LOS ANGELES (AP) – John Mellencamp says he has nothing to do with a new film called “Jack and Diane.” The film is running as video-on-demand. Mellencamp says his song does not appear in the movie, nor did he have anything to do with the title. Mellencamp says it’s apparent the characters “were named with the hope that the familiar title might resonate in some people’s minds.” He says that’s probably OK from a legal standpoint “but riding on someone else’s coattails and having a moral compass is left up to each individual.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A piano used by Stevie Wonder when he was a student in Michigan has been loaned to the Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Ky., and will be on display starting next week.
The 1922 Steinway grand piano was long used by students at the Michigan School for the Blind, where Wonder, a child prodigy, studied in the mid-1960s. Wonder signed with Motown at the age of 11 and went on to become a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Museum spokeswoman Roberta WIlliams told The Courier-Journal the piano will be on loan indefinitely. It goes on display starting Oct. 11.
Sam and Sharon Rankin, at the CSC homecoming parade in 2011. (Photo by Justin Haag)
Dr. Sam Rankin and Nobel Prize winner Val Fitch who attended CSC prior to World War II. (Photo by Con Marshall)
Sam Rankin and Don Duncan, dir of physical facilities, former State Sen. Sandy Scofield, Gov. Ben Nelson, and U.S. Senators Jim Exon and Bob Kerrey. (Photo by Con Marshall)
Four CSC presidents in 1989: Larry Tangeman, Clark Elkins, Ed Nelson and Sam Rankin. (Photo by Con Marshall)
Chadron State College President Emeritus Dr Sam Rankin has died after a short bout with pancreatic cancer. Rankin passed away early Sunday in a Dayton, Ohio, hospital just 2 days after his 70th birthday.
Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Peter’s Church in Huber Heights, Ohio, the suburb of Dayton where Rankin and his wife Sharon…both Dayton natives…had lived since his retirement from Chadron State in 2007.
Rankin was the eighth president of CSC and served nearly 12 years…from September 1986 through June of 1998…when he became both President Emeritus and Board of Trustees Professor of History. He taught on campus for 9 years, then online from Ohio during a 3-year phased retirement.
Rankin’s arrival from Montana State University-Billings…where he’d been vice president…helped spark Chadron State into one of its biggest eras of growth in terms enrollment, programs, and buildings. Enrollment jumped over 45%, the school added MBA and range management programs, scholarship support doubled, and assets of the Chadron State Foundation tripled.
Two key initiatives begun during his tenure as president helped spark the enrollment jump: RHOP…the Rural Health Opportunities Program…which is now at all 3 state colleges and Nebraska-Kearney…and the Non-Resident Scholars Program granting in-state tuition rates for top students from other states.
Chadron State saw a tremendous expansion in technology during Rankin’s tenure. The first was a 2-way television system allowing courses to be offered in Scottsbluff and several other towns and ending the need for professors to travel to those communities to offer classes.
That was followed by library automation, wiring all campus buildings with fiber optics, several computer upgrades, a site on the World Wide Web, and offering classes over the internet.
Rankin also led the way as the Eagles joined the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference after 20 years as independent with no viable conference affiliation. He was inducted into the CSC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006.
The building mini-boom under Rankin included the school’s iconic Lindeken Clock Tower, the wood-fired heating plant that has won national acclaim, the Student Center, and the Con Marshall Press Box at Elliott Field/Don Beebe Stadium.
Conversion of the mothballed Miller Hall gymnasium into a state-of-the-art classroom building was also begun while Rankin was president.
After returning to teaching, Dr. Rankin earned a reputation as an outstanding scholar who was popular with students as he challenged them to make comparisons to what’s happening in the modern world with what they have learned through the study of history.
He later said it was an “extremely enjoyable” time because he was being paid for pursing his hobby: “the study of history and its application to today’s world.”.
Rankin graduated Magna Cum Laude with a major in history from St. Joseph College in Indiana in 1964, received his master’s degree from the University of Wyoming 2 years later, and his Ph.D. from Kent State University in Ohio in 1971.
While a graduate student at Kent State, he saw the 1970 confrontation between anti-war protesters and National Guard troops that resulted in 4 students being killed and one of the most memorable photographs of that turbulent period.
Rankin said he knew he was watching when the troops fired because he could see the barrel of one officer’s .45 pistol…which is only visible as the gun is ejecting a casing after being fired.
In 1974, Rankin was named as the Outstanding Faculty Member at Valley City State University in North Dakota in 1974, then later that year became the school’s Vice President of Academic Affairs at age 32.
He left Valley City State after 9 years to take the same position at Eastern Montana College…now Montana State-Billings…but left there after only 3 years for Chadron State.
Rankin is survived by three sons and a daughter, their spouses, seven grandchildren, and his wife Sharon, a retired registered nurse who worked in that capacity for the Chadron City Schools for 10 years and often was a community health screening volunteer.
Mrs Rankin also served on the Chadron Community Hospital Board, the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications board of directors, and a statewide selection committee for the nation’s military academies.
Breast cancer symptoms vary widely — from lumps to swelling to skin changes — and many breast cancers have no obvious symptoms at all. Symptoms that are similar to those of breast cancer may be the result of non-cancerous conditions like infection or a cyst.
Breast self-exam should be part of your monthly health care routine, and you should visit your doctor if you experience breast changes. If you’re over 40 or at a high risk for the disease, you should also have an annual mammogram and physical exam by a doctor. The earlier breast cancer is found and diagnosed, the better your chances of beating it.
The actual process of diagnosis can take weeks and involve many different kinds of tests. Waiting for results can feel like a lifetime. The uncertainty stinks. But once you understand your own unique “big picture,†you can make better decisions. You and your doctors can formulate a treatment plan tailored just for you.
In the following pages of the Symptoms and Diagnosis section, you can learn about:
The different types of breast cancer, including ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), inflammatory breast cancer, male breast cancer, recurrent breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer, and more.
The characteristics of the cancer — featured on your pathology report — that might affect your treatment plan, including size, stage, lymph node status, hormone receptor status, and more.
To schedule a mamogram, contact the Box Butte General Hospital radiology department at 762-6660.
WENTY’S TWO CENTS The caffeine-addled ramblings of KCOW “Wakeup Show” host Jason Wentworth
October 1, 2012
Happy anniversary to the good old compact disc. 30 years ago today, Billy Joel’s “52nd Street” was the first commercially released CD–in Japan. Meanwhile, here in America, we were all slaves to the cassette tape–which, to be truthful, was a step down from the LP.
(Well, okay, you couldn’t play a record in your car unless you were an extremely steady driver. And 33 1/3 LPs don’t fit in the glove box. And they’d melt in a hot car anyway.)
But cassette tapes sounded muddy, and the tape came loose (keep that pencil handy). And here’s the elimination round: LPs and CDs allow you instant access to a specific track on the album. Cassettes did not. If I could get back all the time I spent rewinding and fast forwarding over the course of my lifetime cassette usage, I could hear Gloria Estefan’s “Words Get In The Way” album 57 more times. (Don’t judge! Let those without some questionable taste in music cast the first 8-track.)
Back to CDs. Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” was, appropriately enough, the first title released on compact disc here in America. And for a good couple of decades CD was the dominant music format.
Nowadays, though, mp3 downloads are king. These days I only buy 3 or 4 CDs a year–but that’s not because I’m downloading a ton from iTunes or Amazon. It’s because I have all the music I like on CD already. The last CD I bought was the new Beach Boys album–which is certainly available in download form.
When it comes to music, I think I’m just old enough (and just stubborn enough) to feel like I should have something to hold and look at for my hard-earned money. (Would you believe “semi-earned money”?) The same goes for movies and books. This may be why I am starting to feel claustrophobic as the one person in a two-bedroom apartment. (For the record: I am not a hoarder. I take out my trash, and I have no cats.)
I can still remember the first CD I ever purchased, by the way. I bought a Stan Freberg comedy album at a Record Theater store in Buffalo, NY. I did not yet have a CD player–Santa Momandad would deliver that a few months later. But I knew I could listen to the disc in one of the studios at the community college radio station–thus beginning a twenty-year pattern of time wasting that extends to my writing this blog when I could be doing actual radio station-type work.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Omaha police say a car was traveling more than 90 mph on Interstate 480 when it hit a guardrail, killing the driver.
The crash happened at 7:24 p.m. Sunday when the car made a sudden lane change at the I-480 intersection with Interstate 80 and the John F. Kennedy Freeway. Investigators say the car was traveling more than 91 mph when it hit a guardrail beneath the Vinton Street bridge.
Police didn’t identify the driver pending notification of relatives. The driver was the car’s only occupant.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A new survey of business leaders suggests little or no economic growth in most of a group of nine Midwest and Plains states through the end of the year, but the booming oil business will continue to drive growth in North Dakota and Oklahoma.
The region’s overall economic index improved to a weak 50.4 in September from August’s 49.7.
Any score above 50 suggests economic growth in the months ahead while a score below 50 suggests decline for that factor.
The survey covers Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
By contrast with the overall index, North Dakota’s economic index hit 61.6 in September and Oklahoma’s registered 56.6.
GENOA, Neb. (AP) – A central Nebraska farmer who is being treated for lung cancer says he was amazed by the nearly 100 people who gathered to harvest his soybean crop.
Bernard Cuba of Genoa returned home Friday after a week of radiation treatment in Omaha and watched as dozens of people completed the harvest. They came from around the region and made use of 18 combines, 24 auger wagons and 30 trucks.
It took them about four hours to clear 600 acres of soybeans from seven fields. Cuba’s son had already harvested about 600 acres of corn.
Cuba tells the Columbus Telegram that “words can’t explain it.”
Bob Konwinski organized the event with his wife Michelle. He called it “just a neighborly thing.”
On this date in 1962 “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” premiered on NBC. Johnny was given a “warm-up” by Groucho Marx before taking the stage and addressing his opening night jitters with a cry of “I want my nana!”
Thirty years of memorable moments and only one clip?! Rather than selecting one of the classic bits– like the Copper Clapper sketch with Jack Webb, or Ed Ames and his errant tomahawk–here’s Johnny letting a guest get all the laughs, and enjoying it more than anybody.
