Many helped make Seventh Grade Heritage Day tour a success

Dear Editor,

On behalf of the Hometown Competitiveness Youth Task Force, I would like to thank everyone who made our second Seventh Grade Heritage Day tour a success.

Two years ago, our group hoped to create an event that gave our middle school youth an opportunity to appreciate and understand their McCook roots and an event which complimented the ag tour our eighth graders experience.

Under the leadership of Andy Long, we enlist community members who donate their time and talents to share McCook's history with our youth. Those of us who were fortunate to be able to visit each site, got to hear great speakers plus witness the awe of the youth who had never visited many of our local stops. Mother Nature gave two days, two years in a row of gorgeous weather for the walking tours.

Students begin the day with a welcome at the Fox Theatre. McCook graduates who left McCook but have returned encouraged students to consider McCook as they encounter the future.

Thanks to Nate Schneider, Bill Longnecker, and Matt Huff for sharing their stories. Thank you to Mr. Ramsay's MHS Web 2 and 3 classes which created a video of the sites students visit. During the day, students visited the McCook Gazette, Heritage Square homes, the Keystone Business Center, McCook National Bank, Memorial United Methodist Church, the Railroad Club Museum, Sehnert's Bakery, and the High Plains Museum. Thanks to Orschelns who donated bottled water for the day. Thanks also to our high school Youth Change Reaction students who served as tour guides along side the seventh grade teachers and paraprofessionals.

McCook is a giving, caring community. We appreciate the enthusiastic reception we receive each time we contact people to share the history, open their business or support the day in some other way.

This is a wonderful place to raise our kids!!!

Pam Wolford,

McCook, Neb.