Stories from Friday, September 26, 2008

April 1, 1931 - Sept. 25, 2008 HOLBROOK -- Gerard "Jerry" I. Cotnoir, 77 formerly of Holbrook, died Thursday (Sept. 25, 2008) at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. He was born in Lowell, Vt., on April 1, 1931, to Antoine H. and Rose (Girouard) Cotnoir. He attended and graduated Salutatorian of the Newport Center High School in 1949. He continued his education receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Vermont at Burlington in 1953...

The family of Kenneth and Carol (Wilson) Dugger is requesting a card shower in honor of their 40th wedding anniversary. They were married in McCook on Sept. 26, 1968. Their children include son, Kenneth Jr., and wife, Christy and daughter, Stacey and husband, Chris Samples. They have five grandchildren. Cards of congratulations will reach the couple at 908 West M Street, McCook NE 69001...

The family of Freida Romersheuser of McCook is requesting a card shower in honor of her 95th birthday on Sept. 30, 2008. Her family will be in McCook this weekend to celebrate her birthday. Cards will reach her at P O Box 1087, McCook, NE 69001.

HAYES CENTER -- A special sermon Sunday, Sept. 7, at Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Hayes Center honored a group of women who, after stitching quilts since the 19040's, has knotted its last knots, clipped its last threads and put away its sewing boxes...

Steve Martin presented his former boss Tommy Smothers with a long overdue writing Emmy last Sunday night, prefacing the award with his typically droll comments, spiced with flashes of his absurdist humor. Martin may have had my favorite line of the night; when talking about how excited he was about being at the ceremony, he said that it fulfilled a childhood dream for him. "I would rush home from school, get dressed up, and play '60th Annual Emmy Awards,'" Martin deadpanned...

Lawns and laundry can wait.

A bobbin boy who was given the chance the read books in the mid 1800s later gave away thousands of dollars to fund schools and libraries across the U.S., including the Carnegie Library in McCook. The joy of giving -- and how it can multiply in unexpected ways -- was the theme of keynote speaker Dr. Warren L. Jones, DDS, at the McCook Heritage Days annual prayer breakfast at the Heritage Senior Center this morning...

March 12, 1916-Sept. 24, 2008 Wilma Elizabeth Bauer, age 92, of Eau Claire, Wis., passed away on Sept. 24, 2008, at Dove Healthcare Nursing & Rehabilitation in Eau Claire. Wilma was born on March 12, 1916, in Mocksville, N.C., to Steven and Marian Reba Ellis. She attended Benkelman High School and McCook Business College...

Jan. 7, 1922-Sept. 25, 2008 Beth A. Wilhelm died Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008, at the McCook Community Hospital in McCook, Neb., at the age of 86. She was born Jan. 7, 1922 at Thatcher, Colo., the daughter of the late Carl and Lenna (Everist) Relph. Beth grew up on the family farm south of McCook and graduated from McCook Sr. High School in 1939. She graduated from McCook Jr. College in 1941...

Editor, I've just returned from my first walk on phase I of the Kelley Creek Walking Trail. It was glorious...an even surface, birds singing to me (didn't need the i-Pod after all), plenty of shade in the morning, and although the sides of the trail were just grated to prepare for grass, the landscape was still nice and the potential for what it will be was obvious...

Editor, What is your first memory of your mother? I was about three, Ahhh, the warm, safe, secure feeling of being wrapped in a blanket watching mom make breakfast for dad in the cold dark mornings of the winter of '58, falling asleep, then miraculously awakening a few hours later in my bed. ...

Last week I wrote about friendship. This week the subject is treachery; something all of us have been exposed to at times in our lives, some more than others. Rousseau and Locke, among others, wrote about the difference between living in respectful concert with others as opposed to living in the "state of nature" in which men are ultimately free to do as they please, which also includes doing to others as they please. ...

Can the same be said on a national level?

Some $1.4 million in additional reimbursement from Medicare settlements for prior years and above-budget operating margins helped put Community Hospital in the black by $3.6 million for fiscal year 2008. That in turn puts the hospital on track with the savings and investments needed to fund the hospital's long range facility plans, Jim Ulrich, hospital president and CEO, told the board of directors...