Our long tradition of welcoming visitors

Excitement is coming. This next Friday evening and all day Saturday the annual College Rodeo will take place right here at our Fairgrounds. Weather no matter it will take place in our wonderful Kiplinger Arena. College kids from miles around will be competing and that includes students from as far away as our 50th State Hawaii. Auction items, both silent and active bidding will be tempting. It will also be a fundraiser for our college team so your contribution if you desire, will be doing good for our kids all year long. See you there.

Although it seems to be mostly ignored (your author’s opinion) our Red Willow County Fairgrounds is a real economic powerhouse for this community the year around. Drive-by, especially on weekends, and you will notice large numbers of campers and fifth-wheel camper/stock trailers tethered to electrical and freshwater outlets surrounding the grounds. That says people, customers for the stores in this area. Of course, those people eat also and that means dining in our fast food emporiums and on up to our finest restaurants.

Drive through the fairgrounds and you will notice a large number of modern buildings sponsored by the Fair Board mostly led by Don Klein. When they started, back in my youth there were only a few galvanized steel buildings, and then note the large number of modern buildings which have been added since. Those included two full-sized arenas that serve “horse people” and other agriculture-related interests. Yes, we do live in a rural community. There are large facilities that serve all community interests like wedding receptions, seminars, weight watchers and more. The modern kitchen there is a real asset. We have the County Health Department, all customers welcome, and a large office to accommodate the Federal Farm Program. The 4-H building is used for auctions year-round in addition to the 4-H, FFA, and open class at fair time. It is then that two church-sponsored food booths are in operation to support the crowds attending the itinerate carnival and all the other activities of the County Fair. Our community is fortunate to have such an awesome facility.

The big news of the day at the moment seems to be centered at the crisis occurring at our southern border. Due to our new president’s dictates, the word got out and people from the world around are swarming through Mexico to enter our beloved United States of America. Evidently, life in their socialist and dictator-run countries has become untenable so they come to the beacon of liberty that is the mark of our country. Of course, criminal elements like the Cartels in our neighboring Mexico are involved with their drug and human trafficking activities. In a demented way, families are sending their children with the dream that they too will be able to follow due to our rules of chain immigration. President Trump’s wall is leaking and it look like our immigration authorities are overwhelmed.

My heart goes out to all those poor people who have decided that their present situation is pretty much untenable and they will sacrifice all to better their future by traveling to our land of freedom.

It isn’t the first time that men and their families have sacrificed all for a better future. Just look around at this area of the Great Plains where we now live. It was peopled by families riding in covered wagons allured by the attraction of free land. Live here on the barren prairie, make a few improvements, and you were the owner of 160 acres of land. Many stayed but also many sold to give themselves a stake in a future on west. Then too a great number of ethnic German people came here to live and work when the Russian Communist Government took over areas they had settled in and improved along the Volga River and similar areas in what became the USSR.

More recently, at the end of the Vietnam War, all those people that had helped us try to save their country tried escaping the oncoming communistic North Vietnam Government that had overtaken their beloved South Vietnam. Those people who had known the goodness of the U.S. military during the war sacrificed everything to come to the United States. Interestingly a faction of our Congress, Senator Biden included, fought to keep any support from our government to settle the Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. Then it was church organizations that picked up baton and found communities to welcome and settle those refugees. McCook was one of those beneficiaries and the families that came have now integrated into our society. They took advantage of our education system, intermarried and are now just one of us.

The same story of families that came here from Mexico. They proved industrious good citizens, many have intermarried and now also are just us. Where all those new immigrants, both legal and illegal, will go to settle in locations throughout the United States is yet an open question. Hopefully, the transition will not be too painful and in the end, will be a good thing for you me and the rest of our beloved USofA.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail