Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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As November begins, so does the busiest shopping season of the year. We're familiar with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but let's not overlook Small Business Saturday - a day dedicated to supporting the businesses that keep our communities vibrant and unique. On this day, shop small and make an impact close to home by supporting the shops, services, and makers in our own backyards. Rural and local businesses face unique pressures. They compete not only with the convenience of online shopping...
Antelope County Commissioners approved hiring Brooke Kumm as the new 4H youth coordinator. Kumm will join the extension staff May 27, 2025, following graduation Commissioner Casey Dittrich asked what the starting salary is for the position. Antelope County Extension Board President Kim Young said the wage will be $20.52 per hour. The wage was built into the office's 2024 budget. Commissioner Regina Krebs asked if the salary is determined by the state. "This is a county position," Young said. You...
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,...
Seniors on the Summerland Bobcat football team were asked to share their favorite football movie and why it made an impression. Sam Cheatum: Varsity Blues "The impact it has had on me is to stay committed to the sport you love even when others make it overbearing for you." AJ Hobbs: Remember the Titans "It teaches us that high-performing teams need strong coaching, balanced chemistry, appropriate team composition, and leadership that unites us all as one team instead of just players playing for...
One word best defines how Megan Landes-Murphy and her husband Tom Murphy met, made career choices and launched a unique-to-Nebraska business. Sheep. Neither spent much time around the animals while growing up in northwest Wisconsin and the Omaha area, respectively. Now, they have sheep, a few chickens and two Great Pyrenees dogs named Milo and Birdie on their 12-acre ranch east of the small south-central Nebraska town of Lawrence. Two years ago, Landes-Murphy launched Kestrel Ridge Pellet Co.,...
Reprinted with permission LuAnn Schindler has been a journalist in Nebraska for over 30 years. She's been a reporter and editor in the northeastern part of the state most of her career. Her office at the Summerland Advocate-Messenger is covered in stories, old newspapers and plenty of awards she's won over the years. Schindler said she's written over 6,000 stories. She's covered court trials, rodeos and the annual turtle race at a community celebration. "It's really gone by fast when I think...
Dear editor: Nebraskans for Peace State Board supports American Democracy as stated in the US. Constitution, with its openness to human rights for all people and its checks and balances in government through the legislative, executive and judicial. We urge our fellow Nebraskans to further democracy through widening perspective by reading writers one disagrees with and try to understand their thinking. Nebraskans for Peace acknowledges the large number of newspapers in Nebraska and the existence...
This week, the Legislature took up the issues of property taxes and adjustments to the state budget. Much of the focus remained on the package crafted by the Revenue Committee and attached to LB34 by Senator Brewer in place of LB1 and LB9. In a long day of constant changes, LB34 was originally intended to resemble LB1 and LB9. During debate, several concerns were raised, including counties and municipalities who opposed the proposed caps, schools that were hesitant that the Legislature could...
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen says he has no plans to call the Legislature back into special session this year to consider additional property tax relief after final passage Tuesday of a pared-down proposal. Rather than rush lawmakers back to Lincoln for more changes yet this year, as the governor discussed during bill negotiations, he said he would wait until the next regular session begins in January. He also repeated his stance that he does not expect to call a special session for shifting the...
Data breaches are on track for a record year in 2024 as cybercriminals increasingly hunt for valuable information. On average, a data breach exposing sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, has around 172,000 victims, according to a ConsumerAffairs analysis of the Identity Theft Resource Center's database from 2018 to the first quarter of 2024. These breaches cause headaches for consumers, who then need to check if their information is secure elsewhere because they are now more...
A 19-year-old O’Neill man, originally accused of committing 11 crimes last April, was sentenced to prison for five of the offenses last week in the Holt County district courtroom in O’Neill. The Honorable Mark Kozisec sentenced Ethan J. Peterson to imprisonment under the jurisdiction of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services for a period of 24 months, with credit for 54 days already served, on Count I, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, a Class 3A felony; 12 months, with credit for 54 days, on Count II, pos...
Should a person whose burial is paid for by the county need to be a resident? “It’s not necessarily what the amount is. I’m more concerned if we’re paying for Antelope County residents or if we’re paying for people applying because the county next door isn’t paying as much,” said Jay Snider, owner of Snider Memorial Funeral Home. Snider, a Clearwater resident, opened discussion with Antelope County Commissioners during the March 12 meeting in Neligh. Snider said it’s been approximately 1...
Scarcely one square yard of a Neligh property was not covered by accumulated junk, trash, and debris, according to an Antelope County judge. The Honorable Donna Taylor, on Feb. 26, reached a verdict in a Neligh nuisance case. Kipp V. Polston, 46, of Neligh appeared in front of Taylor for a Feb.7 bench trial on a charge he violated Neligh’s nuisance ordinance. After hearing testimony and receiving evidence, Taylor took the case under advisement while she reviewed evidence and personally drove by the property, located just one block west of t...
Were you part of the mad rush at Target stores, trampling others or being pushed out of the way, to snag one of the hottest items in the retail world? Were you part of the Stanley stampede, where the lucky prize, if you were able to snag it, was a limited Target and Starbucks collaborative cosmo pink tumbler? Don’t confuse this particular tumbler with the winter pink shade also sold at Target. Seems that one is difficult to find, too. Don’t worry, I wasn’t standing in line on New Year’s Eve to...
Antelope County Commissioners learned heard from two speakers, Dec. 5, about concerns with a potential carbon-capture pipeline projected to run through the northern tier of the county. Doyle Turner, of Moville, Iowa, and Trent Loos, a central Nebraska rancher also presented similar information at an informational forum, Dec. 4, in Neligh. Turner said years ago, he had invested in a company that sold carbon dioxide for "any kind of purpose you can imagine." "I knew CO2 had a lot of value. What I...
District 4 Leadership Development Events were held Dec. 6 at Lutheran High Northeast. Summerland FFA advisor Jacob Goldfuss said the local chapter took took 20 members and they all did very well. "There are 20 schools in our district and each chapter can send two individuals or teams for every contest, so to get top three and make it to state is quite hard," Goldfuss said. In addition to the two teams in the photos, several individuals qualifed or will be an alternate for state. Jenna Funk got...
People gathered at the Nebraska Library Commission’s meeting, Nov. 16, to urge commissioners to limit the accessibility of certain databases and books available to Nebraska children in city and public school libraries. The Nebraska Library Commission, established in 1901 as a part of the Nebraska executive branch, promotes, develops and coordinates statewide library services in city, school, university and institutional libraries. The commission is governed by a six-member board appointed by the governor. The Nebraska Library Commission’s Nov...
The holidays are for celebrating and Small Business Saturday is a celebration of the key role independent, locally-owned businesses play in Nebraska's economy. Founded by American Express in 2010 and officially co-sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011, Small Business Saturday will be Nov. 25, the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Chambers of commerce, economic development organizations and small businesses across Nebraska have embraced Small Business Saturday and the...
As the conversation and stigma surrounding mental health continue to evolve, access to care, or lack thereof, remains a barrier, even in the presence of heightened public awareness and empathy. “We need kind of both,” Dr. Marley Doyle said. “We need an increase in mental health awareness. But then we also need an increase in access to care. Because if you don’t have both, then it’s not going to really improve things.” Doyle, a psychiatrist serving as director of the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska, said the shortage of mental h...
A storied Nebraska ranch — which grabbed national attention for its quirky name, size and whopping price tag — will live on in the hands of locals who have their own deep Sandhills roots. Indeed, the two new owners of Dumbbell Ranch, who split the 15,500 acres in a $16.5 million purchase deal, reside on bordering family ranches. Each has fond and personal memories of the Dumbbell, a founding ranch of the Nebraska Sandhills that’s situated in Cherry and Grant counties. Two neighbors, rare buy Former State Sen. Al Davis of Hyannis claimed the l...
Kathy Mesner has a word for the potential fallout from a property valuation dispute in Lancaster County. Catastrophic. "I don't think it's too much to say it may be catastrophic not only in terms of bankrupting projects ... but displacing all these low-income households across the state," said Mesner, an attorney and president of Central City-based Mesner Development Co. In the past year, a narrow disagreement on how to value 21 Lincoln-area properties has morphed into a court fight over a...
Summerland School officials have until Nov. 30 to declare if the Bobcat football team will play in the eight-man division during the next two-year cycle. During the Oct. 16 board of education meeting, activities director Zach Rosenboom said the current enrollment shows 63 male students in grades nine, ten and eleven. "The cutoff (for eight-man) is 47," he said. Rosenboom said a one-cycle waiver is available, which makes the Bobcats eligible for post-season play. Board member Nate Schwager asked...
Members of Summerland Public School's FFA chapter got first-hand experience in forestry, Monday, Oct. 2. Students added 10 new trees to school property, near the FFA corn test plot and track-and-field areas. The trees are part of the Ten Free Trees Progam, an effort of the Nebraska Forest Service and the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. James Ramold, Ewing village chairman and a school employee, applied for the grant. Ramold, along with instructor Jacob Goldfuss, assisted students with planting....
Governor Jim Pillen had an epiphany that paying a consultant $10 million over the next four years would save the state money. Pillen has signed the $2.5 million/year contract, renewable three times, with Epiphany Associates of Utah to find ways to save the state money. In the process, he dismantled the seven-year-old Center for Operational Excellence which was doing the same thing. The 26 employees in that little known division of the Department of Administrative Services completed nearly 1,000 process improvement projects and cut costs by...
An open letter to Colorado. It's fitting that I am writing this on the 22nd Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, the day that hatred manifested itself openly on American soil. I am writing about a now-past football game and the comments made by the showboat coach of the University of Colorado and his son the star quarterback who said to more than one media outlet "We don't like Nebraska." That comment is somewhat toned down from Saturday evening reports that he uttered that he "hated" Neb...
