Stories from Friday, February 20, 2004

A 10-0 third quarter run for the Southern Valley girls basketball team was the difference maker in its 51-46 class C2-11 sub-district final win over Cambridge Thursday night in the McCook High School gym. The first half was full of lead changes flying back-and-forth between the two ball clubs. One thing that was consistent for Southern Valley was the play of Jenee Perkins...

IMPERIAL -- Wallace claimed the Class D2-10 sub-district Thursday night with a 56-38 win over fellow GPAC opponent Hayes Center. Junior Amber Hochstetler set the pace of Wallace with 22 points including four 3-pointers. Nicole Gier chipped in another 10 points to help her team advance to the district finals...

The McCook Bison girls basketball team scored the first and final buckets of the fourth quarter. The problem for the Bison was that North Platte scored every basket in between in the frame. The Bulldogs kept McCook scoreless for over six minutes, went on a 13-0 run and defeated McCook 55-37 during Senior Night Thursday in the McCook High School gym...

McCook High's Korus, Smock dropped into consolation round LINCOLN -- After one day of competition, Medicine Valley-Maywood wrestlers look comfortable in Class C. With 35 team points, the Rattlers are in fourth place, just 10 1⁄2 points behind North Bend Central and 13 1⁄2 behind David City Aquinas...

Work on the second of three projects to reconstruct B Street through McCook will resume Monday with the removal of an island between East Seventh and East Eighth, and building a temporary traffic signal at the east junction of U.S. 6-34 and U.S. 83...

The management at Cinema III had to book "The Passion of The Christ" for four straight weeks to be able to bring it to McCook on its official release date Wednesday, Feb. 25, but anticipates a sellout crowd at the 7 p.m. showing. "We've had two churches in the area already purchase the theater for special matinee showings," said Dan Smith, theater manager...

A Red willow Western firefighter soaks the last embers of a fire that consumed several outbuildings at the Rex Solomon farmstead three miles north of McCook on West Third about 6:30 a.m., today. The Solomons' wire-haired pointed Griphon named "Spud" alerted his owners that his doghouse was on fire. ...

Ask someone who was alive in 1955: Would you have guessed, back then, that the 12 counties of Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas would have half as many high schools now as they had then? Be truthful. Just one year short of 50 years ago, did you foresee that more than 40 high schools in the area would shrink to less than 20, as will be the case for the 2004-05 school year?...

It wasn't even a Monday or a Friday the 13th or a one-star day on the horoscopes. It was just one of those days, when things aren't good or bad -- they're just odd -- and bedtime can't come soon enough. It was one of those days when you wonder if someone is secretly videotaping you. It was one of those days when you won't forget it, at least until you have another one of those days...

April 1, 1925-Feb. 5, 2004

Nov. 29, 1915-Feb. 18, 2004

Sept. 5, 1915-Feb. 14, 2004

July 2, 1925-Feb. 16, 2004

Sept. 28, 1920-Feb. 19, 2004

April 28, 1915-Feb. 19, 2004

Tamara (Logsdon) and David Sleeman of Auburn, Wash., announce the birth of their daughter Molly Ann Sleeman on Friday (February 6, 2004) at Valley Medical Center in Renton, Wash. She weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. Grandparents are Tom and Pam Logsdon of Trenton...

Cami Malleck likes the idea of maybe helping a child, and she thinks, too, that giving blood can help her get over her fear of needles. Cami gave blood Thursday during a Red Cross Bloodmobile on the fairgrounds in McCook. For the McCook Community College freshman, it was just her second time to donate blood...

LINCOLN -- Gov. Mike Johanns awarded $180,000 Community Development Block Grant funding to Red Willow County to help with the local startup of 21st Century Systems Inc., a company that designs agent-based decision software support systems for time- and mission-critical U.S. Department of Defense applications. The new software technology center is expected to create seven full-time jobs...

Sell Nebraska's public power utilities? The late Sen. George W. Norris must be turning over in his grave at the thought. Thursday, a committee of the Nebraska Legislature -- a Unicameral, also thanks to Norris -- decided to not even think about selling off NPPD and the like, killing a bill which would study the idea of privatizing public utilities...

In the news business, the one question every newsperson is vitally interested in is whether or not a story "has legs." That means whether or not a story is going to hang around for a while, sometimes even developing a life of its own, or will the story be done and buried shortly after it has been reported? It certainly appears that the rationale the president used to order a pre-emptive strike on Iraq (weapons of mass destruction and building a nuclear bomb) has legs and will be one of the "talking points" of the Democratic candidate as the campaign unfolds over the upcoming months.. ...

Tales of local murders filled the McCook Tribunes for two weeks in a row. The first took place in Bird City, Kan., and was written as though you were reading a dime novel. It was included in the "Orleans-St. Francis Branch" local news column Friday, Feb. 13, 1903...