Stories from Tuesday, March 26, 2002

Dear Editor, I would like to thank the Gazette Sports staff for the honor of being selected as the Girls Basketball Coach of the Year. It is indeed an honor to be selected among so many excellent and deserving coaches in the area. I could not have received this honor without the help of many people. ...

In more than four decades of covering the news in Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas, it has been the sad duty of the Gazette's editors and reporters to be at the scene of dozens of fatal accidents. It is always a gut-wrenching assignment ... but it is toughest when young people are involved...

Dear Editor, Just an opinion on the bomb threat at the McCook Schools (last week). I do not understand why, with a bomb threat at the school, in light of all that has happened of late, does the school administration choose to put our children at jeopardy...

It's springtime in the heartland. I look out the window and wonder if I'll need mittens or cut-offs to face the day, and I'm struck again by how many things in life, like the weather, are beyond our control. I had some minor surgery recently. It was nothing serious, just a few days on crutches until I could be up and around. But it reminded me of how easily I take my mobility for granted...

BENKELMAN -- Malvin Dean Hendrickson, 97, died Saturday (March 23, 2002) at his home in Benkelman. He was born July 10, 1904, in Hebron to John Otto and Della (Cain) Hendrickson. At the age of two, he moved with his mother to Haigler where they lived with his grandparents.  When he was eight, his mother married Otis Edwards and they moved to the Pleasant Valley area...

Dale Ruppert, 74, died Saturday (March 23, 2002) at Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha. He was born Dec. 1, 1927, to Jay and Doris (Meissner) Ruppert at Quick. He grew up and attended school in Frontier County. On April 2, 1946, he entered the U.S. Army and served until he was honorably discharged in 1947. He was a member of the legendary Quick Baseball team during the late forties and early fifties...

CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. -- Carroll C. Agee, a resident of Castro Valley, Calif., died March 15, 2002. She was the daughter of Robert and Bernice Carter. She graduated from Palisade High School in 1936. She attended the Nebraska State Teachers College at Kearney for one year and then went to California where she was employed by Standard Oil Company until her marriage to Lee Agee in 1939. To this union four children were born...