Stories from Thursday, October 20, 2005

A victory Friday night at Grand Island Northwest puts Nebraska Class B's No. 1-ranked McCook Bison into the state football playoffs. The Bison, 7-0 after blasting Sidney 37-6 last week, will play the Vikings in a 7 p.m. CDT matchup at Grand Island. The host GINW Vikings are 4-3 after suffering a 48-0 loss to Hastings last week. GINW started the season 4-1, but were trounced 55-0 two weeks ago by Holdrege...

Jankovits named GPAC Setter of the Week DANA -- Dana College setter Michelle Jankovits is the Great Plains Athletic Conference Volleyball Setter of the Week. Jankovits, a junior from Culbertson, averaged 12.13 assists per game in five Dana matches. On the week she totaled 10 aces, 10 solo blocks, 12 assist blocks and averaged 2.69 digs per game...

Ten calves died south of McCook Wednesday afternoon in a truck-trailer accident made even less bearable by frightened, bawling calves and then cold, heavy rain. A report by Nebraska State Patrol Trooper Doug Petty indicates that the accident happened about six miles south of McCook on U.S. ...

Citing an increasingly elderly population and large volumes of rehabilitation patients, Community Hospital plans to expand its rehabilitation services through the construction of a Rehabilitation Center, according to officials. The new center, which will be housed on the Community Hospital campus, will be home to expanded physical, occupational and speech therapies as well as cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation services...

A North Platte man must pay back the full amount he stole from a girls' softball team, or do 240 hours of community service -- or else wear a sign for 16 hours at the ballpark that reads "I stole from the McCook Rebels softball team." Sentenced in Red Willow County Court Oct. 18 by Judge Kent Turnbull, Daryl L. Wagner, 44, also was sentenced to spend Christmas Day in jail, as the money he took was spent on woodworking supplies to make Christmas gifts...

It's easy to get carried away. It's also easy to cause hard feelings, even though we may have the best of intentions. These thoughts -- and many more -- came to mind while reading two heart-felt letters in Wednesday's Open Forum column in the McCook Daily Gazette...

I had it all worked out ... A new car, a castle-like mansion imported from England, a 60-foot yacht, a summer home in the south of France, the chance to support my extended family in the style to which they'd like to become accustomed, but once again, the lottery winner of the $340 million ended up being from one of the country's coastlines...

**Dear Editor, Mike Hendricks' response to Owen McPhillips' Open Forum article effectively cancels Hendricks' viewpoint stated in Hendricks' earlier column that elicited McPhillips' response. I nominate Mike Hendricks as head of the Gazette's Department of Redundancy Department...

The family of Mable and Jerry Dewey are requesting a card shower in honor of the couple's 40th wedding anniversary. Cards of congratulations will reach them at PO Box 555, Trenton, NE 69044.