Stories from Tuesday, February 19, 2008

KEARNEY -- The McCook Bison girls basketball team rolled past Grand Island Northwest 41-23 Monday night and advanced to the Nebraska Class B-5 district semifinals against Holdrege tonight. The B-5 tournament is being hosted by the University of Nebraska-Kearney...

GARDEN CITY, Kan. -- The McCook Community College baseball team split a doubleheader at Garden City, Kan. Monday. MCC won the first game 3-2 and lost to the Broncbusters 2-0 in the second game. A doubleheader in Eastern Kansas over the weekend was rained out...

Nov. 5, 1931 - Feb. 17, 2008 JoAnne Morris died Sunday (Feb. 17, 2008) at Hillcrest Nursing Home in McCook. She was born Nov. 5, 1931, at Lyle, Kan., the daughter of the late David Kenteth and Opal (Witt) Ankenman. She grew up in the Lebanon Community and graduated from Lebanon High School in 1949...

July 30, 1919 - Feb. 17, 2008 CAMBRIDGE -- Virgil Ervin Sines died Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008, at Memorial Hospital in Cambridge. He was 88 years old. Virgil was born on July 30, 1919, at the family farm in Decatur County, to Lester David and Lela M. (VanPelt) Sines...

Margaret Neel will celebrate her 80th birthday on Feb. 20, 2008. Her family includes her three children, 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. An open house will be Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008, from 2-4 p.m., at McCook Christian Church. Cards of congratulations will reach her at 38768 Rd 720, McCook, NE 69001...

Robert 'Ben' and Mary (Phillips) Propp will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary on Feb. 23, 2008. They were married in 1968, in Dodge City, Kan. The couple has eight children and 15 grandchildren.

Left-hand turn lanes in all four directions on J Street will not be a cure-all, cautioned one McCook City Councilman at the regular meeting Monday night. But it will help ease the congestion of traffic that occurs daily at West Fifth and J, especially before and after school. The McCook City Council unanimously approved the plan upon the recomendation of Greg Wolford, engineer for the project...

There is a time for everything, the saying goes and for the trees in Norris Park, it appears time is up. McCook Public Works director Kyle Potthoff said city crews began today to cut down the 100-year old trees in Norris Park, after receiving the unanimous go-ahead Monday night from the McCook City Council at its regular meeting...

It used to be cheaper to rent a hangar at the McCook Regional Airport than a regular storage unit. But that changed slightly Monday night, as the McCook City council voted unanimously at its regular meeting to approve increasing hangar rentals by 20 percent...

It's the end of an era. No, not the retirement of Fidel Castro; the decision by Toshiba to stop production of the HD-DVD format players. The decision came on the decision of Wal-Mart to stop selling disks and players in the HD-DVD format by June, and the online rental company Netflix's decision to stop supporting HD-DVDs...

As a long ago resident of McCook and a citizen who lived on East First St. near Norris Park, I was saddened to learn of the fate of the 44 "elderly" trees. However, I'm pleased to learn that the city considers the park a high priority in that plans include investing in younger trees immediately. ...

In the interest of national security, can the United States afford to allow Kansas to shut down irrigation in the Republican River Basin? Given the large number of ethanol and bio-diesel plants in the basin, and the billions of gallons that they produce from the irrigated crops, a shutdown of irrigated acres will have a major impact on the plants that produce biofuels...

To balance the federal budget, Congress should take action to control spending and stop waste. This will cause illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens if they have Social Security, unless legal. Progress in Iraq will continue over the next six years by increasing or decreasing the number of troops...

Wednesday night is the night -- for the total lunar eclipse that is. The eclipse party will start at about 6:30 p.m. MST at the southeast door of the Benkelman elementary school. Here we will discuss a little about what an eclipse is and then watch as the curved shadow of the Earth creeps across the lunar face...