Friends and Neighbors: Carla Goranson

Carla Robinson-Goranson is familiar to most in this area, but her name may now be recognizable statewide. Goranson's photo of a rare swift fox was featured in the December 2015 issue of NEBRASKAland Magazine as "Best of Show" from more than 1,000 photo submissions in the NEBRASKAland Photo Contest.

The youngest born to lifetime Kimball residents, Karen (Larsen) and Jim Robinson in 1963, Goranson was raised here and graduated from Kimball High School in 1981. She is the fourth generation to be involved with, though now only on special occasions, the nearly 90-year-old family business located on Chestnut Street, Larsen's Jewelry Store.

She married her high school sweetheart, Dennis Goranson in 1982, and they have two sons, Matthew and Stuart. The Goransons run a cow and calf operation, with which she helps by branding, running the rake, sorting and moving cattle, or running meals to her husband. She said that this operation keeps them both busy, as Dennis also raises the feed for their cattle.

"It is a year round operation," she said.

January of 2015 marked 25 years of service with the local ambulance crew for Goranson, and the last four she has been the director. She obtained her EMT-B more than two decades ago, and has trained others locally in C.P.R. For many of those years, Goranson was the only C.P.R. Instructor in this area, so she stayed very busy teaching for people/companies who were required to have C.P.R. Training.

"I was an (American Heart Association CardioPulmonary Resuscitation) A.H.A .C.P.R. instructor for over twenty years," offered Goranson, "and taught hundreds of C.P.R. classes in the community. I just recently let my instructor license go when I was hired as director. Not enough time for both."

She states that the most gratifying aspect of her position as Director of the Kimball Ambulance Service, is watching her crew grow individually and in their skills as emergency medical technicians.

"There is a huge demand on pre-hospital professionals. We train constantly on the many pieces of equipment that we are expected to use at any given moment. Then to see them (her crew) in action, when the seconds count, knowing what it takes to work proficiently, well, it is very rewarding, all of this," she said. "All crew members work their regular forty-plus hours-a-week jobs that provide the roof over their families' heads."

Goranson has achieved the highest degree given to emergency medical technicians, and is on the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT). She is a proponent of combining forces for the greater good.

"All licensed E.M.S. providers in the county belong to Kimball County Ambulance Services, not because big brother is taking over, but because the requirements on small first responder services is the same as it is for the ambulance service," she said. "It just makes sense to offer one training that all providers can attend rather then paying for three different instructors in three different locations. All working together for what is best for the patient. Somehow, Kimball County has to work together for what is best for Kimball County."

Despite the demands of managing Kimball's local ambulance crew, the lifelong Kimball resident has also served on the C Bethel #12 Job's Daughters Council, the Kimball School District Board of Education and on the Kimball Health Services Board of Trustees and currently finds time each summer to manage the Kimball Municipal Swimming Pool.

Another great passion of Goranson's are the two Schnauzers in her family, Abbigail and Gidget, the seventh and eighth mini Schnauzers for the Goransons, both of which came from two of their own litters. She said she loves to "snuggle with them" when given the opportunity.

Still, Goranson makes time for photography, a hobby that she is passionate about. She attributes her love of this hobby to the photography class she took in high school with retired Kimball High School teacher, Don Meyer.

In 2011 Goranson, along with a couple of other photography enthusiasts, began a group call High Point Shutterbugs Photography Club, to bring people in the community and surrounding communities together to share their love of the hobby. The mission of the group was stated to be "to bring together people with a love of photography, whether a beginner or a pro."

Goranson's work has been published and used often. In 2012, she took a photo of Kimball's infamous mountain lion, which was published in the Scottsbluff Star Herald after which an Greg Garrett, an artist from Alliance requested permission to transform that photo into a painting.

In 2013 Goranson won second place in the 2013 Frenchman Valley Coop calendar in the technology division and one of her pieces was printed in the 2014 Riverside Discover Center Calendar.

Her wish for her community is that we all come together in the same way the ambulance service has.

"I see a day when the city, county and the two villages, Dix and Bushnell, will have to join forces, just to survive," she said. "My hope for Kimball is that we all just get along."

Congratulations to Carla Goranson, one of Kimball County's "Best of Show".