Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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I am a 78-year-old supporter of the school bond. We have an opportunity to unite three communities in one great school, keeping students close to home for all of us, while offeirng a better education. Please consider joining me and voting yes on the school bond. Thank you, John Mlnarik P.S. If not this, then what?...
I am a Page resident, grandparent of students, and landowner in the Orchard district. I think there were 103 kids in the Page school when my kids started there in 1993. A few years later, families started transferring out as classes got smaller. Fourteen years later, Page had four students and five employees, and they closed. Orchard has 79 students in K-8 this year. I know that Orchard has enough money, but if the Summerland school bond doesn’t pass and families leave, which they will, I don’t think the Orchard school will even make it 10 mor...
It's definitely Monday. Five pairs of leggings, three shirts and two sweaters lay on top of the bed. Since 6 a.m., I've been trying variations of each outfit, with no luck. In the back of my mind, black jeans, a purple print top and coordinating cardigan felt like Monday. Except it didn't. Feel like Monday, that is. Monday ended up feeling like a black leggings, mustard tunic, herringbone vest and blue scarf kind of day. Perhaps it's texture or the type of material that makes the difference....
I attended the Summerland building project meeting in Orchard on Sunday night, Oct. 20. There was a lot of important information shared. There is never a good time to ask taxpayers to build a school, but there is a right time. The three communities have realized they need each other. The old rivalries have been pushed aside. I went to school through eighth grade in Page, in a building that someone else paid for. I then went to high school in Orchard, and our four children followed, in a school that someone else paid for. I cannot think of a...
Almost every time I tell Dad goodbye, see you in a few days, he makes a simple request: Maybe you can eat lunch with me soon. I try to visit and share a meal with him at least once a month, more, if possible. It didn't dawn on me until last Friday, while he made his way through a plate of beef tips and noodles and I picked through a salad, why sharing mealtime still matters. Sunday dinner at our house was a thing. A big thing. A fried chicken and mashed potatoes kind of thing. Or pot roast and g...
It's National Newspaper Week. Normally, I would write about the week's theme and how it relates to you, the reading public, and me, as a journalist. Think F1rst - the 2019 theme - resonates with us because it forms the backbone of our democratic society. The first amendment is important, maybe now more than ever, as we the people hold governmental entities accountable. Limits to the five freedoms - religion, speech, press, assembly and right to petition - exist. Harmful speech is not protected....
Once upon a time, having a job at a newspaper meant working in one of the most imposing buildings in town, inhaling the acrid aroma of fresh ink and the dusty breath of cheap newsprint and feeling mini-earthquakes under our feet every time the presses started to roll. For those of us old enough to remember those days, National Newspaper Week 2019 could be one big, fat elegiac nostalgia trip. Today, many newspapers are ditching the imposing buildings for low-rent storefronts and have outsourced the printing. Those could be the newspapers that...
I predicted how the latest episode would play out; I didn't know exactly when. Once the prodigal son decided to return home and resurrect a football program clinging to life support, I told Scott - my Scott, not the Frosty version - fans would flip out and sport their badges of negativity proudly, if he didn't win immediately and turn the program around in two years. And, without missing a beat, the bandwagon chanting "Fire Frost," sung by armchair quarterbacks and hidden social media trolls,...
After I graduated in 2018, I worked in the Antelope County Extension office the summer before my freshman year of college. Since I just graduated high school, I figured it would be a seamless transition from going to school for eight hours a day to working for that same period of time. That thought could not have been farther from reality. I attended the same high school as my mom. Even though there is 22 years between our graduation dates, the school looks fairly similar from her graduation...
Looking out my kitchen window I see orange. The orange is moving and it is kittens as mama cat has brought her kittens to the garden to drink out of the bird bath. The kittens play and climb on the orange pumpkins placed among the flower plants. It's pumpkin time out my kitchen window and while I don't welcome cats to my garden, these are adorable. They travel under the peony bushes crouching as they sneak from one area to another waiting to pounce on a sibling kitten. It isn't long before they...
In "An Enigmatic Escape: A Trilogy," Dan Groat writes, "The bones of the oak tree that had stood by the spring branch during my youth were scattered about the ground, pieces of the skeleton of a majestic life that had passed while I was growing up and old." I know how he feels. For the first time in my life, the giant bur oak tree in the backyard of my great-grandparents, then grandparents, then parents and now sister's house, in Tilden, no longer shoots toward the heavens. Saturday, family memb...
My name doesn't really matter. It's my experience that I think will be valuable, for I follow the trajectory of most millenials stuck in our time. I hope to garner understanding, in the hopes I can inspire a strand of unity in a divided America. Contemporary journalists like to paint America's polarization as the democratic/liberal cities juxtaposed to republican/conservative rural areas, but the interests of Americans are more aligned than credence is given. Although I'm not sure if I noticed...
I walked into my home office the other day and wondered when it transformed from functional work space to messy craft room. There's a half-finished Valentine's Day wreath I started making for Dad's door at the care center. A pile of scrapbook materials lay atop the counter. Obviously, I started cutting out something - what, I have no clue; maybe a cutout for my Happy Planner - because a pair of scissors is next to a piece of paper sporting one swift cut. Wood letters I picked up for the...
Throughout the summer, as Scott and I watched preseason coverage of the Husker football team, we both noted the number of young men sporting mullets. I always thought Mike Gundy earned best mullet honors until my 'Skers proved they're rockin' the tunnel walk with the achy-breaky hairdo. Since my main man decided to bring back the party in the front and business in the back, a flashback from his high school senior year, he thinks the modern mullet obsession is cool. Awesome. So cool that this sum...
One of my childhood icons celebrates 60 years of entertainment and controversy in 2019. Barbie originally featured strawberry blonde hair, pulled back into a ponytail, with a tightly curled poof of bangs. Her painted on blue eyeshadow, cherry red lipstick, black and white striped one-piece swimsuit and cat eyes mascara were on fleek for the time period. By the time I received my first Barbie® as a gift, she'd grown up a little - or at least her clothing choices kept evolving with the times....
I love sitting outside looking over my garden and am usually wearing a smile. I do have complaints in life and probably the biggest is not enough gardening programs on television or printed articles sharing Nebraska flower gardens. I'm Bev Wieler and my husband and I are nestled in the countryside of rural Nebraska, sharing the hobby of gardening. No matter what season it is we have found ways to splash color in the flower bed situated out our back door and luckily for us, outside our kitchen...
I am an enthusiastic gardener. My goal was to have a serenity garden- a place where I could go after work to fill up my senses and calm and refresh my spirit. This is what I had for a long time, and then came The Gophers...a plague of gophers. The awful thing about gophers is how they destroy with no apparent purpose. Unlike rabbits, who eat lettuce because they are hungry, gophers seem to take joy in destruction. I asked local gardeners what to do: "Put mothballs down the hole.” Okay. The next day there was a neat little pile of rejected m...
Since we opened the Advocate-Messenger, Scott and I have fielded several questions about the inner workings of the newspaper, so after discussion, we decided to take this opportunity to respond. One of the first questions we were asked is if the Advocate Messenger is a legal newspaper. The answer is yes and no. We formed a limited liability company when we created ColdType Publishing and trademarked our name, so the business, itself, is a legally-operated business according to the State of Nebra...
I have watched, listened, and examined the Ted Talk, "Every Kid Needs a Champion" by Rita Pierson, at least 50 times. It may be the nerdy teacher in me, but I like to evaluate every piece of information the seasoned educator with a doctoral degree has to offer. The core message Pierson offers is the crafting of relationships is key to success in not only the classroom, but in any child's life. This message can be taken further than the four brick walls of the schoolhouse. Relationships are all...
21-5309 may belong to Jenny. 555-1212 offers all kinds of assistance. What does your phone number say about you? Plenty, according to tech writer Brian Chen of the New York Times. After reading one of his articles, I thought about the number of times an individual’s phone number is tied to us as a means of identification. Turns out, quite often. Chen says we’ve been “conditioned to share a piece of personal information without a moment’s hesitation: our phone number.” Sign up for an app? Supp...
The to-do list resting on my desk has 37 items requiring completion. Each line includes a box for a checkmark or bullet point, denoting it is done. The list grows or narrows, depending on the day of the week, and some of the entries have been included for more than two weeks. "I'll get to those tomorrow," I tell myself while perusing the contents and deciding which items are today's priority. This weekend, while on our way to Ponca State Park for a family shindig, I started another list and was...
Agriculture is integral to Nebraska’s history. The Homestead Act of 1863 allowed U.S. citizens to earn ownership of lands in the west, including Nebraska, provided they improve and farm the land for five years. Four years after the Homestead Act, in 1867, Nebraska earned its statehood with help from these new farmers and ranchers. This dedication to agriculture never diminished, and to this day, one out of four jobs in Nebraska is related to agriculture. This is especially true for Nebraska’s Third District, which has once again been named the...
During the Antelope County Fair, I saw a lot of fun T-shirts proclaiming "Keep calm, it's fair week" or "I heart 4-H" or "4-H Head Heart Hands Health." Next year, I think I'll sport one that declares "I survived being a 4-H grandma." Not that I did as much work as my grandson's parents overseeing the preparing of projects for the week-long event, but ... I did push, -er, help him decide which projects to try. And I did survive a two-day barn quilt workshop, where hopes for more Husker decor to...
Recently, I read an article about the structure of high school and how it sets up students for failure. The article's premise and subsequent offer for solution, gave me pause. The basic theme: "We are married to a system that has not been properly re-evaluated for 21st-century capabilities and capacities." An example featured the structure of the seven- or eight-class period day, how student attention is diverted multiple times during each 50-minute class period. And, to top it off, we uproot...
If you are reading this on July 25, today’s a special day. I am celebrating another trip around the sun, for which I am grateful. It’s a tale old as time: sometimes, you think you have life mapped out and believe you know where you’re headed. Then, God sets up a roadblock, noting something different is about to play out in your life. Take a right turn and you’ll head down the beaten path. Venture left and discover the proverbial road less traveled. I suspect he knew what direction I would c...
