STATEWIDE NEWSLETTER

Free $ to move to small town?; Following Doc Susan; Final (anonymous) resting place

Plus Five Days of Flatwater parties are quickly filling, Omaha classrooms are getting crowded and news from around Nebraska.

Mila Herszbaum-Harding, a fourth grade teacher at Castelar Elementary School in Omaha, interacts with students. Omaha Public Schools, the district that educates the metro’s highest numbers of students in poverty, now has the state’s worst student-teacher ratios and worst teacher staffing levels. (Photo by Naomi Delkamiller/Flatwater Free Press)

You maybe saw the headlines a year ago, headlines that rocketed ’round the internet for a week. A small Nebraska town was giving away free money if you bought a house!

“The US city offering $50,000 to move there,” one read.

The stories prompted a flood of interest in Pawnee City, previously most famous as the home of Larry the Cable Guy. It prompted tens of thousands of clicks on the city website and hundreds of emails from people all over the country and world, reports Natalia Alamdari in today’s story.

But the reality of the small-town housing program was being missed by almost everyone, Alamdari writes. And after all the hype, exactly one family has qualified for the money and moved to Pawnee City.

Our latest story in our series, “Priced out of The Good Life” about small-town Nebraska’s attempt to lure people to move in — and to incentivize builders to build homes.

Following Dr. Susan: Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte lived one of the most incredible lives ever lived by a Nebraskan. If you don’t know this story, you should read this book by famed nonfiction author and my one-time journalism professor, Joe Starita.

I was excited to publish a modern-day story that ties to Dr. Susan this week. Correspondent Leo Adam Biga with the tale of Native women now following Dr. Susan’s footsteps into medicine.

The story mentions this, but I wanted to highlight it here: Many of these women, who’d never had a family member go to college, graduated from college and headed into medicine by using a scholarship funded by proceeds from Starita’s books as well as other donations. I think it’s amazing. Sarah and I have donated to it. It’s called the Chief Standing Bear Journey for Justice Scholarship. If you’re so moved, give to it here.

Five Days of Flatwater: Wow, this crept up on me. Our five parties to celebrate our fifth birthday are right around the corner. The fun starts Sept. 19!

This week, we published a Q&A with our FlatFest keynote guest, famed journalist George Packer. Learn more about Packer and buy tickets to FlatFest, being held in a super-cool barn outside Lincoln Sept. 23. (There are only a few dozen tickets left!)

We also have four free events, in both Lincoln and Omaha, that you can learn more about by scrolling down this page.

Two to note: Register for our Flatwater Forum, a series of three journalism-on-stage convos being held at the Sheldon on Sunday evening, Sept. 20, in Lincoln. You’re going to want to be there to listen to Atlantic editor Jenna Johnson and Flatwater’s own Yanqi Xu, whose last story on her New York Times investigative fellowship will be published by the NYT and Flatwater next week.

And our Omaha event, a joint event with FilmStreams, has been moved to the Dundee Theater (because it’s bigger!) and is almost sold out. Check it out and register here.

Crowded classrooms: Veteran reporter Henry Cordes just keeps writing bangers since he started at Flatwater. His latest: A new Flatwater analysis shows that Omaha Public Schools classrooms now have the worst student-teacher ratios in the state of Nebraska. The story goes into why, which involves COVID, a mismanaged pension fund, a state snafu and also why this very much matters.

An (anonymous) final resting place: Fun fact about me … as a teenager, I worked several summers for the funeral director in Red Cloud. This meant that I worked at, and witnessed, a whole bunch of funerals. I learned quite a bit about the rhythms of grieving, and (in good training for journalism) I learned how to talk to people on a terrible day in their lives. The job also made me wonder: What happens to the poor souls who don’t get a proper memorial service?

So I was into Tim Trudell’s story this week, which told us about the anonymous final resting places of thousands of Omahans in what is known as Potter’s Field.

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? Reach our newsroom at [email protected].

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. See you next week.

— Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor

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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: