Friends and Neighbors: Les Reemts' planned short stay in Kimball has lasted over 50 years

Les Reemts built a life in Kimball in a somewhat accidental way.

He completed pharmaceutical college in Scottsbluff, where he worked for nearly two years before he moved with his wife, Beverly, to Colorado.

"We always liked Colorado and we snooped around down there," Les said.

Colorado was where they really wanted to be, and he said and they would have stayed in that state - except the cost of living was too high.

"It was tough trying to live on what they were paying. We liked the town; we liked the job; we liked the store, but you have to have enough money to feed your family," he said.

When he heard about an opening in Kimball, he and Bev came to see what the town and the job had to offer.

Les asked his wife what she thought about making the move to Kimball, and when they saw the tiny pharmacy, she told him to do what he thought was best for their family.

"I had some reservations. It was really small, but I thought we could do anything for a little while," Les said. "We thought we would do this until we could find something better."

The booming economy in Kimball made finding a home for sale difficult at the time, Les recalled, but when the family came to look at the pharmacy, they were shown a house as well.

"There were a lot of kids in school," Les recalls. "I said, 'Well, how about we do this to get out of this mess and then we will look around more once we get there.'"

Plans were made to come to Kimball, work for a year or maybe two and then continue on to a more favorable place. That was in 1964.

In Kimball at that time, there were three pharmacies – one where Bemis Drug is currently located, another next to Larsen's Jewelry Store and the third, where Les began in Kimball.

Les worked in the tiny pharmacy, located right next to the clinic at the time, for the three men who owned it – Ellis Hickman, Larry Anderson, and Doc Shamberg.

"It was real small," Les said. "It had a little balcony that the vet stuff was at."

Kimball needed three pharmacies at the time, as the oil field boom had begun and construction crews for the missile silos were in town as well.

Les recalled that Kimball had many trailer parks at the time, which included one that Boeing built specifically for workers on the missile projects. It is now known as Ridgewood.

"That place was a godsend for me to be able to deliver scripts to," Les recalls. "Kimball was booming back then. I managed that store and then eventually I decided that I would like to buy the others out and they were very willing to sell."

The decision was made, perhaps not purposefully, to stay and raise their family in Kimball.

Les bought the owners out and then, years later, he bought the building on the corner of Second and Walnut streets, an old filling station, where he built the Kimball Pharmacy.

"I worked hard, a lot of long hours," Les said. "It's kind of sad that the store I had for all those years is just sitting empty. It's a little tear-jerker."

That store raised the family Les built with his beloved wife, Beverly.

Les met Beverly while in high school in eastern Nebraska. She was one of a set of identical twins,

"I lived in a little town about 25 miles straight south of York in a little town called Geneva," Les said. "Some of us guys were looking for chicks so we drove up to York. It was fruitless. So we went into the little ice cream parlor on main street and there was Bev. And I thought, 'Wow!'"

Les said he did not speak to her, and left without knowing her name. Fortune smiled down on him as the friends walked down the street and Les saw a photograph in the window of a studio.

It was a photo of Bev's identical twin sister, Barbara. Les went in to find out who she was, though he knew she was not the same girl who took his breath away in the soda shop.

"Most people couldn't even tell them apart," Les said. "But there was something even at first sight that wasn't quite the same to me."

Les asked Bev to his school's spring festival, a formal dance, through a postcard. As their fathers traded with one another, she was allowed to go.

"Her father decided that since I was a Reemts I must be a good boy," Les laughed. "I was a good boy."

As a devoted identical twin sister, Bev said she would only go if her sister, Barbara, would also have a date to the occasion.

Les had a friend who agreed to take Barbara, and according to Les, they picked the ladies up together.

"The girls had to wear formals," Les said. "And her father didn't have a lot of money. But he somehow got both the girls formals."

"I dated her all that summer quite a bit and I was working out on a farm, so it was tough getting away," Les recalled. "Then I went to university and I didn't have a car back in those days. A lot of guys didn't have cars, so I couldn't go see her."

Les said that while he was unable to see her, she began seeing someone else and eventually married. He did not finish school, but instead went into the service.

Les' mother had an identical twin sister, whose son, Harold, married Bev's identical twin, Barbara.

When Les returned from the service he met Bev again while visiting Harold and Barbara. After a time, Bev divorced her first husband and Les married her.

"Sons of identical twins married identical twins," Les laughed.

Bev and Les moved to Kimball with their family, which included their two daughters, Linda and Leslie, and their son, Robert.

"I was very fortunate, I had a good family, good relations; had a great high school, good friends. I've been pretty fortunate. I couldn't have asked for a better companion. She was just outstanding. She was brought up the way I was, with a lot of good values," Les said. "Kimball has been very good to my family and that is, to me, what is most important - good to my kids, good to my wife."