Stories from Thursday, January 3, 2013

Russell Robert Leak INDIANOLA, Nebraska -- Russell Robert Leak, 83, died Wednesday (Jan. 2, 2013), at Community Hospital in McCook. Memorial services will be Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2012, 2 p.m. at Carpenter Breland Funeral Home with Jerry Beckenhauer officiating...

This information is gathered at the McCook Public Safety Center, the McCook office of the Nebraska State Patrol, the Red Willow County Courthouse, the Red Willow County Sheriff's Office and the McCook Humane Society. Police activity Activity log...

McCOOK, Nebraska -- McCook area construction project costs for 2012 totaled just over $16 million, well shy of the $29 million mark reached the previous two years. The bulk of the decrease can be traced to no activity in the school and public building category, which racked up more than $11 million in 2011...

CURTIS, Nebraska -- Irrigators in the Middle Republican Natural Resources District will not be required to make up for a shortage of about 9,000 acre feet of Republican River water that must be delivered to Kansas. Brian Dunnigan, director of Nebraska's Department of Natural Resources, on Tuesday designated 2013 as a "Compact Call Year," which means that the department's forecast procedures indicate potential non-compliance with the 1943 Republican River Compact (which divvies up the river's water among Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas) unless sufficient surface water and ground water controls and/or management actions are implemented.. ...

City of McCook employee Tyler Kalinski utilizes a front end-loader this morning to transport moving boxes from Memorial Auditorium to the new Municipal Facility on West C Street. The big-rig took only three loads to transport the majority of the administrative department items. City offices will be closed Friday and Monday to facilitate the relocation of operations, which will be open for business in the new facility beginning Tuesday...

U.S. President Richard Nixon can be seen leaning forward and to his left in his Pennsylvania Avenue reviewing stand as the 120-member McCook, Nebraska, Senior High marching band passes before him during his inauguration parade Jan. 20, 1973 in Washington, D.C. On Nixon's left is Vice President Spiro T. Agnew...

I trust you all had the merriest of Christmases and the safest and sanest of New Years. Now, on to business. There are 88 officially recognized constellations in the northern and southern skies. There are also many unofficial asterisms, or star patterns, that while not ordained by the International Astronomical Union, they are recognized by astronomers and star gazers around the world...

What is it with kids and hygiene? WHY, is it SO hard? You'd think after 10-12 years of being alive and living in a home where baths, brushing teeth and washing hands are repeated daily, that eventually these things would become habit and something instilled in their brains, kind of like eating and sleeping. Something that they do involuntarily, without thinking, plus with all girls, I guess I foolishly thought they would automatically WANT to be clean and pretty. Apparently not!...

We hope you haven't given up on your New Year's resolutions yet -- in fact, it's never too late to make one. Giving up smoking is a "popular," yet difficult resolution to keep, and it's a worthy goal. But before non-smokers put too much effort into patting themselves on the back, consider the following information, pointed out by the St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island...