Stories from Tuesday, December 6, 2005

GOODLAND, Kan. -- The 17th annual Topside Tip-off basketball tournament will take place at Goodland's Max Jones Fieldhouse Thursday through Saturday. Schools competing are McCook, Kansas entries Goodland, Weskan, Ottawa and Norton and Colorado schools Burlington, Wray and Holyoke...

The McCook Junior High School eighth grade girls A, B and C basketball teams won over Southwest Saturday at the MJH gymnasium. Kelsey Pohl led the A team in scoring with 8 points. Brooke Ryan led Southwest with 7 points. Alyssa Smith led the B team in scoring with 8 points...

HASTINGS -- The McCook High School Bison boys and girls swim teams competed in the Hasting Invite on Saturday. There were six other teams present including Columbus, Hastings, Kearney, Norfolk, North Platte and Scottsbluff. McCook's Cody Martin received a fifth-place medal for the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:06.06 -- three seconds off secondary qualifying time for state...

Games canceled due to weather McCook High School sophomore boys and girls basketball games at Holdrege and ninth grade boys and girls games at home against Cozad were canceled Monday night because of weather. Wauneta-Palisade wrestling results WAUNETA -- Wauneta-Palisade hosted its wrestling invite Thursday...

Sept. 5, 1918--Dec. 2, 2005 ATWOOD -- Willard Shelton Coffin, 87, died Friday (Dec. 2, 2005). He was born Sept. 5, 1918, to Jesse and Merle (Barret) Coffin in Moravia, Iowa. He received a bachelor's degree in business and accounting from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a master's degree in business administration from Wayne State University...

Minutes after the City Council voted Monday night to approve a major settlement with the railroad, McCook City Manger John Bingham announced his regisnation, effective Jan. 13, 2006. Reading from his letter to the council, Bingham said he has accepted a job as city manager at Damascus, Ore., effective Jan. 17...

The City of McCook will be receiving the $3 million settlement payment from BNSF, in two separate installments, according to legal documents the city council approved with the railway company. The first installment of $1 million will occur by Dec. 12 by 5 p.m., with the balance of $2 million to be transferred to the city with 45 days...

McCook Daily Gazette McCook City Council members decided Monday night to defer the repair of the broken shaft at the waste water treatment plant until specifications concerning the work are completed, although Councilman Jim Kenny cautioned that they didn't want to wait too long to get this project done...

Wind-blown snow swirls off the roof at McCook Senior High, while someone walking behind the building shields his face against the icy blasts of wind that created near white-out conditions across Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas Monday afternoon. Anemometers at the McCook Regional Airport recorded wind gusts at 48 miles an hour...

A startling headline has alerted the McCook community about the possibility of a valuable new program for the Work Ethic Camp, which is located in McCook. The headline, which appeared at the top of Saturday's North Platte Telegraph, exclaimed, "McCook May Get Meth Center."...

**Dear Editor, The amount of irrigated acres that will be shut down because groundwater pumping is counted as Beneficial Consumptive Use is just the tip of the iceberg. The precedent that it sets will have a far more damaging effect. The compact states are currently doing a study on the effects that conservation and farming practices have on stream flows. The compact states have elected at this time not to count this use as beneficial consumptive use...

**Dear Editor, The Decatur County Antique guild would like to thank the Gazette for the wonderful coverage we had in the "Spotlight on Oberlin." This was advertising that we as a guild could not afford to buy. We also want to thank the lady who called to sell the advertising; she was genuinely interested in our Antique Guild. The photographer who took the pictures was excellent...

**Dear Editor, My fellow Americans: Thanksgiving Day has passed, yet we should always be thankful we live in a democracy and have a president who has no sign of dyslexia. Every speech, every sentence structure, is intelligible. His grammar is supurb and vocabulary unexcelled...