By Tyler Dahlgren For five minutes every morning, students at Sandy Creek Elementary stop what they’re doing and tune in. At 8:15 sharp, classrooms fall quiet and the Clear Touch televisions flicker on. Two fifth-grade anchors, calm and cool and savvy well beyond their years, appear on screen. The show begins. “Good morning, Cougars!” Welcome to Cougar Talk — the daily student-run newscast that’s...Read More

By Tyler Dahlgren Sunrise Middle School in Kearney carried on one of its most meaningful traditions last Tuesday, hosting local heroes and their families for a Veterans Day program honoring courage and sacrifice. Sunrise and Horizon, Kearney’s other middle school, alternate hosting the event each year. This fall it was Sunrise’s turn, and the school let the students run the show. “We flip-flop...Read More

By Tyler Dahlgren We met Tyler Beranek on the second floor of Humphrey High School in late September of last year. The Highway 91 Career Fair had drawn nearly 100 local businesses to the building, and the hallways were shoulder-to-shoulder. Still, you couldn’t miss Beranek. Donning an almost-luminous pink golf polo, the first-year superintendent at the new Lindsay Academy, located just 10 minutes...Read More

By Tyler Dahlgren Education is a pillar in the Hastings community, that much is undeniably true. If you need proof, just take a drive around the city of 25,000 Nebraskans that gifted us Kool-Aid and the greatest college football coach of all time. Hastings Public Schools has eight buildings scattered across the community. Hastings Catholic Schools has St. Michael’s Elementary and St. Cecilia...Read More