By Jerry Purvis
news@geringcitizen.com
Frances Fowler of Gering has helped play hostess to Old Settlers and political dignitaries for the past 62 Oregon Trail Days celebrations, but that came to an end last week.
Frances announced her retirement from organizing and hosting the Dignitaries Coffee, scheduled for the morning of the main parade during Nebraska’s oldest celebration.

By Jerry Purvis
news@geringcitizen.com
Nebraska Gov. David Heineman met with Hod Kosman, board member of Platte River Basin Environments, to learn about a proposed expansion of the Wildcat Hills Nature Center south of Gering.
Joining the governor were representatives from the Nature Conservancy and the Wildcat Hills Nature Center for a tour of the center and surrounding area.
Although the state is facing an extremely tight budget, Heineman said all such projects begin with a dream.

By Dawn Bowen
dawn@geringcitizen.com
Middle school students in Scottsbluff will begin the 2010-11 school year on Tuesday in a state-of-the art, pristine learning facility.
Principal Mike Mason gave a public tour of the newly renovated Bluffs Middle School on Friday, guiding a group of curious people along the carpeted hallways and pointing out various features like security cameras, the two elevators, a fire sprinkler system and motion-sensitive lighting.

By Jerry Purvis
news@geringcitizen.com
Gering’s neglect to enforce its own ordinances brought two residents of the Meadows area in southwest Gering to the city council to ask for help.
“As goes the neighborhood, so goes the city” said resident Judy Hoxworth. She distributed photos of her neighborhood, showing violations from a refrigerator left in a driveway, numerous vehicles, a camper and a horse trailer, with expired tags or no tags at all, parked on lawns, and puncture vines overgrowing city sidewalks. Another picture shows where bagged garbage was piled in the backyard of one house.

By Jerry Purvis
news@geringcitizen.com
The Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office is now working with the State Fire Marshal to investigate three recent suspicious fires in the Gering area.
Over three nights in mid-August, fires of a suspicious origin broke out southwest of Mitchell and two others southwest of Gering. An old schoolhouse was on fire at County Roads T and 19. Several bales of hay burned at County Roads U and 19 and another fire at County Roads G and 10, the old Mitchell Valley School.

By Jerry Purvis
news@geringcitizen.com
Members of the Gering City Council approved the purchase of one-half acre of land from the Nash Finch Corporation for $33,000.
The area is part of the parking lot of the old Sun Mart supermarket building, which the city had purchased several years ago.

By Dawn Bowen
dawn@geringcitizen.com
A civil penalty is being imposed on the Scottsbluff processing facility of Western Sugar Cooperative due to the discharge of excessive amounts of fecal coliform bacteria into the North Platte River on numerous occasions.

Read more