Happy day before Thanksgiving, aka the day Matthew attempts to eat his body weight in stuffing. I always fail. But I try so, so hard.
We’re coming to your before the holiday break this week, with a couple of stories that I think celebrate the true and oh-so-complicated meaning of Thanksgiving. Let’s get right into it, as I prepare myself for a morning run (the downtown Omaha Turkey Trot 5K!) followed by less healthy things.
Trail of Memory: Thanksgiving week seems like the regrettably right time to revisit one of the darkest stories in Nebraska history — one that may soon have a happier ending.
If you have been to Fort Robinson, you may have seen the historical sign commemorating the Cheyenne Outbreak. Here, in the winter of 1878, an Army captain imprisoned a group of Northern Cheyenne — warriors, older folks, women and kids — and starved them in an attempt to force them to move back to the new Oklahoma reservation. Desperate, they smuggled in weapons and, on Jan. 9, 1879, broke out. This set off a running battle in which American soldiers killed unarmed innocents and committed other atrocities. (Some of the Cheyenne had previously committed atrocities of their own.)
Northwest Nebraska correspondent Heidi Beguin’s story tells us the history. But it focuses on what the tribe is attempting to do today, nearly 150 years later. They’re trying to remember the Cheyenne Outbreak as their ancestors remembered it. And they’re trying to heal some very old, very deep wounds.
Meet the Beckmans: Goshdarn, I’m so glad I got to meet Mel and Mary Ann. I’m thankful for this wonderful story from my one-time Omaha World-Herald columnist sibling Erin Grace, who now occasionally writes for FFP. The story of the Beckmans is a lifelong tale of persistence. Of doing what they thought was right, even when it was wildly unpopular or seemed outlandish. Of pushing that boulder up a hill, together, and never despairing when it rolled back down again.
On this Thanksgiving Week, Mary Ann and Mel Beckman provide a roadmap for how any of us could work to change our world, country, state, city — maybe even just one neighborhood block. We all care about different causes. We all have different points of view. But we can be united in awe, I think, by the simple, powerful advice that the 85-year-old Mary Ann gave after a lifetime of trying to do what she believes is right while fighting through much heartbreak.
“Just keep the work going,” Mary Ann said. And then, Erin Grace reports, her husband Mel nodded.
You maybe missed it: We had an unexplainable snafu last Friday, when the Internet Gods decreed that the weekly newsletter was unworthy of your email inboxes and instead delivered it to many of your spam and junk folders. (Rude, Internet Gods. Rude.)
So if you missed my golden, perfect words last week, that’s why. But more importantly, I don’t want you to miss last week’s story by our State Government Watchdog Reporter Sara Gentzler. She and data journalism guru Alex Richards have been tracking the campaign spending of U.S. Sen. and former Gov. Pete Ricketts and his family.
Their latest story: While governor, Ricketts spent heavily on legislative candidates — and heavily fighting some Republican state senators who differed with Ricketts on several issues. Longtime observers say it helped to change the Nebraska Legislature, making it more partisan and less independent.
While you are Black Friday shopping …: Please remember your friendly Nebraska nonprofit newsroom, which does important journalism like the stories above free of charge and then sends ‘em to you (via this newsletter and our website) and also to media outlets all around this state. Want to support us? Yes? Fantastic, because right now, during our year-end fundraising drive, any $1 you give us is matched.
What a deal! Double your dollar, while supporting the important mission of Nebraska nonprofit news!
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Complete this form or reach our newsroom at [email protected].
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours,
—Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- I wanted to highlight this story right up at the top, because, even if these newspapers get bought and saved, it highlights the dilemma we are facing in Nebraska and in the United States. The newspapers in Valentine and Ainsworth are slated to close on Christmas, leaving that part of the Sandhills with a gaping media hole. An average of 2.5 newspapers closes every week in the United States, reports Paul Hammel in the Nebraska Examiner. And nine Nebraska counties no longer have a newspaper.
Now, a newspaper isn’t the end-all, be-all of how a Nebraskan may get local news. Radio stations, TV stations and nonprofit news outlets like this one here do all play a role. But they’re still so important for so many reasons. As Dennis DeRossett, director of the Nebraska Press Association, says in the story: “The local newspaper is the thread that holds a community together. Once it’s gone, you lose that.” - Memorial Stadium went cashless. And — voila! — people are spending more money at Memorial Stadium! Story by Aaron Bonderson of Nebraska Public Media.
- A wild election story from Denton, where two people tied for a seat on the village board. And those people were married. Margaret Reist of the Lincoln Journal Star has the tale. (May need Journal Star subscription to read this story.)
- The court fight that Nebraska’s Attorney General and allies are waging against the petition process that led to the state’s voters saying yes to medical marijuana suffered another defeat this week. Nebraska Examiner’s Zach Wendling with that story.
- Republicans, generally speaking, did great in Nebraska on Election Night. The Nebraska GOP, meanwhile, continues to have some serious problems. 10/11’s Jake Lawson with this story that involves guns, campaign ads and a “shadow GOP group” called “Red State Nebraska.”
- One of Nebraska’s oldest unsolved murders may be solved. The Omaha World-Herald’s Molly Ashford on the arrest made in a 1969 (?!) murder in Saunders County.
- And finally, a fantastic one from the New York Times. There’s an ongoing effort to build a “rail trail” that spans 3,700 miles and would allow a person to bicycle from Washington, D.C. to Washington State. Travel writer Rowan Moore Gerety came to Nebraska to ride our state’s sections of that trail, and experience the beauty of this place we call home.
