News

Mother Nature left her touch on Clay County this past weekend, with most of the county recieving a trace to one-inch of snow on Saturday and Sunday morning. The snow quickly melted away. In the picture above, employees of the Central Nebraska Wood Preservers work to load train cars with treated lumber, during some of the heaviest snowfall Saturday, Nov. 25. In the photo at the left, a fountain was found running in a pond in the Industrial Park area of northeast Sutton. According to the National Weather Service office in Hastings, much of the local area received less than one-inch of the white stuff, but strong winds during the Thanksgiving weekend left much of the area in a wind-driven cold snap, with wind chills dropping into single digits during the winter weather event.

The Edgar Fire and Rescue Department, following a two-year, three month wait, finally has in its possession their new Ford F-550 ambulance. The Edgar Department received a $150,000 grant to help with the cost of the $285,000 unit. After Hours Graphix of Aurora, owned by Sutton native Troy Hofmann, and his wife Kelsey, put the final touches on the rig adding the unique graphics to the exterior of the ambulance, shown in the top photo. At the right is a view of part of the interior of the ambulance.

The South Central Nebraska Unified District #5 voted at the September 2022 board meeting to not renew the current Unification Agreement. It is set to expire on Aug. 31, 2024.

In Jan. 2023, they hired me to oversee and help them navigate this de-unification and prepare both districts to be independent districts again, beginning with the 2024-25 school years. There are many things that need to be done to prepare for this.

Road Map-We have developed this Road Map for our work that must happen this school year. This Road Map is also meant to give everyone a visual that we can use to track our progress. As we are wrapping up our first quarter of the year, we are on track to accomplish the work we have before us. Here are a few updates on our progress:

SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMMING

Special Education is one of the most important aspects of our programming.

Sherrie Bartell, president of the Sutton Argonne Legion Post #61 Auxiliary has announced that a special ceremony will take place at the Sutton City Cemetery, weather pending, Saturday, Dec. 16 at 10 a.m., in accordance to the National Wreaths Across America Day, that will feature over 3,700 ceremonies accross the United States, Puerto Rico, and on foreign soil.

Bartell shared that the Sutton Auxiliary originally planned to purchase 200 wreaths, but has since purchased a total of 400 wreaths to honor fallen veterans in Sutton’s public cemetery.

The cost to sponsor one of the wreaths is $17 each, with $5 of each wreath going to the local auxilary post. In all, Bartell shared that there are 386 veterans buried in the Sutton cemetery.

You can contact Bartell at 402-460-0234, or email her at: suttonlegionauxiliary@gmail.com, if you would like to donate to the program.

Activities for the 2023 Sutton Parade of Lights holiday festival are starting to take shape for the upcoming event, set to take place Monday, Dec. 4.

Activities are slated to get underway at 4:30 p.m. with open house events set to be hosted by Judy Barnes’ State Farm Insurance, Cornerstone Bank’s downtown location, Brown’s Grocery Store, CPI, Astra Bank, The Flat River Bar, Sutton Pharmacy, Sutton Library, and the Sutton American Legion. Additionally, Quality Healthcare, Therapeutic Massage and Salon, and Farm Bureau Insurance will host open house events at the Sutton Community Center.

Throughout the evening, the Parade of Lights event, hosted by the Sutton Area Chamber of Commerce, will also feature the following activities at the Community Center:

• Draft horse sleigh rides, sponsored by A+ Contracting; • Santa’s Workshop photos will be taken by Grace Schmer photography;

• Walking Taco’s will be served by the Sutton Federated Church youth group;

Mike Johnson, owner of Eagle Pointe Insurance, LLC of Sutton, announced his new affiliation with Cornerstone Bank’s group of insurance agencies. The agency’s new name will be “Cornerstone Insurance Group”. The purchase will be finalized Jan. 10, 2024.

“We are excited about joining the bank’s growing insurance group”, Johnson said. “The bank’s insurance expertise, additional insurance markets and financial resources should equip our office to offer more insurance products, competitive prices and a high level of customer service.”

Cornerstone Insurance Group currently has 18 other insurance locations in Nebraska. The resources and purchasing power of Cornerstone typically allows their local offices to provide more of a selection of insurance products and prices than they would on their own. Cornerstone Bank is one of the largest banks in Nebraska with assets of $2.5 billion.

The old addage of “build it, and they will come,” turned into more of a “help us so we can move forward, so they will come” plea from business and building owners of the damaged North Saunders Ave., business district in Sutton. The meeting was in light of a July 29 tornado that left more that a dozen buildings on the west and east sides of the street in distress.

Little communication has been received from the City of Sutton leaders, outside of a few emails and calls in the aftermath of the storm that left the business district, at best, crippled, with all but two businesses on the west side relying on the outstanding support of other Sutton businesses lending a hand, by offering open spaces for those affected by the storm to work out of.

Activities for the 2023 Sutton Parade of Lights holiday festival are starting to take shape for the upcoming event, set to take place Monday, Dec. 4.

Activities are slated to get underway at 4:30 p.m. with open house events, set to be hosted by Judy Barnes’ State Farm Insurance office, Cornerstone Bank’s downtown locoation, Brown’s Grocery Store, CPI, Sutton Pharmacy, and the Sutton Library.

Additionally, Quality Healthcare, Therapeutic Massage and Salon, as well as Farm Bureau Insurance will host open house events at the Sutton Community Center.

Throughout the evening, the Parade of Lights event, hosted by the Sutton Area Chamber of Commerce, will also feature the following activities at the Community Center:

• Draft horse sleigh rides;

• Santa’s Workshop photos will be taken by Grace Schmer photography;

• 101 Dalmatians by the Sutton FFA;

• Walking tacos will be served by the Sutton Federated Church youth group;

On Monday, Nov. 6, City of Sutton staff, Gary Nuss, Jaden Nuss and Brett Gibson, along with Sutton Police Chief, Tracey Landenberger opened up Saunders Ave., that had been closed since the July 29 EF-1 tornado blew through downtown Sutton, leaving a path of damage to each business along the north side of the downtown business district. The street is now opened halfway through the street for traffic to pass through. 

The Clay County Giving Tree, which started over 35 years ago in the basement of the former Christian Church in Clay Center by Ed and Judy Barnes began small, but little did the Barnes’ know at the time, but the annual event has grown leaps and bounds, as we fast forward to the 2023 Giving Tree wrapping event, slated to be Wednesday, Dec. 20, at the Clay County Fairgrounds Activities Building.

According to current organizers of the current Giving Tree event, the Barnes’ had a couple of families who were really “on their hearts” as the holiday season drew near and they wanted to help them in any way they could.

Along with a couple of other folks, they gathered together and made “care packages” to help brighten their spirits.

Each year, according to Tina Buckhalter, the daughter of the Barnes’, more and more families or individuals were “on their hearts”.