Commentary

These girls are good.
That was the unanimous sentiment in the press building Saturday, as well as throughout Burke Stadium, as the Giltner Lady Hornets did what no other Class D girls track team has ever done.
For the fifth consecutive year, the two-day state track meet ended with the familiar orange and black-clad Lady Hornets standing atop the podium hoisting a state championship trophy and grinning from ear to ear.
Last year was a more dominating win, though the 2019 margin of victory was still a convincing 15 points. In the ultra competitive state track field, points are hard to come by, yet the Giltner girls seem to find a way every year, reloading after each graduation and carrying on what has become a prized tradition.

Letters to the editor:

Retiring doesn’t only mean you have advanced in years. Retiring also means not only in years, but also you have advanced or regressed in a whole lot of other things. Some of those changes you welcomed. As for others you finally threw up your hands and accepted those changes.
Still as you move through those retirement years, old age memory does you a big favor and slyly just lets you forget about many of your miscues.
Downsizing brings on a new interpretation.  Retiring means you are supposed to downsize in terms of a workload. Instead of laboring for that weekly paycheck the “labor of love” has taken over. Take out the garbage on Thursdays. Do a little vacuuming. Make a quick trip to the grocery store. Drop off a book at the library.
These all seem to have slipped into this retiree’s agenda striving to please his new boss. And I must admit having done a good enough job to gain what would be termed “longtime employment.” That is if the Good Lord is agreeable.

It’s time for a little spring cleaning and clearing off my desk. The paper clutter has resulted in a stack of notes with a lot of trivia that seems to have little value. Following are the results of our clean-up.
Dog hair has been proclaimed to be cleaner than most men’s beards. However, over the years I’ve heard no reports of a man having fleas or ticks in his beard.
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One writer claimed retirement and boredom go hand-in-hand. But you can still have some fun in your spare time. His suggestions:
* Go to the Dairy Queen and dip your dentures in the hot fudge when no one is looking.
* Call the program “A Current Affair” and ask if you can order one.
* Enroll in a history course and argue with the teacher by saying, “Well, I was there and don’t remember seeing you!”
* Buy an expensive fishing lodge with a 50-year mortgage to ensure your children remember you when you’re gone.

Turning tassels. Tipping hats. Flipping the page and moving forward.
Transition is in the air these days, with lots of pomp and celebratory circumstance permeating our community.
It’s graduation season, which is always an exciting time for graduates, their families and all those near and dear in a circle of influence who helped the honorees reach this significant milestone.
Hampton High School’s graduating class kicked the season off Saturday, followed by Giltner a day later. High Plains grads will take center stage May 11 and Aurora High will honor its Class of 2019 on Sunday, May 12, Mother’s Day.
The News-Register staff feels a shared sense of pride with all the parents, teachers and area communities in Hamilton County, having covered these young people as they grew and blossomed in recent years. Having a front row seat to that ongoing process is in fact one of the perks of this business.

Someone once said, “Mother is the symbol of security and understanding . . . and if the truth were told that is the reason Mother’s Day is celebrated.
We love our mothers sometimes for their memorable traits and in our case as we get older, we wish we could experience them first-hand again. Many claimed mothers were their shield from a baffling world. Others relish that their mother understood what no one else -- father, brother, sister, grandparent or beloved friend -- was able or willing to understand. We now smile when we recall many of my mom’s memorable traits of always being there when we needed her.

 Shame on you, Warren Buffet.
You, the Oracle of Omaha, the third richest person in the world, the man who owns more than 30 daily newspapers in the United States (including Omaha, York, Grand Island and Scottsbluff) just got done trashing the newspaper industry in an interview with Yahoo Finance, saying in no uncertain terms that it’s “toast”.
Just hold on money bags. I beg to differ.
Okay, even if you were referring more to the largest newspapers in our country (and that’s still unclear), newspapers as a whole usually fit and stick together. What affects one usually affects another.
But sir, to come out and put a blanket statement on newspapers, at this point in time, is just terribly wrong, even if you did serve on the board of directors at the Washington Post for 37 years.
You assume too much, and you, of all people, should know better.

A vision to create the Go Big Red type energy linked to Nebraska’s beloved Husker football program has taken on a synergy of its own with the growing success of the Go Big Give campaign.
Launched in 2014 as a joint venture of the Heartland United Way and Grand Island Community Foundation, Go Big Give has evolved into a regional effort that raises money, and lots of it, while simultaneously lifting up the work and worthy causes of more than 100 area nonprofit agencies.
Hamilton County has created its own successful model of philanthropic giving over the past 40 years. Local foundations, combined, have generated more than $65 million in assets over that time, providing scholarships, matching funds and seed money for young people and projects too numerous to count. You simply can’t attach a dollar figure to the impact those funds have had, and will continue to have, on the lives of individuals and our community as a whole.

Pet cats must be a particular bunch. At least one family’s experience recently emphasized that fact.
 A husband was asked by his wife to pick up a bag of kitty litter for their cat. She told him the brand name of the litter to be purchased at the store.
While shopping for the litter the husband found a cheaper bag than the expensive brand that she had specified. In an attempt to keep the family budget in line, he brought home the “bargain litter.”
Unfortunately he later found out his “bargain” resulted in a messy situation. The cat refused to use the litter box and instead chose to relieve itself on the floor just outside the box. We assume this tale (tail?) ended with one deposit and the hubby heading back to the store for the cat’s favorite brand.
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Letters to the editor
Dear Editor:
Our county roads have become a public safety issue. We have some of the worst roads in Nebraska. Living in the country you must have 4-wheel drive to navigate the country roads. How are the Sheriff’s Department or the Ambulance Department supposed to respond in a timely manner to emergency calls?
Since Darla (Svoboda) left the roads department our roads have been destroyed by poor practices, poor policies and general ignorance by the county commissioners and the highway department (Nancy and Roger excluded).
It is time for all to voice their complaints to the county commissioners. Tell them to make changes immediately or resign. We don’t want our roads to become another issue like the Manor, where we pour hundred of thousands of taxpayer dollars into plans that do not fix the problem.