The poorest county in Nebraska is also the most vaccinated, and the most protected from COVID-19. This startling fact is the jumping off point for our story this week.
Tim Trudell, a freelance writer and a member of the Santee Sioux Tribe, delves into why Thurston County, home to the Winnebago and Omaha reservations, has vaxxed nearly 3/4 of its eligible residents.
It’s an important look at the ties that bind these tribes. It’s a crucial glimpse into what the rest of us can learn from them, if we so choose.
Free stuff alert: We give you free, quality journalism each and every week… and now we’re giving you a chance at free tickets to a good movie playing at Film Streams Omaha, too.
“Storm Lake” is a new documentary profiling the local paper as it struggles to stay alive and serve its small town of Storm Lake, Iowa. (Listen to NPR’s Fresh Air interview with Storm Lake editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen.)
Win two free tickets by being one of the first five people to hit reply to this email and type the secret phrase, which is SASSAFRAS. And if you don’t win… quit being cheap and come see it, anyway. We’re gonna. Say hi if you see us there.
Our fave doctor on NPR: Lydia Kang, an Omaha doctor and novelist, recently penned a lovely first-person essay for us about her life during the pandemic… which started when she was already writing a history of pandemics.
This morning, she appeared on Nebraska Public Media, the Lincoln-based National Public Radio affiliate for the vast majority of the state. Listen to her interview.
This is exactly how we envisioned the Flatwater Free Press when we dreamt it up… the story we write and post on our website is just the beginning. It then spiderwebs its way across the state (and sometimes the country) and leads to follow-up interviews and even events where we do “journalism on stage.”
Much more to come on this, but it is gratifying to see our partner Nebraska Public Media jump at the chance to tell Kang’s fascinating story on the radio.
Pre-announcement announcement: Next week we’re going to reveal some big news about the Flatwater Free Press‘ first full-time reporters. We’re so excited to tell you about them, and we’re so excited to get them started digging into important stories. We’ll be back with the actual announcement very, very soon.
Always remember: Have a question that our reporters could dig into? Send us your news tips via this form or [email protected].
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:
- Remember when downtown Omaha weirdly and dangerously flooded? World-Herald reporter and editor Nancy Gaarder, who has been writing intelligently about weather and climate change for years, delivers the definitive explanation about how the Old Market turned into a lake on Aug. 7, and why a hard storm nearly turned deadly.
- Remember when Texas asked Nebraska to send troops to its southern border, Gov. Pete Ricketts agreed… and then Nebraska taxpayers ended up footing the bill? Channel 3’s resident gumshoe Aaron Sanderford follows up on that $500,000.
- Last month, we interviewed Panhandle public health official Kim Engel, who is trying, not always successfully, to get western Nebraskans vaccinated. Engel hasn’t given up. Here she is, in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, letting the family of a young man who died from COVID-19 tell his tragic story and warning of the continuing dangers of the virus.
