#valleycounty — Public Fediverse posts

Popcorn: The Only Grain That Performs

Last weekend, the village of North Loup, Nebraska, population somewhere around three hundred, threw its 125th Annual Popcorn Days. A carnival took over Highway 11 from Friday to Sunday. There was team penning and sorting, a turtle race, kids' games, a juvenile parade, a men's slow pitch tournament, sand volleyball, a street dance, and on Sunday the largest parade in the area to close the show. The theme this year was "Looking Back at 125 Years of Popcorn Days," which is what happens when the anniversary becomes the headline: the parade turns into a mirror. II spent my childhood summers in North Loup with my grandfather, in a house where the television pulled in exactly one signal, channel 10/11, and where the calendar bent around one August weekend the way other towns bend around Christmas. The smell arrived before the event did. Hot oil, salt, the sweet dust hanging over the poppers. You could stand at the edge of town with your eyes closed and know what week it was. […]

https://bolesblogs.com/2026/08/23/popcorn-the-only-grain-that-performs/

Getting the Flock Out of Ord, Nebraska

The county seat of my boyhood summers just voted, five to nothing, to pull its surveillance cameras off the poles, the first town in Nebraska to do it. The reasons cut deeper than the invoice. Ord, Nebraska sits eleven miles up the North Loup River valley from the village of North Loup, where I spent the summers of my boyhood on my grandfather's place, and in the mental geography of a ten-year-old those eleven miles separated the known world from its capital. North Loup had a few hundred souls, a grain elevator, and Popcorn Days. Ord had the Valley County courthouse with a square built around it, implement lots, storefront commerce enough to dazzle a village kid, and a radio station whose call letters spell the valley itself: K-N-L-V, North Loup Valley, on the air at 1060 since 1965 with farm markets in the morning and high school ball at night. When my grandfather's rooftop antenna strained for television it caught one signal, 10/11 out of Lincoln, and that was the extent of the visible world. Ord was "town." You washed up a little before going. […]

https://bolesblogs.com/2026/08/07/getting-the-flock-out-of-ord-nebraska/

Hype for the Future 151C: Sherman, Valley, and Garfield Counties, Nebraska

Overview Within the State of Nebraska, the Counties of Sherman, Valley, and Garfield are each associated with the central portion of the State, with Sherman County home to the community of Loup City along N-10, N-58, and N-92. The Frederick Hotel is a notable place to stay within the central community. Further north, the community of Ord serves as the county seat of Valley County and is located along N-11 and N-70, followed by the communities of Elyria and Burwell, the latter serving as the […]

https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/03/31/hype-for-the-future-151c-sherman-valley-and-garfield-counties-nebraska/

Hype for the Future 146F: Adams and Valley Counties, Idaho

Overview Within the State of Idaho, the boundaries of Adams and Valley Counties are associated with the respective communities of Council and Cascade, with the City of Council located in the Council Valley and the City of Cascade effectively serving as a gateway to the Payette National Forest. The communities are served largely by Idaho Highway 55 and United States Route 95.

https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/03/26/hype-for-the-future-146f-adams-and-valley-counties-idaho/