Stories from Wednesday, December 24, 2003

LEBANON -- Betty Jo McCashland Orvis, 79, died Tuesday (Nov. 18, 2003) at North Platte. She was born Jan. 18, 1924, south of Lebanon, to Francis Lloyd and Elsie Gay McCashland. She lived on the family farm until she was 11. The family moved to Lebanon and she attended school there...

Mildred Erminta (Peterson) Russell of Kilmarnock, Scotland died peacefully in the presence of her husband, Robert "Bob" and a loving niece, Morag, on Sept. 10, 2003. Mildred was born in Farwell on Dec. 18, 1915, and attended McCook Junior College before continuing her education at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln...

Laiden Almer Lawler was born Monday, Dec. 22, at Community Hospital of McCook, to Don and Bonita Lawler of Stratton. Laiden weighed 9 lbs., 3.8 oz. Laiden's siblings are two-year-old JoAnna of Stratton, and Bob of McCook and April of Wauneta His grandparents are Leo and Onita Porter of Wauneta and Norma J. West of Wichita Falls, Texas. His great-grandfather is Wayne Porter of Lafayette, Colo...

A McCook mother will celebrate Christmas this year with a renewed perspective on the preciousness -- and fragility -- of life. Linda L. Smith's brown-eyed kindergartner, Jewel, is recovering from head injuries she sustained in a playground accident Dec. 15 at North Ward Elementary in McCook...

LINCOLN -- Gov. Mike Johanns announced today his appointment of Ron Ross, director of Health and Human Services as the next Nebraska State Treasurer as a result of the resignation of Lorelee Byrd. Byrd, who is resigning next month, has pleaded guilty to misconduct in office...

'Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the plains, there was no frigid chill ... no breath suspended in air ... no reason to bundle, or snuggle, or sip hot chocolate. And we are all so busy ... so very, very busy. We hate to admit it, but we've been scurrying about so frantically that we haven't taken enough time to appreciate the decorations ... to really and truly see the lights ... to be swallowed up by the holiday hubbub...

**Dear Editor, As this is my 20th year Santa Clausing in McCook, I give GOD thanks for the gift. The best story this year, has to be a little 6-year-old boy who ask me for a Hamster (not that uncommon). But he continued, "I also want a 6-foot boa constrictor snake," as an afterthought he said "if it ain't to much trouble can you put them in separate cages?!"...

**Dear Editor, This is an open letter to Tim Butz, the executive director of the ACLU Nebraska: I read an article in the McCook Gazette on 12-19 A.D. 2003 concerning your blasting of prison health care in Nebraska. Please don't be too proud to take some advice from a Christian layman. You all need to address the root of the problem instead...

In reply to "No Workers Friend," where have you been for the last 30 years? You act like jobs just started being lost overseas during Geo. W's first term. It is a matter of economics and good old greed helped along by unions. I doubt that any president is going to stop it...

An Indianola veterinarian and cattleman still believes America's beef is the safest food product there is, despite a possible case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- "BSE," "mad cow disease" -- in a Holstein cow raised on a farm near Mabton, Wash...