Stories from Wednesday, April 6, 2011

"Winter's Bone," available on DVD from Lionsgate, is a truly tough, hard-scrabble film about tough, hard-scrabble people, but it's also as deeply touching and soulful a motion picture as I have seen in some time. There isn't a moment in the movie that rings false, not one single scene or performance or line of dialogue that takes you out of the drama...

Sept. 10, 1917-March 28, 2011 MESA, Arizona -- C. Earl Haase, 93, died Monday, March 28, 2011, at his home in Mesa. He was born Sept. 10, 1917, in Stratton, Nebraska to Loyd and Georgia (Thomas) Haase. He graduated from Stratton High School. He attended Nebraska State Teachers College in Kearney (now University of Nebraska-Kearney). In addition to his education, he participated in track and field and held the school record for the 110 yard high hurdles for many years...

Sept. 13, 1943-April 2, 2011 LINCOLN, Nebraska -- Elva D. Fesler, 67, died Saturday, April 2, 2011, at her home in Lincoln. She was born Sept. 12, 1943, in Bartley, Nebraska to Thomas Dorwin and Frances (Lohr) Carpenter. Elva was a devoted, hard working and kind person, she started working as a junior high student with her mother at the Bartley Municipal Telephone Company. After moving to Lincoln she worked for Safeway from 1964 until the store closed in 1981...

The family of Margaret Verraneault of Cambridge, Nebraska is requesting a card shower in honor of her 85th birthday, April 9. She was born April 9, 1926, in McCook, Nebraska. Cards of congratulations will reach her at P.O. Box 7, Cambridge, NE 69022...

IMPERIAL, Nebraska -- The Upper Republican Natural Resources District has been approved to launch a new, multimillion dollar program that could lead to the retirement of thousands of irrigated acres, aiding compliance with the Republican River Compact while boosting stream flows and replenishing underground aquifers...

CAMBRIDGE, Nebraska -- What Ashley Rice-Gerlach may lack in real-life economic development experience as she begins her new job, she'll more than make up for with her college education, with the public relations skills she developed as Miss Rodeo Nebraska 2006 and with her naturally-outgoing personality, energy and enthusiasm...

The numbers don't lie. According to New York City's Department of Health, nearly 60 percent of pregnancies among African-American women there end in abortion. Nationally, 37 percent of pregnancies among African-American women end in abortion. The numbers prompted Life Always to place a billboard ad, featuring a lovely little black girl in a pink dress with the caption "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb," at the corner of Watts and Avenue of the Americas in New York City. ...

National Work Zone Awareness Week this week has special meaning for the McCook and Culbertson area, with one of the busiest highways in the region now the subject of a $6.4 million improvement project. Paulsen Inc. crews are at work on U.S. 6-34 between the two towns, extending culverts, patching concrete pavement, replacing guardrail, working on bridges and overlaying the roadway and shoulders with asphalt...

April 6, 2011 -- Today, Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson explained that the consequences of a government shutdown will be real and will likely cause hardship to people in Nebraska. "Why has Congress failed to pass a budget since last October? One word: politics," Senator Nelson said in his weekly conference call with the Nebraska news media. ...