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Happy birthday Nebraska!
Students at St. Patrick's Elementary School in McCook observe Nebraska's 150th birthday today, learning about skills that pioneers in the state would have used 150 years ago. Tuesday morning, Jim Griffin, the director of the Lincoln County Historical Museum in North Platte, explained the use of a draw knife, its angled blade frustrating fifth grader Madison Schmoker, and a two-man saw, with Grace Wilhelmson on the "pull" half of the labor-intensive process. "Nebraska pioneers were lucky to find trees," Griffin said, using them to build cabins in the eastern part of the state, in the Platte River Valley and along Medicine Creek. Students learned how to send Morse code -- dots and dashes -- between telegraphs set up in the school library. Fifth-grade girls sent the message "The big dog." The boys -- from left, Evan Mai, Grant Cappel, Kollin Werkmeister and Caleb Shaw -- replied, "The awesome boys."
