Volunteer Fire Department Fundraiser

(MINATARE, Neb.) – The Minatare/Melbeta Volunteer Fire & Rescue Fund Drive started September 1, 2024 and is still accepting donations.

In 2023, Minatare/Melbeta Volunteer Fire & Rescue responded to a total of 272 calls – 63 fires, and 209 rescues. Their response area covers 316 square miles. A large percentage of your contribution goes to financing the operation expenses of the Rescue Units, maintenance and upkeep of the fire stations and equipment.

Please consider donating to this community service organization. Due to the high cost of fuel and the shortage of manpower for one reason or another, the members will not go door to door in the Minatare/Melbeta city or rural areas.

Patrons can mail donations to:
P.O. Box 165
Minatare, NE 69356
Drop donations off at the Hall Drop Box at:
612 Main St.
Minatare, NE 69356
or use Venmo QR. (@minatarefire)

Also, donations may
be dropped off at the
City Office.

2024 FIRE DEPARTMENT OFFICERS

FIRE CHIEF: Brandi Ehler
ASST CHIEF: Lashae Vogl
RESCUE CAPTAIN: Brandon Smith
FIRE CAPTAIN: Dennis Vogl
PRESIDENT: Lashae Vogl
VICE PRESIDENT: Dennis Vogl
TREASURER: Brandi Ehler
SECRETARY: Vern Eberhardt

Currently the department has 10 EMT’s and 3 Paramedics. Among them they have the following certifications:

1 Radiological Monitor Certified
All EMT’s are Semi-Automatic Defibrillator Certified
7 Certified Divers
2 National Search and Rescue
4 HAZMAT Operations Level

They also currently have 6 Fire Fighters with 1 fully certified. All Firefighters and Cadets take Monthly and/or Medical Training. But they need help!

HELP WANTED! VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

REQUIREMENTS:

Able to get out of bed at any hour of the night, and be at the station in a few minutes.
HOURS: 24 Hours a day, 7 Days a week.
JOB TITLE: Hose Toter, Ladder Setter, Water Hauler, Firefighter, Counselor, Care-Giver, Life-Saver.
MUST SHOW: Courage, Strength, Bravery, Diplomacy, and Good Judgement.
RATE OF PAY: As much as you can take away in your heart.

For more information on how to join the team, CONTACT ANY FIREFIGHTER or come to the fire station on MONDAY NIGHTS!

Minatare Melbeta Fire Department will be posting other events throughout the year, so follow their page for more events! We’d like to thank you in advance for your support.

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Tuesday April 28 2026 - Scanner News - Panhandle Scanner News

Back in 2009, Hale Multimedia set up a free public broadcast to five feet so that every individual in the world could listen to the scanner without buying an expensive piece of equipment. Just visit any police scanner app in your favorite app store. Just search for Scotts Bluff County Public Safety. Or go directly to PanhandleScanner.com, where you can listen anytime. Now let's take a listen to some of that traffic. Drinking and driving do not mix. A drunk altercation back on the 15th of April turns deadly. Scanner traffic indicated an incident at Bridgeport State Lake where Nebraska State Patrol and Morrill County deputies were called to an incident at the Bridgeport State Recreation Area near Rec Road. "North Platte, 483." "483" "10-89 is 10-18. The only information is if the female jumped out of a moving vehicle. All she could give me is on Recreation Road." Originally unable to locate the victim while going 1018 or lights and sirens, they eventually located 53-year-old Maria Lewis, who was found with a critical head injury. Court records indicate that Jason Parker of Bridgeport was driving the RV and was arrested for DUI. And then after asking me in the practical home, 641, the practical home, 641, then you can meet the victim of your male child out of. Parker originally stated that Lewis had jumped from the vehicle. After a short investigation, the male was transported to the jail. "The female was transported by 10-55 (ambulance). Also, they have a male 10-15, reference 10-47 (DUI)." "Midnight thirty-one."

You Are Created to Move Forward (You're Not Finished Yet) - Elevate Your Day with Andi and Brian Hale

From You’re Not Finished Yet with Christine Caine on YouVersion always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. – Philippians 1:4-6 The Australian coat of arms depicts a very insightful image, one that I hold dear since I was born and raised in Australia and because it speaks volumes to me personally. There are two animals portrayed holding up a shield—the red kangaroo and the emu. They were chosen not only because they are indigenous to Australia but also because they were created to move forward. The emu, a large, nonflying bird slightly smaller than its cousin the ostrich, is known for its speed, covering as much as nine feet in a single step when running full throttle. It is the only bird with calf muscles—much like a human. Nonetheless, it can’t walk backward. It can only move forward. The red kangaroo—like all kangaroos—moves by a hopping motion called saltation, which literally means “to leap.” They push off with both of their large feet simultaneously and use their tails for balance. The combination of their muscular legs, big feet, and tails helps the kangaroos move forward effectively. But again, they can only move forward—not backward. When I think of them, and the fact they are creatures God made that cannot walk backward, I can’t help but think of us—people made in the image of God, another marvel of creation designed to move the same way. I understand that we need to step back from time to time and remember the past so we can move forward, and life sometimes hits us and we feel like we have gone backward, but God is faithful to pick us up and keep us moving forward. We are all on journeys no matter where we are. In some seasons we move forward quickly, and in others we move more slowly, but overall, we keep pressing on. Though we might pause and look to the past, we don’t want to get stuck in the past, right? How often have we allowed a season of disappointment, hurt, rejection, offense, or fear to stop us from moving forward? Today is a good day to take the hand of Jesus and, like the emu and the red kangaroo, take the next step forward. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, – Philippians 3:13 Let’s take Paul’s advice to the Philippians, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead. We can’t change the past. Not one bit. But we can affect our future. We can keep enduring in faith, reaching for all that God has planned for us. We can keep moving in the only direction we were created to move. The emu. The red kangaroo. And you. All created to move forward. Never backward. Let’s be who God created us to be so we can do all that He’s called us to do! Prayer Heavenly Father, thank You that even in nature You give us examples. You give us insight. Help us move the way You created us to move—forward, and never backward. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Self Help to God's Help (Free Me From Me) - Elevate Your Day with Andi and Brian Hale

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.

Self Care to Soul Care (Free Me From Me) - Elevate Your Day with Andi and Brian Hale

If Jesus’s invitation “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 NIV) sounds like an empty promise to you, there’s a good chance one last obstacle to your freedom is standing in the way—control. Maybe you (like me) tend to turn God into a vending machine. Where you decide you’ll put in a certain number of songs worshipping or hours praying and, in return, God will move in the exact way you want him to. Maybe you figured at this point you wouldn’t have any questions left about faith or struggle with any doubts, but you still do. So you try to control those thoughts by pushing them into a back room in your soul and locking the door. Maybe you’ve become impatient with the long work of God and have started scouring the internet for those quick-fix solutions. You still show up to church and read your Bible and all that, but if you’re honest, you’re way more interested in practices where you can be at the center. The challenge of control has existed ever since Adam and Eve ran, hid, blamed, and sewed together fig leaves in the garden. If that reminds you of you, try a new perspective. Imagine yourself standing with King David and staring up at a starry night sky, contemplating the God who created the whole universe. David prays, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4 NIV) The One who hangs constellations in the night sky is mindful of you. He cares for you. Not some future version of you who better reflects his image—the you right here and now. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. – Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV You don’t have to get stuck in your insecurities. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to get caught in the comparison trap. You don’t have to run away from the present moment. You don’t have to try to control any of it. You can be free from you, enjoying the scandalous freedom of trusting God. And it finally will feel like rest for your weary soul. Today’s Truth Statement: I am created in the image of a self-giving God. We hope you are encouraged by this reading plan. To learn more about FREE ME FROM ME by Ryan Wekenman, click here.