This week's top stories

  • Jack Allen (left) and Brekyn Papineau competed at the Disney Duals in Florida during the last week of June as part of a Nebraska all-star wrestling team.
    Jack Allen (left) and Brekyn Papineau competed at the Disney Duals in Florida during the last week of June as part of a Nebraska all-star wrestling team.
  • SOAR campers spent part of last week’s river day rushing a large net in an attempt to herd fish toward it. The splashing around in the Platte River just off Gjerloff Prairie was a favorite of the day for youth.
    SOAR campers spent part of last week’s river day rushing a large net in an attempt to herd fish toward it. The splashing around in the Platte River just off Gjerloff Prairie was a favorite of the day for youth.
  • Hannah Pedersen has worked closely with the Girl Scouts program to create badge activities like those pictured.
    Hannah Pedersen has worked closely with the Girl Scouts program to create badge activities like those pictured.

    Wrestling from the Magical Kingdom
    The wrestling careers of Brekyn Papineau and Jack Allen became much more magical last month. 
    The two Aurora wrestlers earned an opportunity to compete at the Disney Duals from the Magical Kingdom in Florida during the last week of June, honing their wrestling skills against some of the nation’s best athletes. 
    The opportunity for Papineau and Allen to compete in such an event was too much for each of them to pass up. 
    “It was fun. It’s not every day that you get to wrestle kids of that caliber,” Papineau pointed out. “You can really find your holes in your wrestling and now I can go to work on those things.”
    “It was super fun,” Allen said. “My teammates were fun to be around. I wrestled a ton and saw some things I’ve never seen before. Overall, I got better.”

    SOARing into a good time
    Another year of Summer Orientation About Rivers (SOAR) has flown by -- this time looking a little different -- but still packed with the same amount of fun that every camper has anticipated for more than 20 years now. 
    Prairie Plains Resource Institute (PPRI) administrative director Amy Jones took a brief pause from walking back and forth across the Platte River during last week’s river day to reflect on the changes this year. 
    “SOAR has been different this year in that in a normal SOAR year we have 60 campers for four to five days, all day long,” Jones said. “This year we took our numbers down to 20 campers for four sessions of three days.”

    Mabon shares passion for agriculture in early county fairs
    Sitting out at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds is an old drinking fountain. It’s not like the ones you see in schools, but a metal fountain covered in ornate designs for both people and animals to use.
    This addition to the fairgrounds was just one part of Robert L. Mabon’s legacy as he worked to help the ag society grow in Hamilton County. 
    Great-grand uncle to Dave and his wife Terry Mabon, Robert was born in Blairsville, Pa., on Jan. 23, 1854.
    “After being here for about four years he went back to Pennsylvania where he married and brought his wife here,” Terry voiced. “Then he lived in Hamilton County the rest of his life. Sadly he died when he was just 60 in 1915.”

    Hannah Pedersen becomes HALO mentor for summer 2021
    Phillips native and Aurora High School graduate Hannah Pedersen has been selected for the summer of 2021 to serve as a HALO mentor.
    She, among 59 other University of Nebraska-Lincoln students, is currently helping out a wide range of children with extracurricular programming as part of the Huskers After-School and Summer Learning Opportunities (HALO) program.
    Pedersen learned about this opportunity through the university’s honors program, where she will be receiving class credit for her summer work.
    “The after school learning opportunities vary from clubs to organizations,” Pedersen noted. “For example I work with the Girl Scouts, but there are other students who design their own clubs.”

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