caution - cattle crossing · 2020-02-20 · luxury of capturing hard working cattle producers on...
TRANSCRIPT
• Nebraska Timeline• Remember When• Over The Hills• Happenings OnThe Hill
• Odds & Ends• Life’s Outtakes• Dave Says• Knight Sports• Senior Spotlights• Thedford & SandhillsSchool News
• Church Happenings
Inside This Issue
THOMAS COUNTY, THEDFORD, NEBRASKA 69166 (USPS 596-550) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019 NO. 33
THOMAS COUNTY Your Source OfNews In The Sandhills
• Bernard Douglas Lesher
Obituary
IndexLegal Notices.................2CommunityCalendar......................2
Social Side ....................3NebraskaTimeline .......................3
Opinion Page.................4Comics ..........................4Classifieds .....................5Business Directory ........5StatewideClassifieds ...................5
School News .................6School LunchMenus..........................6
Senior Spotlights ...........6Proceedings ..................7Church Page..................8
Notices• Upper Loup NRDNotice OfPublic Hearing
• Thedford School BoardProceedings
• Village Of ThedfordRegular MeetingProceedings
• Village Of ThedfordEmergency MeetingProceedings
• Thomas CountyBoard OfCommissioners’Proceedings
• Thomas CountyPlanning CommissionNotice Of Hearing
News Briefs
Story & PictureTerri Licking
See Stranded Page 7
The legal description ofa noxious weed is anyplant designated by a Fed-eral, State or county gov-ernment as injurious topublic health, agriculture,recreation, wildlife orproperty. More com-monly they are defined asa plant that grows out ofplace and is competitive,persistent, and perni-cious.
Regardless of whichweed you are trying tomanage it’s important tocontinue yearly manage-ment. Skipping a year cancause the noxious weed tore-infest rapidly. Persist-ence is the key to any suc-cessful weed controlprogram.
In Nebraska you arelegally required to controlnoxious weeds on your
The Thedford Service Club will be hosting ameeting with Ansley community members whohave used innovative ways to enhance their com-munity from successful balloting for sales tax tosales of village lots to get them back on the taxroll. A low income housing company now callsAnsley home. Learn how they are living theirmotto "Some Bigger, None Better."
The meeting will be held Tuesday, March 5thwith a Dutch treat meal at 6:00 p.m. (CT) fol-lowed by the meeting at 7:00 p.m. CT in the eastroom of the Sandhills Corral café in Thedford.
The Public is welcome. RSVP for the meal toSandhills Corral at 308-645-2323.
Sullivan Hills Camp is inits 22nd year, but for thefirst time, ThomasCounty kids will be ableto attend for free. Donorshave subsidized the en-tire cost of camp this yearto make sure every childhas the opportunity to at-tend.
First through twelfthgraders spend a week de-veloping great friend-ships, growing self-confidence, and deepen-ing their faith at this 640-acre residential summercamp near Lodgepole, Ne-braska. Each weekthrough June and July,trained Summer MinistryTeam members lead kidsthrough activities such asa high ropes challengecourse, archery, boating,
Photos like this are rep-resentative of cattle pro-ducers who drive theircows home from corn-stalks this time of year.
This is easier on thecows that are a month orso from calving, but find-ing a good weather dayhas been difficult. Thisdrive could be seen Satur-day afternoon, February9, on the Sandhills Jour-ney Scenic Byway. Onedoes not often have theluxury of capturing hardworking cattle producerson bitter cold days.
Thanks goes out to Kimand Denise Woodward ofBroken Bow.
Denise Woodward, whowas in the pickup with atrailer bringing up therear, said their 80 pluscows did pretty well con-sidering it was an eightmile trek. The trailerwould be used to bringthe horses home.
"When we came to thecurve before the tracks,we had probably gone twomiles. Melody Doss andher daughter were in thelead feed pickup with ahay bale - a coaxer mostcows follow this time of
Caution - Cattle Crossing
year."On horseback was
Denise's husband Kim,and the Doss men,Melody's husband, Dakotaand their son, Drake.
Care was taken to ensureeveryone’s safety.
A deputy from the sher-iff's department was onhand, BNSF had been con-tacted, a wait on twotrains to pass causeddelay for highway traffic.
"Ice on the gravel road
was another problemafter the tracks."
Cows falling on ice caninduce early labor, thuslost revenue. When theyturned on the Paulsenroad, passing KinKaider's,Denise said there was aparty in progress, so a lotof onlookers with theirphones took pictures ofthe cattle drive.
Denise probably got themost exercise, running upand down the line of cars
on the highway a coupleof times, thanking themfor their patience and un-derstanding, and explain-ing the delay.
The Woodwards want tothank the travelers whowere patient and under-standing throughout. Pa-tience is not simply theability to wait - it's how webehave while we're wait-ing - (Author unknown).
Most behaved admirablyshe said.
Free summercamp for ThomasCounty youth
Bible study, creative arts,and many other classiccamp activities.
Registrations are nowopen at SullivanHills.orgor by calling 402-944-2544. A $50 deposit is re-quired at registration; itwill be refunded after thechild attends camp.
Pictured on horseback are, l-r: Kim Woodward, Drake Doss and Dakota Doss.Denise Woodward brought up the rear with the pickup and horse trailer.
Service Club tohost meeting
Yearly ManagementOf Noxious
Weeds Important
property. The commonnoxious weeds on the Ne-braska State list include:plumeless thistle, muskthistle, diffuse knapweed,spotted knapweed,Canada thistle, leafyspurge, purple loosestrifeand saltcedar. Fortu-nately, not all of theseweeds are found in ourDistrict. To help with thebattle with those found inour area (leafy spurge,Canada thistle, musk this-tle) the Upper Loup Natu-ral Resources Districtprovides cost share fundsfor BOTH fall and springtreatment to landownersin the NRD area. Fundsare available to cover 50%of the cost of approvedchemicals up to $500 perlandowner.
R-Project powerlineis nearing decision point
The federal governmentapproval of NPPD’s “R-Project” powerline isnearing a decision point.The Environmental Im-pact Statement (EIS) forthe project has been onthe Federal Register sincethe 8th of February and isnearing the end of its 30day waiting period. Afterwhich, a “final record ofdecision” is soon to fol-low. This gives NPPD thegreen-light to begin con-struction of the power-line.
The problem with allthis is they have not andare not following the fed-eral law (EndangeredSpecies Act). In spite ofthe shiny new R-Projectsales brochure handedout by NPPD at the capitoltoday, they continue toshow a complete disre-gard for the countless con-cerns raised by the public.The route of the R-Projecthas not changed an inch.
If one drills down intothis 837 page document,you will find Appendix Ewhich concerns theWhooping Crane. Thehighly technical computa-tions discussed in this ap-pendix attempt to answerthe question of “mortal-ity.” Specifically, howmany Whooping Cranesdo the US Fish & Wildlifebiologists think will bekilled by collisions withthis power line over the50 year life of the project?Remember, only 505 ofthese animals remain.
The data used to answerthis question is old andsparse, and the calcula-tion method used was de-signed to deliberatelyskew the result to as near“zero” as was mathemati-cally possible. A largeamount of new, moderndata were found in early2018, but the chapter on“threatened and endan-gered species” was closedby that point and the new
data was not consideredin the EIS. This violatesthe Endangered SpeciesAct which requires the USFish & Wildlife Service(USFWS) use “the bestavailable science.” As it is,they are deliberately ig-noring it, and so is NPPD.
As a result of a Depart-ment of Interior InspectorGeneral’s Complaint Ifiled, analysis of the newdata was eventuallyforced to happen by theUSFWS Scientific In-tegrity Officer, and is nowpart of the public record.In an effort, I believe, todeliberately discredit thedata, the biologists in theDenver USFWS officewrote an incomplete re-buttal of the analysis andit is rife with errors. I’mshocked this actuallymade it into the publicrecord. They did this, I be-lieve, because an honestappraisal of the best dataavailable shows a shock-ing Whooping Crane mor-tality rate.
The law provides a rem-edy for all of this called a“Supplemental Environ-mental Impact Study.”This new WhoopingCrane data could be prop-erly studied and a scien-tifically sound report, freeof bias could be rendered.It’s the right thing to do.Sadly, NPPD steadfastlyrefuses to do this. On theadvice of NPPD’s paid lob-byist in Denver, the USFish & Wildlife Servicealso steadfastly refuse todo this. Other membersof Nebraska’s congres-sional delegation havejoined me in this fight.We will soon see if the De-partment of Interioragrees with the corrup-tion surrounding the RProject.
Please contact my officewith any comments, ques-tions or concerns. Emailme at; [email protected]. Mail a letter to; Sen.Tom Brewer, Room#1423, P.O. Box 94604,Lincoln, NE 68509 or callus at (402) 471-2628.
By State SenatorTom Brewer
Page 3
The Thomas, Blaine,and Loup County FarmBureaus will host a townhall meeting with Sen.Tom Brewer of District43. The town hall meetingwill take place Friday,March 8, at 4 p.m. atUncle Bucks Lodge inBrewster. The meeting isfree and open to the pub-lic.
Sen. Brewer will answerquestions from con-stituents and give an up-date on his work at theLegislature and what toexpect during the upcom-ing legislative session.The meeting will alsoallow District 43 con-
Town Hall Meetingwith Sen. Brewer
stituents to meet and visitpersonally with Sen.Brewer.
“We are excited to hold atown hall meeting forSen. Brewer and the con-stituents in District 43,”said Katherine Kubacki,president of ThomasCounty Farm Bureau.“The town hall meetingwill allow citizens to askquestions that matter tothem and hear responsesfrom Sen. Brewer.”
For more informationyou may contact TammyFiechtner, North Centralregional manager, Ne-braska Farm Bureau,(402) 302-9494.
The Nebraska State Pa-trol (NSP) and NebraskaDepartment of Trans-portation (NDOT) closedInterstate 80, Saturday,February 23, due to nu-merous crashes and whiteout conditions in the east-ern half of the state. I-80was closed between milemarker 312, near GrandIsland, and mile marker439, near Gretna.
Troopers responded tonumerous crashes, in-cluding large crashes atmile markers 329, 355,and 409 on Interstate 80.Some of those crashes in-
Hundreds ofstranded motorists
volved injuries.The first large crash oc-
curred near mile marker355, east of York, involv-ing an estimated 30 vehi-cles, including at least 15semis. The crash occurredat approximately 2:45p.m. More than 100 vehi-cles became stranded be-hind that crash.
At approximately 3:10p.m. a crash occurred atmile marker 329, near Au-rora. That crash involvedapproximately 15 vehi-cles, including 10 semis.
The Sandhills-ThedfordJunior-Senior Prom will beheld Saturday, March 30 atthe NE National Forest inHalsey.