Stories from Wednesday, December 16, 2015

McCOOK, Neb. -- In shipping a small Bible/journal to the museum in McCook, the museum in Gering provided a mystery that grew more curious with each scrawl of a pencil in the margins. Museum officials in Gering mailed a Bible, dictionary, journal -- whatever you want to call it -- owned by a man by the last name of Fields of McCook. Most of the handwritten notations are dated 1909...

JoHanna Scott says her son, Pierce Scott, captured this image of ice-coated yucca while out hunting Tuesday on a visit from California. While at least two power outages were reported in McCook today, the ice wasn't heavy enough to cause widespread electrical problems like other ice storms have in the past...

McCOOK, Neb. -- Red Willow County Commissioners signed contracts with Great Plains Communications for telephone and Internet services at the jail and courthouse Monday, after unanimously awarding the telecommunications company the bid earlier this month. The contracts include a purchase agreement of more than $35,000 and commits the county to a monthly recurring charge of $835 for the next 5 years, in addition to other fees...

Central Elementary Music Director Abbey McNutt, far right, leads 4th grade students through a Christmas tune during Central's Christmas Program, Monday evening, at the high school auditorium. 4th and 5th grade students performed a variety of holiday songs to the delight of family and friends gathered in the near capacity auditorium...

Not that many years ago, ordering Christmas presents over the Internet was a novel idea. This year, shoppers spent $4.45 billion online on Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day, according to information released by the Adobe software company. And it wasn't all done by "traditional" desktop computers...

We are approaching a major change in the year, winter starts on Dec. 22, at 9:48 pm MST. At that time the Sun reaches its farthest point south of the celestial equator -- an event called the Winter Solstice. However, just because it is winter, that does not change the exciting prospects for observing outside your backdoor have lessened. In fact it is probably just the opposite...