Saturday, April 24, 2010

New Feature Added - Share your story

A new feature has been added to the Village of Exeter website. We now have a page entitled "Exeter Stories."

This is a place where readers can share their memories of growing up in Exeter and reminisce about Exeter.

Feel free to email your stories to bartudl@windstream.net and they will be edited, if needed, and posted.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Going Up So You Can Go Down

Matching the flume pieces up. Not quite enough day left to attach them.
Tim Wilbeck is up in the tower working on the flume.
Rusty Ruhl and Alan Michl bolt the stair pieces to the landing.
Setting the first piece of the slide tower in place.



John Mueller, far left, Alan Michl, middle, and Rusty Ruhl, right, check measurements before starting the slide installation.

The Exeter Aquatic Center Slide is going up so that the pool visitors can go down. Friday, despite clouds and threatening weather volunteers joined Village Maintenance Supervisor John Mueller to assemble the new slide.

Joining Mueller were Village Chairman Alan Michl, Board Member Mitch Schlegelmilch, Board Member Tim Wilbeck, Board Member Margaret Petro, Norm Yound, Paul Erdkamp and Rusty Ruhl.

The main tower was lifted into the pool area via a crane truck owned by Horizontal Boring and Tunneling of Exeter. Horizontal Boring donated the use of the truck and the labor of Paul Erdkamp.

At the end of the work day the volunteers had the tower and the steps assembled and had started to line up the pieces of the flume. The flume pieces will have to be well cleaned and sealed as they are assembled.

The Village Board plans to have the slide assembled and fully functional for the opening weekend of the pool.

Girl Scouts/ Auxiliary Clean-Up Postponed

The Earth Day Clean-up that the Exeter Girl Scouts and the American Legion Auxiliary had planned for Saturday morning has been postponed until Tuesday, May 4th at 5:00 p.m. Meet at Storybook Park.

THE VILLAGE WIDE CLEAN-UP WITH THE DUMPSTER AT THE CITY SHOP WILL TAKE PLACE

Former Exeter Resident Makes Donation to Local Groups



Lois Long Noble (left) and Elva McBride, President of the Exeter United Church of Christ Women's Fellowship (right) hold the cookbook that Noble donated to the group for a fundraiser.

Lois Long Noble (left) and Exeter Librarian Nina Bartu (right) visit about some of the recipes in Noble's book at the Exeter Library.

Lois Long Noble grew up in Exeter, and although she has lots of memories after her family moved to Lincoln, she continues to cherish the memories and friendships of early years in Fillmore County. Her wonderful memories of the summers in the 1930’s include playing with special friends, Saturday night outdoor movies downtown, skating at the roller rink just west of downtown, lots of good memories.

Noble, was the second of six children. She went to Exeter Public School and her father served as the assistant postmaster. Things changed for their family during the winter of 1940 when the family home burned to the ground. It was so cold the volunteer firemen could not get the fire truck started and the house was lost but everyone got out safely. The Long family moved to Lincoln in 1942.
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While she never forgot Exeter and her friends here, Noble adapted well to life in Lincoln, graduating from Lincoln Northeast, attending Nebraska Business Institute, finding a job and eventually marrying and starting a family.

After a career working within the political system in Lincoln, Noble “retired” to work in the senior system. She was appointed District 26 Nebraska Silver Haired Senator and later became an active member in the Nebraska Silver Haired Unicameral Alumni Association. At that time, Noble committed to writing two columns for each quarterly issue of Lincoln 55+. One article offered Silver Haired information while the other column was planned to offer varied information of interest to seniors. An early recipe column was so well received that The Reluctant Gourmet was born, according to Noble. Eventually she collected the articles into her first book Reluctant Gourmet Recipes and Other Noteworthy Things which was published in November of 2007.

A second book The Reluctant Gourmet Cooks For Kids Too, published in December 2009, was printed in large print and includes most recipes and some articles from the first book plus popular recipes from a column titled Kids In The Kitchen With Grandma Noble which appears in the quarterly Lincoln Kids newspaper. Both books offer other articles written by Noble for the two Lincoln quarterly newspapers. Noble's granddaughter Melissa Baker, who is interested in photography, provided colorful photographs of scenic images to add color and personality to the two books..

When asked about the term Reluctant Gourmet, Noble replied "It means I enjoy good food but I am not inclined to understand why anyone needs to spend a substantial amount of time on the preparation of any one meal."

After the publication of the books Noble was determined to find a way to share some of the books with her "home town". She said “growing up in a small town like Exeter gave me a feeling of what the real values are in life."

So in turn, Noble decided to give back to Exeter. Through this website
she made contact in Exeter offering to donate her Reluctant Gourmet Cooks for Kids Too. She has donated a substantial number of autographed cookbooks to the Exeter United Church of Christ Women’s Fellowship, the Exeter American Legion Auxiliary and the Exeter Girl Scouts.

The groups are free to sell or raffle the cookbooks as they decide and will be free to keep all of the proceeds from the sale of the books. While in town, Noble also donated a copy of both of her autographed books to the Exeter Library.

She wasn’t concerned with the value of the donation of her books, “I want the groups to have the advantage of the income and second I want people to enjoy the recipes, thoughts, articles and colorful photographs in my book.”

Noble also notes that the poem “Leaves” in her donated book was written by Carla Gentry Kaufman who also has ties to Exeter. The cookbooks should be available from the Exeter groups soon.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Exeter Care Center Hosts Volunteer Tea




The Exeter Care Center hosted their annual Volunteer Tea on Tuesday, April 20th. They hold the event to recognize all of the volunteers that take time out of the busy schedules to spend time with the residents doing activities and visiting with them.

They had 23 of their volunteers come to the tea. The ladies were treated to a demonstration by Greta Stutzman of Blue Blossom Floral of Friend on floral arrangement. After the presentation there was a drawing for the beautiful arrangement that Greta designed. The arrangement was won by Frances Becwar. All of the other volunteers received door prizes and afterward joined the residents in the dining room for brownie sundaes.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Exeter Girl Scout Troop takes a trip to Wessel's


Exeter Girl Scout Troop 390 had a special morning on Saturday as they had a private tour of the Wessels Living History Farm just for Girl Scouts.

This event, organized by the Spirit of Nebraska Council was a event available only on Saturday, with two sessions during the day limited to twelve girls per session.

Exeter Troop leaders Becky Erdkamp and Anita Mueller took all six of their troop members.

During the day the girls learned all about farming in the 1920's from their tour guides, Dale and Joan Clark.

The tour included stops at all of the outbuildings that are on the historical farm, with their first stop being a tour of the tractors and plows. They learned how the different tractors start as well.

While visiting the livestock barn the group learned about getting chores done including securing the legs of the cows to keep them from kicking while milking.

The girls enjoyed playing with the baby chicks and touring the house at the farm.

The highlight, for Girl Scout Tara Mueller was "making mini apple pies in a muffin tin on the wood stove, and making homemade ice cream."

Each of the girls learned how to make the pies and helped hand crank the ice cream. Part of learning about the 1920's era was living it and the girls experienced it to the fullest, even feeding their apple and orange peelings to the chickens.

During their visit the girls picked a fancy hat from the display at the farm to wear since visitors in the 1920's typically wore hats while luncheoning.

The girls enjoyed playing with outdoor toys of the time period including a scooter, and hoop and sticks.

According to Troop co-leader Anita Mueller, the girls each got a patch from their visit, and some of their experiences during their day will count toward different badges.

Village receives check


Pictured from the left are FNIA President Ed Mark, Exeter Village Clerk Becky Erdkamp,FNIA Agent Kay Due and FNIA Agent Diane Geiger with Becky holding the check the village recently received.

The Village of Exeter received a check for $2991.46 as a dividend from the Municipality Safety Dividend Program as part of their EMC Municipality Safety Program (insurance) provided through First National Insurance Agency, Inc. in Exeter. This represents a 10.4% dividend.

Exeter to Hold Spring Clean-Up

Exeter Spring Clean Up
April 24th & May 1st
8:00 am – Until Full
Dumpster Location:

At City Shop – 221 S. Burlington Ave

Things that will be accepted will be:
junk, bricks, small furniture, etc.

NO tires, NO appliances, NO batteries, NO oil or paint
NO shingles
Grass clippings and tree limbs can be dumped along the sewer road as normally provided by the Village.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Exeter-Milligan School Update



MAKING CASTAÑUELAS IN EXETER-MILLIGAN


Spanish culture is well represented in the United States. Besides using words from Spanish and eating foods from Latin America and other Spanish speaking countries, it is also in the music. We dance to a Latin beat and use Spanish instruments such as castañuelas (castanets). Spanish students at Exeter-Milligan School made castañuelas as part of their study of the Spanish culture.


Castañuelas are a musical instrument that is used when dancing Flamenco (a popular dance in Spain). They can be made of a variety of materials. To learn about castañuelas, students used the Internet to research, they made them and they played some music with them. The reports explained the history of castañuelas and included how they are used today.


Besides decorating castañuelas, students added personal touches by making them colorful and creating wonderful designs. Putting the castañuelas together was a challenge! It was tricky to use a piece of string to put

them together. Now, we are all ready to dance the Flamenco.



In the first picture below, students are decorating castañuelas with a thin paintbrush to help them with the design. The second picture shows them playing castañuelas,