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Many families have special foods they prepare for Christmas and this time of year newspapers often publish holiday recipes. My mother had a recipe drawer in her kitchen on Blauvelt’s Hill. That drawer was filled to over flowing with cookbooks and advertising pieces chock full of holiday food ideas. Since my father’s oldest brother was a Gas Service Company manager, we always got copies of the recipes promoted by the company’s home agent who promoted natural gas ranges as the best cooking device. I’m not sure any of those recipes. were used at...
A week ago Monday I had two computer parts shipped from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. Thankfully, I wasn’t in desperate need of them for they took the long way to Superior. The tracking report indicated from Broken Arrow they went to Tulsa. Instead of heading north from Tulsa they went south to Dallas. They reached Omaha at 6:14 a.m. Friday but they weren’t delivered in Superior until Tuesday. In the 1970s, Superior Publishing was asked to partner with a printer at Henderson to print and mail the Rural Electric Nebraskan mag...
With the Simic Roller Skating Rink reopened and a new generation of youngsters learning how to skate, I thought it might be appropriate to share the following from the Nov. 27 issue of the Nelson Gazette. I expect many of today's skaters do not understand nor use the proper code. I was never an accomplished skater and it has been 40 or more years since I tried. However, should I decide to risk life and limb at the rink, I still have the shoe skates I purchased when the Simic opened in 1979. As...
There are many things to be thankful for this week. Some are major and often recalled but there are minor items we tend to overlook. For example, this week I was reminded to be thankful turn signals are now standard equipment on motor vehicles. I even have turn signals on my three-wheeled electric bike. But turn signals have not always been available. My first automobile didn’t have the signals. If I wanted to make a left turn I was to roll down the window and extend my arm straight out. For right turn I was to raise my arm along side the v...
editorʼs notebook When I was an undergraduate and graduate student at Kansas State University in the 1960s, various business ventures dictated I return to Superior nearly every weekend. Other students learned of my regular travel and asked for lifts to and from school. Most were northern Jewell County residents but there was one girl from rural Miltonvale and occasionally a student from further into Nebraska would ride to Superior where they were met by a friend or family member to continue their trip home. One of those riders was the late...
Supply problems are not a new challenge. When I was in high school I remember when the family’s filling station nearly ran out of gasoline. Dad was gone and he had left me charge. I didn’t know how I could explain how I let the station run out of its best selling item and frantically worked to solve the problem. It was standard procedure to measure the fuel left in all tanks at opening every morning as we balanced recorded sales with the gallons pumped to make sure all sales were recorded and the money accounted for. When the amount of fue...
Stories about DIY projects are among my favorite topics. Each year, at the Superior Public Library book sale, I look for “How to Books.” Monday I came across a story about how to repurpose tuna cans. When the newspaper bought 35mm film in 100 foot rolls, I repurposed all the metal cans which held the rolls of film. I found they were good for storing small quantities of fasteners like bolts, screws and nails for the cans fit inside the drawers we once used to store metal plates. Each can was 3.75 inches in diameter and just more than 1.5 inc...
As a college student, I used pictures of shoes multiple times to complete picture assignments. Once I pictured a coed walking home from class under an umbrella barefoot in a pouring rain. It appeared she was attempting to preserve her shoes by keeping them out of water but the candid picture looked as if water was running off the umbrella and into her shoes. I didn’t verify the situation but I suspect she was in for a wet surprise when she reached her destination. Another time I watch a coed slip her shoes off and leave them in what appeared t...
Monday morning a former resident of Superior stopped by the newspaper office with questions about past happenings. Some I could answer and some I couldn’t. He’s not the only one with questions about what may have happened. I have some of my own. For example, while skimming the Nebraska News column in an 1884 newspaper published at Nelson, I read of a fire which destroyed a store at Warwick. I’m familiar with what is now a ghost town in Republic County’s Big Bend Township named Warwick. I once took pictures of a Mobil Oil Company’s bulk plan...
This week newspapers throughout the United States are celebrating the 84th annual National Newspaper Week. As part of the observance the National Newspaper Association has asked us “old boys” to share stories about why we are in the newspaper business. And when it comes to the “old boy” designation, I certainly fit. I’ve been sitting in this newspaper’s editor’s chair for more than 54 year and I’ve been telling stories for more years than that. I’m not sure when I started but one my earliest memories is of a story I told dates back to whe...
It was 100 years ago this September that my Grandfather Wrench helped solve a Nuckolls County bank robbery. I’ve shared this story in this newspaper before but it is one as a youngster I often asked my grandfather to tell. Hopefully the readers of this column will enjoy reading it again. From The Sept. 25, 1924 edition of The Express Superior is considerably in the limelight right now for having captured an honest to goodness bank robber, guns, money and all. Yes, sir, inside of six hours Monday, Mr. Robber was arrested, jailed, demobilized o...
I don’t care what the calendar says, I’m not ready for fall or winter. Still have some undone things I planned to do in the spring and haven’t really started on my summer projects, but the highway through Trail Ridge Park in Colorado has already been closed, at least temporarily, because of snow and frost has been reported in Nebraska. But unexpected things keeping taking my time. Like Sunday, Rita and I were returning to Superior when our faithful stead, a 1994 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer I bought from the late Fred Alexander, began losing power and...
Newspapers contain a variety of features which appeal to people of differing reading tastes. Some folks turn first to the comics, others the sports, crossword puzzles or cooking columns. Before I learned to read, my favorite newspaper page was the Omaha World-Herald’s picture page. After learning to read, the From the Files column in The Superior Express was a must read and I read similar columns in other newspapers whenever the opportunity presented itself. As a high school journalism student, I liked to browse the bound volumes of school n...
Monday morning I watched as the Superior Utilities crew bored two post holes in the Fourth Street Park in preparation for the relocation of the Statesmen of Superior sign initially located on Central Avenue between the Superior Chamber of Commerce office and the Lost and Found indoor flea market. The sign honoring donors to the Statesmen of Superior fund originally served a dual purpose. It not only honored the program supporters but it also served as a blind to hide what was often an unsightly, difficult to mow weed patch growing on an...
When I started in this business, 54 years ago, there were companies that specialized in arranging trade outs. In exchange for advertising space, the company would provide the newspaper with a product. I took advantage of one such offer in the fall of 1974 and traded advertising space for a cruise in the Bahamas. That was the only exchange I participated in. It may be a good thing that I was disappointed for it has been decades since anyone offered such an exchange and I don’t believe I am missing out. The cruise wasn’t what I expected. I’m...
When I was in grade school, I often went for rides with my grandfathers. This time of year Grandfather Wrench was scouting for wild plums ripe for the picking. I think he had homemade plum butter at every meal. For breakfast he spread plum butter and Real Roast smooth peanut butter on the toast he ate with his oatmeal and coffee. For dinner and supper, he spread the plum butter on fresh white bread so thick it dripped off. If pancakes were on the menu, he spread plumb butter on the cakes. I don’t remember if he liked Grandmother’s plum but...
Elsewhere in this newspaper is a story written by Kerma Crouse about the Webber Community Picnic held in the Frank Herrmann Memorial Park. I wish we had a dozen freelance reporters like Kerma. She roams the area on her own schedule, finding and exploring topics which interest her and then writing a story about her discovery. We have shared a number of her stories with Kansas Positive Press and were told they are among that publication’s most popular stories apparently because the stir the readers’ memories. This week’s story stirred my memor...
I don’t know the validity of the study but earlier this week, the editor’s email contained a report on the most dangerous time of the day to drive in Nebraska. According to the report, the most dangerous time is between 4 and 4:59 p.m. These days I generally am working in the office at that time of day and not out driving. However, when I attended Pleasant Valley School a few decades ago, that was the time I was on the road riding my pony home from school. Of course, my school was in Kansas and the study was based on Nebraska data but my route...
The Blauvelts lost a friend we called Blackie between 3 and 5 Sunday afternoon. Blackie was a member of a spring litter of kittens delivered by the mother cat who claims our neighborhood. I'm not sure where her father, Mr. Gray, calls home, but he is a regular visitor and apparently a good friend of Mrs. Cat and her youngsters. Earlier this year, Mrs. Cat got shut in our garage overnight and the kittens apparently had a scary time being alone. About noon the next day Blackie was found high in a...
I’m naturally curious and one of the reasons I decided on a newspaper career was the opportunities the work provided to feed my curiosity. Over the years I have been privileged to get a close up view of many things. For example, once when the natural gas pipeline company serving Superior was replacing a section of the line, the foreman invited me to observe the procedure. In preparation he provided me with the procedure manual that described the work to be done. I read the manual and reported to the job site at the designated time. When I a...
Area residents shouldn’t complain about not having something to do in July for July must be the peak month for community celebrations in the Heartland. I remember the time I had friends visiting from West Virginia. They were en route to a family reunion in South Dakota and only stopped here for the third weekend in July. Like many years the mercury reached 110 on Saturday and I had celebrations in Davenport, Mankato and Republic to cover. I didn’t know what else to do other than load them in the newspaper vehicle and head out for a day of celeb...
Like father, like son. After my parents sold their business and moved into town, my mother bought a bicycle. She liked to ride about Superior in the evening with Mabel Davis, a retired farmer’s wife. My father rode a bicycle on short trips around town but, because of his declining health, he didn’t have the stamina to ride as far as the women. He didn’t like sitting inside and started investing in motorized transportation devices. His first purchases were Cushman scooter size trailbikes. The trailbikes allowed him to putt along with the bicycle...
Over the years unidentified flying objects have made for a number of interesting newspaper stories. A number of those stories stem from the 1950s and 60s prior to the launch of the first astronauts. I remember being filled with fear listening to news bulletins related to the Russians’ launch of their first Sputnik space satellite on Oct. 4, 1957. The little thing was about the size of a beach ball. In the 1970s, I met and visited with the American who was the first to intercept radio transmissions between the satellite and the Russian scientist...
Friday the Blauvelt’s were in Osborne for the funeral of Rita’s nearly 98-year-old mother, Margaret Chatham. While we had not anticipated the funeral, we had planned for weeks to be in Osborne for a family reunion scheduled to be held in the Osborne Free Methodist Church’s fellowship hall. And we were in the hall for several hours but we also went with family, Chatham neighbors and friends to the funeral held at the Osborne cemetery. The Osborne funeral home was in the midst of a remodeling project and not available and since the family was alr...
Early in career as editor of The Superior Express, I was in a state of panic over what we were going to fill the paper with. It was Monday and I hadn't taken any pictures for that week's issue. According to the production schedule then being followed, all pictures for the week's edition were to be taken by Monday. Film was to be developed after supper on Monday night and hung to dry. The needed prints were to be made early Tuesday morning and ready to be sized and made into halftones by 8 a.m....
