Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
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Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dave Domina wishes to bring attention to key issues he believes residents of Nebraska face that are currently being neglected in the United States Senate if elected in 2014. Domina, who currently serves as a trial lawyer for his firm Domina Law Group pc llo, states that his primary motive for choosing to run in the 2014 election was a sense of obligation when considering the important issues that have fallen by the wayside in the Senate throughout the past year....
Congressman Adrian Smith stopped by the Kimball/Banner County Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, January 21, to update local residents on the issues being discussed in Washington. Among the issues discussed was the current tax code which Smith believes is too convoluted and needs to be reformed to better serve the country. "Our current tax code is 10,000 pages in length. And it costs our economy about $160 billion a year just to calculate our taxes. That doesn't include paying your taxes. Roughly...
Nebraska Governor David Heineman and Attorney General Jon Bruning have announced a proposed replacement for the 'good time' law that would force violent offenders to earn time off their sentence instead of being rewarded essentially one day off their sentence for every day spent incarcerated. According to a press release obtained from the governor's office, the proposed change, which would apply to inmates who commit the most violent crimes including murder, manslaughter, first degree assault,...
The Potter Duckpin Bowling Alley gives local residents not a only a chance to unwind but also a chance to take a step back into the past. According to Dale Dedic, member of the Potter Historical Foundation who own the establishment, the bowling alley was created in the first half of the 1900s and was a staple of the Potter community before closing down in 1951. "This bowling alley was in the building across the street where the bank is. There was a big brick building there. This was actually a...
The recall attempt in the Village of Bushnell has failed to acquire the needed signatures to host a special election. The recall attempt had been started by Dwayne Brackeen of Bushnell on October 22, 2013, attempting to recall Tim Nolting, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Bushnell. The reasoning behind the recall efforts were based on allegations that Nolting had intimidated board members along with business owner Fal Calvert during his time as serving as chairman. Brackeen only needed to get 20 valid signatures on the petiti...
City Council member Ann Warner will not be seeking reelection in 2014. Warner, who has served on the council for eight years, has decided to take time off to pursue other areas of interest in the future. "There's just a lot of different things. We're getting to retirement age. I was on planning commission for eight years and then city council for eight years so I decided I'm going to take some time off," Warner said. Among the list of things that Warner would like to do with her free time in...
After 60 years of owning and operating Kimball Laundry and Dry Cleaning, Jim O'Brien has finally hung a 'For Sale' sign in the window in preparation of walking away from the business that has been part of his life since he was 15 years old. O'Brien remembers the early days of the business, back when they used four ringer wash machines and automatic machines were simply a fantasy. "It had a tub and you took them out one piece at a time and put it through a ringer and squeezed the water out of it...
The Banner County Wildcats have had a hard start to their season, walking away from the first half with only one victory. In the season opener at home against Garden County on December 6, 2013, the Wildcats fell by four points with the score resting at 49-45. The Wildcats started off strong in the first quarter of the game, trailing Garden County by only one point at the end of the quarter. However, Garden County was able to keep the Wildcats to only eight points in the second quarter, keeping...
In Kimball, and most likely around the nation as a whole, it is extremely rare to hear of a high school student who has been hand picked to sing in Carnegie Hall in New York City. However, recently, Kimball High School senior Courtney Hunsaker achieved such a feat, much to the pride of her family, community and her music teacher David Thelen. According to Thelen, it started out with a simple application process submitted to a program that picks students throughout the nation to group together...
Local resident Fern Stahla continues to show that age is merely a number. Stahla, 103, who was born on October 25, 1910 in Ordway, Colorado, grew up in a time much different than the one enjoyed by present day children and teenagers with the technological age and social media sites that are ever prominent in common daily routines and discussion. Instead, Stahla spent the early years of her life helping her parents farm on their plot in Greeley, Colorado with her siblings George, Hannah, Kate, Le...
Sirens blared down the streets as the vehicles of the local emergency services climbed up over highway 71 towards Shopko packed with excited children, ready to kick off the third annual Shop with a Cop event the morning of December 14. The sun had barely risen in the sky and the wind was fiercely blowing through the area as kids piled out of the vehicles in the Shopko parking lot, bouncing with excitement for the shopping spree to ensue as Kimball Police Chief Darren Huff directed the crowd to...
The Kimball Police Department made two drug arrests on Friday, December 6, in the vicinity of South Oak Street. According to Captain Justin Trout with the Kimball Police Department, the busts started with a phone call from a resident at 306 S. Oak, claiming that a gun had been stolen from the property. The investigation led Trout to 600 S. Oak, where Jody Kelley, 41, was arrested after drugs and drug paraphernalia were found at the residence. “At 600 S. Oak, I suspect that what I found is, of course a syringe and a needle, drug paraphernalia, I...
The annual Cattlemen's Ball of Nebraska will be coming to Banner County in June of 2014. The ball, which was started in 1997 by a group of beef industry leaders, is held every year throughout different parts of the state serving as a way to raise funds for cancer research at the Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, according to Co-Chairman of the 2014 Cattlemen's Ball Monty Stoddard. "It started out as a fairly small event with maybe 500 or 600...
The sidewalks on 2nd Street in Kimball were lined with local adults and youths as they eagerly anticipated the start of the Parade of Lights the night of Saturday, November 30. The air was biting as the lights of the fire truck beamed in the distance as residents looked on bundled up in coats, gloves and scarfs. After a brief wait, the fire truck siren echoed through the streets as the parade started barreling down on the downtown area. As the fire truck passed the crowds amassed on both sides...
The closing event for Marketing Hometown America was held Tuesday, November 26 at the Kimball Event Center. Approximately 70 participants packed into the Meadowlark room of the Event Center as the small groups involved in the process hung up their plans of the best way to market the Kimball area on the walls around the room and prepared to give presentations. Each presentation was given by a member of each group under a different facilitator for the program who had been picked to shape each...
The Kimball County Jail, located in the courthouse, is facing the cost of much needed repairs to its plumbing system. According to Kimball County Jail Administrator Linda Williams, the system which was installed in the 1920s has worn down with time and will need to be partially reconstructed. "All the plumbing here is really showing its stress. There's a lot of rotten out places," Williams said. The primary concern is with the pipes connected to the shower in the jail which over the past few...
The Event Center was filled with excitement the afternoon of Saturday, November 23, as local residents waited in anticipation of the arrival of Caroljo Nagel and the presentation of her new car. News crews and photographers scattered around the ballroom of the Event Center as the side doors opened illuminating the back of the room with sunlight as the silhouette of Nagel passed through the threshold. As she walked towards Blain Schilreff, who has spent the past 35 days collecting donations in...
The City Council voted to move forward with the long awaited underpass project incorporating the use of federal funds at their meeting the night of November 19. The decision came on the heels of a presentation by Dave Schaff of M.C. Schaff and Associates, who are in charge of the design of the project, which made it clear that the project is coming up on a very important deadline. "The gist of it truly is that we are at the point in the programming for the funding agency, Federal Highways...
A Dix resident was arrested recently for terroristic threats made against students at the Potter-Dix High School in Potter, Nebraska. According to the Cheyenne County arrest affidavit, Charles “Dusty” Smith of Dix, left a threatening message on the school’s answering machine on Friday, November 8, 2013, in which he allegedly threatened to kill “all non virgins and the people that they attend school with”. After the school played back the message for Fred C. Wiedeburg, Chief Deputy for the Cheyenne County Sheriff’s Office, Smith allegedly c...
Republican senate candidate Shane Osborn promises to help bring transparency to the federal government if elected in 2014. Osborn, who served as Nebraska State Treasurer from 2007 to 2011, believes that transparency is a way to hold the government accountable to its people by letting them see where their money is coming from and where it is going. "If the government's going to take our money, the least they can do is give us a receipt," Osborn said. This form of transparency is not foreign to Os...
Kimball Public Schools will be getting a School Resource Officer in time for second semester of classes. According to Kimball Police Chief Darren Huff, Ryan Smith, who currently serves as a deputy for the Boon County Sheriff's Office, has taken the position and will be reporting for duty in Kimball on December 30, 2013. Smith comes with training and experience that will serve him well in the specific duties and capacity of the School Resource Officer (SRO) position. "We narrowed our search down...
The Scotts Bluff County Democrats held an event at Java Blend last Tuesday, November 12, where they were able to talk to democratic candidates through the utilization of newer technologies. According to Jeff Leanna, chairman of the Scotts Bluff County Democrats, residents were able to hear from democratic candidates spread throughout the state and ask questions through the use of Skype and a projector from the Java Blend building in Kimball. “It’s really difficult with 93 counties in the state for candidates from Fullerton, Doniphan and Lyo...
Fog sat in the cold crisp air as local residents and military veterans stood in the Kimball cemetery as the local VFW and Kimball Police Department honored veterans both present and past by raising 21 flags and giving a seven gun salute the morning of November 11. Though the air was biting and the sun was nowhere to be seen in the sky, veterans stood steady and proud as each shot rang in the distance, sending each flag up with honor and due diligence. Later in the morning, Jeri Ferguson's...
The City Council voted to transfer the Goodhand Theater over to the possession of Forward Kimball Industries at their meeting the night of November 5 in the City Council chambers. According to Kimball City Administrator Daniel Ortiz, the reasoning behind the transfer stems from FKI being better suited to find a buyer for the old theater. "Because of just the way and nature of how city government operates, it makes it a lot more difficult for us to try to market and sell a property and have to...
The Village of Bushnell may be headed for a recall election to take place early next year. On October 22, 2013, a recall affidavit put forth by Dwayne Brackeen, a resident of the Village of Bushnell, and accepted by Kimball County Clerk Cathy Sibal seeking the removal of Tim Nolting from the Board of Trustees for the Village of Bushnell. The affidavit states that the reason for the removal is that more than one board member has felt bullied by Nolting into voting his way, and that, due to Nolting’s actions, the village was threatened with a v...