Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First

Years Ago

December 2011

Kimball County commissioners Dave Bashaw, Larry Brower and Larry Engstrom attended a state workshop in Kearney as part of a continuing education and leadership development series sponsored by the Nebraska Association of County Officials.

Approximately 800 elected officials and employees attended the conference.

The program updated county leaders on recent changes in state laws and provided training on related responsibilities.

December 2007

Steve and Tiffany Howton of Harrisburg had their home destroyed by fire Dec. 12. No one was injured but the home and family possessions were destroyed in the blaze. Contact Pastor Ken Boston of the Harrisburg Church to donate to the assistance fund. The Banner County Fire Department is planning a benefit.

December 2002

The Kimball Police Department has received six handheld alcohol breath testing units from a traffic safety grant award. The units are valued at $275 each and were provided by the Nebraska Office of Highway safety as part of the state’s ongoing effort to prevent injuries, and fatalities.

Kimball Police Chief Bill Shank said the new alcohol breath testers are replacements for older units. They have used such units for ten to fifteen years, Shank said.

Highway Safety Administrator Fred Zwonechek said, “The Kimball Police Department was awarded the new equipment to complement their officer’s ability to determine a suspected impaired driver’s blood alcohol level.” The portable unit display a digital reading of the alcohol level form a suspect’s breath sample.

December 1977

Sherry L. Webb of Kimball was injured in a one-car accident early Thursday morning when she lost control of her car and hit an embankment. she was taken by a private party to Kimball County Hospital and hospitalized for rib fractures and scalp lacerations.

An investigating state patrol official reported that the car was eastbound 1.7 miles east of Kimball when it went off the south side of the road, veered back across the road into the ditch and hit an embankment. The car continued into a field, turned around and came to rest on the ridge at the edge of the road.

Damage to the 1976 auto was estimated at $700. The accident occurred at 2:30 a.m. on old Highway 30.

December 1957

A 24-year-old Kimball man drew the maximum sentence Friday in County Court for procuring liquor for a minor.

Willis R. Stallman was fined $200 and costs and sentenced to an indefinite stay in jail, not to exceed 120 days. Stallman bought two half pints of liquor for William Wells, 16, also of Kimball.

The Wells youth drew a $50 fine for willful reckless driving after he drove his car into the irrigation ditch in southwest Kimball last week.

December 1942

Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Johnson were injured, Mrs. Johnson quite seriously, when their car overturned on the highway in Rocky Hollow, northeast of Kimball Saturday.

The elderly couple were on their way to the Frank Prohaska place in the Kirk neighborhood to bring their son, Emmet, to Kimball.

Mrs. Merle Cochran, their daughter, came from Cheyenne to care for her parents.

The car was badly damaged, it was reported.

December 1932

Mrs. Lou P. Dean, wife of Ben Edward Dean, former resident of Kimball died at the Lutheran hospital in Alamosa, Colo., Christmas morning. Death was attributed to pneumonia. The body, accompanied by Mr. Dean and children, was brought to Kimball yesterday and funeral services will be held from the Burwell mortuary this afternoon at 2 o’clock. Interment will be made in the Kimball cemetery.

Mrs. Dean was born in Allegheny county, North Carolina, on September 15, 1892. She graduated from the Charlott, North Carolina nurses’ training school in 1913 and took post graduate work in several institutions. On August 16, 1918 she enlisted as a Red Cross nurse and served overseas in that capacity for several months, being honorably discharged from duty May 2, 1919. At the time of her death she was a reserve nurse of the Red Cross. While in the service Mrs. Dean contracted a malignent case of flu and since that time had not been in good health and subject to pneumonia frequently.

She was married on May 17, 1922 at Pasadena, Calif., to Mr. Dean.

The deceased was a member of the American Legion, the American Legion auxiliary, the Methodist Church and the Order of the Eastern Star. She is survived by her mother, of North Carolina, several sisters and brothers, her devoted husband and three children, Merrill, 9 years old; Virginia, 6, and Ramona, 4.

Mr. and Mrs. Dean and children had made their home in Phoenix, Arizona, until last September when they moved to Alamosa, where Mr. Dean is associated with his brother, Earl Dean, in a local collection company.

December 1922

The home of Operator Ladely and his mother, at Potter, was burned to the ground last week when a young man roomer replenished the fire in the stove and left the house for a short time; the overheated stove set fire to the house and it was destroyed. Mrs. Ladely is an invalid and had not left the house for weeks until carried out. Most of the contents were burned, the piano and phonograph being about all that was saved. The house belonged to the Union Pacific. Mr. Ladely was at his duties at the depot at the time.

December 1912

Word has been received by Kimball friends of the serious illness of L. H. Lilly at his winter home in Los Angeles, California. He suffered another stroke of paralysis and is in quite feeble health.