Opinions

Last Saturday was a beautiful day for a Veterans Day parade and we at the chamber are grateful we were able to assist our local American Legion Post in celebrating both past and present veterans. Thank you to all the businesses, bands, EMS personnel and individuals who spent their Saturday afternoon honoring those who fought for our freedom and made it possible for us to gather in celebration.

One question that I often hear this time of year is people wanting to know what I am doing with my time now that we have a break from covering sports. My general answer is, all the things I put off during the fall sports season.

A salute to veterans Camaraderie—the rapport and comradeship that unites a group of people—is found wherever people gather. It’s evident on sports teams, in church groups, within school classes and it unites members of a family. However, as a veteran of the U.S. Military, I can think of no deeper bond than that found within a military combat unit. Few things weld people together into a tight-knit group more than shared hardship, pain, suffering and the rigors of discipline. This is especially true when lives hang in the balance in support of a common mission.

I sit here right now in our office gazing out the window with the sun still shining late in the day on Halloween. Soon night will fall, but come next week it will have already fallen at this very time.

If you walked into the research lab at Central City High School this week the odds are you would see a student hard at work on their scientific research. This might involve using a micropipette to measure out a small amount of chemical, looking through a microscope to observe the heart rate of a small crustacean, moving a nematode from one Petri dish to another, swabbing a Petri dish with bacteria collected from a table, completing mathematical calculations to determine solution concentrations or testing well water samples for nitrates. The research that is being conducted at Central City High School this year is astounding! Students can choose a topic of their own interest, and the wide array of topics represents the variety of interests of our students. Some of the topics include knee injury prevention, the effect of spin on baseball velocity, deer food attractant, the effect of music on brain activity, creativity and stress, cell phone radiation, toothbrush sanitation, corrosion of prosthetics within the human body, safety of artificial sweeteners, how different cooking appliances work to cook meat to safe consumption temperatures, additives to enhance boar semen preservation, the effect of microplastics and pesticides on aquatic organisms, creation of more effective solar cells, the effect of nitrates on animal development and how cover crops affect soil health. All of these topics have real world application, and working on them enhances student engagement and learning immensely. Students not only gain in-depth knowledge on a particular topic, but they gain valuable lab skills. Working on these research studies is truly multidisciplinary. Students apply math and chemistry skills while determining concentrations for solutions. They use language arts skills to read and interpret difficult scientific text, write research papers and create presentations. They use computer skills to analyze data and create tables and graphs. Students also gain experience in working with experts in their field of research. We currently have students with research mentors at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and Lincoln, Doane University, the Natural Resource Conservation District, Creighton University, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska Game & Parks and the University of Western Ontario, to name a few. Working with these mentors gives students valuable experience in learning what a career in a particular field might be like. The scientific research program is a valuable tool to help us accomplish our school mission of preparing students with lifelong skills for the world around them and our school goal of career and college readiness for all students.

Open borders and our changing culture America is often called a “nation of immigrants” and with good reason. The ancestors of the vast majority of the nation’s citizens came here from somewhere else. Those immigrants came bringing their own national traditions and cultural heritage, but for most of its history the U.S. was known worldwide as “The Great Melting Pot.” That’s because, while people brought the vestiges of the cultural traditions of their homelands, most came wanting to simply be Americans and assimilated to the language and customs of this country, forming a unique American culture. That culture was based on a shared yearning to live free and to be able to provide the best for their families here in the “Land of Opportunity.”

A Time for War and a Time for Peace Peace reigned during my years in the U.S. Air Force, however, I did witness the kind of carnage that can be caused by combat aircraft. While stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, our family attended Europe’s biggest air show at our base. On August 28, 1988 the Italian Air Force demonstration team (similar to our Thunderbirds) performed in front of a crowd of 300,000. A solo pilot attempted to cross merging aircraft, finishing a loop of five teammates on his right and four teammates on his left. The solo aircraft hit two of the other planes causing three of the jets to crash, killing the pilots. Within seven seconds, the solo aircraft careened into the crowd center killing 67 spectators, the three pilots and injuring over 500 souls. For the next eight hours I helped place the wounded onto stretchers then helicopters which transported them to local hospitals. Then came the gruesome task of loading body parts into body bags and taking them to a gymnasium on base for identification. People who only moments before were enjoying a beautiful afternoon with their families, in a moment were dead! It was sobering seeing unclaimed cars in parking lots for the next week!

In the blink of an eye Halloween is upon us and the fall sports season is coming to a rapid end. The life of a sports reporter is one that is very similar to that of a farmer. The fall season brings long harvest hours and for sports reporters it is one that brings with it plenty of sports action to cover.