JANUARY

Oregon Trail Equipment merged with LandMark Implement, resulting in change at seven dealerships, including Fairfield, Gothenburg, Lexington, Elwood, Arapahoe, Holdrege, Kearney, Minden and Shelton, as well as Phillipsburg and Smith Center, KS.

When the second semester of school begins on Jan. 5, students and staff at Sandy Creek and Lawrence-Nelson, making up the South Central Nebraska Unified School District, will dive head first into a newly-developed course schedule.

This new schedule ties in with the Career Pathway classes, which are offered to junior and senior grade level students. Sandy Creek High School Principal Jason Searle said the most difficult part of completing the schedule proved to be working around the middle schoolers’ classes.

Each day, students from the middle school would take a first period class at Sandy Creek—this has not changed. Everything first and second period stayed the same, Searle said.

The last four periods of the day have been switched to 84-minute classes, allowing more time for teachers to go over that particular course, while also giving students time to absorb more information.

The Harvard wrestling team ventured into a new realm over the traditional holiday break this year, taking on the field at the Kurt Keaschall Invitational hosted by Pleasanton High School on Thursday, Dec. 29.

The Cardinals placed 13th overall in the 17-team field, scoring 45.5 points overall. Burwell ran away with team gold in the first-ever tournament, outscoring the second place Kearney High Gold reserve team by 77.5 points, 233.5-156.

Senior Kale Fishler earned 29 of the Cardinals’ team points by winning the 132-pound weight class. Fishler improved to 15-5 on the year, with five wins in Pleasanton.

Four of his five wins came by way of a pin, including a 48-second pin over Gabe Tamayo of Hershey and a 47-second pin over Ethan Carrizales of the Broken Bow reserves.

A new venue would face the Sutton Mustangs for holiday tournament action this year, as the Mustangs ventured north to take on the field at the David City tournament.

Opening round action pitted Sutton against Aquinas Catholic. The Monarchs, behind an eight point, 24-16 first quarter run, held off the Mustangs to gain a 67-58 win. Sutton bounced back in a big way in the battle for third place with David City, drubbing the Scouts 61-40 to bring their season record to 4-4.

Sutton trailed Aquinas 37-30 at the half before the Monarchs outscored Sutton 30-28 in the second half to gain the nine-point win.

Devin Wagoner led the team in scoring and on the glass, scoring 19 points and gaining seven rebounds.

Trevor Leach added 13 points, while Nathan Hohensee netted 12 tallies in the loss.

Holiday tournament games against Hampton and Wilcox- Hildreth garnered a loss and win for the Lady Cardinals of Harvard.

The Hampton Hawks took little time to overpower the Lady Cardinals on Dec. 29, with a 42-23 first half lead. The Hawks held a small fivepoint lead in the first quarter, 22-17, but took off in the second, pushing ahead with a 20-6 stretch.

Cassie Roberts and Ellie Fields led the Lady Cardinals with 14 and 12 points scored, respectively. Making 48 percent of their two-pointers, Harvard would sink 13-27 field goals. Both teams made almost the same amount of three-pointers, with Harvard making 3-16 (19%), and Hampton, 3-15 (20%).

By Ashley Swanson

With the new year here, there’s a bunch of items to be excited for in 2017.

Personally this year, I get to celebrate with my best friend as she marries the love of her life, and I get to welcome another niece or nephew into the world (sometime in July or August).

On another level, 2017 also marks Nebraska’s 150th birthday (officially on March 1) as well as the 145th Clay County Fair.

Focusing on Nebraska’s big 150, the governor and a slew of people have come up with a number of challenges and activities to partake in celebrating.

The main one being the 150 physical challenge, which has people walking, running, biking and/or paddling; really, any type of activity such as those will do. Sound a bit much? It’s actually not as much as you think, considering there are 365 days in a year.

By Tory Duncan

Evidently last week’s Bull column, regarding the building of a $70 million high school football stadium, touched a nerve with a few of you, as well.

This week, after having some “chit chats” about that stadium, like I was told by one Clay County News reader...Lighten the mood Duncan!

Okay, so this reader wasn’t that direct and it certainly was a light-hearted comment, but not just because of last week’s column, I have chosen to lighten my mood this week.

Everyone is always focused on setting New Year goals/ resolutions, which is always good...IF you can keep them, that is.

I certainly have a few personal goals (we’ll call them), the least of which is spending more time with family and friends...seems like a logical first goal for 2017, IF I keep it.

Dec. 9, 1939 - Dec. 29, 2016

Lawrence D. “Larry” Nye, 77, of Dannebrog, died unexpectedly Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016, at his home. Memorial services were 2 p.m. Monday at Faith Lutheran– Nysted St. Peder’s Church. The Rev. Bob Carlson will officiate.

Private family inurnment will be at a later date at the Clay Center Cemetery in Clay Center.

Mr. Nye was born on Dec. 9, 1939, at Clay Center, the son of George D. and Vera L. (Herrick) Nye.

Larry grew up in Clay Center, where he graduated from Clay Center High School in 1958.

He was united in marriage to Eileen Griess on March 21, 1959, at Clay Center. Larry worked as a printer throughout the state, later working for the Grand Island Independent. Eileen died on Oct. 22, 1972.

He was united in marriage to Donetta (McMahon) Scheil on Aug. 22, 1975, at Grand Island. The couple first lived in Grand Island, later moving to Dannebrog, where he owned and operated Larry’s Inter-Clean.

Sept. 4, 1934 - Dec. 30, 2016

Joan Ranee Cleven, 82, of Lincoln, NE, passed away on Dec. 30, 2016. Born Sept. 4, 1934, to Melvin and Leona (Barker) Aspegren in Sutton, NE.

Survived by daughter, Ranee (Dan) Tucker of Lincoln; son, Keith (Janel) Kohout of Fall Brook, CA; grandchildren, Lisa Brown, Jason (April) Tucker, Victoria Kohout, Zack Kohout, Nick Kohout; great-grandchildren, Alex(Andria) Brown, Aiden Tucker and Matthew Tucker; brother, Burnell (Barb) Aspergren; sisterin- law, Marilyn Aspegren; brother, Percy (Marie) Aspegren; brother, Herbert (Dot) Aspegren. Preceded in death by parents, brother, Arnold, son, Larry and husbands, Dwaine Kohout and Brody Cleven.

Funeral service was 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, at Roper & Sons Funeral Home, 4300 O Street. Visitation was 2-8 p.m., on Monday at the Funeral Home. Condolences online at Roperandsons.com.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General (OIC), while it criticized the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center for failing to prioritize animal welfare policies, clearly noted in its report released on Friday, Dec. 16, that during its audit of US MARC, found no evidence of “systemic animal abuse.”

What the report shared is that the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which oversees 49 federal research facilities, including the U.S. MARC facility, located just west of Clay Center, needs to establish new policies, oversight for treatment of research animals, as well as a formal process for reporting abuses.

The investigation, which ultimately brought forth the audit of ARS, was launched on the heels of a January 2015 New York Times article, written by Michael Mass, alleging a longstanding culture tolerant of animal neglect and abuse as researchers sought to generate bigger profits for the livestock industry.