Happy Freakin’ New Year, I mutter as I write to you today from underneath a blanket while sick as a dog. But no non-COVID mystery virus is gonna keep this newsletter from getting to my 12,000 best buddies.
I’m not working cattle or building a skyscraper over here. I can still type! Let’s get right to our first dispatch of 2024.
I first learned of House of Bah at last year’s Flatwater Free Press Festival, when I walked outside after our event and saw a gigantic line forming for one of the food trucks we had hired to serve dinner to the crowd. It was House of Bah. Everyone wanted their food.
In today’s Flatwater Free Press, a food writer with the last name Baker Hansen tells us the full story about the man behind that catering business — a brave soul who chucked a corporate career and drove an overnight taxi while chasing the life he wanted.
Djamil (pronounced Jameel) now cooks fantastic West African food, the food he grew up with. As he does this, his nonprofit also teaches new immigrants and refugees — new Nebraskans from all over the world — how to run their own food businesses.
What a nice Nebraska story to begin the new year.
Civics class, party of one: I went to a small Nebraska high school, graduating in a class of 30 kids. And still, it’s hard to fathom being in a class of … one.
But that’s been freshman year for Bailley Leibert, the lone frosh at Loup County High School.
FFP Seacrest Greater Nebraska reporter Natalia Alamdari with the story from Loup County, where the principal doubles as the bus driver and the teachers really get to know their pupils … because they teach them for years.
It’s a story about Bailley — who in truth, does not feel alone at all — and about the opportunities and challenges of keeping the doors open at one of Nebraska’s smallest public schools.
New year, new newsletter sponsor: It’s SWOON Home + Design, owned by Jenny and Ryan Wilkins. Jenny is a Realtor, contractor and designer who launched SWOON in 2022 with lessons learned from her own Omaha homebuilding process. Her philosophy: “You should enjoy the process of your home’s redesign, not just the final product.”
I’m gonna steal that philosophy for this newsletter, and also maybe my life.
Check out the sponsorship photo and link to SWOON’s site at the bottom of the newsletter. Jenny and Ryan are lovely people, and I thank them so much for supporting FFP and the mission of nonprofit journalism.
We wanna hear from you: I think Flatwater is pretty great. I also know it could always be better. To that end, we’re doing a readership survey. We want to hear from you about how you think we are doing, and how FFP could be improved. This survey is quick and painless. Thanks in advance for your feedback!
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:
- Gov. Jim Pillen took his potential tax plan for a public spin earlier this week and wow, it’s not boring.
As the Nebraska Examiner’s Paul Hammel reports, Pillen’s trial balloon of a plan would seek to drastically cut property taxes … in part by hiking the state’s sales tax rate to the highest of any state in the country.
Important to remember: Governors often use the days before the legislative session to float trial balloon plans that they know may not make it through in original form to become law.
Expect more reporting on tax policy from FFP and other media outlets during this legislative session. In the meantime: Some Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature seem skeptical, reports the OWH’s Martha Stoddard. - The OWH’s Henry Cordes dives into the state’s brain drain dilemma, showing us how and why the state is now hemorrhaging college graduates at one of the highest rates in the United States.
- A really important story from the York News Times and Lincoln Journal Star published today. Reporters Willie Swett and Andrew Wegley collaborated on this investigative look into the water problems at the women’s prison in York, including documents showing outside experts were dubious about the state’s plans to fix them. After years of complaints, the water is sometimes brown, inmates say.
- The state of Nebraska is beginning to buy Colorado land for a proposed canal, reports Nebraska Public Media’s Fred Knapp.
- A terrible marker of time … the first nearby mass school shooting of 2024, in Perry, Iowa, 130 miles east of Omaha. Omaha’s WOWT Channel 6 with the story.
- Lauren Wagner of the Omaha World-Herald does such a nice job covering the education beat. Here’s one of her latest, a sobering news story on how Nebraska’s teacher shortage continues to grow.
- A nice one to end on: Sam, the longtime proprietor of Andy’s Shoe Repair, has fixed up shoes for Taylor Swift, Hell’s Angels, priests and also yours truly. The OWH’s Emily Nitcher with the shoe story.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by:
Planning + Outcome Perfected
