Here’s a link to the Top 10 stories in rural Central Nebraska this year. And as a decade retrospective, I dug deep into the paper’s archives to find all of this decade’s top 10s for small-town Central Nebraska — essentially, all of the Independent’s 16-county coverage area except Grand Island itself. (Beat-specific year-end lists began in 2001. I began at the Independent midway through 2006; the rest of the lists were compiled by former Independent reporter Gretchen Fowler, with the exception of a few 2002 items by Carol Bryant.)

Looking for the area’s story of the decade? A few stories were longer-lasting than others: Ethanol has appeared on every top 10 list since 2001, the Comstock music festivals appeared in five years, school bonds appeared in four years, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appeared in three years.

2008

1. Tornadoes hit Kearney and Aurora May 29.

2. Aurora‘s historic downtown Fidelity Building is burned down. Two teenage boys confessed and are sentenced in juvenile court.

3. Renewable energy: Ethanol plants in Ord, Albion and Central City shut down and construction halted in Aurora; NPPD seeks proposals for wind plants near Broken Bow and Petersburg.

4. Hospital construction/renovation projects in Hastings, Ord, Aurora, Albion, St. Paul and Broken Bow.

5. Adams County Treasurer Julia Moeller of Hastings is charged with felony tax evasion.

6. School bonds in Central City and St. Paul pass; Broken Bow fails.

7. Jim Proskocil keeps Comstock music festivals alive under new name while founder Henry Nuxoll is convicted of bad check charge.

8. Nearly a dozen Central Nebraska towns opt out of state’s mandate for fluoridated water.

9. Burwell City Council fires its economic development director; a new council is elected and reinstates director.

10. Al Klanecky of rural Wolbach is charged in federal court for storing hundreds of explosives at his farm.

2007

1. Ice storm (actually during the last two days of 2006) causes hundreds of millions in damage, leaves 100,000 homes without power.

2. School bond fights rage in Gibbon, Central City, Broken Bow and Ord.

3. One block of Broken Bow‘s downtown burns down April 1.

4. Four Central Nebraskans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan: Kevin Gaspers of Hastings, Ken Locker Jr. of Burwell, Christopher Pfeifer of Spalding, and former Marine Michael Doheny, formerly of Broken Bow.

5. Zoning battles are fought in Ravenna and Boone, Howard, Greeley and Custer counties over livestock operations and paunch manure.

6. Controversial housing development in Ravenna leads to a failed mayoral recall.

7. Ethanol plants near Ord, Ravenna and Albion begin production, construction ongoing at Aurora and Wood River plants.

8. Farm Service Agency offices in Loup City, Burwell and Greeley are closed.

9. Hastings is named “The Greenest City in America” by Yahoo, gets $250,000.

10. NPPD pursues three new privately run wind projects.

2006

1. Ethanol: Ground is broken on plants in Albion, Aurora and Wood River; plans are announced for plants near Ansley and St. Paul (neither plant is completed); construction continues in Ord and on Central City expansion.

2. Thomas “Tiff” Varney of Arnold murdered, and Seth Strasburg of Arnold pleads no contest to manslaughter.

3. Aurora, Gibbon and Cross County (Stromsburg/Benedict) pass school bonds for construction/renovation projects.

4. Shelby native Curt Tomasevicz competes in the winter Olympics as part of the U.S. bobsled team.

5. Two Central Nebraska soldiers killed in Iraq: Brent Zoucha of Clarks and Jeffrey Hansen of Cairo.

6. Valley County Health System in Ord investigates and replaces its CEO, Neelam Bhardwaj, amid controversy. (She later sued for discrimination and settled.)

7. Voters repeal 2005 law dissolving elementary-only school districts, including 28 in Central Nebraska. (The districts remain dissolved.)

8. Fullerton farmer Annette Dubas defeats Central City farmer Greg Senkbile for Legislature’s 34th District seat.

9. The Catholic Diocese of Grand Island clusters nine parishes north of Grand Island, ending weekend Mass at six of them.

10. Comstock music festival organizers implement a 21-step plan to control underage drinking in order to keep their liquor license.

2005

1. Missing persons cases: Ord natives Janelle Hornickel and Michael Wamsley die in a snowstorm near Omaha after taking meth and becoming disoriented; Central City native Kendra Benham dies in a traffic accident in Gage County but is missing for a week; an Indiana woman is missing for a month before being found under a bridge near Grand Island; rural Gibbon farmer Gerald Gillming is reported missing but turns up alive in Kansas five days later and is charged with false reporting.

2. May storms cause extensive hail damage in Hastings and flooding in Wood River.

3. Howard County Sheriff Troy Kaiser resigns after his deputies quit and he is accused of threatening to cut the county attorney’s throat.

4. Six people die in fires near Doniphan, in Kearney and in Hastings.

5. Twelve-year-old Crysta Naylor of St. Paul sells a pretzel shaped like the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus on eBay for $10,600.

6. Central City, Ravenna, Ord, Albion, Wood River and Alda move forward with ethanol plants.

7. A significant amount of money is stolen in an armed robbery at Henderson State Bank.

8. Hastings Mayor Rick Sheehy is appointed lieutenant governor by new Gov. Dave Heineman.

9. Former Clarks police officer Ron Jones is convicted of criminal mischief and theft that occurred while he was an officer.

10. Wood River firefighters Bobby Heminger and Kenny Woitalewicz are remembered on the first anniversary of their deaths.

2004

1. Wood River firefighters Bobby Heminger and Kenny Woitalewicz die on Valentine’s Day when a burning home collapses on them.

2. Five members of the military from Central Nebraska and two others with ties to the area are killed in Iraq or Afghanistan: Noah Boye and Eric Knott of Grand Island, Edward Iwan of Albion, Dennis Corral of Kearney, Kyle Codner of Shelton, Linda Tarango-Griess of Sutton and Jeremy Fischer of Lincoln.

3. Ethanol plants in Central City and Ravenna begin operations.

4. A fire destroys a historic building in downtown Hastings. Two people are injured.

5. One person is killed and 16 people are injured when a Greyhound bus crashes on I-80 between Shelton and Wood River.

6. Tornadoes hit Wheeler County, and Boone County is hit with flooding.

7. James Graf of Laurel dies when a crop duster crashes south of Wood River on June 21.

8. Shari Vincent of Aurora pleads innocent to second-degree attempted murder of her husband, Christopher.

9. Doug and Susan Kyhn of rural Farwell are severely burned by a propane explosion at their home.

10. Greeley and Wolbach schools merge to create the Greeley-Wolbach Titans.

2003 (Top 5)

1. Jose Sandoval is convicted of five counts of first-degree murder for his role in the 2002 Norfolk bank killings. The trial was held in Aurora after a change of venue.

2. Daniel Gannon of Grand Island is stabbed and killed on a North Loup River sandbar near Dannebrog. Joshua Boord of Grand Island is charged with felony manslaughter, but the charge is dismissed.

3. Construction begins on Central City ethanol plant.

4. The main stage at Comstock‘s Godstock music festival collapses because of high winds. One person is injured, and the rest of the festival is canceled.

5. Thirteen-year-old Daniel Burkhardt Jr. of Ravenna is convicted of four juvenile felony charges after attempting to sexually assault a 16-year-old girl and shooting the man who tried to help her.

2002 (The regional beat was split in two that year; the west list is first, followed by the Central Nebraska-related items from the beat’s other reporter, Carol Bryant)

1. Bombs were found inside mailboxes near Dannebrog and Scotia. No one in Central Nebraska was injured.

2. Twelve-year-old Daniel Burkhardt Jr. of Ravenna faces six juvenile charges after attempting to sexually assault a 16-year-old girl and shooting the man who tried to help her.

3. Bobby Joe Conn of Johnson is convicted of conspiring to kill his ex-wife, Alicia Siegel Conn of Litchfield.

4. Nordic Biofuels announces its plans to build an ethanol plant in Ravenna.

5. One person, Louis Lautenschlager, is killed and six others are injured in two separate explosions near St. Libory in June.

6. A mild earthquake (3.5 on the Richter Scale) in June is felt in Valley and Greeley counties.

7. A newborn boy is abandoned on the doorstep of a Shelton home with the umbilical still attached. He is placed with a foster family.

8. Rajitha Goli of St. Louis is convicted of operating a health care fraud scheme in Kearney and Sargent.

9. Justin Olson of Lincoln is convicted of first-degree assault and a weapons charge for shooting his parents in their Broken Bow home.

10. The first-ever Comstock Rock festival draws 30,000 people.

East-Central Nebraska:

5. Plans for an ethanol plant in Central City are announced.

6. A district judge rules that four hog confinement units near Cedar Rapids in Boone and Nance counties are a nuisance.

8. A sale of Allen’s of Hastings to Skagway of Grand Island falls through.

10. Atlantic Homes of Central City, with 175 employees, closes in August.

2001

1. Sixteen-year-old John Blume of Kearney sends a bomb threat to a network printer at Gibbon public schools. He is convicted of a juvenile terroristic threats charge.

2. Justin Olson of Lincoln is arrested for shooting his parents in their Broken Bow home.

3. Four men are arrested in the attempted murder of Alicia Siegel Conn of Litchfield.

4. Ten Central Nebraska counties discuss forming a regional health department. (The Loup Basin Public Health Department is eventually formed.)

5. Former Wood River resident Logan Flood of Lincoln survives a plane crash near Ainsworth.

6. The first Comstock Windmill Festival is held, and organizer Henry Nuxoll announces there will be a sequel.

7. $35 million worth of cocaine is confiscated west of Kearney on I-80, the largest-valued cocaine bust in Nebraska State Patrol history.

8. Wood River Jr./Sr. High school board votes to enter into an interlocal agreement with three elementary-only districts for a middle school arrangement.

9. Comstock Village Board President Dennis Johnson and board member Zelda Drake each call for each other’s recall. In a close, controversial election, Drake is recalled while Johnson is not.

10. Richard Huhman of Anselmo survives being struck by lightning while camping near the Calamus Golf Course near Burwell.

The study doesn’t analyze how much money might be saved by this plan (or, as the World-Herald article notes, whether it would be politically possible), but it seems to be intended as a concrete plan that could be used as a starting point for discussion or further research. The study also provides an estimate of the amount of extra money it would cost the citizens of those regions to travel that additional distance for county services. (These numbers are across the entire regions, not just the counties I’ve named.)

So what does it give us? For Central Nebraskans, here’s how it breaks down.
— Greeley, Hamilton, Howard and Merrick counties: You’re now headed to Grand Island. Total cost for your region: $10,941.
— Garfield, Loup, Sherman and Valley counties: You’re going to Broken Bow. Total cost for your region: $8,484.
— Boone and Nance counties: You’re going to Columbus. Total cost for your region: $10,835.
— Polk County: You’re headed down to York. Total cost for your region: $18,549.
— Wheeler County: You’re going up to O’Neill. Total cost for your region: $2,946.
— Every other county I didn’t mention (that’s Adams, Buffalo, Custer and Hall): You lucked out. Nothing changes for you.
— Oh, by the way, the eight counties that make up the Omaha and Lincoln metro areas are unchanged, too.

So how does the map hold up? The researchers say their goal is to keep people from having to drive more than 60 miles for county services and keep overall populations for regions under 60,000 when possible. In Central Nebraska, at least, they seem to do a decent job with that. There’s a few spots that fall outside the distance goals in our area (Spalding-Grand Island is 67 miles, Petersburg-Columbus is 58), and the Grand Island-based area exceeds 60,000 people, but generally, they seem to meet their own goals.

There’s still the question of whether this would be desirable. While county government isn’t nearly the source of community pride that local schools are, most rural Nebraskans seem to resent anything that could be perceived as a loss of local control — especially when it would result in some inconvenience. And as Larry Dix of the Nebraska Association of County Officials noted in the World-Herald article, it wouldn’t change the amount of roads to maintain or crime to stop.

On the other hand, there could be some real savings in consolidating some the state’s smallest counties, though this study doesn’t tell us precisely how much. It might be worth looking into for the long-term’s sake, though a lot of things would have to happen for rural Nebraskans to be in the mood to support something like this.

What do you think? A reasonable idea worth taking a look at, or another misguided attempt to marginalize rural Nebraska?

Carr and Kefalas, a husband-and-wife team, spent six months in a 2,000-person town in northeastern Iowa that they give the pseudonym “Ellis,” talking to just about everybody during that time.

What’s interesting about their findings — from what I could gather from the interview — is that they’re at odds with the recent conventional wisdom about reversing the rural brain drain. In recent years, many rural thinkers, planners and economic developers have latched onto sociologist Richard Florida’s concept of the “creative class,” and the idea that those (mostly young) tech experts, artists and musicians correlate strongly with growing economic development.

Many of those developers have pushed small towns to try to increase their “cool” quotient to attract the creative class — reinventing themselves as smaller, off-the-beaten-path versions of the creative class’s favorite urban areas.

Kefalas and Carr advocate a different way. In the interview, Kefalas says she agrees with Florida about the importance of the creative class, but says that trying to create a community of young, creative people isn’t necessarily the best place for rural towns to spend their resources. Carr puts it simply: If your goal is to create a “cool” vibe, it will fail, because there will always be cooler cities than yours.

So what to do instead? Just about everyone I’ve spoken to in rural development agrees that drawing and keeping young adults is one of the most critical aspects of keeping small towns alive and kicking. But Carr and Kefalas seem to propose that rural areas use their natural assets — their natural beauty, low cost of living, more relaxed pace, their ruralness — to attract young people. Instead of mimicking urban living, they suggest, rural areas should strive to sell themselves as the opposite of the urban life.

They also say towns should focus on students other than the cream of the local high school’s crop, working with community colleges rather than directing their energies strictly toward bringing in “the best and the brightest.”

So what do you think? What’s the best way for towns to attract and keep the people who will keep towns alive? How about combining Florida’s and Kefalas and Carr’s methods? What have you seen that’s worked?

The strategy, from a study (PDF) commissioned by the group last month, is remarkably thorough, with 47 suggestions for lawmakers and government officials. But at its core is one assertion: High taxes are a major barrier to population growth and revitalization within Nebraska, and they must be lowered in order for the state to flourish. That’s a philosophy I’ve heard quite often in rural Nebraska, particularly from politicians and business leaders.

It might seem at first like a no-brainer — of course high taxes are bad, right? — but it’s actually almost a bold one once you pick it apart. According to this philosophy, the primary thing that’s keeping people from moving into Nebraska and the state’s young people from moving back is not so much the state’s perceived remoteness or dullness, but its tax climate. Put that way, it’s certainly counterintuitive.

Does it hold up? Depends on how you look at it. In a direct sense, taxes are probably one of the last things people consider when deciding whether and where to move. More often, it comes down to proximity to family and friends, entertainment and recreational options, natural beauty, quality of schools and health care, and, of course, jobs.

That’s where the low-tax idea comes in. You can’t bring in more people without more jobs, the thinking goes, and businesses aren’t inclined to choose to create their jobs in a state that oppresses them with high taxes. So the lower-taxes-for-population-growth idea primarily functions on the indirect level, looking to attract businesses to create jobs that will then lure those coveted residents.

The conundrum is that lowering taxes can mean cutting some of the services and offerings that draw people into an area, like quality schools and recreational opportunities. (Of course, it can also mean trimming the fat of unnecessary government spending, but that’s often much easier said than done.)

So is cutting taxes the key to growing Nebraska (and since this is the Scenic Route, rural Nebraska)? Or is focusing on improving the state’s amenities and marketing them to potential residents the best tack to take to grow our state’s rural areas? Or, of course, is the right answer all of the above — in which case, how do we pay for it? I think these are fundamental questions when we look at the future of rural Nebraska, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.