ECHO 25 CENTS
Last Legs Publishing, Smith Center
The people’s choice for a newspaper voice in the Heart of the Heartland Empire
Saturday, April 2, 2010
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I got an E-mail from Kendall E. Nichols. That’s the Kendall Nichols south of Harlan. He had read my remembrances of the Harlan ice fishermen. I had said I didn’t know if there was any fish spears left in Harlan or not. Kendall said he knew of one good one and several just average ones. He said someone had put the good one in his dad’s pickup. Kendall inherited it with the admonition to “take good care of it.”
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All that ice fishing I was talking about took place back in the ‘30’s. So now it can be told because I’m sure the statutes of limitations has run out on their past indiscretions.
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Then I got an E-mail from Ellie Sparks. She said when she was young she used to say “bull —-. Then she refined it to BS. Now, when the occasion calls for it she just says, “Pelosi.”
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Joe Biden caught considerable flack for a word he used when talking to the president. I’d never heard the word before but if you use fonicks it sounded like it started with “Ph.”
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Well how about that sports fans…Smith Center is not only going to have the regional track meet here they are also going to have the regional golf meet here. That means more kids and parents in town. There are going to be golf teams here from Beloit, Ellsworth, Goodland, Hays TMP-Marian, Minneapolis, Norton, Phillipsburg and Smith Center.
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I don’t know much about high school golf but I do know that Smith Center has one of the best in Alex Hobelmann.
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An I do know Greg Hobelmann is the Athletic Director and he ain’t afraid of work.
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I listened to the Big Joe polka show and polkas are just like politicians—when you’ve heard one you’ve heard em all.
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But as I watch the people do the polka I notice there are some really good dancers, there are some really average dancers and there are some really poor dancers…..But they all seem to be having a really good time.
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But I do notice I have never seen anybody that is dancing and chewing gum. Which lead me to believe that you can’t chew gum and dance at the same time.
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Next year Smith Center starts the football season with two home games and that is followed by three away games. The tow home games are Attwood and Phillipsburg here and the three away games are Ellis, Plainville and Norton away.
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Eddie Hall said that one of his jobs when he worked at the Harlan elevator was sharpening fish spears.
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The last I looked the 800 block of East Court was still impassable.
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I am the only one in the Class of’42 that considered the hundred yard dash as a distance run.
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I just can’t win. Last Friday I was severely reprimanded by the assembled ladies at the Rec. Hall at Western Plains Village for talking to much. Monday of this week they kept asking what was wrong with me because I was so quiet.
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Actually I felt like the last rose of last summer but I wasn’t gong to tell them and give them the satisfaction of knowing I didn’t feel good.
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Got a note from Susan Bierman who lives in Denver. She said her daughter’s book club was reading, “The Help” one of the top ten books that is being checked out from the Smith Center Library.
It is a book written by an African American lady that recalled the African American ladies were trusted to raise white kids but weren’t trusted to polish the silver.
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I would guess with the new track that there might be some long standing track records broken this year.
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I think Virgil Nelson hold the record for running from the south door of the school house to Mont Burr’s pool hall.
I know I’ve said this before but I’m going say it again. Lyman Attwood was one of the best snooker players Smith Center ever had.
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He is kinda old and kinda crippled up but I’ll bet he can still beat any of the young whippersnappers in town at snooker.
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The Murray Lull’s were going to Kansas City this week to pick up Jim and Jane Kirchner who were returning from the Philippines. The Kirchner’s were in the Philippines working at an orphanage where Jim was building new kitchen cabinets and Jane was teaching Sunday school classes.
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EASTER EGG HUNT APRIL 3RD 2010, WAGNER PARK, SMITH CENTER, KS AT 1 PM. PICTURES WITH THE EASTER BUNNY AT THE OLDDUTCH MILL STARTING AT NOON. PHOTOS WILL BE TAKEN BEFORE AND AFTER THE EASTER EGG HUNT. PHOTOS BY MIKE SAFT 5 X 7 @ $3,00
SPONSORED BY THE SMITH CENTER CHAMBER OF COMMERECE.
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March 31st was Coleen Kirkendall’s last day as Chamber secretary. Joan Nech is the new secretary of the Chamber
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So the job of Smith Center Chamber of Commerce is being transferred from the capable hands of Coleen Kirkendall to the equally capable hands of Joan Nech.
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I don’t think you pronounce Joan Nech’s name JoAnn. I think it is Joan, like Joan of Arc.
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Kendall Nichols thinks he caught a cold on the first day of Spring. I doubt if it a cold. Sounds more like allergies to me.
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You know the last few warm days has put a lot of pollen in the air.
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Mike Hughes was in Branson, Mo. last week so Judy Hall took over as bingo caller at Western Plains.
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Judy was so good that she could do it left handed.
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Patty Meyers is still kinda in charge of flowers at the Old Mill. Patty cleans out the flower beds, pull weeds and if she see kids dropping trash she suggests, in a nice way, that they put the trash in a trash can.
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And there are several gliders placed around the Old Mill grounds. Something young kids stand on the back of them and swing them way high in the air. Patty suggests, once again in a nice way, that if they want to swing they put their little fannies in the seat and swing like they are supposed to.
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Saw Dr. Shep at Gene’s last Tuesday afternoon. He had just paid his golf dues for the year. He said, “is that optimistic or what.”
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I’d like to play golf but I can’t drive, I can’t approach and I can’t putt. But other than that I’m pretty darned good.
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But I have read Golf For Dummies and it told me to forget it. I wasn’t ever gonna learn.
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Gene Coaaway swore up and down that he wasn’t going to plant potatoes till the first of April. He just said that to fake Joe Lambert and Lyle Morgan out. Then on Tuesday, March 29th he planted potatoes and set out 30 onion sets.
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You just can’t trust a gardener. They are as competitive as any golfer and they lie about when they are going to plant, what they are going to plant and how much yield they got.
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I just don’t trust em. But I sure will take anything they want to give me from their garden…
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Jack & Arlene Benn are lollygagin around down there in Texas but he will make it home in time to plant tomatoes.
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An he will probably bring some of them good sweet Texas onion home with him.
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The city street crew have about run out of barricades to set up where they are running cement in pot holes in the city streets.
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It used to be that you would see one city boy working and three city boys watching. You don’t see that any more. The ratio has flip flopped.
Well, I’ll never watch Dancing with the Stars again. When Buzz Aldrin wasn’t the first one eliminated I lost all interest in the program.
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After all it is a dance competition
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The 800 block of East Court is open to traffic again after having been closed for some time. The new sewer lift has been installed and Glen Allen’s yard has been planted to grass. Glen said the state told him what kind of grass they planted.
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You know gardeners are as competitive as golfers. Gene Conaway sat there with a straight face and for several weeks told his gardening competitors that he was going to plant potatoes on April 1st. Then he snuck out and planted them on March 30th.
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Meanwhile Joe Lambert kept saying it was to early to plant potatoes, but on March 30th he, with the help of his wife Beverly and his neighbor Sue, snuck out and planted some Pontiacs and some Yukon Gold.
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Now it is a race to see which one has potatoes bigger than marbles.
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Glen Alllen was in a foul mood last Wednesday morning. Someone had broke beer bottles on his street and he failed to see any humor I the situation.
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Tuesday was coach Dayna Finch Weltmer’s last day at Creighton University. Her mother in law, Deb Weltmer was kinda mysterious about what her next job was going to be but she did say Dayna was wearing Red and saying Go Big Red.
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I think several people are going to AA meetings here in Smith Center. AA that stands for Arloa’s Aerobics.
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Me N Momma would go but it starts before dawn cracks
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THE NEWLY-FORMED FRIENS OF THE ART WILL BE SPONSROING TWO EVENTS THIS SPRING. THE PROFESSIONAL DAY’S LUNCHEON WHICH WILL BE HELD AT THE AMERICAN LUTHERAN CHURCH ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21ST AT NOON IN HONOR OF OUR COMMUNITY’S WORKING FORCE HOWEVER, ALL WOMEN ARE WELCOME. THERE WILL BE A BAKED POTATO BAR AND SALAD, AND DESERT. ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE LUNCHEON WILL BE BY THE SMITH CENTER HIGH SCHOOL FORENSICS STUDENTS. FOR RESERVATIONS, CALL DELPHA GODSEY AT 785-697-2942 OR HAZEL NICHOLS AT 282-6109 BY APRIL 16TH.
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THE ANNUAL ARTS FESTIVAL ALSO SPONSORED BY THE FRIENDS OF THE ARTS WILL BE HELD AT THE SMITH CENTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GYMNASIUM AT 216 EAST JEFFERSON ST. ON SATURDAY, MAY 1. ARTIST ENTRIES ARE DUE FOR JUDGING BETWEEN 7:30 AND 10:00 A. M. ON SATURDAY, MAY 1STTHE MORNING OF THE SHOW.THE EXHIBITS WILL BE OPEN FOR PUBLIC VIEWING FOM 1:00 TO 4:00 P. M. THE AFTERNOON OF MAY 1ST. DIVISIONS FOR THE SHOW ARE ADULT, JR. HIGH,SRHIGH, GRADE SCHOOL AND PROFESSIONAL. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL DELPHA GODSEY AT 785-607-2942
FRIENDS OF THE ARTS CONSISTS OF THE MEMBERS AND OFFICERS OF THE DISBANDED ARTS COUNCIL.
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In the above story it has both Delpha and Hazel’s phone number. In the second story it only has Delpha’s phone number. I ask Kendall Nichols if you could call Hazel. Kendall who is the King of his Castle, the Foreman of his Spread, the Hancho of his Rancho said you could call Hazel he said, “yeah go ahead.
And I have witness that he said it.
Judy Hall went to see her dad at his home in Seneca over the weekend. Judy said her dad was doing well following an operation and he will be glad to see her. She says when she walks in the door all his abilities cease.
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He knows he has got good help so why not use it.
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Edie Drake says her name in Edith. The way she pronounces it it comes out Eduth
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I finished taking the Scotch Tape off my windows on Good Friday. It had been there to hold up the Christmas decorations.
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Dede Bolton said he remember when we used to play hockey down on the sewer pond. He said one time Norman Hawley was chasing the puck (can) and he couldn’t get stopped and went into some open water. The open water was nothing but sewage. It was cold and by the time Norman got home he crackled when he walked.
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Frozen sewage will do that to you.
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Robert Kirkendall was here visiting his mother, Doris. To pass the time he helped Lyle Morgan on the new shed Morgan was building.
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Ernie Schlatter showed up at Paul’s Café last Wednesday afternoon. He had been dismissed from the hospital twenty minutes before that.
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Ernie had been passing some kidney stones.
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They tell me that passing kidney stones is more painful that childbirth.
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That’s what I heard.
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The Smith Center Chansonaires went to Branson. On Tuesday morning they opened at Group Six and done good. That evening they opened Hay Good and they done great. They didn’t hit a sour note until they got six miles out of Branson on their way home when somebody said the Redmen bus engine seized, what ever that means, someone else said the bus engine froze, whatever that means, and somebody else said the bus engine locked, what ever that means. Anyhow, they were sitting on the side of the road when a football coach from Branson drove by. He saw the name Smith Center Redmen and he made a U turn and came back and volunteered to drive back to Branson and get one of the high school buses and take them back to town. So he did and they unloaded at the Branson Mall.
They killed a couple of hours at the Branson Mall until a charter bus out of Branson came to pick them up…
The guy that worked for the Branson Bus Company was the guy that had originally delivered the Redman Bus to Smith Center. He had worked in Kearney at the time and delivered to bus to Smith Center from Kearney.
Now as I understand it, the Smith Center singing group and their sponsors piled into the chartered bus. The chartered bus didn’t have luggage room under the bus so all the luggage was piled in the center of the bus. Then kids and sponsors piled in.
Then bus driver Roger Allen drove the chartered bus back to Smith Center. The next day Steve McNary took the bus to Kearney where the charter company has some buses. I don’t know where the Redmen bus is or what is going to be its ultimate fate.
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All I do know is that in the future when the class of 2010 has a class reunion they will say, “do you remember the time we went to Branson.
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Bruce Miles was sitting in the Second Cup last Thursday. He called his wife at home and ask her if the had mopped up the wet spot on the floor because of a leak.
She was dismayed. She didn’t know of any leak That’s when he said, “April Fool”
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That’s what I call living dangerously
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Stay ahead of the posse.
