Stories from Friday, February 27, 2009

FACTS ABOUT PROPOSED CUTS IN MANDATORY FARM SUPPORT PAYMENTS · The President's budget eliminates direct payments to farms with gross sales higher than $500,000 annually in order to save $9.7 billion over 10 years. · Senator Johanns does not support this proposal...

WASHINGTON -- Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson issued this statement today in response to President Obama's fiscal 2010 budget proposal: "President Obama is to be commended for sending Congress an honest budget that doesn't play hide and seek with the government's revenues and expenses. This isn't the "Fudget" we've seen in the past, with gimmicks that left out such expenses for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Alternative Minimum Tax and spending on natural disasters...

Nov.15, 1929 - Feb. 25, 2009 ARAPAHOE -- Ardith Helen Morris, 79, formerly of Holbrook and McCook, died Wednesday (Feb. 25, 2009) at Premier Estates in North Platte. She was born Nov. 15, 1929, at Elwood to Vernon and Ethel (Golden) White. She was raised in the Elwood and Bertrand area and graduated from Bertrand High School. After high school she worked as a cook at Hamburger Inn in Holdrege...

Jan. 9, 1932 - Feb. 25, 2009 Rose Ellen Doyle, age 77, died Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009 in Kearney at Good Samaritan Hospital after a courageous battle with cancer. She was born Jan. 9, 1932, in McCook to Arthur and Mary (Lepper) Koetter. She graduated from McCook High School in 1948...

BENKELMAN -- Elaine W. Wallace, 83, died Thursday (Feb. 26, 2009) at Dundy County Hospital in Benkelman. Services are pending. Information will be provided as it becomes available. Arrangements are under the direction of Forch Funeral Chapel of Benkelman...

COZAD -- The Arapahoe boys basketball team claimed the Class D1-11 sub-district title game with a 59-49 win over Eustis-Farnam Thursday.

and the LINCOLN -- Residents of Southwest Nebraska who paid millions in property taxes under part of a water law deemed unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court could get their money back. On Thursday, State Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial said he would introduce a measure to the Legislature requiring that residents of the Republican River basin be repaid the roughly $2 million to $2.5 million in property taxes...

Population at the Nebraska Department of Corrections Work Ethic Camp in McCook could increase substantially, under a legislative bill that advanced out of committee last week. Introduced by Sen. Mark Christensen, LB 274 allows the Director of Correctional Services to assign a felony offender to the WEC. Those convicted of a capital offense or sex offenders are not eligible...

A 1975 graduate of McCook Senior High is teaching basic police skills to Iraqi law enforcement officers, and utilizing his art talents as well. Tim Monzon was deployed to Kuwait with the U.S. Army Reserve in 2005. While there, he witnessed the need for better law enforcement training in Iraq, and returned to that country following the end of his tour with the Army Reserves. ...

The city will issue $1.12 million in bonds, if the McCook City Council approves a request from the McCook Economic Development Corp. at its regular meeting, 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Council Chambers in Memorial Auditorium. The bond, issued by D.A. Davidson, will be used toward construction costs in renovating the Keystone Hotel on Norris Avenue into a business center...

If President Obama's stimulus bill pays off as predicted, McCook should regain about 100 jobs. That's because Nebraska is predicted to get about one new job for every 78 people under the plan. That's also fewer than other states, like California, but thanks to conservative leadership, Nebraska is in better fiscal shape than California and most other states. ...

Not many television shows make it through a full season, never mind 20 of them. But that is exactly what Fox's "The Simpsons" has managed to do. In fact, Fox has just announced that they are going to order another two seasons of the comedy, making it the longest-running scripted program in network television history, passing the legendary TV Western "Gunsmoke," and adding 44 episodes to the series lengthening total. ...

One of the things the experts still haven't been able to figure out is the whole dream experience. Why do we dream and why do we dream what we dream about? It's not that there aren't any theories. In fact, there are as many theories about dreaming as there are about practically anything. But for all the books and articles written on dreams and dream interpretation, there's still more we don't know than we know...

Before gaining fame as a poet, Carl Sandburg rode the rails through this region, stopping briefly when passing through McCook and Oxford. You can hear more Sandburg stories tonight (Friday) during a special presentation at the Fox Theatre. Thanks to the sponsorship of McCook Community College, there is no admission charge...

The Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC) recently awarded 15 grants totaling $19,880. They include McCook Community College, McCook, $1,450 for "The Carl Sandburg Project," a series of poetry and songwriting workshops, a lecture and a performance Feb. 26-27 at McCook Community College and the Fox Theater in McCook...

Today's issue includes the final regular installment of this year's Progress Edition, and we've found it encouraging to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well in Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas. Congratulations to special projects editor Jeremy Blomstedt for heading up the edition, as well as the all the contributors and staff members who made the edition a success...

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Thurman, pastor at Memorial United Methodist Church, used the extremely limited edition of the "Nebraska Revised Standard Version" of Scripture to deliver his homily on the "Parable of the Sower" (Luke 8:4-15) to a crowd of 127 Friday afternoon at St. Alban's Episcopal Church...

KEARNEY -- Melissa Ankersen of McCook and Brandon Brill of Kearney were united in marriage Aug. 16, 2008, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Kearney with the Rev. Rob. Kuefner officiating. Parents of the couple are Russ and Sue Ankersen of McCook and Kent and Susan Brill of Kearney...

Doris L. and Evert E. Mosher of McCook will celebrate their 87th and 90th birthdays at a reception Saturday, March 7, from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., at Willow Ridge Retirement Community, 1500 East 11th, McCook. Doris (Bortner) was born in 1922 and lived all but a short period of her life in Frontier County. ...

The family of Dean and Linda Witte, of Cambridge, is hosting an open house in honor of the couple's 40th wedding anniversary. The open house will be Saturday, March 7, at 7 p.m., in the Cambridge Community Building in Cambridge. Children of the couple are Lori Druse and husband, Tom, Deann Hunter and husband, Gerry, Brad Witte and wife, Jessica and Janet Mitchell and husband, Donavan. ...

Chris and Kati Seybold of Benkelman announce the birth of their son, Alexander Joseph Seybold on Feb. 16, 2009, at Dundy County Hospital in Benkelman. He weighed 6 pounds, 5.4 ounces and measured 19 1/2 inches long. He has two brothers, 2-year-old Dalton and 5-year-old Matthew and a sister, 8-year-old Breanna. ...

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Kara Brown and Brian Haverkamp, of Malden, Mass., were united in marriage Oct. 11, 2008, at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Santa Barbara, Calif. Parents of the couple are Dr. A. Michael and Gail Brown of Avon, Conn., and Charlene Chittick of Falls City and the late Lou Haverkamp...

The family of Dorthy Dudek is requesting a card shower in honor of her 80th birthday March 4. Cards of congratulation will reach her at PO Box 405, Wauneta, NE 69045.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The state Supreme Court says a lower court should not have excluded testimony that found a Nebraska man's cancer was likely caused by exposure to railroad diesel exhaust. On Friday, the high court released its decision reversing a Douglas County District Court ruling, later upheld by the Nebraska Court of Appeals, granting judgment to BNSF Railway...

LINCOLN, Neb. -- McCook High School junior Whitney Korgan qualified for Saturday's final in the girls 50-yard freestyle by placing 11th in the preliminaries Friday at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln pool. Korgan posted a time of 25.17 seconds in the 50 free...