Stories from Thursday, October 21, 2010

Southwest Nebraska is definitely rural, but it feels crowded to anyone who's lived in Nebraska's Sandhills. As a recent Associated Press story pointed out, however, no one is lonelier than a law enforcement officer responding to a call in the distant dark of night...

Water is our most valuable natural resource. It is the key for our health, lifestyles, local recreation and economic well being. Today the development and implementation of policies that control this resource are in the hands of the Natural Resource District Board. Election time is drawing near and our votes will determine who will be making some of the most important decisions affecting our lives...

Every single one of the 40 city employees who would work at the proposed 51⁄2 million dollar municipal facility voluntarily applied for their job. They saw where they would be working! They are paid more than average. They pay peanuts for a health care package that costs McCook taxpayers on average $12,000 per year per employee and is better than 95 percent of us can afford. It's virtually impossible to get fired so getting their "longevity" pay raise is easy...

Recently we stayed in your town longer than we had intended because a deer jumped on the front of our car just west of McCook. We were uninjured, but our car suffered quite a bit of damage. Although the circumstances were not good, our stay was good because of the wonderful friendliness and helpfulness of the people of your community...

It is already in the courts. The Occupational tax will be heard before the Nebraska Supreme Court Nov. 3, 2011. It is evidently in the United States Supreme Court (ORDER LIST: 562 U.S.) MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 126, KANSAS V. NEBRASKA AND COLORADO. The Acting Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in this case expressing the views of the United States...

This is Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District's response to Dan Smith's letter to the Editor in the Oct. 19th edition of the McCook Gazette. We would just like to correct a few things that Mr. Smith falsely reported about the Department of Natural Resources' surface water controls as identified in the recently adopted Integrated Management Plans (IMP). I would also recommend that Mr. Smith concentrate on understanding the Groundwater controls...

The bright planet Jupiter has firmly taken control of the evening sky rising just before sunset in the southeast and, at least this evening, leading the moon across the sky. In the days following, the moon will pull farther east of Jupiter rising later and later each evening...

McCOOK, Nebraska -- Nebraska lawmakers will have three priorities this year, according to the president of the state Chamber of Commerce: The budget, the budget and the budget, in that order. Speaking at the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce Legislative Forum at the Chief Restaurant this morning, the official, Barry Kennedy, said the chamber's involvement in issues at the federal level has increased recently as a result of demand from its members...

An exceptional corn harvest in Southwest Nebraska forces Frenchman Valley Coop of McCook to use land south of Gerhold's Concrete in McCook, Nebraska, for temporary storage. Frenchman Valley manager Mark Friehe said that due to exceptional back-to-back crops of both wheat and corn, the company has had to resort to extra storage areas for corn. ...

A little bit of recent controversy apparently hasn't affected the McCook Community College women's volleyball team. The Indians, with just seven players on the roster, took Southeast C.C. of Beatrice to the limit before losing a five-set decision Wednesday Oct. 20, at True Hall gym on the MCC campus...

The McCook High School girls cross-country team has started a nice little end-of-season tradition. The Bison girls qualified the entire team for the Nebraska Class B State Cross-Country Championships for the third straight year. McCook head coach Tom Sughroue will enter his entire team at the state meet Friday, Oct. 22, at the Kearney Country Club...