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Newspapers regularly publish stories about unexpected finds. At this writing, we are preparing a story about the unexpected find of a more than 100-year-old missionary society minute book. Sometimes the stories involve Indian relics, finds in what apparently were once trash dumps or archeological discoveries like the mastodons of Jewell County and the creatures near Angus. Earlier this fall, a Superior resident bought in a family Bible and a more than a century old medical book found as part of a furnace replacement project. The words of the...
A few months ago an Omaha World-Herald reporter asked if I was the longest serving of any current Nebraska newspaper editor. Though I have been in this editor’s position for 52 years and have sat behind the same Alma brand desk for 47 years, I didn’t know how to answer him. It was a question I hadn’t considered. I do know I hold the record for both the editor’s and publisher’s title at The Superior Express. I also know I am far from obtaining the oldest title of any editor in Nuckolls County. That record is held by the late F. A. Scherzing...
Earlier this week, while going through The Express picture files, I found a picture taken about 45 years ago at the Sullivan Dairy which was then located west of the Superior Airport. The dairy had built a new milking barn and installed a carousel. When the dairy cows were brought in, they stepped onto the carousel. The milk man or milkmaid, as the case might be, stood in the center and did their thing with the cows as the animals rode past on the rotating carousel. The operation of the carousel was much different than the herringbone style of...
This is Thanksgiving week and my mind is drifting back to a time when my grandparents lived and Thanksgiving meant a time for all the aunts and uncles and their children to gather at my grandparents' home for a special meal. The main course included a bird. One year my father had fattened a goose which grandmother dressed and served. Another year the meal featured wild quail which my father had shot and grandmother also fixed. Most years the meat was turkey. There were mashed potatoes, gravy,...
In what some may call the dark ages when I attended journalism school there were courses to prepare people to work in weekly journalism. That is apparently no longer true. Many colleges no longer train young people for traditional journalism careers. That is a mistake for there are still many opportunities and hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs to be filled in this country. Personally, I can’t think of a career better than the one I have with this newspaper. This year a private company, Kansas Publishing Ventures has launched an online platfor...
This newspaper gets hundreds of e-mails a day. I processed e-mail Saturday but didn’t on Sunday. Monday morning more than 400 e-mails were looking for my review. With that many in the in box, I don’t take the time to read all of them. I scan them looking for senders I recognize or a subject that indicates they may be of interest. The majority go right to the trash. A few days ago a man’s name in the subject line caught my attention. I looked at the name and tried to remember where I had seen it before. I associated with my days of selli...
Thankfully, election day is almost here. It’s been a long time coming for the candidates and their supporters have been beating their campaign drums since before the last election. Unfortunately, the drum beating won’t stop on election day for the campaign for the 2024 Presidential Election began almost before the 2020 polls closed. The result has been election overload for many voters. Many of us are so tired of the constant campaigning we have quit reading about the issues or are only reading stories that support our preconceived ideas. In...
This newspaper’s Esbon community correspondent, Kate Gurka, regularly contrasts life in the rural Midwestern town of Esbon and the much larger out-of-state city she previously lived in. I enjoy reading Kate’s column and getting to see the community of Esbon through the eyes of a transplant. Though I am far from a transplant, being the third generation of Blauvelts to have been born and lived within 15 miles of Superior, this week I personally experienced both the joy of living here and sadness that accompanies changes in our communities. I hav...
Elsewhere on this page, Gloria Schlaefli writes about her memories of the country roads of our youth. While we were raised in different parts of Jewell County, our roads were much the same and we share similar experiences. The biggest difference is the location of our childhood homes. Mine was on a highway that was hard-surfaced when I was three-years-old. That wasn’t Gloria’s case. The best she’s ever had is gravel or ground limestone surfacing. The country roads were challenging at times and other times they could be fun. I suspect it was a...
Nuckolls County neighborliness was demonstrated in recent days when three of Butch Higer’s neighbors helped a man from Oklahoma. The Oklahoman had agreed to buy a truck from Butch who has been battling a string of health problems in recent months and no longer had use for the truck. When the buyer arrived to get the truck, he was unable to get it started. He stayed overnight but was unsure what to do next. His worries were soon put to rest when three of Butch’s neighbors arrived and started working on the truck. With their expertise, they got...
I don’t know how they are picked for it seems every day of the year is a special day recognizing something. Sunday, for example, was National Daughters Day and Monday was National Public Lands Day. Since I don’t have a daughter, I didn’t check to see how the day was to be observed. I did learn that on National Public Lands Day, everyone was encouraged to explore the outdoors and enjoy the physical, mental and spiritual health values that nature offers. With the deadline for the printing of this newspaper on Tuesday rapidly approaching, I had t...
Shortly before I left work Saturday evening, this newspaper’s weather alert radio warned Republic County residents of thunderstorm possibilities. Neither Jewell nor Nuckolls counties were included in the alert and I dismissed it as something I need not be concerned with. It was past most people’s supper time, when I decided to head home and complete preparations for a Sunday School class I had agreed to teach the next day. As I left the newspaper office, I was surprised to see cotton candy thu...
Sept 18, 2022 In June of 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was exciting news for me. We didn’t have television or the internet then but I was spellbound listening to radio news broadcasts from London reporting on the festivities. I suspect I curled up on the floor with a toy truck in front of the Philco console radio and listened to the broadcasts. Compared to today’s radios, the old Philco was a monster. It must have been at least four feet tall and three feet wide. If my parents were present, my father was probably sitting nearby in...
Monday morning I fist bumped a traveling sales person and shared our first long conversation since the start the COVID pandemic. I’m sure the conversation took longer than either of us expected but it was good to catch up and learn how COVID has affected her business. While I know sales people are motivated to call with the hope of making a sale, over time the good ones become their customers’ friend. As this is being written, I’m anticipating the arrival of a combination sales and service representative since midweek. I’ve known since Friday...
When I was growing up, I’m glad I didn’t know the health risks associated with mice. Unlike some of my playmates who were afraid of mice, I wanted to demonstrate my manliness. I liked to think of myself as a “big boy.” If I found a snake, I ran for a hoe and swiftly dispatched the snake. Likewise with mice. See a mouse, stomp on it! Mice were a major problem around the gasoline station. The doors were open much of the time and when closed the gaps were large enough to provide freeways for a roaming mouse. The business and associated buildin...
One of the historical columns in this issue contains an item about a team of mules running away with a sickle bar mower. It apparently was a rough ride and the farmer operating the mower was thrown from the machine. The original story doesn't say if the farmer yelled at the mules to stop but it does report the mules stopped when they realized the farmer had fallen off the mower. Had I been driving the team, I suspect I would have had a few words for the mules. Sunday afternoon I was sitting at a...
I remember when a co-worker brought her pre-school age son with her to work. The youngster was struggling with the concept of time. When he wanted something, he wanted it now. It was hard for him to wait and I quickly tired of telling him repeatedly he would have to wait a specified time only to have him ask again in 5 minutes if the time had passed. We made progress when I learned to describe a delay not in the number of days but instead in a number of sleeps. He didn’t understand when I said Saturday was two days away but he understood it i...
Monday’s rain was a welcome event. Seldom are there unwelcome July and August rains in these parts. We sometimes have a surplus of rain in the spring or fall but summertime is different. We are more likely to have summer rain shortage. Summer rains are most always welcomed in farm country. As welcome as this week’s rain was, it made a difficult week for this writer. It didn’t rain out a single event I planned to cover. I was able to go wherever I needed to go without getting wet. The rain brightened the countryside, was good for the crops...
I’ve long enjoyed community celebrations. Though I was only 4 years old when Superior staged a diamond jubilee celebration, I remember that celebration and the one and only 4-H fair held two years later in Superior. My favorite celebrations are those which feature history. History was the original focus of Superior’s Lady Vestey Festival and while history is still part of the festival, it seems to no longer be the primary focus. I’m glad two local celebrations have kept their focus on history. Earlier this week, the Jewell County Histo...
This week, from the position I had taken while on the outlook for Nuckolls County Fair photos, I was able to observe a young family and their horses. I'm not a good judge of youngsters ages but the youngest was in a stroller and I guess the others were spaced a year or two apart. The parents and their stair-step youngsters left the rig and horses and perhaps went to the food stand or to register the youngsters for the kids' rodeo. One horse in particular was not pleased to be left alone, It was...
Friday morning, as I sat on a street barricade and observed the preparations for the Project BOOM ribbon cutting, I tried to visualize what the street looked like a century ago. As I looked west on Eighth Street and south on National Street, I thought of my family’s activities in the area. Before 1930 my grandparents called four houses in that part of town “home.” Their first house in that section was near the intersection of Eighth and North Park. In more recent times it was removed to make way for the construction of the current bridge over L...
A friend’s story shared on a social media site reminded me of my grandmother. My mother regularly drove an automobile. She used a special skill my father taught her to get through the water holes that separated our house on Blauvelt’s Hill and Superior. A Republican River flood had washed out the north approach to stateline bridge which served the “new” highway opened a handful of years earlier. With the new road closed, highway traffic was diverted over the former route we called “the old highway,” In the 1920s, Superior businessmen paved a po...
Twice while I was a student attending Kansas State University I had jobs helping with camps designed for high school students. My primary task during the day was working with the advanced photography students. At night I helped supervise a residence hall. There were various camps scheduled between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of summer school. The dormitories I worked in housed the high school scholars participating in the journalism and FFA camps. I had little contact with the FFA members but a news release about this...
Recycling has been a buzz word for several years. This month the Trailblazer Resource Conservation District is holding electronics recycling events in the district’s multi-county areas. Tire collection events are also scheduled. Many communities have centers where materials are collected for recycling. Long before recycling was a buzz word, my family was into recycling only we didn’t know to call it such. We called it “salvage.” Perhaps the word recycling hadn’t been coined. I don’t know when the Blauvelts began salvaging but it was before...
This writer was among the few who took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Cowboy Museum when it was open during the festival. The museum displays the private collection of Steve Werner, an 80-year-old Superior resident who inherited the collecting bug from his grandmother. When I signed the guest book, best estimates put me at about visitor number 50. In the company of Jim and Mel Rempe, our tour guide was the collector, Mr. Werner. And what a superb guide he was. As he showed us around, we were not only looking at stuff, we were...
