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Sunday afternoon, as part of the annual meeting of the Nuckolls County Historical Society held in the museum complex’s Pioneer Hall, those attending were asked to participate in a Nuckolls County Trivia game. I got four and a half answers right. How many can you get? 1. What was the name of the lumber company that had a lumber yard in Superior and Nelson in the early 1900s? (While not part of the question, I think the firm also had yards at Bostwick, Hardy and Edgar.) 2. What did the Fuller family of Angus produce before their first a...
I was asked Saturday what I thought about artificial intelligence. As part of my response I cited a couple of computer programs I purchased that were supposed to write football and basketball stories. I’m not sure how many years ago that was, but I remember the programs came on 3.5 inch floppy discs so you know it has been awhile. They didn’t meet my expectations and I soon put them aside. Apparently other buyers must have had a similar response as it has been many years since I saw any marketing materials from the developer. I’ve been using...
The deadline has passed for submitting newspaper history to the Nebraska Press Association for inclusion in the association’s 150th anniversary publication, but I continue to be fascinated by the topic. This week I read a short story written by Mrs. A. S. Berry about the Berrys’ association with the Superior Journal. In the late 1940s Grandfather Blauvelt rented a stucco-covered house at Sixth and National from Mrs. Berry. When I met Mrs. Berry, she was living in a little house under the shadow of the Crest Theatre. She apparently pre...
There hasn’t been a lot of hoopla associated with Superior celebrations in recent times but that wasn’t always the case. For example, I cite the Diamond Jubilee held in September, 1950, to celebrate the town’s founding in 1875. For that celebration, the late Oran King composed a song set to the tune of Alexander’s Rag Time Band. Mr. King was the first to publicly sing the song. He sang it as a solo but soon a quartet composed of Bill McBroom, George Day, Dick Elliott and Donn Crilly were singing the song at public gatherings. It was also sa...
After a picture o/f Superior's United Presbyterian Church building was published on a social media site, several readers have asked this newspaper why the apparently large and elaborate building was torn down. It was razed to make way for the construction of the federal building which now houses the United States Post Office on the northeast corner of Fourth and Commercial but we have been unable to find why. Some suspected the building may have been damaged by a fire or it may have had...
No doubt about it, we live in the Central Flyway. Walking home for lunch, I observed a confused skein of what sounded like snow geese flying over Superior. They must have just gotten up from a nearby river bottom field for they had not settled into a structured formation. From my position, their order resembled a flock of sparrows. Snow geese are noisy creatures. Living in town, I don’t hear the coyotes howl like I did while making my home on Blauvelt’s Hill. But with snow geese that is not true. This area was part of their flight plan whe...
On May 29, 1924, the Kansas, Nebraska and Dakota Highway Association (K-N-D) selected the highway’s route through Nebraska. The route was to be nicknamed The Fisherman’s Highway. The highway traversed the state beginning on the Kansas stateline nearly one mile west of where Highway 14 now enters Nebraska to the southwest of Superior. It entered Superior on Second Street. At Bloom Street it turned north and followed Bloom and Idaho streets north out of town. The highway would continue north through the county seat towns of Nelson, Clay Cen...
On May 29, 1924, the Kansas, Nebraska and Dakota Highway Association (K-N-D) selected the highway's route through Nebraska. The route was to be nicknamed The Fisherman's Highway. The highway traversed the state beginning on the Kansas stateline nearly one mile west of where Highway 14 now enters Nebraska to the southwest of Superior. It entered Superior on Second Street. At Bloom Street it turned north and followed Bloom and Idaho streets north out of town. The highway would continue north...
I was raised in a home that valued newspapers. When I was a pre-schooler, my parents and grandparents began reading newspaper stories to me. I’ll admit I was mainly interested in the pictures and the cartoons but that interest helped to earn me regular sessions with the adults in my world and their newspapers. Living less than a half mile from the Nuckolls and Jewell county line, my parents subscribed to both The Superior Express and the Jewell County Record as they wanted to keep up on the happenings in both counties. I skipped many of the c...
Candy canes are a popular item stocked on candy counters at Christmas time. When my father operated his business on Blauvelt’s Hill, each Christmas season he displayed a small bucket size container on top of his candy case. The bucket was filled with candy canes. I never measured one, but I suspect they were about 12 inches in length with a diameter of a half to three-quarters of an inch. In those days, the large canes could be purchased for a quarter. I don’t know if Dad stocked them because they sold well or if he enjoyed eating the candy. If...
Wylie Jensen stopped by the newspaper office with a nearly perfect 7 ounce pop bottle found while cleaning up the area where a corn crib was once located. The bottle would have been in like new condition had not the screen printed label been scratched when scraped by a skidsteer loader bucket. The inscription on the bottle indicated it had been bottled in Superior. The bottle had been filled with a lemon-lime drink named Sparkling Life. I surprised Wylie when I remembered when the Blauvelt...
“The Reel Story — Let the Memories Roll” is the tentative theme for Superior’s 2023 rendition of the Lady Vestey Victorian Festival. The theme honors a former Vestey Festival chairman and one of Superior’s biggest boosters, the late Lew Hunter. Hunter died earlier this month of COVID related complications. His cremains are being returned to his home area and many of his friends and family members are expected to be here for Memorial Weekend. The plans are still coming together but the family plans a public dance in his honor that weekend a...
While looking through the back issues of this newspaper, I discovered a story about an attempted Nuckolls County jail break that I should have shared with the our readers when we printed stories about the razing of the Nuckolls County Jail. I did share part of the story. Back in the summer of 1972, a woman staying in the Superior motel was suspected of passing a forged check at a Superior business. Though a former resident of the Superior community, she gave a Colorado address. She was arrested by a Nuckolls County officer and housed in the...
Another one of this area’s giants fell this week. All people are important and all are part of the fabric which weaves a community together, but some attract more attention. Lew Hunter was one of those who attracted attention wherever he went. We don’t have the particulars at this writing, but we learned via the internet on Saturday morning that Lew had died. Since then, we have been fielding telephone calls and emails asking for the particulars. We haven’t learned of the funeral or burial plans but we do know a few things about the man who c...
In late 2022, area residents received multiple warnings about the winter weather expected to arrive with the new year. Daily newspapers published the weather forecast, cell phones lit up with weather alerts. Radio and television media were broadcasting storm alerts. The National Weather Service sent out a number weather bulletins via the internet and held at least one live weather briefing with weather reporters. Weather radio stations like the one located near the Nuckolls County ghost town of Smyrna were repeatedly warning of the approaching...
On a recent Wednesday morning, I parked across the street from the Superior City Park Bandshell, and carried bundles of that week's issue of The Superior Express into the CPI convenience store. I filled the store's newspaper rack, counted the prior week's unsold copies and returned to my vehicle. I recorded the sales in a notebook I keep in my vehicle for that purpose and looked across the street at what had been for nearly 40 years my grandparents home. Before I headed to my delivery point, I...
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...
