At the south end of Norris Avenue in McCook sits what I consider one of our most under-utilized, not-fully appreciated and oft-maligned assets: the Amtrak train service. Last week, I, along with my two youngest children, hopped the train for our yearly ski trip. We boarded with another half dozen people, a few from McCook whereas others had driven to McCook, specifically to catch the train. (And yes, it was late by an hour, but it can’t be early because we would get left behind.)...

Earlier this week, I shared a post on social media that I think is even more relevant today after the events of Jan. 6 in both Washington D.C. and across the country.. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. Today.” - Mother Teresa Now, normally, we don’t advocate to do things alone. After all, the saying is “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”...

There are a lot of words to describe 2020: exhausted and frustrated, chaotic to challenging. While every year, there are many lists dedicated to describing the past 365 days, 2020’s list ranges from a long list of profanities to simply being tired. But the word I am selecting to describe 2020 and which I hope to hold up for 2021 is grateful...

If there are still a few people on your list who need a gift, it is time to resort to my personal favorite gift: create a handwritten note for an event or product to be redeemed next year. It is kind of like a gift certificate without the hassle of buying one...

With Christmas right around the corner, my friend Scrooge has been asked to share his thoughts about how the community has been transformed over the years, similar to Scrooge’s transformation in “A Christmas Carol.” For starters, I can’t say “Bah Humbug” about our community, who have truly stepped up to support one another...

For years, my husband and I have toyed with the idea of opening a retail store in McCook with the business divided into two distinct sides. One half would feature all our favorite junk foods, using machines we have accumulated over the years. Reminiscent of the county fair or childhood summers, the store would feature cotton candy in every flavor and color imaginable, funnel cakes piled high with fruit toppings, and popcorn covered in so many different seasonings, your head would spin. ...

Every year, it happens like clockwork at my house. At some point in the late fall or early winter, someone in my house gets up in the morning and stumbles to the bathroom, reaches into the shower to turn the handle ... and nothing. There’s no water...

In the early 2000s, my parents moved from McCook to a lakeside retirement community in Arkansas. Even at the time, it didn’t make sense because they had moved from Omaha to McCook just a few years earlier. Not because I lived in McCook but because of something much more persuasive: the grandkids...

Supporting and empowering our youth is a topic that should never far from the surface for our community. From grants for youth programs to scholarships to youth organizations, young people are a priority for the McCook Community Foundation Fund. But for many years, there was something missing ... making young people feel like they should return to our community and make an impact...

Andy and Geri Andersen had a passion for young people. So they turned that passion into a reality by creating an endowment with a focus on young people, with payouts to be distributed annually by a group of young people. Their financial gift to the McCook Community Foundation Fund is intended to support causes and dreams that will benefit youth, which gives youth the opportunity to disperse annual grant funds and which encourages young people to come home to raise their own families. ...

Every day, you wake up and have the opportunity to decide what kind of person you want to be. Am I going to get up early to exercise rather than roll over and hit snooze again? Am I going to volunteer for that organization in town which has been looking for help? Am I simply going to be more kind to others?...

Make an impact by voting and donating To say next week is important is an understatement. The 2020 elections are finally here, thank goodness. And as if that wasn’t enough, Big Give McCook is next Thursday, Nov. 5. Add on top of that the fact we’ll have just wrapped up Halloween, still adjusting to the time change and wondering about the never-ending threat of quarantine from Covid...

On the bookshelf in my bedroom sits a frame containing a yellowed Family Circus cartoon. The drawing shows the disheveled mom trying to corral her four small children. Meanwhile, a well-meaning - but not terribly helpful - elderly lady gives the stereotypical advice: Enjoy them every minute. Before you can turn around, they’ll be grown.”...

When I became a member of the McCook Community Foundation Fund, an unexpected shift happened in my thinking. Through the affiliation with the Nebraska Community Foundation, I began to see the potential of “what can be” instead of the common mindset about our lack of resources, lack of creative leadership, or just plain apathy that can become troublesome to our local community organizations...

Is it just me or does it seem like no topic is safe to discuss anymore? Autumn officially began a few weeks ago and it’s my favorite time of year. I love the cool mornings, the changing leaves, and digging out sweaters and sweatshirts to hide the early arrival of my “winter layers.”...

With McCook in the midst of celebrating Heritage Days, this is a great opportunity to reflect on the influential heritage McCook has on a regular basis ... something that many of us take for granted. Last week, I was hanging out in front of the Senator George Norris State Historical Site, or as it is more commonly known, the Norris Home. No, I don’t normally just hang out at historical sites, but was scoping out the yard for a future project...

This is McCook’s decade! I believe we’ll be sitting downtown after a Live at the Bieroc show in 2030 and look back and be amazed at what the community has accomplished. We’ll talk about how we built a new aquatics facility and new athletic fields. We’ll be excited about the improvements in programming and facilities at the Y. ...

This past weekend, I stood atop a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado and was thankful for the opportunity to be there. While my family are regular skiers, we had never purposely climbed to the top of these mountains. Yet, there we stood, gasping for air and gazing for miles in every direction...

There is a crowbar sitting in the corner of my bathroom at home. In fact, it has been there a few days, slightly hidden among the robes hanging from the hooks. Now, most people would be asking themselves, “Why is there a crowbar in my bathroom?” I quit asking “why” a long time ago after locating my missing dish soap on the trampoline or discovering three bags of marshmallows had disappeared overnight...

Last weekend, I took the latest Graff child to college in northwest Iowa. It is a small school with a swimming program. Additionally, it was located in a small community, where he won’t get lost in the shuffle or just be a number. (The same can be said for McCook Community College and yet another reason for kids to stay here, if only they had a swim team.)...

Anyone who has ever read this column knows that I try to stay positive, focusing on the good things happening in our community and how to get involved. At the same time, my personal views and feelings make into the mix, as well as tidbits about my family much to their chagrin...

If there has ever been a need to be adaptable, it is now. When schools began closing down in mid-March, everyone - including myself - hoped that this pandemic would quickly pass and we’d be back to normal soon. As the weeks turned into months, there was hope that everything would correct itself over the summer. But as we head into fall, “normal” seems far off on the horizon and we are forced once again to learn how to adapt...

Learning, growing right here at home If you would’ve asked me back in March what I was going to be doing for the summer of 2020, coming home to McCook was not at the top of my list. It was not that I didn’t love McCook or enjoy being here but rather I was making plans and looking at opportunities elsewhere. Just like the rest of the college students in this country, COVID-19 had other plans in mind...

Anyone with more than one child knows that none of them are the same. They each have their own characteristics and their own quirks, their own way of learning and their own way of responding to a situation. Just as every child is different, every high school class is different. Ask any teacher who has been teaching a few years about the ebb and flow of classes through a school...

With my mother-in-law, Dolores Graff, celebrating her 88th birthday on Friday, my family will wrap up a month chock full of birthdays, including mine a few weeks ago. If birthdays do nothing else, they give you a chance to reflect on the past year and evaluate what you have accomplished and what has happened in your life. Sometimes it is a good reflection; other times you may be left wanting to just forget...

Alongside my driveway stands my favorite tree, a giant, gnarly cottonwood. As you approach our house, the lone cottonwood towers over all the other trees and serves a s guidepost to our location. We’ve planted many trees since we moved into our house nearly 20 years ago, but this tree continues to dominate the landscape...

If there is one thing which has changed for my family over the past few months, it is the reduced number of miles on our vehicles. For the past decade, if we weren’t hosting a road race for the Republican River Fitness Series, we would be driving to a nearby state for an athletic event. ...

“There’s nothing to do here.” “I can’t have a career here.” “There’s no entertainment.” On the flip side….”Good schools.” “Low crime rate” “Great outdoor recreation.” These are just a few of the views from McCook youth as part of a recent survey. This past spring, the McCook Community Foundation Fund conducted a youth survey through the McCook High School. All 400-plus high school students were given the opportunity to voice their opinion on a variety of topics related to their community...

If you want to get noticed, take out a billboard, wear a Big Bird costume for the day, write a column about your mundane life. Or even easier - go for a bicycle ride. Earlier this week, a friend along with a few family members went on an early morning bike ride to Culbertson to get breakfast. i spent the rest of the day responding to everyone who had seen us out riding...

A few fun facts about Kitten Season I am constantly reading, have radio news shows playing for hours on end and have downloaded so many podcasts I could drive across the country without repeating a show. Yet, I learned something this week that I had never even considered. And it had nothing to do with a disease or injustice or even the never-ending, incessant, mind-numbing wind...

There are many variations to the telephone game but everyone has probably played it at some point in their life. It’s the game where the first person whispers a sentence to the person next to them, so that no one else can hear it. That person then turns to the person next to them and whispers what they heard. And so on and so on...

Last weekend, my family and I camped at Red Willow State Recreation Area north of McCook. Every camping spot was taken with fire pits surrounded each evening by people enjoying the outdoors. Boats sped across the water with kids laughing as the tubes bounced off the boat’s wake. And kayakers paddled in and out of the bays regardless of their age and athletic ability...

This column contains my comments (with some modifications) made during Monday’s McCook City Council meeting as part of citizen’s comments, which cannot have any further discussion or actions taken. In October 2015, the McCook City Council appointed 12 community members to the pool committee. ...

If you are like me, there are events and activities on your calendar which you wrote down or typed in months or even years ago. While the birthday reminders are still applicable, nearly everything else has been cancelled or moved online. Just yesterday, I removed the reminder on my phone about the high school band trip to New York City, scheduled for later this month. ...

Let’s be up-front about this: I am not going to win the best homeschool parent award. (Let’s be honest about that too: We aren’t really homeschooling either because we don’t develop the curriculum and we don’t do the grading; we are just doing what we are told to do during this crisis, so really we are crisis-schooling parents.)...

I have had the privilege of being on various Zoom calls with people from across the country as we make our way through these trying times. And one theme continues to emerge on a regular basis: People are turning to the outdoors to deal with this crisis...

If there is one thing this pandemic has taught me, it is that our world is changing quickly and we are all learning to adapt on the fly. Maybe you are a small business trying to figure out if you should let your employees go on unemployment or keep them on the payroll while trying to find things to fill their hours...

Every day, we make choices. We make the choice about what we will wear, what food we put into our bodies, what time we will get out of bed. For a couple of my kids, that is closer to lunch than to breakfast these days. Many of these decisions are made without much thought, but right now we have the chance to be very intentional about those choices...

In 2001, I had been writing a weekly column in the Gazette for several years, highlighting activities in our community, recounting the highjinks of my family and commenting on things that peaked my interest. But that column stopped the week Graff kid No. ...