lot of us seem to. Might that change? Could Nebraska be the place where high school and college graduates want to stay? Could it become a magnet for young people and innovation? Progress in that direction is slow but it could happen....
More than 6,900 University of Nebraska–Lincoln students have been named to the deans' List for the fall semester of the 2022-23 academic year. Qualification for the deans' list varies among the eight undergraduate colleges and the Explore Center. Area residents named to the list include: Kierra Lynne Bearinger, Clearwater, junior, dean's list, College of Education and Human Sciences, elementary education and early childhood education. Jacob Behnk, freshman, Clearwater, dean's list, Explore C...
It happened on a late spring Saturday afternoon in Omaha. The cool mid-May breeze caused the fans ringing Westside High School’s modest football field to curl up under their blankets and jackets. They watched, peering through the late afternoon sun, as 16 high school lacrosse players made history. The NorthStar lacrosse team, a group of Black boys from North Omaha, faced off against the private Creighton Prep High School for the 2022 junior varsity Nebraska state title. Creighton Prep’s seasoned players warmed up along the sidelines, while sev...
