News

With the new year underway, the Shelton Board of Education held their first meeting of 2021. On the agenda annually is the election of officers and committee appointments.

The doll pictured above once belonged to the late Nettie E. Walker, one-time owner of Walker Hardware, in Gibbon, and is on display at the Gibbon Heritage Center and includes the original hand-written letter from 1948 describing how the doll came to be with a local Gibbon family. The letter is written as though the doll herself wrote the account. The letter is signed by Dot Bayley Walker. The letter reads, “As I am a pioneer of Buffalo Co., Nebr., I thought I would like to tell you a little of my past life and tragic experiences I encountered in my childhood. I came to live at the Bayley homestead in 1883 (6). John M. Bayley found my poor head along the road to Kearney and brought me home and gave me to his little girl, Dot Margaret Adams. Dot’s grandmother lived in the house. She was very kind and made my little body. From there on I have lived with Dot. I can’t remember where I lived before I came to the Bayleys, but I think I was in a covered wagon on my way to the new west. They lost me on the cold prairies. I was glad to find a warm home. Mr. Bayley named me after his mother, Mary Durr. The dress material I have on was brought from Scotland by Dot’s school teacher, Rose Ogilvie and made by Grandmother Adams in 1889. I understand you have many dolls living with you. I thought perhaps you would like to have me, also. I hope we are always good friends and you like me.” (–photo by Dennis Walker)

Formed in the spring of 2019 in the wake of the first round of devastating flooding that year, the Gibbon Area Relief Fund (GARF) was organized to take on the extra responsibilities assumed by the Gibbon Volunteer Fire Department at the time, of accepting, sorting and distributing donated items for those affected by the flooding in addition to their other obligations in the community. Members of the Gibbon Area Chamber of Commerce, Gibbon City Council and Gibbon pastors, to name a few, came together to put the group together and begin finding ways to distribute donated items and funds to those in need.