Long time Fairbury resident, former mayor of Fairbury, Lawyer and author Ron Schwab sits down with Keith Trimm of Trimm Photo to talk about his writing in this first of two videos where we discuss Fairbury history.  If you enjoy this video please share as Trimm Photo brings local history to life through the words of those who lived it. 

Ron Schwab is the author of the popular Western series, The Law Wranglers, The Coyote Saga, and The Lockes, as well as several standalone novels, including Grit, a winner of the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award for Best Western Novel, and Cut Nose, a finalist for the Western Writers of America Best Western Historical Novel. He is a member of the Western Writers of America, Western Fictioneers, and Mystery Writers of America.

Ron and his wife, Bev, divide their time between their home in Fairbury, Nebraska and their cabin in the Kansas Flint Hills.

Darin Garfield elected to the NSWCA Hall of Fame

 An honor such as a son's election to the NSWCA Hall of Fame is surreal. It's hard to wrap my mind around. My mind goes back to when Darin and Derek began to wrestle. Little sister Danae would get upset when she saw other wrestlers trying to hurt her brothers. A time of innocence for all of us, really.

Jane and I didn't know much about wrestling , and

were brought into it by the boys. There was a lot of sacrifice for trying to find a spot in the Aurora, Nebraska line-up. Cutting twenty pounds, when really there wasn't anything to lose. That's how important wrestling was to them. As young children, Darin and Derek had stuffed animals they pretended to coach. I bring Derek into the mix because that's the way it was. Always together.

After high school, college and then the first coaching job. Wrestling was/is a perfect fit. Darin was blessed along the way and he took advantage of the opportunities. I reflect on many people who made the journey with us. The wrestling community! To imagine it would all end up at the Hall of Fame? It's not thought of along the way.

Way too busy. Not very many sports go all day Saturdays and Sundays with the youth. Weight room supervision too. Late nights and early mornings.

Seeing it payoff off, is the payoff. It's been said people want to be a coach but they don't want to do what a coach has to do. Very proud of Darin and very thankful for all who were on the journey with him!

Wrestling, Pro vs Con

 You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it come to your wrestling tournament, or duel, or Triangular, or Quad. What am I getting at? When I was on the high school paper back in 84 I never went to a wrestling meet, I went to every other sport at FHS and actually got out of school to go to Lincoln to take photos of our volleyball team who made the playoffs. 

I didn’t really get into wrestling until around 2017 when Trimm Photo started and I didn’t know squat about the rules or how a duel or tournament worked. I recalled that wrestlers had to make weight and they were big boys but that was about it. So I asked a lot of questions and got up to speed with most of how it works and am a huge fan. But not everyone is a fan and I can understand why. 

Prior to high school wrestling Cheryl and I did attend a WWE event at Pershing and I think Rick Flair and Kevin Nash were there. Fun times but not at all what I’m used to now. 

I don’t know of any other sport that has a thing called, “blood time.” Blood time is when a wrestler gets a bloody nose or a cut somewhere on the body and the match stops while somebody uses a disinfectant and wipes blood off the mat. Seems a bit Spartan (300) if you are not used to it. Then there was this one time when I was taking photos by the edge of the mat and heard a wrestler’s leg crack. They took him off the mat with two others holding him up. 

Don’t get me wrong, I remember a Fairbury football player tearing his ACL during a playoff game and another during the regular season. I even recall being at a Wilber Clatonia game where 4 players were on crutches on the sidelines. I took a photo of them posing. 

I even recall a girl at a basketball game at Lincoln Christian falling on her nose and the game stopped while they cleaned the puddle of blood off the nice shiny wood floor. All sports can have injuries, that’s why they park the ambulance next to the football field. (Never seen an ambulance parked outside a wrestling meet though.)

So I am going to make a top 3 pro and con list for what I think wresting is. 

Pro

1. Wrestling is about culture and community. I’ve been on a few wrestling decks over the years and that’s where you see the team spirit. Since on the competition level it’s a 1 on 1 verses the other school you don’t see the others who are backing that kid. Sometimes surrounding the score table, you will see the other team mates but you have to be there during practice to see what is really going on. 

2. Wrestling meets are like going to a Metallica concert that lasts eight hours. The place is packed, the announcers are telling everyone to get down so people can see, it’s loud, action packed and a fun environment. Before the tournament begins the wrestlers are warming up and the mats are filled with kids from end to end rolling each other, banging into each other and getting ready. 

3. It’s art, if you have ever gone to a meet where they use the spotlight from above and shine it down on the action it’s like going to a movie. It’s very Greek art style and shows off another reason why wrestling is not like anything other sport you will see. 

Con

1. I’ve heard people say it’s distasteful to watch two kids try to beat the crap out of each other. I don’t think these people have ever been to a meet, although I did see two young men try to get into a very real pushing match that had to be stopped by a ref. 

2. The meets can take way too long. 10 or more teams with around15 wresters and consolations can take a while. Good to have a well-stocked concession stand. 

3. Getting off the mat after sitting taking photos and video can be difficult when you are my age. I need a full body lift and if you ever see me try to get up come over and give me a hand. I take pain meds before I go and my hips still kill me. 

Derek Garfield 

Wrestling is the greatest sport in the planet. I think the thing that sets it aside from any other sport is the courage it takes to step inside the circle and put your toe on the line and being willing to engage in 1 on 1 combat against an opponent. While teammates can help you in the practice room in wrestling winning and losing is 100 percent on you! You will get out of the sport what you put into it.

 The other great thing about wrestling is the fact that a person can weigh 106 pounds or 285 pounds and still find success if you’re willing to work. Wrestling is the purest form of of sport and there is nothing else that compares to it!

 

Exeter Nebraska-Exeter Milligan Friend football coach Cory Kahlandt. “We lost to Sandy Creek 62 to 64 in triple overtime week three. I think we will have a good game and will probably be a short game as both of us run the ball and establish the line of scrimmage. If we play our style of football both physical and aggressive on both sides of the ball we should be ok.

As long as we play on our toes on defense like we have been we shouldn’t need to stress or anything or try to hard as it is another football game for our guys and don’t make it bigger than it is. We are playing Stanton and they are undefeated.

Playing at Memorial Stadiums is a great opportunity and we need to enjoy it and I still say it’s just a football game but we do need to enjoy the experience out there, it’s a big stage with an awesome atmosphere and I’m excited for our guys making it this far and they deserve it, they worked hard during the off season all back with weights.

We started this back in August 7^th which doesn’t seem like all that long ago along with co head coach Jim Pfeiffer."

 “Dear Big Ten Conference,

I’ve waited a day & I still feel that you REALLY need to address the level of your officiating. To be clear, Nebraska played like *** yesterday, but college athletes & their fans clearly deserve better.

Thanks,

A Concerned Football Fan” (Adam Carriker)

I read a lot of the responses to Adam’s post and most of them were what I expected, blame the refs because they are blind and all that sorts of rhetoric. But I think a lot of people miss the point. 

If you are an arm chair quarterback with a high-definition big screen with a view from above you will see more than a ref twenty feet away. People perceive life, and motion differently from where they are and what they are doing. 

My response posted in response to Adam’s Facebook post was, “Not all officiating can be that bad, there must be another underlying problem that we don't understand and needs to be studied. I can't and won't believe we hire an entire class of buffoons who wear black and white uniforms who can't do their jobs. There must be another answer,” and I stand behind that. 

I don’t claim to know anything about sports, I’m a journalist and a sports photographer and a science nut and I know there is more to this that most people get. Blaming the refs is not the answer. 

If you hold the teams to the same standard of perfection that you hold the refs the score would never reach over 0/0 because a perfect defense would never allow a single point to be scored. 

If you want perfect officiating you will need to install AI computers with cameras located all over the field so you get the perfect call every time. With the use of replay cameras, you have already slowed the game down to the point it is not fun to watch anymore and have taken the human element out and watching a ref stare at a television screen during a review does not make for compelling football. 

Players and coaches make mistakes all the time but to hold refs to the inhuman standard of a robot is not fair. Let the refs make mistakes, that is what makes a game a game. If you were to rank the calls of most refs on a bell curve you would probably find that most calls fall within normal limits with a few on the edges but it is those calls that everyone gets mad about. 

You can’t have it both ways and blaming the refs is wrong. You either need to respect them or get rid of them and let football become a computer sport. What's more likely? A group of incompetent referees or an angry fan who's team lost looking for an excuse?

Price of water

 

Weve been to a lot of high school football games over the last seven years, and a lot of volleyball and softball etc. and the one thing we have noticed is that the price of a bottle of water

is not the same at the concession stands of most high schools. And that goes for the price of candy as well. I know for a fact that we have paid $1, $2 and $2.50 depending on where we are. Now why would a bottle of water cost a different price at different schools?

Maybe it’s to pay for the new LED lights on the field or the gym, we love the new lights and noticed that Geneva had some great lights on the football field, reminded us of Aurora where they can change color and blink. It will be great when all the high schools get new LED lights in their gyms as well. They are much brighter and the color balance is better for photography.

So what is this post really about? It’s about going to a lot of different schools and seeing a lot of different ways of doing things. Now some schools have the introductions where the players come out of a tunnel of other players and some schools skip that part altogether. I noticed that I think it was Beatrice where I noticed the players ran out onto the field but they didn’t run out individually as they called their names. Fairbury does that, and other schools do as well.

Beatrice is the only school I recall that has a half time marching band although Schuyler had a dance performance at half time. Didn’t the Black Diamond Dancers used to do a dance at half time? I don’t recall that this year. A lot of schools keep their bands in the stands and some have flag corps. I do want to make note that Beatrice marching band uniforms look very sharp. Good job guys.

To wrap this up we’d like to see the price of water be a bit more consistant, I think more than $2 is a bit much and $1.25 for a Snickers just makes me have change in my pocket that I don’t want to keep track of. And I want to finish with the cheeseburgers at the Fillmore Central football game, my only regret was not getting a second. Very nice.

Jeff Kezeor

 Beatrice-There are two things I need to say about Orangemen head football coach Jeff Kezeor and the first is he is a nervous bird and a bit jittery because it took me a long time to get this shot, and I planned this shot out in advance so it would look cool with the lights behind him.

The second thing is that he is the kind of coach you want coaching your kids. I watched him on the sidelines talking to the players, giving them encouragement, and telling them to have a good time. I was impressed as well with his assistant coaches, all professional, all there to do the best with a game that was not going their way.