News

The Edgar-Fairfield water project has begun.

The Edgar City Council discussed progress during its regular meeting on Jan. 13, at Edgar’s City Hall.

“I still think it’s the right thing,” Edgar’s Mayor Brad Brennfoerder said regarding the water project, during Monday night’s meeting.

More than a year ago, Edgar sought out solutions to its high nitrate levels and settled on purchasing from Fairfield’s water supply, largely because of a USDA grant promising to pay 75 percent of the $3.2 million total cost of the project.

Agreements between the communities were finalized and signed in March 2019, with the completion date of the connection project estimated to be the end of 2020.

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Members of the Sutton City Council convened for its first meeting of 2020 and faced a light agenda during the Jan. 13 meeting.

Council members and Mayor Todd Mau honored longtime city clerk Sherrie Bartell, who retired from the city offices in early December.

Bartell served on the staff of the City of Sutton for 27 years, and was presented a plaque for her services to the city.

Don Russell presented to the council that the Sutton Boy Scouts Recycling program might very well be in jeopardy of stopping.

Russell pointed to the lack of facilities that are taking recycled refuse and shared that the local scouts are facing the true fact that the program may shut down in the very near future.

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Freezing temps showcase winter wonderland

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Sutton Superintendent Dana Wiseman will be adding to her “to do list” beginning in August 2020, as Wiseman will take over representing District 1 of the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) Board of Directors.

Wiseman, who has been with the Sutton school district for 17 years, five as the secondary principal and the past 12 as Superintendent of Schools, will take over the seat currently held by Fillmore Central Superintendent Mark Norvell.

Norvell, at the completion of his term, will have served the NSAA Board of Directors for 12 years. He has announced his retirement from Fillmore Central at the end of the 2019-20 school year.

“Mark approached me a year ago at this time about filling an alternate position with the NSAA board and I told him that I would be willing to do so,” Wiseman shared.

It’s a buzz creating an unnerving feeling.

For months, drone sightings have caused an uneasy stir within Colorado and Nebraska residents, and the mystery has also affected Clay County.

Clay County Emergency Manager Tim Lewis said the first reports of drone sightings in the county came Saturday, Jan. 4, with official sightings occurring the evening of Sunday, Jan. 5 along the Clay/Adams County line.

A majority of the drones continued working along the county line, moving back and forth north of Trumbull. The pattern continued working north of Highway 74, and then following Highway 6 through the county, toward the east.

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One Dollar

Nebraska was far from the only state to see a rise in farm bankruptcies this past year.

Nationally, Chapter 12 filings increased by 24 percent from 2018 to 2019, according to a Farm Bureau report released in October.

“While filings remain well below the historical highs experienced in the 1980s, the trend is a concern,” explained by John Newton, economist and author of the report, which compared data from September 2017-2018 with that of September 2018-2019.

All U.S. regions, including Puerto Rico, saw higher farm bankruptcy rates in 2019 than in 2018. The 13-state Midwest, which includes Nebraska, witnessed relatively less rise in bankruptcies—at 13 percent.

Still, Nebraska saw six more farm bankruptcies in 2019 than in 2018, bringing its total number of Chapter 12 filings to 37, matching stats in Kansas and Georgia. Only one other state, Wisconsin at 48, had a higher number of total farm bankruptcies during the same time period.

Sallie Barbee

Sallie Barbee is the epitome of a hard working, caring person.

The Sutton native grew up helping on the family farm north of Sutton, served as an elementary teacher, volunteered her time with various organizations, allthe-while raising her family.

Barbee was recently nominated and chosen for the 2019 Clay County News Person of the Year, for all the reasons listed above and more.

In her younger years, Barbee began her volunteer hours as her mother’s little helper, gathering eggs, getting cobs from the cob house, and taking a bucket of coal from the basement.

She attended District 66 school for six years before it closed due to the lack of children attending. Eventually, the final four children attending District 66 transfered to Sutton School; Barbee attended SPS from seventh to 11th grade.

Landowners and others with an interest in an industrial solar farm proposed for the Spring Ranch area are reminded to attend an upcoming informational session on the topic.

The Clay County Board of Supervisors will be hosting a workshop at 1 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the courthouse in Clay Center, featuring various speakers on the pros and cons of drawing up solar-specific ordinances that would make way for the solar farm.

“We’re not going to be rushing into anything,” board chairman Ivan Fintel, of Sutton, said in response to a landowner request for a decision on the issue at the board’s regular meeting on Dec.

31.

Virginia-based APEX Clean Energy has proposed a 305-megawatt solar farm to be placed on about 3,000 acres in the southwest corner of Clay County, under the Pauline-Moore transmission line.

When the historic flooding hit Nebraska, leaving behind hundreds of miles of devastation, first responders and volunteers stepped up to help out. Clay County EMS Departments wanted to help out also, with each department donating money toward the cause. On March 21, members from each department headed to Lynch, a town of 296 people, where flood waters not only caused extensive physical damage, but also damage to the water system running through Lynch, leaving citizens without clean water and a working sewer system for month.

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Keeping an open mind proves to be the will and drive that District 38 senator Dave Murman, of rural Glenvil, maintains as he heads into his second session of the 106th Nebraska Legislature when it convenes on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at the Nebraska Capital in Lincoln.

“After my first session representing the 38th district, I feel like I have a good feel for other state senators and those senators that I’m aligned with.”

In sitting down with Murman at his rural Glenvil home late last week, it is notable to say that Murman is a thoughtful senator that will maintain what he ran for office on in 2018.

“I’ll keep an open mind but will have conviction in my belief of limited government and limited spending,” Murman noted.

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