Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Sorted by date Results 2836 - 2860 of 3107
NORTH PLATTE (AP) – Nebraska has been installing colorful new tourism signs along Interstate 80 to replace old signs that had weathered, becoming hard to read. The Nebraska Tourism Commission and Department of Roads are coordinating the project, which began with the unveiling of a sign directing travelers to Scouts Rest Ranch in North Platte at Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Victorian house, built in 1886, and barn sit on 25 acres of what originally was Cody’s 4,000-acre ranch. The sign includes...
Wednesday night’s City of Sidney City Council meeting served as the last meeting attended by council member Aaron Barnes, who announced his resignation Jan. 25. “I would like to thank the citizens for the opportunity to serve. I’m going to miss you guys and I’m going to miss this town,” said Barnes. “It has been a pleasure having you here, and I appreciate someone who comes being totally prepared. We will miss you,” said Major Wendall Gaston following the council’s regretful motion to pass...
Sidney swimming pool consultants Doug Whiteaker from Water Technology, Inc., Jeff King with Ballard*King and Associates and Chuck Musgrave, an architect with Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture (a partner with Water Technology, Inc.) approached City of Sidney City Council members last night with three different plans and locations for the new pool to be built on. “All three sites are similar in surface area so that we are not judging the site by the amount of water. They are just configured d... Full story
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barring any new, damaging information, Chuck Hagel has secured the necessary votes for the Senate to confirm him to be the nation's next defense secretary. A vote ending the bitter fight over President Barack Obama's Cabinet choice is expected next week. Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former two-term GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other Republicans last week in an unprecedented filibuster of the Pentagon nominee. "He's probably as good a... Full story
OMAHA – Several Nebraska cities and schools are taking actions well ahead of the expected arrival of a powerful snowstorm that could dump up to a foot of snow in some parts of the state. The storm is expected to hit the southwest and south-central parts of the state on Wednesday evening, with the heaviest snowfall on Thursday as the storm moves east-northeast. The city of Grand Island declared a snow emergency beginning at noon Wednesday, forbidding parking along emergency snow routes. In K...
Further discussion took place at the City of Sidney Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night regarding an ordinance on accessory buildings built within Sidney. City of Sidney Interim Chief Building Official Zoning Administrator Ben Dayton and City of Sidney Attorney J. Leef presented the commissioners with a redrafted version of the requirements. It is proposed that homeowners are allowed to build an accessory building beside their house and it is not restricted to only being built behind the residence. However an accessory building is still n...
The district courtroom in the Cheyenne County Courthouse filled with members of the public Tuesday afternoon during a Cheyenne County Board of Commissioners meeting as discussion continued regarding an application for a conditional use permit from Pine Bluffs Gravel and Excavating Inc. for the proposed use of a gravel mine to operate a ready-mix concrete batch plant. The county planning and zoning commission had previously reviewed the application at a hearing Jan. 28 and had unanimously voted t... Full story
LINCOLN (AP) — Officials at the Lincoln Children’s Museum say they have now attracted more than 2.5 million guests to the center. Jerry and Connie Barnett of Lincoln pushed the nearly 25-year-old museum past that mark when they visited Saturday morning with their grandchildren, Coco and Eddie. They were given gifts, including a five-year museum membership, museum store gift certificate and a free week at a museum summer camp. They told the Lincoln Journal Star they were “overwhelmed but excited....
PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — A Nebraska man has claimed a $1 million jackpot at Pine Ridge’s Prairie Wind Casino, where he’d spent part of Valentine’s Day with his wife of 60 years. Gordon “Bud” Thompson, a retired railroad conductor from Alliance, Neb., said his wife Donna was the one playing at the casino. He decided to try a few spins on a nearby Freedom Rings machine as he waited for her to finish. He put about $9 worth of quarters into the three-reel machine and hit a jackpot worth about $1,037,000. “I didn’t even realize what had happened ri...
LEXINGTON (AP) — A western Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to child abuse for shaking an infant hard enough to cause brain damage. The Kearney Hub reports that Cameron Hovey’s decision to change his plea was part of an agreement with prosecutors. The 23-year-old Hovey is accused of shaking a 41/2-month-old child vigorously last summer. Hovey told police that he shook the child last July because he panicked when it appeared the baby had stopped breathing. Hovey faces up to 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 6....
OMAHA (AP) – A powerful winter storm system is heading for Nebraska and Iowa, promising a foot or more of snow and high winds. The National Weather Service says in a winter storm watch that snow will begin falling in western Nebraska on Wednesday evening and then hamper morning traffic in Omaha and other cities as the system heads east. Accumulations of more than a foot are possible east of a line from Hayes Center in southwest Nebraska north through Valentine in the north. In Iowa, up to a foot is expected in some spots west of Interstate 3...
LINCOLN – More droughts in the Southern plains and floods in the Northern plains are among the scenarios described in new a national climate change draft report. After record high water flowing from the Colorado Rockies to the Missouri River in 2011, the U.S. experienced a significant decline in water flow in 2012, with nearly 65 percent affected by drought, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln. “We’ve never seen that sort of a drastic change,” Svoboda said. Svoboda was one of about 145 peo...
LINCOLN – Supporting foster parents with adequate child care reimbursement was the forefront of discussion during the Health and Human Services Committee meeting Wednesday, Feb. 13. Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton introduced LB530, which if passed, would ensure reimbursement rates would keep up with the cost of fostering children. Dubas said the Foster Care Reimbursement Rate Committee of the Department of Health and Human Services calculated standard daily reimbursement rates to be $20 for children 0-5, $23 for ages 6-11 and $25 for c...
Two Sidney High School students, Madison Malzahn and Paxton Ewing, both achieved positions in the Rural Health Opportunities Program (RHOP) this winter. RHOP is a cooperative program between Chadron State College and the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for high school seniors who want to dedicate their careers to rural medicine, according to information from officials at Chadron State. “The purpose of the program is to recruit and educate traditional students from rural Nebraska w...
Teens from St. Patrick’s Youth and Young Adult Ministry will be holding a fundraiser at St. Patrick’s Parish Center across from the Cheyenne County Youth Center Feb. 23 in order to raise funds to go to the National Catholic Youth Ministry Conference this November. The teens will be selling homemade baked goods, walking tacos and drinks in order to pay for some of the fees to send six teens and two adults to the conference, which will cost approximately $430 per person plus airfare. The con... Full story
The Cupid Shuffle race on Saturday, Feb. 16 attracted 43 participants. The race was a predictor’s challenge, meaning that the winners of the race were determined by how close participants finished to their predicted time prior to the race. There was a three-way tie for the first place female winner, with all of them predicting within 5 seconds of their actual finishing time. The winners were Annette Krueger, who finished in 23 minutes and 20 seconds and predicted 23 minutes and 15 seconds, a... Full story
LINCOLN (AP) — Gov. Dave Heineman says he plans to fill an open seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents based on the person’s views on agriculture, college affordability and the university’s role in spurring economic growth. The new board opening has drawn the attention of abortion opponents, who want Heineman to fill the seat with a candidate who opposes embryonic stem cell research. Heineman said Friday that the stem-cell issue is important to him as well, but he plans to focus on a broader set of factors when making his decis...
COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — It’s about the little victories, right? Traci Wickham’s small win was being able to make it up the short flight of stairs leading to Scotus Central Catholic’s gymnasium where her daughter was playing in a basketball tournament recently. The Columbus Telegram reports (http://bit.ly/VmBWIJ ) that making it up the steps is actually a pretty huge step for Wickham, whose van was T-boned by a semitrailer at the junction of highways 81 and 30 the morning of Dec. 11. Wickham had just dropped off her children when her vehicle...
HASTINGS — Reported mountain lion sightings in Nebraska are far more common than actual sightings. Much like UFOs, a good percentage of the sightings are simply a case of mistaken identity. A mangy coyote, stray dog, or even a bobcat can look uncannily like a big cat from a passing car. But spotting one isn’t out of the question. The Hastings Tribune reports that just last week, a landowner in Pine Ridge in northern Sheridan County shot and killed an 88-pound female mountain lion after he and his family unsuccessfully tried to scare it awa...
DENVER (AP) — A Democratic gun control package began its lengthy and emotional route through Colorado’s Legislature on Friday, with the House approving limits on the size of ammunition magazines after hours of fiery debate on gun violence and how to stop it. The Democratic chamber was poised to stay late into the night giving preliminary approval to other parts of the Democrats’ gun agenda, including expanded background checks for gun purchasers and a new ban on concealed weapons on college camp...
Leyton High School 2012 graduate Justine Peters was awarded the Sidney P.E.O. Chapter’s FR and BO 2012 scholarship award. The award is given annually to a graduating senior at a Cheyenne County high school who applies and goes through the selection process. The criteria used in selecting a candidate for this award are whether or not the student exhibits excellence in academics, leadership, extracurricular activities, community service and has potential for future success, according to Sandy W...
LINCOLN — Lincoln police can now search for bad guys using the state’s face recognition technology. The state has used the technology for years to prevent people from getting multiple driver’s licenses under different names, said Tom Casady, the city’s public safety director. The Lincoln Journal Star reports (http://bit.ly/XKmK6n ) that now local police trained by the state can use the same database, Casady told the Lincoln City Council last week. Police can compare video images from a crime — someone passing a bad check or using someone e...
Water Technologies, Inc., the swimming pool consultants that have been hired by the City of Sidney to conduct a feasibility study regarding updating or replacing the Sidney Swimming Pool, will be leading additional public meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 19 and Feb. 20. The public is invited and encouraged to attend any of the three sessions. Water Technologies, Inc. will incorporate the information that they have gathered to date, including the information received from their initial visit last month. The first of the three sessions is...
The Sidney Public Library is a busier place than usual this February. Not only is the library hosting art from Panhandle high school students and holding their fourth annual Library Lover’s Month, but the library is also teaming up with Western Nebraska Community College instructors to hold free computer classes at the library. This is the first year that the library is offering the classes and the classes will be taught by college instructors, according to Doris Jensen, the library’s dir... Full story
NEW YORK (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett, the most closely watched investor in America, is putting his money in ketchup, agreeing Thursday to buy H.J. Heinz Co. for $23.3 billion in the richest deal ever in the food industry. For his money, the Oracle of Omaha gets one of the nation’s oldest and most familiar brands, one that’s in refrigerators and kitchen cupboards all over the U.S. The deal is intended to help Heinz accelerate its expansion from a dominant American name into a presence on grocery shelves worldwide. The Pitts...
