Stories from Wednesday, August 23, 2006

McCook City Council members debated the merits of adopting a resolution that would support a program that provides assistant to small rural businesses, with Councilman Phil Lyons doubting the sincerity of the group. The resolution to adopt the Rural Enterprise Assistant Program (REAP) a sister group of the Center for Rural Affairs, was eventually approved by 3 to 1, with Councilman Lyons voting against the measure...

City Council members were split in approving an amendment to an ordinance that would have allowed employees and owners of Keno outlets to play the game. Voting against the measure were Councilmen Jim Kenny and Phil Lyons; voting for it were Mayor Dennis Berry and Councilman Aaron Kircher...

Cancer strikes one out of two men and one out of three women, killing 1,500 people every day. Each cancer death, on average, steals 15 years of life. Yet today, people are increasingly surviving with cancer rather than dying from it, this is a testament to our nation's investment in research, prevention, early detection and care...

Area high schools begin the fall sports season this weekend starting on Thursday. The McCook High School softball team plays Omaha Gross Catholic and Omaha Skutt Catholic Thursday at Hastings. McCook plays Gross Catholic at 4:30 p.m. and Skutt Catholic at 6:15 p.m. Thursday at the Hastings Complex...

The McCook High School girls golf team will start the fall season by hosting the McCook Invitational Friday at Heritage Hills. The tournament begins at 9 a.m. with a shotgun start. Golfers will play the front nine holes twice instead of playing the front and back nine...

McCook netters take on Kearney, Kearney Catholic, GICC field The McCook High School boys tennis team starts the season Thursday at Kearney with matches against Kearney and Kearney Catholic. The Bison will compete in the Grand Island Central Catholic Invitational Saturday...

Aug, 26, 1920 - Aug, 21, 2006 WAUNETA -- Florence L. Jeffers, 85, died Monday(Aug. 21, 2006) at Chase County Hospital in Imperial. She was born in Hayes County on Aug. 26, 1920, to Frank and Agnes (Schneider) Broz.  She graduated from St. Patrick's Academy in Sidney in 1938 and Kearney State College in 1972...

Mark Christensen, calling himself "the only Republican candidate" for the officially non-partisan Nebraska Leg-islature's 44th District, has announced tentative plans for a debate with opponent Frank Shoemaker on Oct. 2 at the Heritage Senior Center in McCook...

LINCOLN -- Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale announced today that he was disallowing the Nebraska Democratic Party's nomination of Kate Witek for Auditor of Public Accounts for the Nov. 7 general election. Gale said the attempt by the Democratic Party ap-pears to be circumventing the intent and spirit of the statewide primary election system...

It's one of those things you would just as soon not know. The problem is, Washington needs to know how bad Nebraska's drought is if there's any chance for producers to receive part of a $4 billion aid package for states hit by drought. Sen. Ben Nelson probably had the right idea in naming the ongoing drought -- "Drought David" -- to compare the damage to that caused by hurricanes, but the idea hasn't gained much traction...

I don't know if the authors, Jack Cavanaugh and Jerry Kuiper, intended their fictional novel "Death Watch" to be an indictment on "fail to play" Christians or not, but the message, though subtle, hit me right between the eyes. The novel involves a worldwide conspiracy that results in the death of tens of thousands. ...

A tree, saplings and underbrush hide from passersby on the highway a car in-volved in an accident early today. Nebraska State Patrol Sgt. Joel Smith reported three fatalities in the vehicle, which struck a tree in the west ditch along U.S. Highway 83 about two miles south of McCook. ...