Columns

Rivalry week is here, as week four of the Nebraska High School Football season pits the Sandy Creek Cougars and the Sutton Mustangs, and this year, it’s “gut check week” between the two Clay County schools. Both took on the challenge of 8-man football, so the flavor of the game may very well be whose defense can stop the other...we’ll find out Friday night starting at 7 p.m. on the Cougars home turf.

Sandy Creek has the only win between the two schools, a 70-0 win over Blue Hill in week one of the season, welcoming in the Andrew Kuta era of Cougar football as the head coach.

For Sutton, it’s been a tough start, having their first 0-3 start since 2011, after a heartbreaking 12-8 loss to Hi-Line this past Friday.

It IS safe to say that this is indeed “gut check week.”

Sen. Dave Murman

dmurman@leg.ne.gov (402) 471-2732

Friends, During my time in the Nebraska Unicameral, I’ve had the opportunity to serve on the Education Committee. During this time, I’ve strongly advocated for teaching American exceptionalism in the classroom, so that students may foster an appreciation for the God-given freedoms our country protects and defends. This is largely thanks to our founders’ foresight when drafting the United States Constitution, broadly considered to be the world’s longest surviving governing document.

On Saturday, Sept. 17, we have an opportunity to celebrate that achievement on Constitution Day. It serves as a reminder to all of us, as citizens, to recognize the value of the American experiment, and to celebrate the success of free people who have inalienable rights and liberties that come from God.

Terry Owens showed up on my cell phone caller ID last spring, May 22 to be exact, and I’ll never forget thinking to myself, “what could Terry want from this small town newspaper guy? Nonetheless, I answered, I greeted his low, scratchy voice and probably said something like, “what do I owe the pleasure?” I have to admit, I was a little taken aback, but certainly curious about this call.

“Tory, it’s Terry Owens” in a calm, cool, and collective voice. “I just wanted to let you know that I have decided to take the head coaching job here for Harvard football next fall.”

I, of course, was thrilled to no end because I knew that the kids that would be on the roster in 2022 were getting a heck of a ball coach, a great man, and a true leader.

Nebraska, outside of a few years in Iowa, yes, Iowa, and a couple of years in Arizona and Colorado, has always been home, and for much of my life in Nebraska, I’ve been a small town Nebraskan.

After feeling the “need” to try big city life, small town life is just the way I like it...at least for the most part. It has it’s up and downs!

We can be inconvenienced at times in regards to having conveniences close to home, but then again, in my mind, that’s okay, because doing business at home is the small town way, by supporting our local business, not chain stores or those darned “big box stores.”

Last week, on the front page of your Clay County News, was a story about the woes we’re all facing... finding people that want to work! It’s a real problem across the country, and it is no different in Clay County, Nebraska.

Glenvil’s 150th special section is the last one for this year that I’ll write up history for.

For the three 150th sections we’ve had this summer, I’ve read through and re-written from the history books (and a lot of page printouts), and in doing so I’ve learned a ton about Fairfield, Edgar, and Glenvil.

Along the way, I’ve also gotten to talk to people to learn about each town’s history, and I greatly appreciate everyone who submitted or contributed a piece of their town’s history for each section.

Also thank you to those who let us borrow books (specifically their town’s 100th celebration books). I legitimately could not have filled up these sections with history without your help, because contrary to popular belief, not everything about a place can be found on the internet.

Having grown up away from Clay County, whatever information I previously knew about our county towns I’ve learned in the last eight-and-a-half years.

Cornhusker football for all of us over the last however many years has been lackluster, to say the least. At least we had Nebraska Volleyball to kick back and enjoy, but as I sit and think back to the season finale a year ago and my column that I wrote a week or so after that 3-9 campaign, I fell into the abyss, maybe even a deep quicksand hole, and I recall saying that I’m done “buying into the preseason hype each year” and honestly, I have.

I wonder if I have lost my Husker “luster,” which I probably have. I paid NO attention to this year’s hype, and honestly it’s been kinda funny, as this season gets ready to step into high gear Saturday morning with the kickoff to another season.

I used to be one of those people who couldn’t wait for Husker football to start. Monday night, as I wrote this week’s rendition of the Bull, I can honestly say I’m curious, and maybe slightly cautiously excited.

BY U.S. SENATOR DEB FISCHER

In March 2021, Democrats unilaterally passed a massive $1.9 trillion spending bill. That bill is credited with jumpstarting the inflation nightmare our country is now confronting.

This weekend, Democrats unilaterally passed yet another reckless spending bill.

The Schumer-Manchin legislation will waste taxpayer dollars, raise taxes, and do nothing to address inflation.

Let’s start with the claim that billions of dollars in federal spending will help with inflation.

The Penn-Wharton Budget Model, which is frequently cited for producing the best economic analysis, found the proposal produces no meaningful reduction in the deficit or inflation. Any suggestion otherwise is insulting to the intelligence of the American people.

Now let’s look at the reckless spending.

It appears that Nebraska voters will decide at the November election if they want to require voter identification cards for elections. Signatures collected by Citizens for Voter ID are being verified before the matter is placed on the November ballot.

Voter ID cards are the love child of conservative Republicans although I have yet to see the need. Nebraska is one of 18 states without any form of voter identification laws. Where’s the voter fraud in Nebraska?

The American Civil Liberties Union says that in-person fraud is vanishingly rare. A recent study found that, since 2000, there were only 31 credible allegations of voter impersonation—the only type of fraud that photo IDs could prevent—during a period in which over one billion ballots were cast.

Summer, at least in my mind, officially comes to a close when school goes back into session, which for all practical purposes, changes to what I often refer to as the fifth season of the year, school season!

Sutton and Sandy Creek welcome students back next Tuesday, Aug. 16, while the Sutton Christian School heads back to their classrooms on Wednesday, Aug. 17, with Harvard students walking through the doors for the 2022-23 school year on Thursday, Aug. 18.

While we’re all used to kids riding their bikes around each of our towns during the summer, it can be different when school starts, with kids walking, or riding bikes along the side of streets on their way to, and from school. Please make sure to give the kids space, and pay closer attention to what’s going on around you as you drive on any street, but especially well-traveled streets that kids use to get their their respective schools in the county.

As families begin to think about back-to-school purchases, Americans received a series of bad news about the economy this week.

According to analysis by Deloitte, back-to-school shoppers will spend, on average, a whopping $661 per student shopping for supplies. Compared to 2019, this is an increase of 27 percent, and compared to 2021, an increase of 8 percent.

Educational books and supplies are up 3.7 percent, girls’ and boys’ footwear is up 6.7 percent, sports equipment is up 8 percent, and music instruments are up 5.6 percent.

This demonstrates what we already knew: Americans everywhere are feeling the pain of inflation.

This week, the Commerce Department reported the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the most comprehensive measure of goods and services produced by the American economy, shrank by 0.9 percent in the period from April through June. This second straight quarter of negative GDP makes it clear: we are officially in an economic recession.