Over nearly twenty years, I lost track of how many times I was required to drive to Whiteclay to report on a protest about the beer stores there. Those four stores sold up to 3.5 million cans of beer a year, and were the liquor stores of choice for the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation right across the Nebraska- South Dakota border.

The old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” came to my mind last week while I was in the most precarious of positions. On Saturday morning, I was driving around Howard County covering the flooding that had occurred in the wake of Friday night’s deluge of rain and spate of storms, when, with some direction from county officials, I found the epicenter of the storm’s wrath.

Many have tried, and few have succeeded, in expanding the state’s sales tax base by taxing things now exempt from taxation. But that is where Governor Jim Pillen is venturing in his pursuit of property tax relief.

Last week, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission proudly made an announcement. For the first time since 2016, three peregrine falcon chicks had been hatched in a nest atop the Nebraska State Capitol building, and last week, officials with Nebraska Game and Parks had them successfully banded and checked.

Have you been to the grocery store or courthouse lately and been approached in the parking lot by not one, but two people seeking signatures on initiative petitions concerning abortion rights? Confused? You’re not alone. For what appears to be the first time in history, Nebraskans are being asked to sign not one, not two, but three petitions seeking to determine if and when a woman can have an abortion.

Growing up in Palmer, the town fathers had a surefire way to let people know when something big was going on. No, they didn’t blow the fire whistle, as that was just for emergencies; rather, when there was an occasion worth noting, a flagpole would appear in the middle of main street.

If I had a motto, it would have to be “Why make the fat kid do it?” I know what you all are thinking: Why not just lose some weight and then you wouldn’t get stuck with that task? Well, that is easier said than done, especially when the Danish Bakery was passing out kolaches along the parade route in Dannebrog on Saturday. Sometimes, there is simply no escaping food! Snacking on one of those tasty treats during Dannebrog’s annual summer celebration capped off a roller coaster of a week when it came to healthy living for your local, plump newspaper publisher.

Let’s face it, Nebraska has high property taxes, the seventh highest in the country according to the Tax Foundation, which tracks such things. “Lots of land, not a lot of people,” has always been the catchphrase, which translates into a higher burden of property taxes.

One of the great, unsolved mysteries in the state has been why the beloved Trev Alberts left his alma mater to become athletic director at Texas A&M. Alberts was an All-American football player at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then eventually became athletic director at the school after a successful stint at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Last Wednesday evening, I was returning home from covering the NSAA Class C State Golf Tournament, when I came across a peculiar sight standing, literally, right in the middle of the road. In the rural reaches of Howard County, just as the sun was starting to set, I crested a hill and there, right in the valley below, stood a Hereford cow.