McCook Humane Society

100 South Street

345-2372

Hours: M-F: 2-5

Sat: 12-4

LISTEN WEEKDAYS 8:05 AM 12:45 PM ON YOUR

BISON SPORTS STATION

WALK-IN HOURS

7 AM - 5 PM

MONDAY - FRIDAY

8 AM-10 AM

SATURDAY

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY

1401 EAST H STREET 344-4110

AMERICAN WATERCOLOR SOCIETY EXHIBIT The Mid-Plains Community College Board of Governors met in McCook last night for their July meeting. MCC art instructor Rick Johnson discussed and invited the Board to the American Watercolor Society’s 153rd Anniversary Exhibit in The Wrightstone Fine Arts Gallery Aug. 14-Sept. 27. McCook will be the second stop on the 2020-21 tour. The Board was introduced to Fred Sheldon, the chef for Fresh Ideas, the college’s new food service provider. MCC’s Phi Beta Lambda chapter was recognized in front of the Board for receiving 15 awards during the Nebraska PBL Virtual State Leadership Con-ference. Lorrie Mowry was named Nebraska’s Advisor of The Year at the conference. Additionally, the MCC PBL chapter earned the Gold Level of Excellence Award. Mowry was also recognized in front of the Board for her selection as the Mountain-Plains Business Education Association’s 2020 Teacher of the Year. MCC business instructor Janet Stalder was recognized for being named the Postsecondary Teacher of the Year by the Association for Career and Technical Education of Nebraska. MCC business instructor Renelle Mooney was recognized for earning an Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development.

COVID-19 CASES DOUBLE OVER THE WEEKEND The head of a health district in southwest Nebraska says she’s frustrated with the lack of social distancing compliance in the nine county areas. Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department Director Myra Stoney says they’ve seen 22 COVID-19 cases over the past week, almost double the number reported over the previous three months. "I think the people of southwest Nebraska are in complete denial that there is a pandemic," Stoney said. She says some residents are ignoring social distancing guidelines and aren’t wearing face coverings in public places. Stoney says her department is doing what it can to educate residents about the dangers of COVID-19, but that doesn’t always work. "It's been frustrating when people read non-credible sources that they saw on Facebook or wherever they came up with it, and they want to bad-mouth what we know is working in our community," she said. "It's extremely frustrating." There have been a total of 49 cases of COVID-19 in the nine county areas and one death. Cases are also trending up statewide, with an average of 210 new cases per day over the past seven days.

STATE LAWMAKERS FACE MAJOR ISSUES The Nebraska Legislature yesterday took up major issues facing state law-makers this year - property taxes, school financing, and corporate tax incen-tives - in a debate that highlighted potential gridlock on those issues. The first bill debated Wednesday was a property tax/school finance bill. Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, chair of the Revenue Committee, led off. “We have a crisis in

Nebraska, because our K-12 education depends on an overreliance on prop-erty taxes,” Linehan said. Linehan said Nebraska ranks 22nd among the states in spending per student, but 49th in state financial support for schools. The bill she supports would lower property taxes by lowering tax valuations, limiting school spending, and making up for the loss of revenue to schools by increasing state aid. Critics fear state aid would be cut when the state runs into a budget crunch, and schools wouldn’t be able to make up the differ-ence. Among those expressing concern was Sen. Wendy DeBoer. “I care about property tax relief. But I’m not going to do it on the backs of our stu-dents,” DeBoer said. The bill envisions increasing state school aid by more than $500 million over the next three years. Sen. John Stinner, chair of the Appropriations Committee, said before the pandemic, he thought that was doable. But now he said state tax revenues could decline 5-6 percent, at the same time as the state could be required to make up for property tax cuts called for by the bill.

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THURSDAY JULY 23, 2020

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SPORTS The NSAA is gearing up for a fall sports season "as currently scheduled" in

the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. First practices for fall sports foot-

ball, volleyball, cross country, girls golf, boys tennis and softball will begin

Aug. 10. "We've been talking about this for weeks already and it obviously

changes daily," NSAA director Jay Bellar told the Journal Star on Monday. "I

think we wanted to wait until we heard from (Gov. Pete Ricketts) and the

commissioner of education, which we listened to Gov. Ricketts on Friday.

They want to get kids in school, and sports are important and we feel the

same way, so we thought it was a good time to get our intentions out there.

"If we can in any way, shape or form, we're going to try to get started with

fall activities and that's where we're at this time." Bellar recognizes the

challenge in governing multiple sports across communities that span hun-

dreds of miles, and will certainly feature different infection levels as the

summer and fall progress. "I think the hardest part is we understand that

different parts of the state are being hit differently and how is that going to

look? Believe me, we've tried to cover every case and scenario there is in

terms of how we're going to do this," Bellar said. "We thought, in the end,

why don't we just try to start on time and have our (normal) season and

then adjust as we need to adjust?

Like many other teams not originally considered contenders in a normal

season, the Royals believe they now can make some noise in a 60-game

sprint. The Royals have bolstered their lineup with the addition of free-

agent third baseman Maikel Franco and the return of All-Star catcher Salva-

dor Perez from Tommy John surgery and shortstop Adalberto Mondesi from

left shoulder surgery. Kansas City can now boast a batting order one

through nine that shows no obvious holes. The big question, though, is

starting pitching. The Royals came into camp with only four proven starters

-- Danny Duffy, Brad Keller, Jakob Junis and Mike Montgomery. Keller is

just getting back from a stint on the injured list for COVID-19, and Junis

went on the IL on Monday. That leaves the door open for youngsters Brady

Singer and perhaps Foster Griffin to step into the rotation. Royals baseball

debuts tomorrow night on KBRL AM-FM.

ACROSS 1 Ball holder 4 Took a nap 8 Cc 11 Tyrannosaurus 12 Leaky faucet noise 14 Washington (abbr.) 15 Fatty vegetable 18 Lasso 20 Hair stuff 21 Gain an extension 24 Made a web 26 Water (Spanish) 27 Military policeman (abbr.) 29 Narrow opening 30 Blob

31 Luau dish 32 Dines 33 Dagger 34 Some 35 Stool 38 Otherwise 39 United Kingdom 40 Little Mermaid's Sebastian 41 Usages 42 Whizz 43 Whiz 44 Walk 46 City 48 Roman two 49 Thin 53 Fairy 54 Least amount 55 Strum 56 Ump

DOWN 1 Bride’s possessions 2 Elver 3 Meager 5 Education (abbr.) 6 Puerto Rico (abbr.) 7 Scale note 9 The other half of Jima 10 Drink 13 Supplication 16 Airways 17 __evated railroad 19 Ouch! 21 Knock 22 Self 23 Crackpot

25 Piece of wood 27 Coding system 28 Spear shaft 31 Tall, thin beer glass 33 Two in cards 35 __ Lanka 36 Serving of corn 37 Reduced (abbr.) 40 Champ 42 Week (abbr.) 43 Attorney General (abbr.) 44 That man 45 Three 47 Roberto's yes 50 Neuter pronoun 51 Blood factor 52 Year (abbr.)

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