I can’t shake a few things that I read in today’s important story from Natalia Alamdari. The 14-year-old in Lancaster County who, in a 133-day stretch, spent 129 of those days in solitary confinement. The kid who grew so distraught in solitary that he used the tiny slat in his door to throw a horrific substance at a guard.
And this quote, from Nebraskan Shakur Abdullah, who served 40 years in prison and is now a senior facilitator for the Community Justice Center.
“If grown men become psychotic in a matter of days in solitary confinement, imagine what that does to some children,” he told Alamdari.
The use of solitary, officially called room confinement, has spiked inside the places where we incarcerate Nebraska kids despite a 2020 state law meant to limit the practice.
In today’s story, Alamdari talks to county and state officials who say the practice is used rarely and appropriately, and they cast some doubt on a recent report. She examines the research, which suggests that solitary can cause lasting harm to teenagers. And she tells the story of an Omaha mom worried, and furious, about the long stretches of time her 16-year-old son spends in solitary.
Lil’ Lady Liberty mystery: If you know me at all, you know I love a weird Nebraska history story. Our story today from Kevin Warneke certainly fits the bill. This story involves, in no particular order: the Statue of Liberty, the Boy Scouts of America, a group of groovy statues placed all across Nebraska, punk vandals, the Grand Island tornado, a disappearance and now an effort to deliver a forgotten and abused relic from a high shelf in a renowned local sculptor’s studio and restore her to her 1950s glory.
Inject it straight into my history nerd veins.
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Ed and Spam: Today, I’m thinking about a man a few of you know named Ed Lueninghoener. He’s the father of Quentin Lueninghoener, the talented dude who runs Hanscom Park Studio, which designed our logo and does our branding and graphics.
Ed grew up on a farm near Pilger and then raised a family and made a life in Omaha with his wife Phyllis. He’s being memorialized and buried today, and if there’s any goodness in the afterlife the couple is now laughing together someplace sunny and warm. (Ed is drinking a beer, Phyllis is smoking a cigarette.)
I got to know Phyllis and Ed because, while a World-Herald columnist, I agreed to write an odd little column. It was a story about, swear to God, a can of discount Spam that had, through a series of events, come to be named Ellis and made an honorary member of the Lueninghoener family.
I went back and read the column this morning. It’s fun and weird. But what I really remember about it was getting to know Ed and Phyllis, who lived in a creaky old midtown house, who talked and laughed easily and existed so comfortably inside their Omaha skins.
I never knew them well. But people like Ed and Phyllis became, for me, part of the firmament of this city and state. The sort of people who make this home. Rest in peace, Ed.
Thank you to our sponsor: As I’m writing about the people who make a community, it seems obvious to thank our sponsor the Nebraska Community Foundation. NCF builds up communities and helps small towns reinvest in themselves. It’s easy to see the decades of work in places like McCook, Nebraska City, Shickley, Walthill, my hometown of Red Cloud … the list goes on and on. Thank you to NCF for supporting the mission of nonprofit journalism as we tell Nebraska stories to Nebraskans.
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Sincerely,
—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:
- Can we better teach Nebraska students how to read? The World-Herald’s Lauren Wagner continues to focus on that pressing issue for the state’s students — and Nebraska’s future — in the OWH.
- Two new gargantuan projects announced in the Omaha metro this week, both of which will require state incentives and one of which may need approval from local voters to succeed.
A new 7,000-seat soccer stadium is planned for downtown Omaha, on the road to the airport. Story by the Nebraska Examiner’s Cindy Gonzalez.
And Gretna’s Nebraska Crossing mall wants to expand massively, to the tune of $3.2 billion. A new bill would require local voter buy-in to make it a reality. Story by the Examiner’s Paul Hammel. - The women’s prison in York lost water access this week, according to the York News Times’ William Swett. The York newspaper and the Journal Star have been following the water saga at the prison, where inmates have been sounding alarms about brown water for years.
- Finally, here’s a thing I bet you hadn’t thought about before. Nebraska museums get a bunch of fantastic stuff donated to them by Nebraskans. They also get some things they most definitely do not want. A new bill in the Legislature aims to make it easier for our museums to rid themselves of the latter. Story by an intrepid central Nebraska reporter, NTV’s Steve White.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by:
Planning + Outcome Perfected
