The Platte Institute for Economic Research, a conservative Omaha thinktank, commissioned a study (very large PDF) by two UNK professors released this week proposing that Nebraska consolidate its 93 counties into 28. The Omaha World-Herald has an interesting story on the plan, along with a map of what county would go where. The study doesn’t analyze [...]

As usual, Roger Welsch summed it up best: “I’m not sure there can be a Dannebrog without Harriett. It seems like she’s been there forever. She’s become an institution.” Welsch is the famous Dannebrog writer and folklorist, and the Harriett he’s referring to is Harriett Nielsen, longtime owner of Harriett’s Danish. Harriett retired on Halloween, [...]

Caleb Pollard, the executive director of Valley County Economic Development in Ord, wrote a post on his Ord Sunshine Pumpers blog last week about a fascinating Newsweek interview with Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas, the authors of the new book “Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America.” It’s [...]

I’ve covered several school bond issues over the past three years, and I often get questions from people in one town about how things happened in another town. Many of the area’s bond issues center on the same few general issues — “Think of the children!” vs. “But is now the right time?” is a big [...]

I was out of the office (and out of town, too) all last week, and as is often the case when we return from time off work, I spent most of Monday catching up on everything that happened in Central Nebraska. I thought it might be helpful to round it up for you as well: [...]

I had a chance Monday to do some checking in on some of the things going on in some Central Nebraska over the past few weeks. Here’s what I found: Burwell — The big news out of Burwell is that the city council is taking bids for the Community Memorial Health Center, Burwell’s city-owned nursing home [...]

This week, I did what I always do during the first week of October — walk alongside high school marching bands as they practice for this weekend’s Harvest of Harmony parade and field show in Grand Island. Each year since 2004, the Independent has run three profiles of bands in the area that will be marching [...]

Today is day one of the three-day, 300-mile-long garage sale that is Nebraska’s Junk Jaunt. This year’s event is the sixth run each year by the Loup Rivers Scenic Byway Committee of the Loup Basin Resource Conservation and Development Council (better known as the RC&D), and as I wrote last year, it’s no longer a new [...]

The Associated Press moved a story yesterday outlining a two-year-old case between Nance County* Attorney Rod Wetovick and the county board of supervisors that goes before the Nebraska Supreme Court next month. *Nance County is a small county northeast of Grand Island and west of Columbus. Its county seat is Fullerton. The top of the [...]

I just stumbled across the USDA’s annual study (PDF) of Farm Computer Usage and Ownership, released each August. Nebraska comes out pretty well in it; the state consistently ranks near the top in most statistics of Internet usage. Here’s a few I found interesting: — 50 percent of Nebraska farmers are using their computers for [...]