Fillmore County Replacement Hospital Open House

Address for Cemetery Donations

If anyone would like the address to donate to the Exeter Cemetery Association for the removal of the dead trees - Here it is:

Exeter Cemetery Association
c/o JoDee Mika
421 North River Avenue
Exeter, NE  68351

Exeter-Milligan Update: Fifth graders learn keyboarding skills

 

The fifth graders in Mr. Zoubek's class have been learning new keyboarding skills and techniques.  Students shown practicing these skills are from left to right: Kate Jansky, Katherine White, Johnny Babula, Spencer Pribyl, Mitchell Manning, and Joel Klemm.   

Rhodes decide to hang up clerking hat after 1,450 auctions

Pearle Rhodes with two of her new auction finds, a landscape painting and a nativity scene.

 Stanley Rhodes with his notebook where he records every auction they worked and keeps notes on the outcomes and locations.

Pearle and Stanley Rhodes next to the clerking trailer they have just retired.

Rhodes Clerking has been an area institution for close to fifty years.  If you been to one of the last 1,450 auctions by Larsen and Associates you know the family behind the clerk trailer.  Stanley Rhodes has worked 1,450 auctions as a ringman and clerk and just recently decided to permanently park his clerking trailer.

Starting in 1959 Stanley began working with Engvert Larsen in the auction business. He began working as a ringman “taking bids and so forth” for Larsen until the local banks decided that they did not want to clerk for the auctions.

At that point Stanley took over the clerking end of the auction services, calling it Rhodes Clerking Service. His wife, Pearle, joined him in 1972, manning her station in a small travel trailer, passing out numbers and taking in payments for 477 auctions.

Over the years Rhodes has worked and clerked for three generations of the Larsen family. Engvert Larsen, who started his auction business in 1930, was the Larsen in charge when Rhodes started, later his son Darrol took over. These days Larsen and Associates is led by Darrol’s son, Lance.

Although they will miss being around the people, they are ready for retirement. “We’re 83 and 85 and its time to slow down. Our kids and grandkids keep us busy with all of them in Nebraska,” explained Pearle.
This was obvious as Stanley proudly showed his bookshelf of pictures and State Championship signed volleyballs and basketballs from the team’s his son Jody has coached in Paxton. Placed among the balls are photos of the Rhodes’ with the various teams and their grandchildren. Family is important to them, as are the interests of their children.

The couple married in 1950 after meeting at the roller skating rink in Geneva where Stanley worked as the floor manager to get in the rink for free. Through the years, while the Rhodes’ have worked hard, they have also volunteered extensively in the Cordova community. Both have worked with the Boy Scouts, starting the first Cub Scout Pack in Cordova when their children were young and also serving as Scoutmaster for Troop 390. Stanley served over 50 years as a member of the Troop 390 Committee, over 30 years on the Cordova Volunteer Fire Department and has been a member of the United Methodist Church in Beaver Crossing for over 60 years.

All four of their sons helped them in the auction business with Stanley running tickets from the auction ring to the clerk trailer. Stanley also kept track of everyone’s hours for Larsen and Associates. Pearle enjoyed her co-workers in the clerk trailer, noting that she and Faye Petersen spent many Saturday’s working tickets together.

The numbers game definitely suited Stanley as he obviously enjoyed the record keeping aspect of the business. He kept a notebook listing information on each of the 1,450 auctions he worked. He even went so far as to keep records on where bidders were from, noting that in their first five auctions in 2001 there were registered bidders from 108 different towns.

With all of that money changing hands, the Rhodes’ felt they were very lucky to not have many problems collection. “We only had one we had to wait a year for. As a rule we have done pretty well.
There were a few people here and there who were difficult, but as a whole not too bad,” recalled Stanley.

With all of those auctions, resisting a bargain wasn’t always possible for the pair. Stanley has a few special corn serving pieces and once collected old fruit jars. Pearle has two weaknesses, landscape sofa paintings and unusual nativity scenes. She has held on to the landscape paintings and tastefully decorated their home with them but when she had collected too many for the house she moved on to the garage, “when Stanley didn’t get the inside of the garage painted I started hanging them up in there,” she explained.

As they have watched the ups and downs of the auction business, the Rhodes’ didn’t seem to think that online auction sites have negatively affected the auction business. If anything they have notice an increase in auction attendance, especially people who specialize in online auctions. “One person’s trash is another one’s treasure,” quipped Pearle.

Along with that Stanley recalled, “You see all kinds of things at a sale, it got to where nothing surprised us anymore. The one item that surprised us was at an auction near Bradshaw where an old post office box made out of wood that was weathered and worn had no identifying markers on it of where it came from or it’s age went for $2500. That was a real surprise. Someone knew something about it.”

One of the best parts of their job was working with the Larsen family. Lance felt the same way about working with them, “I don’t remember not working with them as long as I have been around they have been there. They are great people, they have always been there. They have been very dependable, honest to a fault, I know exactly what to expect with them. I never have to worry about our customers funds.”

Stanley’s cousin Robert Rhodes has also worked with them in the auction business starting in 1971, “It has been a gratifying experience to work with him all these years. He’s always above the board, never had to feel like anyone was taken advantage of, everything was above the table.”

Although the Rhodes’ are retiring from clerking, Larsen and Associates will continue running quality auctions in the area. “Jackie and I will take over and go with computerized clerking system which will hopefully speed up the check in and check out process and help our sellers - it will show them the ins and outs of their sale. We [Rhodes’ and Larsen’s] started talking at the first part of this year, it was their decision [to retire]. They announced their retirement at the last auction they conducted which was in Cordova in June. I thought it was a fitting place for them to retire, here at home,” said Lance.

Trees Dying at Exeter Cemetery

The Exeter Cemetery is a scenic spot up on the hill northeast of the village. The village forefathers had the foresight to plant small trees over a hundred years ago to shade the graves of those they love. Unfortunately, the cemetery is quickly losing the majority of it’s large old shade trees.

Two years ago the Board was faced with diseases in the huge pines, “Pine wilt disease has attacked these giant pines. Some are 100-200 years old and are so large it was cost prohibitive to treat them. There was no way to spray the entire tree because of their size and no guarantee that the treatment would even work,” said Exeter Cemetery Board Secretary Jodee Mika.

As a way of both removing the dead trees and replanting new trees to replace the Cemetery board applied for a Trees for Nebraska Towns Program grant. They received the grant and in May of 2009 the Exeter Cemetery Board along with many community volunteers planted 25 new trees at the Exeter Cemetery.

The $10,000 grant was coordinated by the Nebraska State Arboretum and the University of Nebraska and funded by The Nebraska Environmental Trust, a beneficiary of the Nebraska Lottery. This was a matching fund grant and the Cemetery Board was able to raise part of the matching funds by counting volunteer hours during the planting and watering of the trees.

Mika saw the benefits of that grant, “We had so many volunteers to help plant 25 new trees a few years ago. We got a nice variety of trees to plant and they are thriving.”
Seventy-five percent of the grant money went toward the new trees but the grant only allowed for 25% of the funding to be used for the removal of the dead trees. To date the removal funding has been used and still many large dead trees remain, “There are four great big trees that are dying, actually six that need removed, and the estimated cost to remove them and grind the stump is $1,000 each,” explained Mika

Another Cemetery Board Member Joe Dinneen commented “All the trees we planted lived and we have no plans to plant any more trees. Unfortunately we are left with the aftermath, we still have some that are totally dead.”

The Cemetery Board maintains a perpetual trust and budgets off the interest from the fund. With interest rates so low the board is faced with minimal income. To cover the costs of removing the dead and dying pines the Board is seeking grant money, donations and the help of the Exeter Village Board. So far, the Village Board has committed to paying half of the removal bill for the six trees that are currently dead.

Exeter Village Chairman Alan Michl told Cemetery Board Member Barry Murphy at a recent Village Board Meeting, “When you need help let us know. We will do what we can to help, we have to keep the cemetery up.”

Murphy faced the facts as he looked around the cemetery, “As long as the diseased ones are still here we will continue to lose trees.  Any donations received to help with the cost of removing them will be appreciated."

Joe Dinneen, far left, Barry Murphy, middle, and Jodee Mika, right, members of the Exeter Cemetery Board stand among the new trees planted at the Exeter Cemetery with the dead pine trees amongst them as well.

 

This tree is dying as well.

Exeter-Milligan Soccer Team - Pre-K, K and 1st Grade Team

Exeter-Milligan's pre-K, Kindergarten and first grade soccer team is made up of eight members.  Front row, from the left are Savana Krupicka, Tyler Due and Cade Kresak.  Back row from the left are Mikey Bartu, Troy Kallhoff, Andrew Vavra, Aiden Vavra, Marcus Krupicka and Coach Dan Kallhoff.  The team plays in Geneva every Saturday morning against teams from Fillmore Central, Bruning and Shickley.

Fillmore County Replacement Hospital Construction Continues to Progress

 The aquatic center will be located behind this glass wall.

 This is the hole left for the therapy pool - the funds are still be raised for the addition.

 Many of the walls have been marked with designations prior to a fire marshal inspection.

 Down a hallway shows the drywall has begun and electrical has been run.

 Mechanics in the ceiling.

 The photo above and below are looking up into the ceiling at the vast amount of mechanicals that are run in the ceiling area.

 

 The exterior of the front entryway of the new facility.

 

 The west wing, will be the medical clinic.

The backside of the hospital clinic.

Exeter Chamber Holds Ribbon Cutting

Exeter Chamber members gathered for a noon meeting and ribbon cutting on Wednesday, September 7th.  The Chamber welcomed Gerri McIntyre, owner of Diet Center, to her newest branch location in downtown Exeter.  Pictured cutting the ribbon from the left are Exeter Chamber members Bob Mueller, Alan Emshoff, Mc Intyre, Nancy Waldron and John Graham.

Exeter-Milligan Update: IPad's in Kindergarten

This year the Kindergarten Class of Exeter-Milligan, under the direction of Judy Kassik, will be working with iPads.There are many applications on the I Pad that reinforce our learning in the classroom. Here the Kindergarten Class is getting extra practice with letters and numbers.
Front Row: Trenton, Taylor, Josh.
Middle Row: Savannah, Troy, Savana
Back Row: Andrew, Tyler, Devin

Exeter-Milligan School Update: Smartboards

"Smart Classrooms at Exeter-Milligan" by Phyllis Severson

We are working Smarter!  Exeter-Milligan staff worked hard over the summer installing SmartBoards in nearly every classroom.  SmartBoards are tools which allow the students and teachers work interactively with the computer.  Pictured is 7th grader Lucy Murphy showing how to graph a point in Pre-Algebra class.