Weather Poster Contest

By Nebraska Association of Emergency Management

The 2024 Severe Weather Awareness Poster Contest is beginning, and it is open to all third-grade students in Nebraska public and private schools, as well as home-schooled students.

The first-place winner in the state contest wins a $125 gift card. The second-place winner receives a $100 gift card, and the third-place winner receives a $75 gift card.

The Nebraska Association of Emergency Management provides the first, second and third place gift card awards. The fourth-place poster winner receives a $50 gift card sponsored by the National Weather Service.

Contest rules are as follows:

1. Poster artists must be a third-grade pupil in any Nebraska private, public, or home school.

2. Entries must be related to the theme of severe weather safety and will be judged on originality, effort, and accuracy. The posters should have a clear preparedness/weather safety message included. The slogan is as important as the art. All entries must be on an 11″ x 17″ sheet of white paper providing a 1-inch border to allow for matting the winning posters. Any medium may be used (crayon, paint, markers, etc.). Only one entry is allowed per pupil and no joint entries (posters by more than one person) will be accepted.

3. Each school is encouraged to conduct the contest. All entries must be received by the local Emergency Management Director/Coordinator on or before Feb. 9, 2024.

Scotts Bluff & Banner Counties
Region 22 Emergency Management

Tim Newman

1825 10th Street

Gering, NE 69341

**Office is in the basement of the Scotts Bluff County administration building

Kimball, Cheyenne, Duel, Garden & Morrill Counties
Region 21 Emergency Management

Ron Leal

1124 Grant Street

Sidney, NE 69162

Sioux, Dawes, Sheridan & Box Butte Counties
Region 23 Emergency Management

Nan Gould

250 Main Street, Ste 9

Chadron, NE 69337

2023 Winners

First Place: Lucas Rabstejnek, 8, Southern School District, Blue Springs, Gage County, “April Showers Bring May Floods”
Second Place: Gunnar Fernau, 9, Valentine Elementary School, Valentine, Cherry County, “Stay Inside During a Storm”
Third Place: Barrett Boynton, 9, Ruth Hill Elementary School, Lancaster County, “Tornado: Take Shelter Immediately”
Fourth Place: Allison Jerri Johnson, 9, Adams Elementary School, Lincoln, Lancaster County, “Don’t Let Your Future Go Up In Smoke!”
Honorable Mentions (alphabetical order):
Karyss Carufel, 8, Isanti Community School, Niobrara, Knox County
Elianna Clay, 8, Southern School District, Blue Springs, Gage County
Natalie Dolezal, 8, Gordon- Rushville Elementary School, Rushville, Sheridan County
Jeanette Vizcay Martinez, 9, Chandler View Elementary School, Sarpy County
Brooklyn Pavelka, 9, Adams Central School, Hastings, Adams County
Lilly Pracheil, 9, Dorchester Public Schools, Dorchester, Saline County
Capri Rodriquez, 8, Gordon-Rushville Public Schools, Rushville, Sheridan, County
Heidi Rutt, 9, Lourdes, Central Catholic School, Nebraska City, Otoe County
Josie Zagozda, 8, Westmont Elementary School, Bellevue, Sarpy County

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Friday April 24 2026 - Scanner News - Panhandle Scanner News

Tornado totals are in so far, only one tornado warning in Nebraska thus far in the season. And we are last on the list. Thankfully, with Illinois leading the way at 131 warnings issued so far this season. Wisconsin, surprisingly, and Missouri round out the top three. Our special tornado tracking reports make sure you follow Panhandle Scanner on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and frequently visit our news page at PanhandleScanner.com. We have a new service! We are now periodically producing full overnight traffic in a time lapse format. That means you can listen to the entire night of scanner traffic in a matter of 30 minutes or less. We've stripped out all the personal details as far as medical information goes but you will hear details on some of the police calls. The new podcast is called Scanner Traffic and it's available on all podcast networks including Spotify, Apple, iTunes, iHeart and more. Scanner traffic by Hail Multimedia and Panhandle Scanner. Find it on our homepage at PanhandleScanner.com. And don't forget about one of our most popular services across the state of Nebraska and that's the only published Nebraska public record. Available on PanhandleScanner.com.

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Here are the Four Stages of Discipleship we have covered this week. The Infant Stage The Maturing Stage The Others Stage The Disciple-Making Stage Matthew 28:19 tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. Mature Christ followers have a deep conviction that they’re called to make disciples. If you don’t graduate to the disciple-making stage, you’re really not a mature disciple. Disciples don’t just go to church; they make disciples. They don’t just study the Bible; they make disciples. This isn’t just for pastors, church leaders, or people with a theology degree. Jesus said one of the hallmark qualities of a disciple is they go and make disciples. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, – Hebrews 6:1 Cultural Christianity says it’s just about me and Jesus: Bless me. Take care of me. Make me happy. Meet all my needs. If you don’t, I’m shopping for another church that will meet my needs. If you make me mad or do something I don’t like, I’m leaving the church. Because this is all about me! For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. – Hebrews 5:12 Disciples understand it’s not just about me, it’s also about others. That’s what Jesus did. He took twelve men and said, follow me. Do life with me. Have friendship with me. I’m going to equip you to be disciples. I’m going to teach you, correct you, encourage you and train you. You may have been a Christian for years. You ought to be making disciples by now but you’re stuck. You still think Christianity and church is all about you. It’s time to start making disciples! Matthew 28:19–20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (NIV) Acts 6:7 And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (ESV) This is what it looks like when Christians get unstuck from cultural Christianity. The number of disciples multiplies because disciples make disciples. Not just converts, but disciples. Disciples build relationships with other Christians. They teach others to obey the Word of God. Don’t get stuck in the infant stage of Christianity. It’s time to stop being a cultural Christian, taking first grade Christianity over and over, and move to being a true disciple of Jesus! God has more for your life and your walk with Him!

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Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. – Ephesians 4:17-32 ESV We’ve looked at performance and comparison. Avoiding is another way to keep self at the center. It tends to happen in one of two ways. First, on those rare occasions when we actually feel like we’re doing and saying all the right things, we avoid our inner brokenness by thinking too highly of ourselves. The second (and more common for me) way we avoid is through the deflated self. The moment we fixate on just how imperfect we are instead of participating in life, we get down on ourselves and look for ways to avoid it altogether. Whether you’re puffed up or deflated, you’re making the same mistake. You’re placing yourself at the center of this story, thus inheriting the unrelenting pressure that comes with it. The apostle Paul said, “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:9-10 NIV). Self-reliance, or what Paul elsewhere called living according to “the flesh,” puts an enormous weight on your shoulders. Because the problem with being the one in charge is you are the one in charge. Do you know what’s a lot better than self-help? God’s help. And that takes us to one of the wildest things Jesus said. On the night he was betrayed, he told his disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7 ESV). Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Helper. And he basically told the disciples, “As great as it’s been to have me here in person these last few years, the Helper is the better option now.” We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. – Romans 6:9-14 ESV The same is true for us today. We’ve got a much better option than self-help; we’ve got God’s help. It’s time to let the Helper do what the Helper does best. Today’s Truth Statement: I am created in the image of a self-surrendering God.

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