Featured Editorials From The Magazine

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Self-reliance is necessary for ranchers living miles away from mechanics, electricians, plumbers, and medical personnel needed for critters with feathers, fur, and hair: four legs and two.
Many of these ranchers are women serving essential roles, working year-round in all types of weather conditions to ensure that their agricultural enterprise is successful. These credentials clearly identify Yvonne Hollenbeck, wife and ranching partner of her husband, Glen. This duo lives just north of the Nebraska border near Clearfield, South Dakota on ranchland Glen’s family acquired eighty-three years ago.
My summer visit with the Hollenbecks began during a delicious meal of baked steak, sweet potatoes, and salad. When Glen excused himself to work with his horse, Yvonne and I continued our conversation over cups of coffee.
By Marci Broyhill

PHIL RAASCH was just a little shaver when he settled down on a bar stool at the Rabbit Hutch Café, near the hamlet of Enola, Nebraska. Men were crowded around nearby tables, with a cold mug of Schlitz beer at their elbows, dealing black queens from a Sheephead deck, or tossing pennies on the table in hopes of a winning hand of poker.
Nice women, it was said, never frequented the place.
Raasch remembers those days in the 1930s well. He tagged along with his father and was always on the lookout for peanut wrappers: once he had collected enough wrappers he sent them in for an official Planters Peanuts bracelet, a treasure of no mean value. Even though he is now in his 80s, Raasch still keeps his under lock and key.
By Larayne Topp

This writer’s earliest memory of a square dance is from about the age of eight, when my parents took the family to the nearby town of Allen one Saturday night, circa 1962. At the top of the main street, in the town square, were a number of people milling about on sawdust that had been spread over the street surface. The men were in jackets and Bolo ties, and the ladies were colorfully dressed in crinolines and petticoats. I remember watching with awe as they danced their choreographed way through what appeared to be intricate patterns. A strong memory is that every participant had wide smiles on their faces and obviously were enjoying themselves.
The name square dance comes from eight people dancing patterns all within a square. Square Dance's roots come from many countries and cultures dating back as far as the sixteenth century, yet still, it is uniquely American. Jerry Junck of Wayne, Nebraska is a distinctive part of the presentation. As a square dance “caller”, Junck has traveled to forty-four states and three Canadian provinces leading dances for over fifty-five years. A talented “caller” needs to be many things; a storyteller, comedian, possess the cadence of an auctioneer and even be a singer. Listening to Junck sing a credible rendition of the Everly Brothers hit song “Bye, Bye Love” while simultaneously calling out instructions to the dancers is enjoyable to hear.​
​By Brad Kellogg

The winter of 1948-1949 brought blizzards to Nebraska that dumped over 100 total inches of snow on some places in the northeastern part of the state. Northeastern Nebraska. Louie and Verna Brogren operated a farm north of Hoskins, but after that horrible winter, Verna had had enough of farming, so the couple and their young son (and only child), Terry, moved to Norfolk to try something else.
If it weren’t for that blizzard, a staple of Norfolk, Nebraska, wouldn’t exist.
The Tastee Treet restaurant, located at 300 South 1st Street, has been in business now for over seventy years. Louie Brogren bought a drive-in building on the location in 1949 and temporarily ran it as “Brogren’s Dairy Treet,” but he purchased a Tastee Treet franchise in 1950 and changed his small restaurant to a Tastee Treet one.

By Tammy Marshall

Before I joined the rest of the pallbearers, I stood in line to pay my respects and looked down at the old man in the satin-lined coffin. He was a former Chief of Police in my little piece of Nebraska, and I now wear his badge or at least one similar to it. I am told that the badge he wore for years is in his pocket. I thought they might bury him in his uniform, but I guess I would not want to spend eternity in mine either.
I first met him when I was about thirteen years old.
My parents farmed a couple of miles east of town and did so successfully as far as I knew. My best friend was gone for the summer on an extended family vacation somewhere or the other. We would normally hang out together during the summer, so I was on my own. My main form of transportation was my bicycle and it would get me anywhere I wanted to go. Those were different times than they are now. On a warm day, I would take off on my bike and sometimes drive for miles, or at least as far as a kid could, and still be home for supper. No one worried about me, there was not much traffic and most of that were locals that I knew and they all waved as they went past.
By Brad Kellogg

Eliminated by The Eliminator

by Alexandra McClanahan
​ Turning 50, with the rock band Steppenworf’s 1968 “Born to be Wild” reverberating in my head, I decided to buy a motorcycle.
I had ridden on the back of motorcycles but never driven one. I decided to start small, so I bought a blood-red Kawasaki 175, named “ The Eliminator.” I also bought a helmet and leather gear. My husband was not keen on the bike, but he offered to teach me to ride it. Until then, I had no idea he knew how to operate a motorcycle. I learned he had ridden in his younger years. He even had one in Yakutat, Alaska, which receives an annual rainfall of 155 inches and has mostly gravel roads.