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July 26, 2023
LINCOLN — The city attorney for both Laurel and Randolph, and the Cedar County Attorney are among seven applicants for county court judge based in Hartington.
Keelan Holloway, Randolph and Laurel’s city attorney, and Nicholas Matney, Cedar County Attorney, join these others who submitted applications: Sara E. Bauer, Fremont; Luke Henderson, Norfolk; Louvontree Hunter, South Sioux City; Patrick Runge, Omaha; and Melinda Wicks, Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.
The seven are vying for an appointment to fill the vacancy left by the recently retired Judge Douglas Luebe. The primary place of office for the judicial vacancy is Hartington.
July 26, 2023
HARTINGTON — The 2023 Cedar County Fair will be a tough act to follow.
This year’s fair drew in recordbreaking numbers, packing the midway, show arenas and grandstands.
Cedar County Fair Board President Greg Heine said early rodeo sales made the board realize they weren’t going to have enough seating.
“We realized we were going to have a sellout Thursday night and there was still more demand for tickets,” Heine said. “We added about 250 more seats at the rodeo. We put extra bleachers in everywhere we could.”
All three of the grandstand shows featured up-and-coming country music stars.
Both Friday night’s Carly Pearce concert and Saturday’s Gabby Barrett concert were near sellouts, as well. Sunday night’s Cooper Alan concert also drew in a large crowd, Heine said.
The grandstand entertainment wasn’t the only thing worthy of bragging about this year.
The carnival brought in more rides than the Cedar County Fair midway has ever seen, Heine said.
“They said they wanted to bring a few more rides this year — and they sure did. They had a really nice Ferris wheel. There were 12 different rides set up, and they all looked busy,” Heine said.
The fairgounds also featured more food vendors than in past years, too. Including the 4-H stand and Lutheran Lunch Stand, fairgoers had seven different food options to pick from during the fair.
“That was the most food vendors we’ve had before, too. Just about everyone was selling out of food, too, and had to restock before Saturday night,” Heine said.
A couple of added attractions took place at the traditional Wednesday night free hamburger feed, as well.
Just prior to the start of the hamburger feed, Heine, Fair Board members and 4-H families held a flag-raising ceremony to launch the fair in style. Even though it was a late addition to the program, Heine said, the event was well-received and he hopes to build on it next year.
“That flag-raising ceremony was kind of a last-minute thing. But it was pretty cool,” he said.
The night’s other added feature wasn’t exactly appreciated. The skies opened up just before 7 p.m. for a brief rainstorm that sent everyone rushing for cover.
The storm, and its thunder and lightning, moved through the area pretty quickly, and no damage was caused here. Despite the early blip, all in all, the weather was really close to perfect for the fair, Heine said.
Aug. 2, 2023
BELDEN – The town of Belden is diving into a birthday celebra- tion 100 years in the making.
The Belden Pool is turning 100 years old and the Belden Community Club is throwing a bash with activities throughout the weekend.
The only birthday wish is to raise money for the necessary upkeep and repairs of Belden’s pool which is thought to be the third oldest pool in the state.
At the time when the pool opened on July 23, 1923, Belden’s population sat at 350 strong. Indoor YMCA pools existed in a few cities and there were several privately-financed pools open to the public. But Belden’s was one of the very first municipal pools in the state, according to a news clipping provided by Patty Schulte who is leading the pool party planning.
An association was formed and known as the Belden Park Association and $650 was raised for the pool.
“But the stock is still open for sale and the committee thinks there will be no trouble in selling enough more to cover all costs,” according to the 1923 news article. Stock sold for $10 per share and was paid back out of the proceeds charged at the pool.
Janice Wobbenhorst, Belden’s village chairwoman, has been collecting history and anecdotes for the upcoming pool birthday party. Many people said they walked or bicycled — sometimes on gravel— more than six or seven miles to reach the pool for a splash each day in the 1940s when fuel was rationed.
“That’s quite a walk for a splash in the pool,” she said.
Since its start, the Belden pool has operated every single year, the oldest continuously operated pool in the state, and still stays busy each summer day.
Aug. 2, 2023
BELDEN – A widespread power outage left people across northeast Nebraska in the dark for several hours July 26-27.
Grant Otten, media rela- tions specialist with the Ne- braska Public Power District, noted the outage occurred when a piece of equipment at NPPD’s Belden substation failed at about 9:05 p.m. July 26.
The outage affected four Cedar-Knox Public Power District substations, four Northeast Power substations and substations for the cities of Laurel and Randolph.
NPPD crews responded quickly to the Belden substa- tion to work on repairs and bring affected substations back online.
Cedar-Knox, a wholesale customer of NPPD, and Northeast Power also both had crews respond to the outage.
Service was restored to the affected substations through- out the evening of July 26 into the early morning hours of July 27.
Aug. 9, 2023
HARTINGTON — Jack Steffen wants to be a jack-of-all-trades pharmacist as he follows in his father’s footsteps down the same career path.
The 25-year-old Hartington native recently returned to his hometown and started working July 17 as a fulltime pharmacist for Steffen Drug, the downtown family business owned by his parents, Matt and Brenda Steffen.
Jack said he hopes to provide even more service at the full-service pharmacy in his position.
“We’re just trying to branch out into providing more services, instead of just filling (prescriptions),” he said. “My goal is to get more of the clinical things, like strep testing.
“If patients come in, we’re trying to get it set up so we can just swab their throat and they can have results in 10 minutes and then we can get them their antibiotic and get them out (the door),” he said.
Matt said strep testing is an example of point-of care testing which can be done at pharmacies and requires a collaborative agreement with a doctor, “which can be a hurdle,” he said.
“We do have collaborative agreements with doctors to give vaccines,” the 53-year-old Steffen said.
Jack said he wants the pharmacy’s customers to know he can administer all sorts of shots – including for influenza and COVID-19 – if they need one when they come to pick up a prescription and also wants them to be aware of other vaccines he can provide, such as pneumonia, hepatitis B and Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis).
“We’re just trying to streamline the process for our patients,” Jack said.
Matt enjoys the business side of working at a pharmacy more than the clinical side, which Jack brings as a strength of his.
Aug. 9, 2023
LINCOLN — Public school districts across the state will benefit from a new state aid-to-education formula approved this year by the Nebraska Legislature.
The package, LB583, makes adjustments to the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act formula for state aid to Nebraska’s public schools.
Under LB583, the state will pay public school districts $1,500 in foundation aid per student beginning with school fiscal year 2023-24.
State estimates show Hartington-Newcastle Public Schools would have received $112,593 under the old state aid formula. The new formula could add another $918,671 in state aid to the district.
The Laurel-Concord-Coleridge school district will see an even bigger boost. LCC would have received an estimated $89,793 under the old formula. The new formula could add another $935,195 in state aid to the school’s coffers.
Hartington-Newcastle Supt. A.J. Johnson said the state aid will help local property owners.
Cedar County’s two other public schools will also see an increase in state aid, but not nearly as big a bump.
Randolph Public Schools was to receive an estimated $42,290 in state aid and will now receive $562,296. The old formula would have given Wynot Public Schools $1.4 million. The new formula gives Wynot an additional $96,206.
The bill also requires the state Department of Education to reimburse each school district 80 percent of the total allowable excess costs for all special education programs and support services in the following school year.
In total, the state will direct approximately $300 million per year in additional funding to K-12 public schools under LB583.
This funding will be sustained through investments by the new Education Future Fund created under LB818, which received $1 billion from the General Fund this year and is expected to receive at least $250 million each year thereafter.
Aug. 16, 2023
HARTINGTON — Hartington will soon have a new place that offers Mexican food.
Efrain Gonzalez, Omaha, and several partners are purchasing the old Pizza Hut building on Highway 57 and plan to open a new restaurant at the location.
The ownership group for Ma Mona Mexican Grill LLC received approval Monday night from the Hartington City Council for a $50,000 no-interest loan to help them get started in business. The money comes from a revolving loan fund established years ago by Hartington Economic Development.
“We are putting all of our effort into this to make this work,” Gonzalez said in a Monday evening interview with the Cedar County News.
Gonzalez said his business partners own several restaurants and felt a restaurant here would fit their business profile very well.
“They like small towns,” he said. “Their businesses are in small towns. Hartington is a good fit.”
