The Freeman Public Schools is seeking public input on the issue of sports consolidation and school cooperation through a survey being distributed to district patrons this week. All residents living in the school district were mailed the survey on Monday, with instructions to either answer the printed questions and return them to one of four designated locations in Freeman, use the camera on their smart phone to active the survey through a QR code, or complete the survey by visiting a URL. The survey asks four questions:

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER Lois Thieszen Preheim first heard about the infamous blizzard of Jan. 12, 1888 from her mother-in-law, Siglinda Waltner Preheim, shortly after she was married. “I tucked it away in my memory bank,” she told an audience assembled at the historic Bethel Church at Heritage Hall Museum & Archives Sunday night, “and it kept growing from there.”

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER Freeman Public will take its turn showing off school spirit when another homecoming comes to town. Freeman’s traditional celebration of “Flyer Pride” will formally begin with coronation next Monday, Sept. 27 beginning at 7 p.m., and conclude on Friday with a noon parade, 3 p.m. football game, pork BBQ to follow and a 9-12 dance to finish off the day.

Corn stands tall on this, the first day of autumn, which means that the harvest season has arrived. It also means cooler air, shorter days and changing colors and, soon, thoughts of the upcoming holiday season.

Two Norfolk, Neb. residents have died from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle crash on Saturday, Sept. 11 north of Freeman.

  JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER With the exception of the downtown business district and several other select locations in town, only parallel parking is allowed along city streets per a new parking ordinance approved by the Freeman City Council last week Tuesday, Sept. 7. The ordinance was OK’d on a 5-1 vote, with councilor Charles Gering casting the lone dissenting vote. The new ordinance states that parallel parking must be observed with the exception of the following locations, where angled parking is allowed:

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER In accordance with tradition, Menno kicked off its 2021 Homecoming celebration Monday night, Sept. 13 with the pomp and circumstance — not of graduation — but of coronation. The 7:30 p.m. spirited to-do was held in the old city/school auditorium and featured the crowning of Treyton Sayler and Bridget Vaith as king and queen — a formal honor that is always executed by the previous royal couple, in this case Josh Heckenlaible and Jesse Munkvold.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER Meeting in special session Friday afternoon, Sept. 3, the Freeman City Council voted to advertise for bids for the infrastructure of the Westward View housing development that will be built just off Cedar Street west of the city’s water tower.

With the sound of Highway 81 traffic whizzing by and the putter of old tractors not far off, Freeman resident Charles Duerksen and Menno’s Donald Kirschenman were chatting when they walked up to examine the recently plowed furrow cut into land that is part of the Steve Friesen farming operation three-and-a-half miles north of town.

These monarchs made their annual appearance in Freeman earlier this week. Here’s what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to say about the beautiful butterfly.