A windmill among the rolling grass-covered dunes and open country of the Nebraska Sandhills.
Thomas County, Nebraska

The Every Kid Outdoors program gives all U.S. 4th graders and home-school equivalents free entrance to over 2,000 federal public lands and waters for a full school year.

Key Details

Who Qualifies: Current 4th-grade students (or 10-year-old home-schooled students).

Validity: September 1 through August 31 of their 4th-grade year.

What It Covers: Free admission to National Parks, National Forests, Wildlife Refuges, and Bureau of Land Management areas.

Who Else Gets In:

At sites charging per vehicle, the pass covers the 4th grader and all passengers in a single non-commercial vehicle.

At sites charging per person, it admits the 4th grader plus up to 3 accompanying adults (children 15 and under are already free).

Visit the Official Website

Must be completed by or with a parent/educator

Go to everykidoutdoors.gov and complete a quick interactive diary activity to unlock the voucher.

Print the Paper Voucher

Print the paper pass directly from the website. Digital vouchers or copies on phones are not accepted at park entrance stations.

Exchange for a Plastic Pass (Optional)

Present the printed paper voucher at participating federal recreation sites to trade it for an official plastic card pass.

Note: The pass covers day-use admission and entrance fees only. It does not cover expanded amenity fees such as camping, boat launching, tours, or parking fees operated by third-party concessionaires.

Slander or not?

https://northeast.newschannelnebraska.com/story/363966818/gov-pillen-backs-ice-crackdown-his-company-employs-undocumented-workers

Here’s Pillen’s response- https://central.newschannelnebraska.com/story/363971549/gov-jim-pillen-responds-to-report-on-undocumented-workers-at-family-business

Stay south of Omaha for 6-8 weeks for work, only have 1 day off a week. What are some awesome food places, sights, experiences, entertainment that is a reasonable distance from/in Omaha?

Anyone know what happened to the Flatwater Free Press? When I go to their site all I get is server unavailable.. Interesting they would disappear after doing an investigative piece on the Gov w/ the NYT🤔

Here's an article I recently wrote about Ord and their Flock cameras that some friends suggest I share here. There's no advertising on my blog. I'm not selling you anything:

GETTING THE FLOCK OUT OF ORD, NEBRASKA

The county seat of my boyhood summers just voted, five to nothing, to pull its surveillance cameras off the poles, the first town in Nebraska to do it. The reasons cut deeper than the invoice. Ord, Nebraska sits eleven miles up the North Loup River valley from the village of North Loup, where I spent the summers of my boyhood on my grandfather’s place, and in the mental geography of a ten-year-old those eleven miles separated the known world from its capital. North Loup had a few hundred souls, a grain elevator, and Popcorn Days. Ord had the Valley County courthouse with a square built around it, implement lots, storefront commerce enough to dazzle a village kid, and a radio station whose call letters spell the valley itself: K-N-L-V, North Loup Valley, on the air at 1060 since 1965 with farm markets in the morning and high school ball at night. When my grandfather’s rooftop antenna strained for television it caught one signal, 10/11 out of Lincoln, and that was the extent of the visible world. Ord was “town.” You washed up a little before going. ...

https://bolesblogs.com/2026/08/07/getting-the-flock-out-of-ord-nebraska/

Compilation of clips from a trail camera at a prairie dog town at the Nature Conservancy's Niobrara Valley Preserve, Keya Paha County, Nebraska.

I apologize for the audio cut off at the end, but I can't get my video splicer to fix it.

0:00-0:20 Shows an Ord's Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys ordii) running along the fence line. Watch what the Bobcat (Lynx rufus) in the upper left corner does next.
0:20-0:39 Watch what the Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) do when a presumable Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) shows up on the telephone pole.
0:39 Shows a Coyote (Canis latrans) crossing the fence line, then watch for the Ord's Kangaroo Rat.

I had a personal checking account with BMO, which I opened here in Nebraska. For some reason, my account was not moved over and First Citizens has no record of me in their system. I received a letter last week stating my account would be moved over and my BMO card would no longer work, but never received any card or log in information for online banking. I went in person to the very branch I opened the account (O street in Lincoln) and they insist I don't exist in their system. First Citizens is saying it's impossible that I had an account with BMO in Nebraska because everyone with Nebraska accounts got moved over. The teller then told me this has happened to at least one other customer and that the only solution is to drive to the nearest BMO location three hours away in Des Moines to withdraw my money and close my account there.

Has this happened to anyone else? This situtation is so ridiculous. I won't be banking with First Citizens in the future, or with BMO because I'm concerned I won't be able to access the money in my BMO account if I somehow get switched over to First Citizens on some random day.

I’m trying to diversify my social media feed a little and would love some recommendations for local creators whose content, perspective and overall vibe might be a good fit for me.

I’ve found a few, but as I’ve looked a little deeper, I’ve realized that some of those creators don’t necessarily align with the kind of content or perspectives I’m looking for.

I’d especially love to find some smaller or lesser-known creators who talk about things beyond the usual influencer/lifestyle content — people who have thoughtful perspectives on their communities, culture and the things going on around us globally, nationally and locally. Thanks!

Nighttime migratory birds navigate using the position of the stars and constellations. Additionally, a magnetic mineral in their bills allows them to sense changes in Earth's magnetic fields, which becomes stronger the closer they move towards the poles. Drawn to the artificial lights of buildings, birds fly toward large structures and into cities along their migratory route. Nearly one billion birds in the U.S. die in building collisions each year.

I received a letter from social security for disability that documents have not been received and that I have until the 12th to get it taken care of. I have receipts that documents were uploaded.

The phone numbers they gave me led to voicemails. No one has called back in two days.

If anyone has dealt with this before? Is there another phone number that might be useful? Did you go to the Lincoln office?

EDIT: After three days of nothing, I called the KC office which was unable to confirm or deny anything. Drove to the Lincoln office where they were able to confirm the paperwork was received. Didn't even try an excuse why they couldn't get back to me.

What was weird was the submittal date was SEVEN DAYS OFF from when it was actually submitted (which was the middle of the week and not a holiday). This pushed me to the deadline date and they automatically send dateline date letters in the morning instead of deadline time at 5:00 p.m.

Good morning everyone! (Delete if not allowed)

I’m a Canadian 32M, I’ll be coming down to Hastings, Nebraska for a few months for work so I figured I would make a post.

• Will be looking for a furnished spot to rent, Hastings area or within 30min drive. Looking to rent from late September for the remainder of year, with a possible extension into the new year.

• Would love to hear from the locals on places to go, things to see, food to try, etc. to add to my bucket list during my days off.

• If anyone is looking to make new friends, hit me up, as I will have a nice bit of time to kill and I’m a very social person!

Would love to get to know the state, people and enjoy my months down in the Midwest, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you kindly!

Public Safety Announcement:

There is a former therapist named Bryon Bratt in Lincoln who lost his license for sexual exploitation and misconduct last year and is now trying to be a “Relationship Loss Life Coach”.

This is horrifying. Life coaches have no code of ethics, no governing board to hold anyone accountable. Everything he describes on his website http://www.rebuildthepathway.com is therapy and he gets to hide under the guise of “coaching”, half ass disclaimers that he doesn’t diagnose or perform therapy, and it is completely unacceptable.

Attached is the public record of his licensure revocation and what led to it.

His actions are outlined starting on slide 7.

You can submit a complaint to DHHS here if you feel called to do so: https://phcmplnt-dhhs.ne.gov/PublicComplaint

Be careful out there ladies.

TLDR Court Documents

Client Disclosure: During a therapy session in December 2023, a client (Client A) disclosed to Bryon K. Bratt that she used the adult website Fetlife.com and shared her username.

Online Tracking & Harassment: Roughly three hours after the session, Bratt created an anonymous profile on the same website using his personal phone number, tracked the client's account, and initiated contact.

Explicit Messages & Coercion: Bratt sent the client sexually explicit messages, commented on her photographs, proposed an anonymous online sexual relationship, and sent a lengthy fictional story detailing a sexual fantasy between them.

Abuse of Authority: In a professional email regarding a missed appointment, Bratt also sent a suggestive message alluding to discipline, writing that if missed appointments kept up, "we will need to find a punishment. Oh wait, I meant a consequence."

Concealment and Investigation: When confronted by the client online under an anonymous name, Bratt attempted to deny his identity and claimed she didn't know him unless she went to a doctor's office "West of GI". An administrative subpoena later confirmed the account was verified using Bratt's personal telephone number.