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Welcome to Week 1 of this year's Football Pick 'Em. We will start with the home town team, and to no surprise I am taking Kearney. I think the Bulldogs will have no problems either. The team has shown a propensity to start fast under Greg Jones, and this has the makings of another of those games especially with the Griffins breaking in a new system and head coach.

After a summer break The Dog Blog returns for the 2010-11 school year. Kearney sports got started Monday morning with the girls golf team in action at the Liberty Invitational. Kearney finished fourth posting a strong score of 378 for a season opener. Senior Madison Wolff appeared to be in mid-season form, firing a 78 to finish third overall. Kearney's score was tops among its fellow district opponents at the meet. St. Joseph Central was 10 strokes back with a 388.

There has been heavy traffic congestion in Kearney since about 3 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16.

Polls are open until 7 p.m. for primary elections today (Tuesday, Aug. 3). There are a slew of county positions on the ballot in addition to state representatives. The winners today will go on to vie for those seats in the Nov. 2 general election.

Sabin Yanez and Dallas Joplin of Cook Flatt Strobel engineering are on the July 19 Kearney Board of Aldermen. The Kansas City engineering firm was hired to study the traffic problem at Pilot Travel Center on the west side of I-35 and offer short-term and long-term, preferably affordable, solutions.

Also on the agenda, the board will discuss bike path trail and pavilion bids, which were re-bid after the cost was over budget for both projects.

Bill Shull is also on the agenda to talk about a “Pioneer Day” event.

The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 19, at City Hall.

Check back Tuesday, July 20, for details from the meeting.

It could be a fairly quiet night Monday, despite meetings.

The Kearney Board of Aldermen agenda for 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 21, came via fax earlier. There are just three items on the agenda: deciding whether the board wants to meet on July 5 or 6, a site plan review for Long Veterinary Clinic and liquor ordinance amendments.

The Kearney Fire & Rescue Protection District Board of Directors will also meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 21. Rhonda Fort from the fire station dropped off the agenda packet earlier today. The fire board will hear a bond issue update, consider a budget amendment and vote on the proposed bond expenditures.

It’s been a while since I posted a blog. It’s easy to get so busy that this online feature becomes an after thought.

It’s taken my brain a lot of convincing that today — after the three-day holiday weekend — that today is Tuesday. It also seems surreal that it is June 1. May seemed to fly by in a flurry of activity. And May in Kearney went out with a bang.

Friday, May 28, was anything but routine. On Friday morning I learned there were still many people — including City Hall — without Internet service. FairPoint Communications had a major outage last week, affecting many individual and business customers.

Also Friday, the school district announced the new principal for Southview Elementary School, despite Melanie Brock’s attempt at legal moves to keep her job — or at least delay things until she and the distract had a better understanding of why her contract was not being renewed for the 2010-2011 school year.

Friday was also the last day of school for Kearney R-1 School District. Without missing a beat, the summer session for elementary school starts today, June 1.

You can find coverage of all these things in The Kearney Courier this week. Other things you can find in this week’s Courier after a busy week include information about Holt’s new police chief, road closures and openings due to construction in the area and information about this weekend’s annual Relay for Life.

Also this past the weekend was the first city-sponsored event at the Kearney Amphitheater with the annual Blues Festival.

Things have been busy in Kearney and I don’t see any signs of it slowing down in June.

You probably heard sirens in Kearney earlier today (Wednesday, May 5).

Kearney tests its emergency sirens, primarily used for tornado warnings, at 11 a.m. the first Wednesday each month unless there is inclement weather at that time.

If you’re like me and jumped for a second, that’s good. Usually hearing those sirens should cause some alarm, unless it’s during the test.

Another monthly occurrence on a Wednesday in Kearney is the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Today will be an extended meeting as chamber members give input on what is needed in the community that Metropolitan Community College could provide. Pick up next week’s edition (May 13) for details from that if you miss it.

¡Feliz cinco de mayo, amigos!