Group Looks To Preserve Kimball's Personal Histories

The newly founded Oral History Committee of Kimball is looking to revive the discontinued Prairie Rhythms Oral History Project that was started in the early 1990s under the new name of the Prairie Tales Oral History Project.

“Several people were talking about getting this going again, and the Visitor’s Committee wants to do some of these things for tours. So amongst all the people, we decided to try to get it going again,” Jan Sears, Director of the Kimball Public Library, said.

The committee consists of different members from various groups around the city including Karen Bivens representing Historical Geneology, Jan Sears representing the Kimball library, Terri Lukassen representing the Plains Historical Society, County Commissioner Tim Nolting, Shari Robbins representing the Genealogical Society, JoAnne Knapp representing Friends of the Library, and Susie Abramson who is simply interested in local history.

The goal of the project is to document the history of the development of Kimball and the surrounding panhandle area with emphasis on the development of the railroad, agriculture, ranching, the oil industry, the missile project, churches, health and schools, according to the committee’s mission statement.

The information for the project will be obtained through oral interviews with some of the older residents of the city. This method has been chosen instead of written content in order to obtain as much detailed information as possible.

“One of the reasons you want to do oral interviews is that when you get to a question that you want to know more about, you have an opportunity to expand on it,” Sears said.

People chosen for interviews will be asked to sign a release form detailing the interviews use and offering their consent to be used in the project.

According to the committee, the project will serve as a way to preserve personal details of Kimball’s history that may not be found in history books for future generations.

The committee is still in the early stages of the project and is looking for volunteers to serve as interviewers for the project as well as anyone willing to offer to be interviewed for the project.

The oral histories will be stored in the Kimball Public Library for use by the public upon the project’s completion.

Any interested party may contact Jan Sears at the Kimball Public Library at 235-4523.