Stories from Thursday, December 26, 2002

LINCOLN -- Rural Nebraska patients will increasingly be closer to medical specialists as a result of action taken by the Nebraska Public Service Commission. The five-member Commission approved a request by the Nebraska Hospital Association to provide up to $900,000 annually from the Nebraska Universal Service Fund to assist with telecommunications connectivity between the state's rural hospitals and trauma centers located in larger cities. ...

Is the Work Ethic Camp in McCook making a difference? Is the program of work, education and discipline helping young offenders change their lives, leaving lives of crime behind to become productive, law-abiding citizens? From the start, that has been the hope for the camp which opened in early 2000 on the northwestern edge of McCook However, despite many encouraging signs, there has been no validated proof to date that the camp is an effective method of changing the behavior of criminal offenders.. ...

Lee Roy and Gwen Lienemann, formerly of Wilsonville, celebrated their 50th anniversary Dec. 24. They were married in Wilsonville in 1952. The couple has four sons, Michael, Loren, Gordon and Alan; four daughters, Sheryl, twins, Rhonda and Robin, and Rebecca; and 14 grandchildren. Cards of congratulations will reach them at 344 Laurel Court, Oxnard, CA 93035-4427...

Wal-Mart associates Stephanie Riepl (left) and Hillerie Engler have the return racks ready and waiting early today, on what is traditionally one of the busiest days of the shopping season.

ATWOOD -- Fire destroyed the Atwood Country Club Sunday night, according to the Rawlins County Square Deal. A Kansas state fire marshal was expected to investigate the rubble Tuesday. The original portion of the country club was a Works Project Administration project built in the mid-1930s. It was expanded in 1969 and 1984...

Services will be Sunday for a Cambridge woman killed in a head-on collision Sunday near Grand Island. The woman, Fern I. Ross, 79, was northbound in the southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 281 at the highway's Interstate 80 overpass at about 3:30 p.m. CST when her car collided head-on with a pickup, Hall County Sheriff's Sgt. Bryan Simonson said...

Don and Gwen Miller of Culbertson stand beneath the new "Welcome" sign they purchased for the recently-completed walking trail that meanders between the Frenchman and Republican rivers on the south edge of Culbertson. "This finishes the walking trail," said Betty Cook, one of the original trail organizers. ...

Alopecia areata is a highly unpredictable, auto immune skin disease resulting in the loss of hair on the scalp and elsewhere on the body. It affects about 1.7 percent of the population and often starts in childhood. It is not life-threatening, but it is life-altering. ...

If you would indulge me, I would like to pull my soap box out of the closet, dust it off and climb aboard for just a few minutes. I'll have to admit, I haven't kept a close eye on the church sexual abuse scandal but what I have heard of the situation sickens me...

NORTH PLATTE -- Shawn J. Polanco, 37, died Monday (Dec. 23, 2002) in North Platte. He was born Nov. 26, 1965, to John Davis and Mildred Corrine Arensdorf Polanco at North Platte. He graduated from North Platte High School in 1984. He was a member of St. Patrick's Catholic Church...

GREELEY, Colo. -- Charles James "Hi" Schuster, 99, died Saturday (Dec. 21, 2002) at Fairacres Nursing Home in Greeley. He was born May 23, 1903, in Pittsburgh, Pa., to Francis A. and Elizabeth A. (Laubal) Schuster. The family moved to Lincoln where he attended and graduated from elementary and Lincoln High Schools. He served with the National Guard, State of Illinois from March 1927 to April 1931...

INDIANOLA -- Zolona Marie Chinn, 91, died Sunday (Dec. 23, 2002) at Hillcrest Nursing Home in McCook. She was born Dec. 30, 1910, to Herbert and Charlotte (Derrick) Winters in Webster, Kan. In 1911, the family moved to Red Willow County where she grew up and received her education...