Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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Danna York was tired of feeling like an inconvenience. When she wanted to leave her home in Waverly and head to Lincoln for errands or for fun, she'd have to get a ride from a friend or family member. That changed around 2013 when York, legally blind since birth, learned about the Lancaster County Public Rural Transit program. It offers curb-to-curb transportation throughout the county and several nearby towns - provided one stop falls outside of Lincoln city limits. "It has just been...
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...
Gov. Jim Pillen has always insisted that he’s “not a politician,” but more of a regular guy. “Speech-i-fying” isn’t his cup of rhetorical tea. I’m sure he’d admit that. But every so often, we get evidence of, shall we say, a misstep of the vocal variety. Most recently, it was when he was signing an executive order intended to “further eradicate” antisemitism, a worthy goal. Pillen had already ordered state agencies to use a definition of antisemitism developed by an organization, the I...
Jake Rosmarin has never set foot inside an Omaha restaurant. And yet, in the past month, he has eaten Reuben egg rolls from Paddy McGown's, a burrito bowl from Bomb Taco, a box of candy from Chocolat Abielle, buffalo chicken pizza from Mama's and, of course, a Runza. These and many other Omaha takeout standouts have been delivered directly to his address: A door located inside the University of Nebraska Medical Center National Quarantine Unit. Rosmarin, an Instagram-famous travel blogger from...
The two highest-paid nonprofit employees in the state benefit from a bonus system criticized for incentivizing more medical procedures. Nebraska's state auditor calls it inexplicable. A former health insurance CEO suggests it's excessive. A veteran doctor says it's unheard of. They're reacting to what a nonprofit hospital paid its gastroenterologist in 2024: Nearly $5 million. That same hospital, Faith Health in Norfolk, paid a plastic surgeon $3.8 million. Those sums made the doctors the two...
Nebraska Public Power District identified four locations for a potential nuclear plant. So far, plans haven't sparked the backlash generated by previous wind and solar projects. This story is made possible through a partnership between Flatwater Free Press and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. Applause echoed through the halls of the Gage County courthouse. The county board had just approved new, more stringent wind energy regulations, and the overflow crowd of residents...
Ella Ricker was sitting in her elementary school orchestra class when she first considered a career in teaching. Her orchestra teachers at Lincoln Public Schools made learning to play music so fun, she wanted to share that joy with others. As a teacher, Ricker said, seeing her students excited to play their instruments and perform in school concerts was her favorite part of the job. But it was also only one part of a growing list of responsibilities in a profession in which she said a good work-life balance had become unattainable. So, after...
A new Flatwater analysis shows the state has fallen behind its neighbors. Business leaders are diagnosing why - and hoping new efforts will reverse the troubling trend. Not long ago, Nebraska's growth was quite literally a national cover story. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts soared through the air wearing skis and goggles on the Olympic-themed March 2018 cover of Site Selection, an economic development industry magazine. The cartoon image illustrated Nebraska's high-flying, three-year run as...
Dorothy Lynch is a color not found in nature. It's a salad dressing eaten on virtually every other food. Some Nebraskans love it. Other Nebraskans love to hate it. No one else has ever heard of it. Of the tens of thousands of impoverished Scandinavians who fled crop failures and religious oppression for a fertile and free Nebraska in the late 19th century, probably only two are connected to something in Nebraskans' kitchen today. In 1913 in Cushing, Danish immigrants Edd and Meda Scott Peterson...
This story is made possible through a partnership between Flatwater Free Press and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. Mike Wintz was nearly four miles away and in the thick of fighting the Morrill Fire when he heard over the radio that the flames were headed for his home. "A couple of the other outfits were headed to the house to kind of head it off ... I just put my trust in the neighbors and the other firefighters," he said. The group stopped the fire near Wintz's front...
Gene Leahy didn't like what he saw. Rushville's baseball field was one of the finest in Nebraska, thanks to the generosity of two bachelor brother ranchers. But the diamond saw little action. So, Leahy - big brother to Frank, Notre Dame's legendary football coach - convinced the Milwaukee Braves in the mid-1950s to host an annual summer baseball school in this Sandhills town of only 1,200 residents. Teens and young men traveled hundreds of miles to attend. "It was the thrill of my lifetime to...
Lincoln has lost 11 providers and a net 505 spots since 2023, by a local nonprofit's tally. For the second time in three months, Kirsten Mahrt let the news sink in: Her 2-year-old's child care provider was closing her doors. Mahrt, a part-time speech-language pathologist, had used her background in child development to find the Lincoln provider who closed last month. Just as she had painstakingly chosen the first provider, who closed in November. It's incredibly stressful, she said, but at this...
Fouad Mhadji Issa looks to his adopted home of Nebraska when searching for a comparison to describe the role of vanilla in his home country of Comoros. "Vanilla is farmed widely in Comoros," he says, "like corn is in Nebraska." The marriage of those two disparate places lies at the heart of Issa's business, Koponi Vanilla. The company launched in Grand Island four years ago selling vanilla extract and has since expanded to sell coffee, syrups and body oils - all of it infused with vanilla...
State law at the time allowed Tim Decker to continue his law enforcement career in Nebraska. Now decades later with no additional incidents, supporters say he is the right man for the top job in Dakota County. The off-duty police officer had been drinking heavily at a casino and at a South Dakota bar in September 2005 when a convicted felon who had bad blood with Officer Tim Decker walked in. Within minutes, the North Sioux City cop approached, and the two men began to argue. Soon, both were...
In their own words, former Tyson workers and community members describe the fallout after their town was rocked by one of Nebraska's biggest-ever layoffs When the Tyson Foods plant in Lexington laid off more than 3,000 employees in January, it wiped out jobs for nearly half the town's work force and left no aspect of life untouched. Already, the loss of the plant has forced families to leave town in search of work elsewhere. Dozens of students have left the school system. Businesses have...
Mentoring programs are a great thing. They help kids – mostly kids in single-parent families – gain confidence, and learn leadership and life skills from adults. I've seen first-hand how beneficial they are, first as a "big brother" in the Big Brothers-Big Sisters program, and then as a participant in the TeamMates Mentoring program. My "little brother" was the first in his family to graduate from high school (imagine that!) and my TeamMate graduated from high school despite problems with att...
State officials said Nebraska-specific plans to mark the nation's semiquincentennial will highlight history and contributions from many, including Indigenous people. The Spanish soldiers did not stand a chance. As they hastily broke camp to continue their southward retreat, arrows began raining down from the sky. When it was done, 45 Spaniards and allied Native Americans lay dead in the grass near present-day Columbus. The slaughter, carried out by Pawnee and Otoe warriors, became known as the...
Valmont represents a home-grown Nebraska success story, the 80-year-old company that pioneered the center pivot that helps corn grow in the Cornhusker State. The Fortune 1000 company still operates facilities in its Valley birthplace as well as in Columbus, West Point, Grand Island and McCook. It oversees global operations spanning five continents from a gleaming $50 million headquarters in west Omaha. But under a new law Gov. Jim Pillen pushed to passage last year, that stalwart Nebraska...
Shelby native Curt Tomasevicz fulfilled his dream of playing football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, where he was a scrappy special teamer. But since then, his life and career have taken a circuitous route - a twisting, turning path kind of like a bobsled course. Tomasevicz, who grew up in a 700-person town hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain, is now on the USA Bobsledding leadership team as director of sport performance. And he's currently at the Winter Olympics in Italy. The...
As nurses rushed Rachel Woollen to an Omaha operating room, all she could do was pray for the four tiny babies she was about to deliver. "All I could say was, 'Please, God, help them.' I repeated it over and over. One nurse heard me, grabbed my hand, and told me she and everyone else on the medical team were praying the same thing." Brett entered the world at 2:04 p.m. Brother Kaden, sister Parker and brother Cooper followed within the next two minutes. None weighed more than 1.8 pounds. The...
Dr. Ali Khan knelt down outside a Karachi doorway and extended his hand. The young girl who, moments earlier, had just received the polio vaccine extended her hand and a skeptical look toward the smiling doctor in a red hat emblazoned with a white N. "On the front lines in Karachi, meeting a superstar who just got her polio protection. Every drop counts!" Khan wrote in an October social media post accompanying the photo. The dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska...
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...
Every day, Laura Gamble sees the importance of Pender Community Hospital in the lives of her neighbors. The woman who drove an hour to deliver her first baby. The man in a mental health crisis. They rely on her northeast Nebraska hospital. "It's like an oasis on the hill," said Gamble, who grew up in the area and practiced as a nurse before becoming the hospital's CEO. The hospital is one of the largest employers in the 1,115-person town of Pender, Gamble said. It delivers more than 120 babies...
Karissa Denae Johnson can still remember the indignity of it all - the day her life fell to pieces. It came in college, sometime between traveling the country as a childhood performer and traveling the globe as a young adult given a second chance. Between going on mission trips with her family and writing her first book. Between singing Sundays at Omaha-area churches and pursuing a career on stage in New York City. The moment intersecting those experiences came April 23, 2007, the day...
