Stories from Friday, November 18, 2005

Donations of time and money will become more and more important to the quality of life as lower state, federal and local funding becomes available, a speaker told the Southwest Nebraska Resource Conservation and Development District and Southwest Region Nebraska Development Network at an annual banquet Thursday night...

Look nationwide, and it would be hard to find a town anywhere with a more up-to-date, in-town highway system than McCook, Nebraska. We can say that today because over the past dozen years -- from Jan. 20, 1994 to Nov. 18, 2005 -- U.S. Highway 6-34 has been entirely rebuilt from the west side of town to the east, and U.S. Highway 83 has been widened and improved from West B Street to the northern edge of town...

**Dear Editor, I was saddened today when I first heard the news that East Ward Elementary has closed its doors for good. I have many fond memories of having gone to school there and wanted to write this letter as a thank you to all the quality faculty and staff that made my formative years such an adventure...

Last year, I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. While the event did include more than three dozen people, I was prepared to host it again this year. But another family member offered to have everyone over for the holiday next week. While they may be using some far-fetched claim such as wanting to introduce their son's fiancé, I suspect other motives: My family's lack of football games on the television, a day-long staple during our Thanksgiving gatherings...

No more MVM football CURTIS -- Medicine Valley's board of education voted 4-2 at a meeting Monday to discontinue its football cooperative with Maywood. The combined team, called the Rattlers, just finished its second season. The two schools co-op wrestling and will begin a combined golf team this spring...

Sept. 9, 1931--Nov. 16, 2005 BELOIT, Kan. -- Bradley Eugene Dack Sr., 74, died Wednesday (Nov. 16, 2005) at the Mitchell County Hospital in Beloit, Kan. He was born Sept. 9, 1931, on a farm in Red Willow County to Joseph Edward and Maude Cecil (Tubbs) Dack. He graduated from McCook High School in 1951...

March 29, 1941--Nov. 14, 2005 GOODLAND, Kan. -- Gary Lee Spatz, 64, died Monday (Nov. 14, 2005) at the Goodland Regional Medical Center. He was born March 29, 1941, in Madison to Raymond and Dorothy (Norris) Spatz. He graduated from Plainview High School in 1959. He attended agribusiness school in Lincoln...

LINCOLN -- It has become a familiar place for longtime Cambridge coach Dan Keyser. The Trojans made their eighth appearance in the Class C-2 championship game under Keyser, who was coaching his last game after 17 years as the Trojans' mentor. Unfortunately, Keyser's last game on the sidelines didn't turn out the way his team wanted it to, as Plainview's ground game was too much for the Trojans in a 21-6 defeat Friday afternoon at Memorial Stadium...

Now, it's time to say thank you to a man with vision.

I received a call a couple of weeks ago from Senator Nelson's appointment secretary in Washington, D.C. She advised that the Senator wanted to talk to me and she was calling to set up a time we could have that conversation. The Senator called at the prescribed time, which happened to be during McCook first playoff game and the first thing he wanted to know was how the Bison were doing. ...

Crews remove the roof trusses, one at a time, as demolition of the old Bureau of Reclamation building in McCook continues. Sid Doak, sub contractor for the demolition, said the 66 foot iron trusses will be salvaged. Bill Chada, with the Bureau of Reclamation, said research was made with the Nebraska State Historical Society and other agencies, to see if the building could be registered as a historical site, but criteria was not met. ...

**Final in a series Ninety-two percent of all the offenders sentenced to the Nebraska Department of Corrections Work Ethic Camp in McCook have substance abuse problems. That's 951 of the 1,033 offenders who have come and gone through the doors of the prison-alternative facility that opened in McCook in April 2001...