Offenders take role as 'Santa Bill's' elves

Cherish Hiatt-Lewis (above), Christopher Lewis and McCook Toy Box volunteer Dick Dike stand before a row of bicycles assembled by offenders from the Nebraska work ethic camp (back row, from left) Jason Leeding, Mark Hruby, Jaron Hicks, Travis Duff and Shane Murray. The bikes will be given away by the Toy Box at Christmas time. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

Christopher Lewis said he knew. "Nobody but Bill could make anything out of these pieces," he said, confidently.

What Christopher was so confident of was that Bill Stewart, "Head Elf" at the McCook Toy Box, could take hundreds of parts and pieces of bicycles and turn them into real, honest-to-goodness, ridable bikes.

Cherish Hiatt-Lewis, co-owner with her brother Russ Hiatt of the new "McCook Flea Market and Discount Store," said the parts and pieces were part of an overstock shipment for the McCook store from a nationwide retail store.

"Russ put together maybe 10 bikes out of the load," Cherish said. "And then we had all these leftover parts."

"It was like a bike graveyard there," she chuckled.

"I couldn't make heads-or-tails from any of it."

Christopher said he thought he could have "maybe made one bike," out of the pile, but he knew Bill could do better.

Stewart, Toy Box volunteer Dick Dike and a crew of offenders from the Nebraska work ethic camp in McCook assembled 20 bikes from the assortment of parts.

"It was just pieces," Bill laughed. "No instructions."

The completed bikes will make 20 children very happy at Christmas time, Stewart said.