Taking stock of Nebraska’s population trends

I’ve recently read a report on the population “out migration” from states of the U.S. New York leads the pack, but California, as expected, isn’t far behind. I was surprised to see that our own state of Nebraska was included in the top ten.

Yes, I have also noticed that McCook and Red Willow County have been slowly shrinking in population numbers over the years. Memory tells me that the population of Red Willow County was 12,615 back when I was County Commissioner; Nebraska was 1.8 million.

Currently, 2026 figures are estimated at 10,409 for this county and 2,040,670, which actually shows an increase for the State in contrast to the report that I noted earlier. I also think that I remember the signs along the highway coming into McCook when I was in High School back in the early 1950’s, read Population 8,500.

I haven’t seen any studies for the decrease in our local population, but I have several ideas of my own. For one, more than a few locals build new residences just outside our city limits. Obviously, many are wishing to avoid paying McCook property taxes, yet it is a short drive into town to shop, eat and satisfy their other needs. Then, too, farmers of small acreages have been selling to large operators who accumulate thousands of acres. That leaves more unoccupied rural farmhouses. Looking at the population of our retirement village of Kinship Pointe, I see quite a few of our residents who were former farmers, who scraped by for years, spending a few precious dollars by living frugally, and then the price of the acres that they owned increased almost spectacularly, so they sold and can now afford to live in this wonderful place. Three meals a day, and housekeeping done for them.

McCook is fortunate to have two manufacturing firms. Parker is the longest-lived and employs a fair number of locals. Valmont is, I suspect, larger, and their employees manufacture every center pivot system sold in the United States. Probably our largest employers are the McCook School System and Community Hospital.

We are blessed to have dynamic leadership in our local hospital, always thinking up ways to serve our community. It is impressive that they just built a new housing facility to give medical students a place to live in the business section of McCook while experiencing the medical training required for their degrees. Also providing services at our hospital are visiting specialists that come from Lincoln, Sidney and other nearby areas to provide their specialized services to our community. Our airport makes those visits possible.

I mentioned the large number of employees in the McCook School System, but also neglected to mention our Junior College Campus, which attracts students from a large area. The College specializes in EMT training and certification.

Most of us have noticed that the large meat packing plant in Lexington, Tyson, has ceased operation, leaving a large number of workers unemployed. It is interesting to note that the Nebraska Department of Labor has opened an office in Lexington to help those people to secure unemployment benefits. They offer help in filling out requests for unemployment insurance and other help from Nebraska’s welfare system. Interesting to me is that for those unemployed workers/families, the paperwork is offered in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Somali. Whoa, I didn’t know that there was a community of Somali’s here in Nebraska. I just hope that they aren’t into the graft business, as their brothers are in Minneapolis. (That wasn’t kind!)

Anyhow, I am sure that losing 3200 jobs in a small community like Lexington has to be tough for everyone there. For sure, we don’t need something similar happening here in McCook. Pay attention, all you demonstrators here objecting to our ICE facility just on the edge of our fair city.

That is how I saw it.