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“Re-blaze the trail” by experiencing life as a pioneer along Nebraska’s Heritage Highway

On the Heritage Highway you can take a riverboat cruise, participate in a Civil War reenactment or stand in the ruts left by wagons along the Oregon Trail.more...

It's prime time for bird watching on the Chicken Dance Trail

Right now we are in the midst of a vast and fascinating natural phenomenon, the annual migration of birds from their winter habitat in the south to their spring and summer feeding and breeding grounds in the north.more...

Pelican Homecoming Celebration flies higher on the wings of partnerships

The White Pelican Homecoming Celebration was built around community partnerships from the very beginning... more...

NCTA equine program covers the wide world of horses

In Nebraska, a place horse owners can come to learn more about their animals while they hone their competitive skills is the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis... more...

A year in rural Nebraska

We thought a retrospective of the year just past as reflected on the pages of Nebraska Rural Living would be in order to start the New Year... more...

Our trip to Holdrege

“On a June afternoon, after driving from Los Angeles, Lihi Halperin and I arrived in Holdrege, Nebraska, unannounced and uninvited,” writes TV writer Tom Saunders. more...

McCook's Grand Lady

Not long after Sehnert's Bakery opened for business in McCook, young Walt Sehnert received a commission to do a wedding cake for the daughter of a prominent social family. The only problem: he had to be out of town the weekend of the wedding. more...

Christmas isn't Christmas without stollen

For many people in a wide swath around McCook, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without stollen from Sehnert’s Bakery. more...

Treasure hunting in your own neighborhood

Is it a sport? A family activity? A game? Today millions of people worldwide are pursuing the popular pastime of geocaching. more...

Safeguarding the public health is role of Two Rivers and other public health departments

Testing birds for West Nile Virus, monitoring influenza outbreaks and enforcing the rules of the Clean Indoor Air Act are just a few of the ways that agencies such as Two Rivers Public Health work to keep rural residents informed and healthy. more...

What I've learned by living in a small town

Nebraska Rural Living Editor Phil Soreide just passed his seventh anniversary of living in a small Nebraska town. In this month's essay, he assesses what he's learned about community from living the small town lifestyle. more...

A different way of looking at the world

“I didn’t grow up in Nebraska and somehow my English teachers never got around to teaching a unit on Wright Morris,” writes Nebraska Rural Living Editor Phil Soreide.more...

The War on Rabbits

“Peter Rabbit was one of my favorite childhood stories, mainly because of its villain, Mr. McGregor,” writes Michelle McCormick... more...

Young Authors

In March 2012, a newly formed writing club, Dusters, INK, held its first meeting at the Holdrege Middle School. Seven aspiring 5th and 6th grade authors showed up, ready and willing to hone their craft. more...

The Gardener's Gamble

Writer Michelle McCormick speaks for a lot of rural Nebraskans who are trying to figure out just when the threat of frost has passed and it’s really safe to start planting.
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Rural Health Education Network aids rural residents

With minimal fanfare, the Rural Health Education Network (RHEN) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) has been one of the most effective programs in Nebraska.
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Only in Curtis...

When Mitzi Michelsen and her husband and eight children moved to rural Nebraska, not everyone was thrilled...
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Rural Nebraska health - the X Factor!

In rural Nebraska, we enjoy a level of health which, if put to the test, would rival that of the healthiest cities/states/nations in the world.  Fact or proud boast?  We'll let you decide.
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Rural healthcare is better — a lot better — than you think

“One thing that stops people from leaving crowded urban cities for a life in rural Nebraska is the misperception that the quality of healthcare is somehow diminished,” says writer Jennifer Chick.
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Choreographing a Swedish Christmas

“Beginning in December, when I was growing up, my mother and her family members marched to the tune of Christmas Past in the Swedish tradition of Grandmother Anna Johnson.”
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Quasquicentennial makes for a big year in Eustis

Eustis, a town of about 450 in Frontier County, is just finishing up its year-long Quasquicentennial celebration — which they called the Q 125 — and according to resident, community leader and photographer Don Brockmeier, Eustis had a very full year of events celebrating “the good old days”. more...

The second bird made the day

Opening day of the pheasant season was unusual because there was a steady wet snow coming down with flakes about the size of a nickel. more...

Spreading out: a modest plan to save the cities and repopulate rural America

Since the earliest mud-hut villages, cities have grown almost continuously until today vast megalopolises like Tokyo, New York, Mumbai and Mexico City comprise tens of millions of souls each and massive urban complexes covering hundreds of square miles. And it’s not over yet. more...

Voyage through a valley's heart

One of the main things writer Pat Underwood discovered on her recent canoe trip down the Republican River was the quiet. "There is an almost total hush around us as soon as we pass the first rapids and glide the canoe into the main channel," she writes. "It sounds as if we have entered a sacred place, and perhaps we have. more...

New grain handling facility is just one sign that Benkelman is a town on the move

When passing through Benkelman on U.S. Highway 34, there's no way you’re going to miss seeing the concrete grain elevators which are rising on the southwest corner of town. They're huge. more...

Words of wisdom: Dr. George Garlick reflects on living in rural Nebraska

Nebraska Rural Living’s Betty Sayers recently had the privilege of interviewing Curtis leader and benefactor Dr. George Garlick in preparation of the Curtis-Maywood profile in this edition. His words eloquently express the value of a rural place to be and become in a modern world.more...

Fake mine, fake mining company provide funds for Peckerneck Horse Trail

It started as a primitive, barely accessible and little used horse trail on the south side of Harlan County Lake, yet it was recently described as one of the finest riding experiences in the state of Nebraska. more...

A few good reasons to start a business in a small town

As the country continues to work its way through the Great Recession,” writes Nebraska Rural Living Editor Phil Soreide, “one can’t help but be exposed to interviews with desperate job-seekers. But in thinking about the millions of people affected, I can’t understand why more people don’t consider quitting the job search and spending their effort on owning their own job.” more...

Harlan County tests its wings in nature-based tourism

Residents of Harlan County, Nebraska, know spring is just around the corner when the American White Pelicans return from their winter feeding grounds to take up temporary residence at the Harlan County Reservoir.
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Emmet couple share their love of “gentle giant” Clydesdales

If you'd like to take a step back in time, when life moved at a slower pace, or if you'd just like to blow some of those cobwebs out of your mind and get a “fresh air life” start on the year, I'd suggest a leisurely, open air horse-drawn wagon ride pulled by Kelly Kloppenborg's team of majestic Clydesdale horses.
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Commuting takes its toll in dollars, gasoline, lost time and souls

So, how are you feeling about your commute? For millions of Americans, it’s a twice-a-day slog, often lasting an hour or more, lost in the stultifying rhythm: stop-creep-slow-creep-stop.
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Santa’s helper busy in Loomis workshop

Santa has a little extra help this Christmas from the hands of toyman Bob Pafford. Pafford, 71, has been tinkering with toys and other wooden furniture for more than 15 years.
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State’s largest round barn seeks a new purpose in Red Cloud

Preserving history isn’t about the bottom line. It’s about ensuring that artifacts will be here to educate and entertain the next generations. That’s why Liz Rasser, her husband, Ron, and her son, Cal, with his wife, Stacy, are renovating the Starke Round Barn near Red Cloud. more...

Fallstreaks

Amy Speace is a singer-songwriter living in Nashville, but playing occasionally at the Bieroc Café in McCook. Traveling to Nebraska for a scheduled performance, a missed flight left her in Memphis without enough time to get to Omaha and still make the drive to McCook. But this is Nebraska, and when you have a problem, you call a friend. more...

Concerts on the Creek series is pure delight for chamber music lovers

Chamber music is, by definition, intimate. And no matter how much you spent on your home sound system, there’s no recording in your collection that can match the experience of a live concert. more...

Summer Honors program brings world-class education to rural students

Some might think that students in larger cities always get the best education. After all, urban students have diverse museums, expansive libraries, and large universities practically next door; they simply have more opportunities at their fingertips. more...

Businessman-farmer finds solace, relaxation, release in producing art

As a child, Mike Sughroue used art as a way to retreat, to stay out of trouble and to deal with emotions. “I’ve been painting or drawing probably my whole life,” Sughroue, 57, of Holdrege said. “It was just something to keep busy and keep me out of trouble.”more...

The Idea of Things

Betty Sayers’ search for migrating warblers led her to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the Village of Orleans. “The architect grasped the prairie landscape and the courageous, hopeful and stubborn people who made their life and living on it,” she writes. more...

For single mom, wagon and buggy restoration is a rewarding hobby

Writer Annette Van Buren never forgot a wooden sleigh she saw once on a trip to Kansas, so when she saw a similar one in an ad for a local auction, she had to go - and when she came home, she had a new hobby. more...

Leaving home to grow, coming home to GROW

Janell Anderson Ehrke believes it is good for young people raised in small towns to go out into the world to gain broader experience and education. She believes it can be even better when they bring those things back home and put them to work for their community. more...

You can take the girl out of Nebraska

I have been gone from Nebraska for many, many years, and one would think I would get it out of my system. But I haven't. more...

Holdrege's Christian Orphan's Home is an important piece of songwriter's history

Jon Chandler's western novels, songs and poems share an historical perspective about the American West and the value of the frontier spirit.more...

McCook restaurant’s vast cookie jar collection shifts to a holiday theme

Linda Thayer and Val Fuller's cookie jar collection started – as all collections do - with just one cookie jar. Linda was shopping one day in 1998 and noticed a charming cookie jar shaped like a goose. "Hey, I thought, that would be a cute item to display at the restaurant," she said. more...

Massacre Canyon saga is just one story in a rich Native American history in Nebraska

In 1873, a battle in what is now known as Massacre Canyon in southwest Nebraska occurred when several tribes were off their reservations at the same time to engage in their annual summer buffalo hunts. more...

NCTA: Why graduate with just a sheepskin, when you could have 100 cows?

Upon arrival at the University of Nebraska's College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis in 2006, Dr. Weldon Sleight realized the farms, ranches and rural communities of America's heartland were facing a troubling future.more...

Flowers from Mom

On the way to my brother's farm in Southwestern Nebraska, I sometimes stop in at a small town where my parents used to live. It's just about two miles off my route, and is worth the little step back in time that the visit affords me. more...

Minden sculptor never happier than with a pile of junk

With junk usually destined for a landfill, a petite woman wearing an oversized helmet and wielding a welding torch transforms rusted artifacts into artistic forms. Misty DeLashmutt’s profile of sculptor Sally Buss makes interesting reading. more...

Vintage Staggerwings, Aeroncas, and Stinsons fly in to Minden Fly-in

The runway had a slight rise in it, so from where I was standing I couldn’t see the aircraft that was starting. But I could certainly hear it; I knew it was one of the big radial-engine planes. The sound volume increased as the pilot advanced the throttle. The plane would be moving by now. more...

Small Town Dog Stories

Dogs and kids were part of the fabric of small towns when I was growing up in the late 1940s and 1950s. Dogs were on the school playgrounds, occasionally wandering into class. They rode in pick-ups and lay in the sun on front porches. There were no leash laws, but I don’t remember any vicious or mean dogs. more...

Looking for a juicy job? Nebraska grape harvest is a real experience

If you have found yourself intrigued by the help-wanted ads for temporary jobs picking grapes — appearing more frequently around Nebraska these days — my advice is to let your intrigue be your guide. Everyone should try this at least once in their life, because it really is interesting. It’s also fun. Truly... Well, okay, mostly. more...

It's time to stand up for small town living

Is it possible? Could the people of rural south central and southwest Nebraska, be role models for the rest of America? We have an opportunity to be just that, because you and your neighbors share a rare and increasingly precious way of life. more...

Practical philosophy is at the root of organic gardening

"The wisdom that comes with age should be that you finally learn how and especially why you need to manage things rather than trying to control them," says “Dr. Tom” Tomas. “I sure wish I had learned that in my teens or twenties," he added, shaking his head and laughing. more...

The Engagement

In September, Dale and his twin brother, Dean, turned 50. It’s a big life-defining moment and one that just begs to be celebrated with a party. Dale realizing that his family and friends wouldn’t let such a date go unnoticed, decided to get together with his brother and plan their own party before anyone else could. more...

McCook's Work Ethic Camp really works to put young offenders on a new path.

Life isn’t easy at the Work Ethic Camp. It isn’t meant to be. The offenders' days begin with a 5:30 wake-up call and conclude with 9 p.m. bedtime. In between, the time is filled with work assignments, education, treatment programs and behavioral training. more...

Paintings illustrate unique chapter in Nebraska history

Although WWII was not fought on American soil, by some estimates more than 400,000 German and Italian soldiers, merchant marines and others spent at least part of the war in more than 500 Prisoner of War (POW) camps in North America. One of these, Camp Atlanta, was built near the Phelps County town of Atlanta in south central Nebraska. more...

Looking for love in all the right places

Who could have thought how thoroughly my life would change? Just over three years ago I made the decision to move to a place I couldn’t even locate on a map if you’d asked me. At 43 I was just ready for a change. So, although content with myself and life in general I moved to Holdrege, Nebraska, based on little more than looking at a few places on the computer. And although the town, church and people won my heart, still something was missing. I’d never gotten over that childhood dream of finding Mr. Right.more...

A vegetarian in cattle country

Celery – I don’t like it. Not at all. Be it with raisins, peanut butter, cheese or whatever…it’s just not for me. Most people have no problem with my dislike of celery; in fact most people couldn’t care less.more...

Santa Claus Lane is a part of Christmas for generations of McCook residents

Talk about tradition. Every year since the late 40s or early 50s children in the McCook area have shared a Christmas tradition with their parents and grandparents. It's a simple thing, but it's a delight to behold, reminding people of all ages what makes the Christmas season special. more...

Bull Strong, Sheep Tight

I’m driving east in the Republican River Valley on Highway 6, a road traveled by the First People eons before automobiles. As I near the town of Cambridge, my eyes drift along the white highway stripe and I glance at a sign partially obscured by a brushy tree. I see words, large and bold in black and white, and they stick in my mind like a cockle burr on a sock. BULL STRONG. SHEEP TIGHT. more...

Willa Cather country is ideal setting for Nebraska birding adventure

Willa Cather was one of the most eloquent writers about the beauty – even majesty – of the Nebraska prairie and the Republican River Valley, and somehow, starting this adventure at the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie seems the right thing to do.more...

Bittersweet memories: reflections of a “hunting widow”

Most kids learn blue, red, and yellow first. Kamden learned green and orange. Not a surprise when your daddy is a hunter. Tonight my four boys and I pile into the red Ford pickup and head out to watch deer on the river. Kamden is two, Carter is five, Kade is seven, and Michael is 34. There’s a lot of testosterone at my house. The only estrogen here is from me and our black lab, Trey. more...

What does it take for people to make the move to a small town?

If you’re one of our growing community of readers, you know that Nebraska Rural Living is about celebrating the things that make the rural lifestyle appealing: safe neighborhoods, good schools, affordable housing and a relaxed, uncongested lifestyle that lets you know – and care about – your neighbors.more...

Living off the land - Rural Nebraskans get the benefit of buying, selling and “eating local”

In ancient China, as the story goes, they had a curse disguised as a blessing: "May you live in interesting times." Interesting times challenge us, they test us, and occasionally they can even bring out the best in us. And the times we are living in are nothing if not interesting.more...

Box turtle study uncovers “rhythm of life” on Platte River island

Biologist Mark M. Peyton's job, in part, is to make a regular assessment of the wildlife on Jeffrey Island, a 4500-acre habitat area. On a recent expedition, his "pup" sniffs out its first two ornate box turtles, and it doesn't take long before they're, well, doing what comes naturally. more...

A city boy’s first country Thanksgiving

One brisk fall day, I walked into the house and noticed the answering machine light blinking. Play. “Mom, I’m bringing John home for Thanksgiving. Okay?”more...

Kiplinger Arena is fulfillment of a dream for McCook cowboy

Picture six full-sized basketball courts, placed side-by-side in rows of three. Then imagine the courts being lifted up and placed inside a building with sidewalls spiraling high into the sky. By taking this mental leap, you are experiencing what it's like to step inside one of the largest indoor equestrian arenas in America's Great Plains. more...

My son's first Husker game

Making the 165 mile trip from Holdrege to Lincoln on a football Saturday is one of my favorite things to do. This day was extra special as my seven year old son was accompanying me full of excitement and anticipation of his first trip to Memorial Stadium. Leaving town I had the choice of driving our comfortable van or driving the much more economical 1992 Ford Festiva that had been totaled by hail several years earlier. Being the tight wad that I am, of course I chose the Festiva. After all the focus was on football, not on how we looked... more...

Notes of a novice birdwatcher

For most of my life, my skill of identifying various species of birds has lain dormant. I could pick out a robin, a crow, a Canada goose and an ostrich fairly reliably, but most of the rest of the avian world I classified as “LBBs” meaning alternately “little brown birds” or “little black birds”. more...

A southwest Nebraska craftsman makes a living as a traditional "cooper."

Thomas Jefferson imagined the future America as a continent full of independent farmers and artisans, but today such people are the exception. In some ways, Jim Gaster of Indianola is a throwback to Jefferson’s day, leading a rural life while practicing the traditional craft of coopering. In other ways, he and his wife, Marilyn, are tech-savvy Internet entrepreneurs connecting to a global market.more...

Two Short Poems: 'The Farm' and 'Pick Up Trucks'

Dark brown earth; life too me
stalks of corn; furrows between
fields of bales; waiting to be moved
Meadowlarks singing; goldenrod swayingmore...

How 'social capital' is helping preserve and add vitality to rural small towns

Since the 1980s, the demise of small towns on the Great Plains has been predicted by academics and pundits – but almost all of those small towns are still here. What happened?more...

E-Bay ad turns software programmer into small-town newspaper publisher

Bob Willis is an unlikely newspaperman. In the 1990s, Willis developed software for a large company in Scottsdale, Arizona, his hometown. During the technology boom at the end of the last century, Willis’ company was sold to a software developer in Denver, Colorado. When he was offered a position with the new firm, Willis moved with his family to the Mile High City.more...

Where dreams take flight: a pilot discovers Nebraska

“When I’m flying nothing else is on my mind,” says pilot Elisa Tyson. “I focus on the task at hand. When the plane lifts up, my troubles fall below me.” more...

Why small towns still reflect life in TV’s ‘Golden Age’

My daughter was flipping through the channels on the television the other day, and I saw a few minutes of the old Andy Griffith Show...more...

Birding adventures abound along the "Chicken Dance Trail"

Even if you can’t tell a waxwing from a warbler or a grebe from a grosbeak, there’s fun to be had along the Chicken Dance Trail.more...

What the 'Good Life' means to me now...

Rural life is not for everyone. And that’s fortunate, because if everyone from the cities started living rural, we wouldn’t be rural anymore!more...

Where else but in a small town?

“Salt of the Earth.” Those were the words used to describe Lela Russell Monday morning at her funeral in Curtis. Lela’s service was a crowded affair with a large group of people gathering to honor a life spent in service.more...

The 1-Finger Wave

And no, It's not that finger. The wave that means you're almost home... more...

A Nebraska Bed and Breakfast Story

The story of Bed and Breakfasts in Nebraska is an example of a perfect synergy of entrepreneurship and the preservation of Nebraska's heritage.more...

It's nicer in Nebraska

I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Nebraska. When I tell that to friends on the East Coast, they ask, "Why there?" This is their shorthand for a longer question, which is "What's in Nebraska, if anything?"more...

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