CASPER, WY -- Kevin E. Sprague, 53, Casper, WY, died Tuesday, March 12 in Casper.    Services will be held Saturday, March 30 at 11 a.m. at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Harlan with burial of ashes in the Harlan Cemetery.  Family will greet friends Saturday from 9:30-11 a.m.

    EARLING -- Dorothy Kenkel, 80, Earling, died March 18 at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.    Services will be held Saturday, March 23 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Earling with burial in the St. Joseph’s Cemetery at Earling.  A wake service will be held Friday, March 22 at 7 p.m. at the church.  Visitation is Friday from 4-8 p.m.

    HARLAN – Harlan Community Schools Superintendent Justin Wagner on Monday, March 18 was offered the opportunity to sign a waiver allowing for the HCS Board of Education to release the results of an independent investigation and staff survey, but as of early Thursday morning, March 21, he had not responded to that e-mail request by the Harlan Newspapers.    The school board is prohibited by law from discussing or providing to the public cert

    HARLAN -- Caitlin Bissen, a senior at Harlan Community High School, has been nominated for the IHSSA All-State Speech Festival in two categories: acting and poetry interpretation.       She was nominated by at least two of the three judges who evaluated each of her performances at the state level speech competition.  There were only six students from the Southwest District who were nominated in two categories this year.    Bissen’s dramati

HARLAN – The Harlan Community Schools Board of Education held another closed session meeting with its legal counsel present Monday, March 18 to evaluate an individual, and after approximately 1 ½ hours of discussion, re-entered open session and took no action.    It’s the third closed session meeting the board has held in recent months, under Iowa Code Section 21.5(1)(i) “to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointme

HARLAN -- Harlan’s Shopko store will be closing sometime before June.    It was announced  Monday, March 18 that Shopko would be closing all remaining stores and liquidate its assets by June, according to a document filed in bankruptcy court.    A press release stated that the company was unable to find a buyer for the retail business, and operations will begin winding down as early as this week.    “This is not the outcome we had hoped for wh

    COUNTY – Shelby County is asking for clarifications from the Iowa State Auditor’s Office regarding information released in a special investigation of the county’s Emergency Management Association office.    A special investigation by the Iowa State Auditor’s Office has identified $59,165.28 in improper disbursements and $1,597.32 of unsupported disbursements, with all but $2,080.36 related to the Shelby County Emergency Management Associat

School board statement made at every board meeting regarding citizen comments

    HARLAN -- Ida L. Heim, 95, Harlan, died Sunday, March 17 at Myrtue Medical Center in Harlan.  Services are pending at Pauley Jones Funeral Home in Harlan.
 
See a PDF below of their obituary, if one was provided by the family or funeral home.