Lifestyles

Photo by Kincaid Strain Morgan Ekwall, 19, sophomore of Yoder, Wyoming, laughs during the Sip and Paint in the Hub Tuesday evening.

Students get spirited at Halloween Sip and Paint

 By Kincaid Strain

Reporter

On Wednesday, CSC Students gathered in the Hub from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. to get into the spooky season spirit one brush stroke at a time.

A total of 47 students showed up to show o their art skills. ere were beverages provided as well as di erent sized canvases, paints and paint brushes.

“RLA has hosted an event like this in previous years, and I liked the idea, so I decided to put one on himself,” Colton Bevins, the head coordinator of the event, said.

Beverages were provided for the students and Halloween music played to get everyone in the spooky spirit.

While students came in throughout the night to paint, many came with old friends or made new friends while sitting around the tables.

“ is event allowed me to get my mind o of studying and to just relax and be in the moment with my friends and peers,” Paige Boitz,18, freshman of Pueblo, Colorado, said. “ is is exactly what I needed.”

Colton said that the Sip and Paint exceeded his expectation, and he was pleased to see this event bring students together to get into the spooky spirit while creating art and making new friends.

Catch a ride to “Halloweentown” this spooky season

 By Velvet Jessen

Sta Editor

If you didn’t spend your childhood on Disney channel then you may have missed out on one of my favorite Halloween movies. Halloweentown aired in 1998 on Disney channel and though I may not have been born when it rst came out, I have watched it for every Halloween season that I can remember or had control over the remote for. e movie starts with the main character Marnie arguing with her mom about why she isn’t allowed to trick or treat. Marnie is in the middle of arguing with her mom when her Grandma Aggie pops up at her house much to her mother’s chagrin. e movie’s plot is quickly set up when it’s shown that Marnie’s mother is trying to hide the magical powers her children have from them while her grandmother argues that they should be honing their powers before they lose them. Once Marnie and her siblings realize this the movie really starts. Grandma Aggie goes back home to Halloweentown, a place where goblins, trolls, witches, a skeleton cabby and any other odd creatures can roam peacefully, or at least they used to be able to before evil had started to seep into the town. Marnie and her siblings work with their grandmother to develop their powers and save the town.

You may think that this seems like a boring children’s movie but I assure you that it’s worth more than just nostalgic value. Afterall the movie was given three sequels, “Halloweentown II: Kalbar’s Revenge” in 2001, “Halloweentown High in 2004” and “Return to Halloweentown” in 2006.

Personally, I think Halloweentown II is the best but it’s important to start from the beginning. Nothing could have started had Marnie not argued with her mom that she was 13 and she should be able to make decisions.

e movie is full of sass and magic which I think are some of the best ingredients to a Halloween movie. Granted if you prefer a ton of guts and gore in your Halloween movies this movie probably isn’t for you, but if you enjoy a simple funny movie that you can safely watch without nightmares then it might just

be perfect.

It’s easily a movie you watch while carving pumpkins to get into the Halloween spirit and get ready for the night. It’s easily one of the best parts of my Halloween traditions and if you add it to yours, I’m sure you would love it too. e movies are so popular that this year marks the rst year the Halloweentown movies haven’t aired on Disney channel. at makes 22 years of the movie being aired because it’s that good. With loveable characters like sassy Grandma Aggie or the skeleton cab driver Benny its easy to keep coming back to the movie.

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Photo by Kamryn Kozisek

ABOVE: Craig Wyatt laughs as he looks at his longhorn herd on his ranch east of Chadron. Wyatt owns 60 head of cattle as a part of his ‘hobby farm’.

RIGHT: Cattle belonging to Jim Lestermister graze a pasture outside of Chadron.

Drought

Two Chadron ranchers share how they are handling the current drought condition in Nebraska

u By Kamryn Kozisek

Ag & Range Editor

As the drought continues to beat down on the U.S., two Chadron ranchers, Jim Lestermister and Craig Wyatt, cope with the dry conditions and prepare winter.

Wyatt, a hobby rancher, owns 60 head of longhorn cattle that graze various pastures around Chadron and South Dakota. Wyatt has been raising longhorns since 2007 and sells most of his calves as rodeo stock.

For Wyatt the drought has meant selling some of his cattle and buying extra hay to prepare for coming winter, after pasture conditions struggled to provide enough forage.

“This is just a hobby for us, and we want it to be a paying hobby,” Wyatt said. “But right now it’s kind of a stretch to do that because we had to buy a little hay, because of the drought, and then our pastures are just grazed slick. We don’t like to do that, just kind of the way the cookie crumbled this year.”

Lestermister owns an average sized cattle ranch, leases and owns land around Chadron. He has been ranching for 40 years, in those years he has been through several droughts.

“We went through drought for nine years in the early 2000s,” Lestermister said.” And then we just had mediocre years for eight or nine years in a row we just hardly had nothing, so I’ve been through. Then in 2012 was a terrible terrible year, that was probably one of the toughest years because there was absolutely nothing.”

During year where moisture is average or above average, Lestermister only grazes as much as he needs in order to save grass for poor production years.

“In a good year we save a lot of grass and then the pastures have a lot of extra grass, “ Lestermister said. “Then when we hit a drought and -it depends how bad the drought is- but if its not too bad we just roll on.”

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of Dawes County is in a severe or moderate drought. This is based on the evapotranspiration rates and decreased precipitation. At a severe drought standing, the drought monitor describes the expected impacts being; damaged crops, burn bans, foundation cracks in homes, surface water levels drop, saltwater intrusion occurs in bays and some hay shortages. The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) estimates that 9,182 people in Dawes County have been effected by drought in ““Every day when I get up I have a positive attitude about it no the last month. This year ranked as the 10th driest year in 127 years of data. As a whole, 99% matter how tough it is or what’s going wrong.” of Nebraska has a below average precipitation probability and has had lower - Jim Lestermister than average precipitation this year. This year, according to the Drought Monitor, is the first time in eight years that all of Nebraska has been considered in drought. As precipitation decreases there is less grass production, leading to decreases in available food for livestock. There are over 32,000 cattle and almost 2,000 sheep in Dawes County, according to NIDIS. Another concern for ranchers is the increase in hay prices, driven by the drought. Current prices in the western part of Nebraska range from $250-$180 for large alfalfa squares, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. This year, Wyatt expects to be buying hay for the winter despite having land that he harvests hay from each year. “We didn’t do too bad this year on one of our little chunks of ground where we get hay, we got about 95 bales off of that which is not too bad,” Wyatt said. “Last year we got seven bales and the year before that we got 150 bales and the year before that we got like 95 bales so 90 to 100 bales is pretty average. The seven bales was just terrible, this year we got just enough, it turned out OK.” A longhorn calf belonging to Craig Wyatt stands behind a barbwire fence in a pasture east of Chadron.

Photo by Kamryn Kozisek

ABOVE: A pair of longhorn cattle tear apart a hay bale using their horns at Craig Wyatt’s ranch, east of Chadron.

LEFT: Dust blows off the cattle trail being used by cattle belonging to Jim Lestermister, as the herd is moved to a new pasture.

10 Oct. 28, 2021 | The Eagle | csceagle.com Comics

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