Stories from Thursday, August 28, 2003

You can understand why head coach Joan Bass is almost downright giddy when talking about the 2003 McCook Community College volleyball team.She believes her team will be much improved from the last two seasons. Last year, the Indians posted a 5-40 record.McCook opens the season Friday at Lamar, Colo., against Lamar Junior College and Trindad Junior College.Saturday, the Indians travel to LaJunta, Colo., to play Otero Junior College and Clarendon, Texas -- a team MCC beat last year.McCook's first home match is Sept. ...

INDIANOLA -- Paula Gay (Meader) Walz, 51, died Wednesday (Aug. 27, 2003) at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.She was born Oct. 7, 1951, in St. Catherine's Hospital in McCook, to Paul and Esther (Ruf) Meader. She attended school in Wilsonville and graduated from Wilsonville High School in 1971. ...

Wake up!We get an inch of rain and you look around and the automatic sprinklers are on yards. When will people realize how very serious this drought is, and turn off the automatic sprinklers?Save you the troubleIf there is anyone reading this who is searching for the one true God, let me save you a whole lot of time and trouble, his name is Jesus. ...

Another ideaDear Editor,While we are working on the Grand Idea of a transportation system which would stretch from Mexico, through the central United States, into Canada and across the Bering Strait into the Asian continent, let's propose another Grand Idea of building a highway from Hayes Center east to Highway 83!Bill ArnettWallaceAdd more artDear Editor,I agree with former MHS high school art instructor, Mr. ...

How do you get an improvement valued at between $50,000 and $75,000 for only $18,000 in out-of-pocket expenses? You live in a small town with a heart of gold, that's how.Just ask Rick Haney, the activities director at McCook Public Schools. After nine months of generous gift-giving and volunteer acts of labor, students at MHS are now enjoying locker rooms which are as different as night and day from the old ones."It's been like a good, old-fashioned barn raising," Haney said. ...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think it's time to put summer to bed. Obviously, the creepy crawly critters are starting to think so as well, because it certainly seems like they are starting to make a common appearance in my house.As if seeing a mouse running across the floor of the downstairs bathroom wasn't bad enough, the son of Satan had to make his appearance again.Ok -- so maybe it was the son of the son of the son of Satan, but I guarantee it was a descendent.I was going through my usual nighttime ritual and made a final stop at the bathroom before retiring. ...

Mike and Jodi Taylor of Stamford announce the birth of their daughter, Alivia Danae, July 23, 2003, at Community Hospital of McCook. She weighed 7 pounds and 12 ounces and was 19.25 inches long. She has two sisters, Jordan, 5, and Emmali, 20 months. ...

Mark and Kimberly Vlasin of McCook announce the birth of their daughter, Cali Ann, July 18, 2003, at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lincoln. She was 7 pounds 11 ounces and 21 inches long. Grandparents are George and Betty Vlasin of Hayes Center and Kathleen Cameron of Nova Scotia, Canada...

The Mid-Plains Board of Governors has approved a new logo for the area.As part of its institutional identity program the board formed an ad hoc committee to look at a new logo for the college earlier this year. In March the committee chose Bozell and Jacobs LLC, a marketing and advertising firm from Omaha to develop a logo to be used in advertising and publications and on letterheads, envelopes, business cards, forms, building and vehicle signage and other applications.After meeting with college faculty members, staff, students and members of the general public, the firm used what they had heard and created a series of logos.The project was underwritten by the Mid Plains Technical Community College Area Foundation. ...

"Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future," a traveling exhibit developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service with a state tour funded by the Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC), opens Sept. 10 at the Museum of the High Plains in McCook.The exhibit, which tours Nebraska through Dec. ...

The Red Willow County Sheriff's Posse is looking for a few good men and women.The Posse is conducting a membership drive, and encourages all Red Willow residents, 21 years old and older, with a good moral background, to apply for membership.The Posse is a service organization for the county and its communities, Johnson said, under the direction of Sheriff Gene Mahon and his officers.The Posse provides traffic and crowd control and assists the sheriff's department with searches. ...

Salt cedar is a thief ... a vandal ... a destroyer. It has to be stopped.Salt cedar is a pretty shrub, with graceful ruby-red branches and lacy gray-green needles. It's also a Trojan horse that sucks moisture from the ground like a dried-up sponge and poisons the ground upon which it drops its soft fronds.It must be eradicated.That's what a crew of Southwest Nebraska weed specialists, conservationists, Bureau of Reclamation, Game and Parks and Department of Agriculture officials started to do at Swanson Lake last summer. ...

Jars, such as this one at Casey's West, have been placed in various locations throughout the area to benefit Zachary Neel, infant son of Jamie Stepler and Brian Neel of McCook. Zachary, who has been transferred to the neonatal unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. ...

MOOREFIELD -- The ice cream man loves to watch the faces of the kids when they hear the music from his cart and see him coming down the street."It's fun to meet the kids," said ice cream man Floyd Smith of Moorefield. "I like to see their faces light up when they see me coming."A while back, Floyd came across the insulated cart his son had invented and from which Floyd sold hot tamales in Denver, before moving to Moorefield four years ago. ...

Discussion of a swimming program shared with Culbertson's schools became a moot point Wednesday evening at a special meeting of the McCook Public Schools board of education.Board President Greg Larson told fellow board members that Culbertson's board did not approve the joint program.Culbertson's board, which did not have a quorum Monday, took no action on the proposal. ...

Laura Uehling, 86, died Wednesday (Aug. 27, 2003) at her home in Grant.She was born Nov. 18, 1916, to Emil and Mattie (Nigh) Pankonin in Grant. She attended rural school and later graduated from Perkins County High School in 1934.On Oct. ...