Stories from Thursday, May 19, 2011

LINCOLN, Nebraska -- The Trenton, Nebraska, man injured in a controlled burn gone wrong northwest of Trenton April 28 has died at St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln. Robert Seybold, 40 years old, was one of two men critically burned in the controlled burn...

McCOOK, Nebraska -- Nebraska needs to save for a rainy day, State Sen. Mark Christensen said this morning. In response to state tax revenues increasing 21 percent for the first quarter of 2011, Christensen said a healthy reserve needs to be built in anticipation of a decline in the agriculture industry...

Myra Stoney and Paul, Stephanie Riepl and Colton and Chris and Jamey Hansen and Hunter read books during a "Read around the World" end-of-the-school-year read-in in McCook, Nebraska, Elementary School's library Tuesday evening. Sage Graves and her parents, Todd and Karey, study the library's new 48x72-inch world map that the McCook Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization donated to the library. ...

We remember the advice of a seventh-grade science teacher. Instead of "I heated up the beaker on the bunsen burner," we were supposed to write "the beaker was heated on the bunsen burner." Nice and passive, and boring verbiage for our lab report. Journalism school reversed all that; back to active, subject-verb-object sentences written to an eighth-grade level. We were often at odds with English professors who preferred more flowerly language...

Did the shuttle launch? Were you watching? Did it go on schedule? Were there any delays? My, so many questions. As of the date this column was written, fueling of the external tank had been approved. The external fuel tank is the giant orangey thing that the orbiter sits on top of. It is the largest piece of the shuttle assembly...

The thing about being a mom is, you can never really make plans or have any guarantees for each day. You can try. You can keep a calendar on your fridge or in your phone, scheduled full of activities for each day, and most of the time all goes as planned. However, you just never know from one day to the next how your plans are going to actually turn out and that's the fun thing about being a mom. Expect the unexpected!...

OBERLIN, Kansas -- Students at Decatur Community Public Schools in Oberlin, Kansas, were evacuated this morning from the grade school and junior/senior high school following a bomb threat. According to Kimberly Davis, managing editor of the Oberlin Herald newspaper, the threat came in at 10:30 a.m., and students were evacuated from the buildings to undisclosed safe locations...

With Memorial Day approaching and the start of the summer travel season, I want to urge every single Nebraskan to buckle up every time you get into a vehicle. Whether we are running an errand, picking up kids from school, commuting to or from work, or heading out for a family vacation, we have a responsibility to buckle our seat belt and ensure our passengers do the same each time we get in a car or truck...