Janis Lorette (Pearson) Ledbetter, age 92, of Beaver City, Nebraska passed away on June 9, 2023 at Phelps Memorial Hospital, in Holdrege, Nebraska. She was born on February 2, 1931 to Roy R. & Jessie (Hubbell) Pearson on the farm north of Orleans, Nebraska. She was the youngest of 7 children and she was also a twin.

On February 1, 2023, Sharon DeeAnne (Guthrie, Sughroue) Deon, a loving mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin, friend, and wife passed away following a short hospital stay at McCook Community Hospital in McCook, NE. Sharon DeeAnne, 82, the youngest child of Carl Guthrie and Ruby Rausch (Ziegler) blessed the world on January 27, 1941, in Stratton, NE. She received most of her education from Indianola elementary/ high school in Indianola, NE. She received one further year of education from McCook Community College prior to her marriage to Thomas Sughroue, he preceded her in death. They were blessed with four children: Michelle, Crystal, Stephanie and Tom. She later married her present husband, Jack Deon. She spent thirty-one years of her working career with the US Postal Service, beginning in Indianola, NE, retiring from the Denver, CO branch of the US Postal Service.

The Medicine Creek Reservoir is no longer on Health Alert from the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy following weekly water testing results. Samples from June 5 show that the reservoir only 93 parts per million of E.

Medicine Creek Days will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Medicine Creek Dam on June 16-18 with many activities. Friday will start with the TVHS Health Fair from 7-9 a.m.

A great weekend at Turkey Days in Oxford.

Betsy Hoxmeier has retired after teaching at Southern Valley Elementary for the last time in the 2022-2023 school year. The educator was recently recognized with a plaque in May for her combined 36 years of teaching at both Southern Valley and Orleans public schools.

In a single word, yes. Our first teeth are important in so many ways. They require just as much attention and love as our permanent teeth. Not to mention that beginning with good habits is the best way for anyone to maintain those healthy habits.

Every summer when I was a kid, we would make the five-plus hour drive to a farm northwest of Benkelman to spend a week with my grandparents, Don and Betty. The Browns were scripted creatures of habit and routine and at such and such a time each day, my grandpa would go out to gather eggs from the chickens.

“Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet,” Willa Cather once wrote. The famed literary artist first came to Nebraska at the age of nine, when her family settled in Webster County. Years later, she refl ected on what it was like to first step foot in our great state.

The 108th Nebraska Legislature’s first session was by all accounts historic and sometimes chaotic. The continual disruptions did not deter us from accomplishing a lot for Nebraskans. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be highlighting and breaking down the bills we were able to pass and what they mean for Nebraskans, starting first with our income and property tax packages.