News from neighbors
Husker game day special for members of Weir family
IMPERIAL REPUBLICAN, Sept. 7 — Husker fans eagerly awaited the opening of another University of Nebraska-Lincoln football season at Memorial Stadium Saturday.
There’s nothing like a football Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, especially on the opening game of the season.
Saturday proved to be an especially memorable and meaningful game day for the Weir family of Imperial, Nebraska.
That’s because the family witnessed the retirement of the Husker jersey of their grandfather and Husker legend, Ed Weir.
One of Ed Weir’s sons, Bill, and his wife Nancy lived in Imperial for many years, moving there in the mid-1950s. Two of their four children, son Tad and daughter Julie Gockley still live in Imperial.
Weir was Nebraska’s first two-time All-American, earning first-team honors as a tackle in 1924 and 1925. He was also the first Conhusker player named to the College Football Hall of Fame when he was inducted in 1951.
Weir was an assistant football coach at Nebraska and was the head track coach from 1939 to 1955 and assistant athletic director from 1955-1968. The Nebraska outdoor track was dedicated in his name in 1974.
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KSU beef Pioneer Award named in honor of Marvin and Arlene Large
IMPERIAL REPUBLICAN, Sept. 7 — The multi-state, university-based Beef Reproduction Leadership Team presented its inaugural Pioneer Award Aug. 29 to Marvin Large of Imperial, Nebraska, and the late Arlene Large.
The presentation was made during the Applied Reproductive Strategies in Beef Cattle Symposium in Manhattan, Kansas.
Not only did the Larges receive the inaugural award, subsequent Pioneer Awards will be named in their honor — the Marvin and Arlene Large Pioneer Award.
The award was created to recognize outstanding contributions toward reproductive tools, technology or service that have broadly benefited the U.S. beef industry.
“No one may have contributed to the development and feasibility of fixed-time AI (artificial insemination) programs more than the Larges Breeding Barn,” said Willie Altenburg, Select Sires beef development advisor, during the award presentation.
“The breeding barn was in place when fixed-time insemination was a theory. It made fixed-time insemination a possibility,” he added.
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Advantage Treatment Center growing to meet area’s need
STERLING JOURNAL-ADVOCATE, Sept. 5 — When Advantage Treatment Center came to Sterling in May 2005, the community corrections facility could serve a maximum of 20 offenders.
Today, the Sterling center is home to a 106-bed facility and provides hundreds in the community with a variety of out-patient treatments and services.
It might seem to some that the growth of an alternative sentencing program points to an increase in crime in the area, but ATC founder Doug Carrigan looks at it differently. Community corrections is a better alternative to prison for the offenders they serve, he says.
“The people who end up here are supposed to be here,” he said.
ATC is frequently referred to as a halfway house by those in the community, and Carrigan acknowledges that “in the old days,” such programs served as a sort of temporary stop-over for offenders coming out of prison to get their lives restarted. But today, he said, the programs they offer are more science- and research-based.
While community corrections does indeed serve offenders transitioning from prison to parole, clients also include those convicted of less severe offenses who are diverted from prison, parolees released by the Colorado Board of Parole, offenders on probation and parole who need short-term stabilization services, and those with a history of substance abuse and mental illness needing specialized treatment.
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