Nebraska
Nebraska State Fair preparation underway at Fonner Park
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/UJULNUO6CVE27O2FR2AXGB7S3M.jpg "Nebraska State Fair preparation underway at Fonner Park")
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) – The Nebraska State Fair is only two weeks away and organizers are doing a lot of exterior work to get the Fonner Park campus in Grand Island ready for the festivities.
The return of the state fair is like a new attraction coming to town, as a lot goes into preparing for this big event. The entire campus is undergoing a transformation and although the state fair has employees at Fonner Park year-round, this is when they bring all their resources together.
While they’re still in the beginning stages, some workers said they began setting up for the state fair right after the Hall County fair ended. They’ve been painting signs, putting up tents, and preparing the livestock areas for the animals.
Nebraska State Fair Executive Director Jaime Parr said this stage of preparation is all about communication.
“We have set up reports and lists so anywhere there’s a table or a chair or animal pins or panels that need to be set up we share that with our operations team,” said Parr. “There’s lots of measuring that happens, throughout the year on AutoCAD Maps and this time out year in person.”
AutoCAD is a 3-D map. Workers now get to compare what they see on AutoCAD to the grounds at Fonner Park. Parr said within a week, vendors will be on campus populating the tents and that’s when the real excitement starts. She calls the current phase the “pep rally” phase, but their main focus is very simple.
“You know we want to make sure that we have proper wayfinding and signage so that our guest can find their way around the campus pretty easily,” said Parr. “Our gatebook is already prepared and we have daily scheduled sheets. We have the mobile app that will help people find their way around the campus.”
Parr said they want people to easily find the attraction they are looking for. She also said there’s still a need for volunteers, who play a crucial role in the state fair’s operations.
“Volunteers are incredibly important to the success of the Nebraska State Fair. They provide welcoming, thanks, and answers to questions. Incredibly invaluable to the success of our event,” said Parr.
She said they do have a good number of volunteers, but more are always welcome.
“There are still needs throughout our program,” said Haley Roush, Volunteer Coordinator at the Nebraska State Fair. “Morning is filling up quickly, but we are really needing volunteers still for the afternoon, evening, and weekends, Labor Day especially.”
Roush said finding volunteers for evenings and weekends has always been a challenge, but sometimes morning volunteers are willing to help. She said some of the roles they still need to fill are hand stampers, tram hosts, and information kiosk workers.
This year is the first year the Nebraska State Fair is coordinating its own volunteer program. The major difference is the Volunteer Coordinator is on campus, allowing them to focus solely on State Fair.
It’s also the first year the fair will have to share the space with the Grand Island Casino and Resort.
Copyright 2023 KSNB. All rights reserved.
In its 129 years of conducting championships, the USGA had never crowned a winner from Nebraska.
That changed Saturday at Oakland Hills Country Club’s South Course, where Trevor Gutschewski, a 17-year-old Omaha native and son of a PGA Tour pro, took down Tyler Watts, 4 and 3, in the scheduled 36-hole final of the 76th U.S. Junior Amateur.
“It was a dogfight out there,” Gutschewski said. “Tyler’s a great player; he kept me on my toes. Had to play some really good golf to come away with the win.”
Much was made about Gutschewski’s place in the World Amateur Golf Ranking as Gutschewski, ranked No. 3,517, navigated his way through match play. But that ranking was missing data, and another junior-only ranking slotted him No. 28, just 13 spots back of Watts, a 16-year-old from Huntsville, Alabama, who is a member of the inaugural U.S. National Junior Team.
Add in his verbal commitment to the University of Florida and Tour pedigree – Scott Gutschewski, 47, has won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour and currently plays on the PGA Tour – and the young Gutschewski had no reason not to believe he could pull off what would be his biggest victory to date, easily usurping his Nebraska Junior Match Play title from earlier this year.
“If I play well, I can hang with anybody,” he said earlier this week after upsetting Blades Brown in the Round of 32.
Scott Gutschewski, who missed the cut Friday at the 3M Open before flying to Detroit to catch the championship match, describes his middle son as a flusher, who can be tough to beat when his driving it well.
“He’s an absolute range rat,” Scott Gutschewski told Golf Channel on Friday night. “He loves to hit balls and practice. He hits ball all the time – at home in the basement, outside in the weather, doesn’t matter.”
Trevor Gutschewski and his father hug after his victory during the finals of the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. on Saturday, July 27, 2024. (Logan Whitton/USGA)
Logan Whitton/USGA Museum
So, when Trevor Gutschewski needed 23 holes to win his opening match against Rich Wills, he wasn’t exhausted. He didn’t trail again until dropping each of his first two holes against Brooks Simmons. He promptly took the next two and then in the semifinals knocked off WAGR’s highest-ranked player in the field, China’s Xihaun Chang.
Even with his spirited run to the final, Gutschewski was still a sizable underdog to Watts, whose victories include the Jones Cup Junior, Southern Junior and last year’s Alabama State Amateur, where Watts broke Gordon Sargent’s record as youngest champion. But Gutschewski came out firing, carding four birdies in his first six holes to go 3 up. Watts clawed back and led 1 up at the break, only to see Gutschewski birdie the first hole again to kickstart a sizzling afternoon.
In 15 holes after lunch, Gutschewski lost just one of them while notching four birdies, his final one coming at the par-3 13th hole, where he stuck his tee shot from 147 yards to a couple feet and went 3 up. He also didn’t card a bogey in the afternoon.
Talk about Nebraska toughness.
With his win, Gutschewski earns a spot in next summer’s U.S. Open at Oakmont. Scott Gutschewski played the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage, missing the cut. Trevor’s older brother, Luke, was co-medalist at the 2022 U.S. Amateur before losing his first-round match.
Trevor easily has USGA bragging rights now, both in his family and his entire state.
Another shot at the NFL for a former Husker.
The New York Jets have announced the signing of Adrian Martinez. The former Husker and Kansas State Wildcat quarterback electrified the UFL this year, placing him squarely on the radar for NFL teams.
Martinez earned UFL MVP honors while playing for the Birmingham Stallions. He threw for 1,749 yards and 15 TDs in addition to leading the league with 528 yards rushing.
Back in 2023, Martinez went undrafted, ultimately signing a free agent deal with the Detroit Lions and spending the preseason there.
In college, Martinez played in 49 games, including 39 for Nebraska. The first three-time Husker captain in history holds a plethora of Nebraska records, including the career mark for total offense (10,792 yards).
Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, following HuskerMax on X, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – It’s a big recruiting weekend for Nebraska, and when Dylan Raiola calls, the Husker Nation answers. Raiola posted on X on Friday asking fans to welcome the nation’s top offensive tackle, David Sanders Jr. out of North Carolina.
Sanders visited Nebraska back in May and is keeping the Huskers as a top contender.
Raiola, Head Coach Matt Rhule and other Huskers greeted Sanders outside of the new Tom Osborne Complex.
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Copyright 2024 KOLN. All rights reserved.
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