Pawnee City News

Coming off a 2-6 season Pawnee City football fortunes appear on the rise as the Indians return 10 players with starting experience on offense and nine on defense.

Coming off a 2-6 season Pawnee City football fortunes appear on the rise as the Indians return 10 players with starting experience on offense and nine on defense.

A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect for Pawnee County and western Richardson County in southeast Nebraska.

Heavy rain and a lot of lightning are expected to move into Omaha early Thursday evening, KETV NewsWatch 7 chief meteorologist Bill Randby said.

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A group based in Auburn is trying to breathe new life into a proposal to build a large reservoir in southeast Nebraska.

Two ambulances and a helicopter helped a Nebraska woman give birth to triplets on Sunday, Omaha television station KETV reported.

An Oregon, Missouri truck driver was injured late Wednesday night in a single-vehicle accident on U-S 36 in Brown County app. ten miles east of Hiawatha. The Kansas Highway Patrol says 40-year-old Walter Doyle was traveling east on U-S 36 when he struck a truck wheel and tire in the roadway. The wheel flattened the front tire of the semi and broke an oil line, sending the semi to come to rest on the shoulder. The accident was reported at about 11:30 p.m. Brown County Sheriff John Merchant says two other vehicles also struck the truck wheel and tire. A jeep and a 26-foot U-Haul van. Both vehicles received minimal damage, however the incident caused three tires on the van to deflate.

The Nemaha County Sheriff’s Department says 57-year-old Dale Herrick of Table Rock, Nebraska was traveling west on U-S 36 when he swerved to avoid a collision with an oncoming vehicle driven by 16-year-old Brock Boldra, who was traveling east in the westbound lane. The vehicles collided head-on, just west of the U-S 36 and old Highway 75 junction. Boldra was transported to the Sabetha Community Hospital. Herrick, who was driving a semi tractor-trailer, wasn’t injured.

The Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the discovery of human remains at Tuttle Creek State Park near Manhattan. Sheriff Greg Riat says the remains were found late Tuesday afternoon near the Tuttle Creek Spillway Marina Road by an individual walking in the area.. Riat says the bones were taken to K-State anthropology professor Dr. Michael Finnegan. Riat says Finnegan’s initial findings are the bones are that of a white man between 40-and 50-years of age. He says there’s no word how long the remains might have been there. Riat says the sheriff‘s office is working with other agencies in an attempt to determine the identity of the remains found.

FALLS CITY — Falls City has broken ground on a new hospital that Mayor Rod Vandeberg calls the greatest project ever undertaken in the town. Vandeberg says the $21 million hospital is expected to have tremendous economic impact for the city. The hospital is replacing another facility that was built in 1918, with additions over the years. That includes a physician’s clinic in the 1990s. Officials say that the cost of upgrading the old facility were close to the cost of building a new one. Officials complain the current facility is cramped and doesn’t offer as much privacy as it should in specialty clinics.

The Gage County Sheriff is asking for help in locating a Beatrice woman last seen on Tuesday. Sheriff Millard Gustafson said 36-year-old Ann Kelly was thought to be driving a gray, 1991 Plymouth Voyager with Nebraska license plates when seen last on her way to work. Her husband reported her missing. So far, Gustafson said, the case is “generic” in terms of missing persons cases. He wasn’t sure if foul play is involved. Gage County officials plan to work with the Nebraska State Patrol on Saturday to arrange a flyover of the county to look for Kelly’s vehicle, or others, parked in unusual or remote locations. Gustafson asked people to call his office or a local CrimeStoppers hotline if they see a vehicle fitting the description of Kelly’s van or have additional information. The sheriff’s office number is (402) 223-5221.

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The 1,000-square-foot building, built 12 years ago, will be torn down soon because of severe mold problems, said Tom Sands, operations manager for the state Department of Roads. After the demolition, workers will build a new weigh station at the same site. The Nebraska City weigh station is one of five locations in the state equipped with weigh-in-motion sensors that allow faster checks of semitrailers. The Roads Department closed the weigh station, three miles west of Nebraska City, in December after Nebraska State Patrol Carrier Enforcement officers reported seeing mold growing in the air registers. The mold was caused by a broken water line under the building’s concrete slab, which had gone undetected for a long time. Estimates to get rid of the mold problem were between $70,000 and $135,000 or about 80 percent of the price tag for a new building, Sands said. “And there’s no guarantee that we would have the mold issue 100 percent resolved, which is a scary factor because you may have to go back and do it again,” Sands said. Roads Department officials decided it would make more economic sense to tear down the mold-infested structure and build a new weigh station for $150,000 to $200,000.

Haverkamp was sentenced in Richardson County District Court to 10 years to life in prison for his role in the murders of two people at a farm near Rulo in 1985.Haverkamp is one of several inmates working at the mansion under a decades old arrangement for work release.

On Thursday, 45-year-old Ricky Heideman of rural Elk Creek appeared in Pawnee County Court for a bond hearing.That resulted in the court setting a $40,000 bond for Heideman and appointing an attorney. Heideman remains lodged in the Johnson County jail in Tecumseh. His next court appearance is slated for Thursday, May 1 in Pawnee County Court. No charges have yet been filed in this case. This situation started from an arrest warrant on Wednesday, March 26 served at Heideman’s residence of 71924 Highway 50, or, along Highway 50 just south of the Johnson County and Pawnee County line. A non-active meth lab was dismantled at the scene. The arrest warrant specified several offenses including possession of anhydrous ammonia with the intent to manufacture meth and possession of stolen property. It was said this arrest also involves alleged thefts and burglaries in the area including Elk Creek and Gage County.

STERLING, Colo. — A man accused of illegally transporting Native American artifacts stolen from historic sites in Arizona and Nebraska to Colorado has been sentenced to 29 months in federal prison. Gary Garihan, 45, was also sentenced to 29 months in prison Tuesday for possession of more than eight ounces of marijuana. The sentences will be served concurrently. A federal grand jury indicted Garihan and his brother, Maxwell Garihan, 51, in 2007. The indictment alleged they illegally transported about $120,000 in artifacts from the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Harrison, Neb., and about $80,000 worth of artifacts from Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Ariz., to Colorado Both sites reported missing items after break-ins. An affidavit said one of the brothers sold rugs to a Denver dealer who did not realize the items were stolen and attempted to sell more to a Wheat Ridge dealer. The National Park Service said all the artifacts were recovered undamaged.

The Pawnee City Public Schools will be offering Drivers Education this summer. Classroom instruction will begin May 21st and will run from 9 a-m until noon with the driving in the afternoon from 1 - 4 p-m. The classroom hours are required and students must be present on those days. Alan Strong will be the instructor for the course. Students must be at least 14 years of age prior to October 1, 2008. The cost of the program is $150 and must be paid prior to May 2nd

Nebraska farmers will plant less corn this year and sow nearly a third more acres in soybeans, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nebraska farmers also will plant less hay, oats and sunflowers and already planted fewer acres last fall for winter wheat to be harvested this year. The report, which is based on a survey conducted earlier this month, said sorghum acres aren’t expected to change from last year’s 350,000. The Nebraska corn acres are forecast at 8.8 million, down 6 percent from last year but 9 percent higher than 2006. Nationally, corn acres are expected to drop 8 percent from last year. Nebraska soybean acres are forecast at 5 million acres. The report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service said that’s a jump of 32 percent from 2007 but 1 percent under the record high in 2006. Higher corn production costs, higher soybean prices and higher prices for other crops when the survey was taken combined to lower the corn figures, said the executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board. “Corn and soybean markets have fluctuated considerably this spring, and this will likely continue,” said executive director Don Hutchens on Monday in a news release. “As markets change following this report, what producers intend to plant may change along with them.” Hutchens also said seed supplies and weather will be in play when Nebraska farmers finally take to the fields this spring. Stored corn is up from last year at this time, the USDA said. Nationally, there was 6.9 billion bushels on hand, versus 6.1 billion on March 1, 2007. In Nebraska, the stored corn supply was 767 million bushels on March 1 — 20 percent more than March 1 last year, the USDA said. Winter wheat was sown on 1.95 million Nebraska acres this past fall, which the report said was 5 percent less than 2007 but 8 percent above 2006.

TECUMSEH — Derek S. Breazeale will spend at least the next 12 years in prison. Breazeale, 29, of Lincoln, was convicted and sentenced in Johnson County District Court on Monday for two thefts from a Subway and the Harvest Bowl in Tecumseh. Judge Daniel Bryan sentenced Breazeale to serve 20 months to five years in prison on each of two counts of felony theft. Both of the Tecumseh businesses were broken into on Nov. 11, 2007. Breazeale was charged with destroying the businesses’ front doors and stealing cash and other property. Breazeale pleaded no contest to two counts of felony theft. In February, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson sent Breazeale to prison for 25 to 40 years for a string of burglaries in Lincoln in 2006 and early 2007. Lincoln police said Breazeale played a role in break-ins at a nail salon, hair salon and dry cleaner at a strip mall in the Highlands on Sept. 20, 2006, and at a fast-food restaurant Feb. 28, 2007. Including the Lancaster County sentences, Breazeale will be eligible for parole in 2020, with an anticipated release date of August 2027, according to Johnson County Attorney Julie Smith Hogancamp. Last Nov. 1, Breazeale escaped from jail in Kansas by climbing through the duct work and jumping off the roof, just 10 days before the thefts in Tecumseh. Breazeale was arrested as a fugitive in Lincoln on Nov. 14, following a Crimestoppers’ tip. Breazeale remains charged with a theft in Saunders County, escape in Kansas and a burglary in Illinois.