Valentine's VisionInvesting in a greater Cherry County Story by Kristen Friesen |
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LIKE A FINE PAINTING, to appreciate Valentine you’d best back up past the city limits and into greater Cherry County – Nebraska’s largest county canvas.
Beneath 6,000 square miles of rolling Sandhills region, Nebraska’s own sea (the Ogallala Aquifer) pumps nourishment to native grasses and brilliant wildflowers that splash color across the landscape. The abundance of rivers, lakes, waterfalls and wildlife make Cherry County one of Nebraska’s favorite playgrounds.
But this is winter, and snow’s white blanket conceals the contours of thousands of sleeping grass-covered sand giants, disturbed only by the occasional mule deer laying tracks.
The Niobrara River runs west to east across the top of this canvas. With the backdrop of ponderosa pine trees along the Minnechaduza Creek, your eyes come to rest on Valentine. It is home to roughly half the county’s 5,700 residents and precisely where you might imagine the heart of this portrait to be.
“Good morning, Valentine,” sails the smooth baritone voice of Mike Burge on KVSH-AM 940. “You can’t stay home today! Love is in the air; bulls are in the street.”
Though ranchers often go days seeing neither hide nor hair of a neighbor, Burge keeps them connected with warm greetings, national news and a touch of local color. This weekend, along with fielding calls for happy anniversaries and from secret admirers, Burge is emceeing Valentine’s winter community festival, the Heart City Bull Bash, held annually on Valentine’s Day weekend.
It’s six degrees on Main Street, and a steady snowfall has century-old brick storefronts looking as though they tumbled right out of snow globes. Shop keepers are bracing for a busy day, and ranchers from all over Cherry County are loading up sleepy cattle and heading to town.
Ken Hollopeter is first to arrive, long before sun-up. Every other day of the year, he runs Valentine Feed Service and operates his dad’s ranch south of Wood Lake. Today, he’s spearheading an effort to transform Valentine’s Main Street to a bull showroom.
Uniformed in coveralls, cowboy boots, wool coats, leather gloves, stocking and western hats, Hollopeter’s helpers from the Valentine High School FFA chapter begin to arrive and, within two hours, have erected 51 portable cattle pens.
While the best bulls of Valentine’s ranch families are unloaded onto Main Street, younger 4-H children help their moms haul in gift baskets donated for the annual Luck of the Draw Raffle.
Sprawled out across tables in the Cedar Canyon Steakhouse, the donated items offer snapshots into life here: a five-gallon bucket filled with new tools; saddles, tack and bags of feed; a beach bag bursting with towels, sunscreen and season passes to the Valentine Family Aquatic Center; and a coveted bronze sculpture of a cowboy and his steed. Proceeds from the raffle will go toward supplies for all 150 of Cherry County’s 4-H kids.
As the last few items are arranged, Ken Hollopeter and his hard-working crew come in out of the cold. Cedar Canyon’s owner, Shelly Frank, has a hearty and hot breakfast waiting for the pre-dawn workers.
Every business along Main Street has something special to draw customers today. The Lady Wranglers are shining shoes at Dave Price’s art gallery and Reese Propane is demonstrating other ways to stay warm by displaying locally made quilts. Wells Fargo is offering wine and beef samples compliments of Nebraska’s Area 17 Cattle Women. Miss Cherry County is hanging out at Young’s Western Wear and Irene Brand, author of "Love Finds You in Valentine", is signing copies of her books at Duane Gudgel’s Plains Trading Company.
Always one for a good story, Gudgel recalls when, as a boy in the 1960s, he’d tag along as an ex-officio member of the Eagle Scouts, searching the Niobrara River canyons for remnants of Doc Middleton, Kid Wade and the Pony Boys, whose hideout, Rustler’s Roost, was southwest of town.
Thirty years later, married and with an 11-year-old son, Gudgel found himself injured and in need of a career change. About that time, the University of Nebraska County Extension Office and the Valentine Chamber of Commerce were partnering to spark new businesses in Valentine.
Gudgel was interested. He and five others fueled up a county extension car with $50 in grant money and took turns sitting knee-to-knee in the back seat as they traveled Nebraska visiting business “incubators.” Far from raising chickens, a business incubator houses a group of entrepreneurs in a shared space. Each business splits the expense of the building and takes turns covering work shifts.
For Gudgel, low start-up costs meant low risk, making a business incubator the perfect method of starting over. The only decision remaining was what he would sell; and his son, Mark, insisted on books.
Several of the original fledgling businesses succeeded and moved on to other buildings. Plains Trading Company grew as well and now occupies the entire building as Valentine’s bustling bookstore.
“Our primary focus is regional,” Gudgel said of his book selection. “We can’t compete with Barnes & Noble, so we focus.”
Just past the counter and across a crowded aisle from a children’s section, a generous back third of the store is reserved for Nebraska products. There’s pottery, bath items, art, food and coffee. Sometimes, good stories are bound in bottles, which accounts for Gudgel’s wine selection – nearly 100 varieties from 15 Nebraska wineries, including a new local winery that makes gourmet balsamic vinegar.