Progress edition celebrate's area's 'can-do' spirit

Two-thousand eight was a year that presented challenges unseen in decades. Even so, the people of McCook and the surrounding area displayed the kind of "can-do" spirit that our parents and grandparents would be proud to call their own.

We are celebrating that spirit all week through daily installments of "In Motion" our annual Progress edition.

In Monday's 22-page Progress section, McCook's businesses were on display, as well as particular focuses on those members of the city's business community who continued to invest in the community by either-expanding their storefronts or moving them to more visible locations.

Today's version includes 16 pages on businesses across the area. There is an eye on growth in certain towns: Curtis -- where a million-dollar donation led to the completion of a community center, and a local businessman launched his own hotel as a destination for vacationers; Imperial, where projects included the construction of a new swimming pool and football field, and a new building for the Natural Resources District office and Cambridge, where the local health care system moves into its 51st year, and continues to think about growth.

Wednesday will have another 16-page section, this time about the area's top industry, agriculture. Farmers and ranchers have endured another year of challenges and changes, and our focus is on the strengths of our ag producers, their innovative spirit, and the businesses that aim to serve them. Stories about Hayes Center's truly one-of-a-kind "Ag Academy," the Trenton ethanol plant, and the expansion of storage capacity at Oberlin's Hansen-Mueller are included in this section.

Thursday's section will focus on stories about McCook city businesses, and the school district, as well as information about the churches of McCook, advances at Community Hospital including the new MRI machine, the Habitat for Humanity house, and more.

Friday, we'll celebrate some business milestones; we don't call the section "Years in Business" for nothing. We'll also include additional stories on the successes of businesses in McCook and the surrounding area that we might have missed, but know you'll want to hear about.

In all, there will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pages provided to readers about the successes we've shared over 2008, and hopefully somewhere in there will be a word or two that will inspire more people across Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas to make 2009 an even better year.