Chadron State College President Dr Randy Rhine is excited about the possible impacts of the 2-year tuition freeze for in-state students announced Monday by Governor Dave Heineman, University of Nebraska President J-B Milliken, and Nebraska State College System Chancellor Stan Carpenter.

If the legislature approves the plan, state funding for higher education would increase $47-million dollars…$43-million more to the university and $4.1-million additional to the state colleges.

The idea behind the freeze is to help keep higher education in Nebraska affordable and to increase enrollment at the state schools. Rhine thinks it should achieve both goals, and says it’s a “fine thing” anytime a new way is developed to control costs for students.

Rhine…officially still just the interim president until the State College System trustees meet next week…welcomes the additional state funding, but can’t say yet how much of the extra money will be coming to CSC. He expects it to be divided among the three colleges and applied to core needs.

Rhine says the trustees, state college system, and the 3 individual schools have all been exploring a variety of ways to hold down the cost of higher education for students. The trustees have limited tuition increases in recent years, including 3.5% for the coming year.

Enrollment has been growing at Chadron State, and Rhine thinks holding the line on tution has helped. He says potential students are “shopping” for colleges and scrutinizing the price of college education more.

Chadron State resident tuition and fee is $189.35 for one credit hour…bringing the total for a traditional full load of 15 hours per semester to a little under $5,600 a year. The savings under the tuition freeze for next year…based on the 3.5% increase approved by the trustees in April…would be a little under $200.

Oglala Sioux Tribal President Bryan Brewer will have surgery tomorrow to repair a broken pelvis suffered in a one-vehicle accident last month on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

He also suffered broken ribs in the December 29th accident as he drove in the Red Tail Shirt area.

Brewer spent most of a week at Rapid City Regional Hospital, then was transferred to its rehabilitation unit late last week.

The 65-year old former educator elected president in November was expected to be released next week, but spokeswoman Toni Red Cloud says that’s been pushed back indefinitely to allow time for Brewer to recover.

Alliance was without electricity for about an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday.

Alliance City Manager J.D. Cox says the outage occurred at 11:43 a.m.,  and was triggered by a problem at the WAPA — Western Area Power Administration — substation about a mile west of Alliance on 10th Street.

Cox says that the city received permission from WAPA to send its electric crews onto the WAPA substation site to make repairs a little before 12:30 p.m., and they identified the problem and made the repairs in less than an hour.

Cox says had the city not received permission from WAPA officials to enter their property, the outage would have lasted much longer.

KCOW and Double Q Country Radio were knocked off the air.

KCOW-AM had been able to remain on the air in past outages by using an emergency generator at its studios in Alliance, but the station is in the midst of a building construction and equipment upgrade that have taken that generator off-line.

The transmitters for Double Q Country 105.9 and 97.5 were both still operational, but the programming signal is sent to each transmitter site by microwave and the outage has knocked out those systems.

Alliance’s Cody Substation is in the midst of a rebuild and was off line and unable to run the generation system that would have provided electricity to portions of West Third Street and downtown Alliance.

   Governor Dave Heineman, University of Nebraska President J-B Milliken, and Nebraska State College System Chancellor Stan Carpenter have announced a 2-year tuition freeze for in-state students at all 4 university campuses and the 3 state colleges…if the legislature approves Heineman’s plan to increase state funding for higher education.

The 3 men unveiled the tuition freeze proposal at a news conference this morning. Heineman told the news conference that it’s vital for Nebraskans to continue to have access to affordable higher education if the state’s economy is remain vital in the future.

Announcement of the tuition freeze comes two days before the opening of the 2013 legislative session and 8 days before the governor presents his budget package to lawmakers, which will include $541-million dollars for the university…an increase of $43-million over the past 2 years…and $49.6-million for the state colleges..up $4.1-million.

Milliken and Carpenter said the average student at each of their schools will save about $1,000 during the two years of the freeze, and that it should boost enrollment.  Heineman was also optimistic that the tuition freeze will lead more Nebraskans to stay in the state for college.

Carpenter said the state colleges fill a vital role in making sure rural Nebraskans have access to an affordable college education, but also play a vital role in their parts of the state…making the tuition freeze important to everyone, not just those looking to go to college.

Governor Heineman didn’t how he would fund the freeze with a projected $200 million budget shortfall, but did remind reporters that the shortfall is just a projection and that the state “didn’t have any problem” handling a $1 billion budget shortfall two years ago. He also said details would be in his budget proposal next Tuesday.

While it is not 100% complete, the roof has been more than raised at the new livestock barn at the Box Butte County Fair in Hemingford.

The building, which was erected where the three old wooden livestock barns once stood, was utilized for one of the first times Sunday afternoon, January 6, with a 4-H and FFA beef weigh-in.

The new facility, which is completely enclosed, has had electric outlets and lights installed, as well as seven overhead doors.

Plumbing has also been put in place, as bathrooms and showers are being installed on the facility’s southeast side.

The building will soon be used as a barn for the Hemingford school buses, as well as agriculture functions — in particular the pens and show ring for the 2013 Box Butte County Fair.

The fair’s livestock entry day will be Wednesday, August 7, with shows to take place August 8 and 9, and the livestock sale on Saturday, August 10.

Donations to help pay for the facility may still be sent to the Box Butte County 4-H office at 415 Black Hills in Alliance, 69301.    Checks should be made to “Raise the Roof.”

The building was constructed by Cullan Supply of Hemingford.

A new Miss America will be crowned Saturday night in Las Vegas with two women from the Double Q Country area among this 53 contestants: Miss Nebraska Mariah Cook of Chadron and Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden of Wyoming.

The preliminary rounds of competition begin tomorrow at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino with the finals on Saturday night to be televised live on ABC starting at 7:00 MT.

Yesterday, the contests visited the Las Vegas Fashion Mall and strutted their stuff on an 80-foot retractable Plexiglas runway…with each featured on multimedia screens.

A meet-and-greet session where the contestants signed autographs and photos for the public followed the show.

Mariah Cook was the oldest contestant at last summer’s Miss Nebraska Pageant in North Platte and was competing for the fourth time.

Before heading off to Las Vegas and the Miss America Pageant, she said she was in a state of shock when her name was called in North Platte because she’d expected to be just the 4th runner-up, and had to ask outgoing Miss Nebraska Kayla Batt if she’d won.

Cook…a senior at Chadron State College…was originally scheduled to do her student teaching this past fall in North Platte, plans that were obviously changed when she won the crown. She said she had no problem at all with putting her expected life on hold for her year as Miss Nebraska and a shot at becoming Miss America.

Cook grew up in and graduated from high school in Colorado, but often visited her grandparents in Crawford and made Chadron her adopted home shortly after starting classes at Chadron State…where she went on to become a cheerleader and Homecoming Queen.

Since Saturday’s Miss America finals will be on ABC, the network’s Good Morning America is offering behind-the-scenes footage from this year’s pageant today, tomorrow and Friday.

A Gering teenager was killed early Sunday morning when she tried to drive her vehicle around railroad crossing arms on the east side of Gering.

Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Lt. Rick Spencer says 17-year old Mikal D Orozco was transported to Regional West Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead.

Spencer says Orozco was southbound when she tried to drive around the dropped arms at the 21st Avenue crossing near Highway 92 about 1:30 Sunday morning and was struck by an eastbound Union Pacific train.

The Gering police and fire departments, Valley Ambulance, and the Nebraska State Patrol all responded to the accident along with the Sheriff’s Office.