. . . to Mrs. Dávid Rivett and Jim Petro and the many volunteers who collected $1,656 for muscular dystrophy. The Nebraska City group didn't get national television like Mr. Lewis but they got the attention of the public through their own campaign and did an admirable job.
The FFA honoree
The recognition given to Jim Johnson, Union, by the FFA is for a select group. The son of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Johnson, Union, Jim was named to receive the American Farmer Degree, the highest award presented by the national FFA.
The 1975 NCHS graduate is the second FFA member from [illegible] to receive the award.-Howard Vogel got it in 1946.
Applejack
The Chamber's Applejack Festival committees are geared for a big day September 16 when about 20 high school bandsmen will parade on Central and Peru State and Tarkio will play in the Apple Bowl that night at Pioneer Field.
The old Apple Bowl days held after WWII were for the eight man teams from the area. George Near, former News-Press reporter, was instrumental in organizing the games.
From what we've been reading about more small schools going back to eight man, it may be that the Applejack committee will look once again at the small schools.
The dedication
Thanks to Mrs. Carline Moles and her committee for the fine dedication ceremony at Pioneer Field. The purple and gold ribbon cutting and the introductions were appreciated by all.
We disagree with the engineer and architect, the press box should be elevated so that more seating is available. Oh . . . you might be interested. The stadium on the west side at Hayward park seated 1600. Add 500 for the east side and the Pioneer seating totaled 2,100.
The new stadium on the east side at Pioneer Field seats 1900. Add that to the seating across the field and you've got space for 2,400 souls.
The State Fair
We walked the state fairgrounds thoroughly last week, checked the barns and 4-H and FFA buildings only to learn several days later that FFA displays were not scheduled for display until the middle of the week.
Dave Blecha, the Nebraska City FFA adviser, is often the topic of conversation in our home. Mr. Blecha has at least one girl-turned-farmer in his class in the form of our 17-year-old Jeannea.
And the "baby" of the family (it's Dad's privilege to have one baby in the family) worked hard on her project. Oh, not something you can put in a car or a pickup truck, but something that Dale Grundman has to haul in his bid truck — a 14-foot feed tunk.
Mr. and Mrs. Don Mason accompanied us on the long day and when it came to sit and talk and show and tell, we were one pooped group.
We think we saw everything (naw, Don chickened out on the hootchie - kootchie show) and a lot of Nebraska City people and other Otoe County Fair goers. There was one thing we didn't try, but two in our party did — the diet computer check list which was in the Youth Complex. We live in a strange world where we have so much food that we use an electronic device to measure the quality of what we consume.
The headlines
The Page 1 stories in Nebraska the past week have been school closings because of hot weather. What do the kids do the rest of the day? Whatever happened to the old swimming hole that was "open" every day?
Volleyball
Mort Porter agreed that it was a hot night for volleyball, but we went to Prichard Auditorium anyway and watched our teams win.
We looked around. It is an old auditorium, probably much like Memorial Building in Nebraska City and we both wondered why can't the city fix up our public building to upgrade it [illegible] use. We all know it'd cost a fortune to replace it. Take a look at Prichard, someone engineered a good job on an old facility and it looks pretty sharp and is used a great deal.