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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1997)
I SPORTS I Career night The Nebraska men’s basketball team downed Western Illinois Wednesday 86-57 led by Tyronn Lue’s career-high 34 points. PAGE 9 _ A&E Pork grinds Zoo Bar patrons will be more than bumping as Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs belt out their bluesy country-rock through Saturday. PAGE 12 November 2Q, 1997 Amazing Gra Cloudy, high 49. Chance o night, low 23. i VOL. 97 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 63 Birds of a feather Local farmers tend tradition By Shane Anthony StaffReporter GOEHNER — About 5,000 turkeys left a long, thin building Wednesday night destined for dinner tables around the nation. As the nation’s 17th largest producer of turkeys, Nebraska turkey growers, like the Felber farm near Goehner, play a big part in providing Thanksgiving meals. 1 On Wednesday, the dust kicked up by the white-feathered birds formed a haze in the yel low light inside the 50-feet by 400-feet build ing. Through that haze, four workers herded the animals by making rasping sounds and waving black trash bags attached to wooden dowels. When the birds reached a set of plywood gates, two other men pushed the turkeys onto a system of ascending conveyer belts. At the top, two men stuffed them into 144 crates on a semitrailer truck parked outside, with 18 ani mals in each crate. The turkeys were so cramped, they had just enough room to sit. Jerry Felber, who started Seward Turkey Enterprises in 1985, smiled and sighed as he looked on. “This is the part I like to see. They’re going home now,” he said. Scenes similar to this are common from Dunning to Oxford to Waverly, said Reo ——p—p— — ir - flaws' ,r-... !■■■■—i Sandy Summers/DN ABOVE: CONNIE FELBER, wife of the owner of Seward Turkey Enterprises, takes a break with other workers after loading turkeys from 4 to 7 in the morning. TOP: A MASS of turkeys wait to be loaded onto the truck that will take the birds to the pro cessing plant to prepare them for various Thanksgiving feasts. Weeks, general manager of the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative in Gibbon. Turkey trade Twelve independent turkey growers in Nebraska will have produced about 42 million pounds of turkey by the end of 1997. The pro cessing plant at Gibbon will chum out 5 mil lion pounds in November alone, which Weeks called “one of the bigger months.” “We do have good penetration of the Nebraska turkey markets,” Weeks said. ' Nebraska stores will sell 2 million to 3 million pounds of home-grown turkey, he said. According to the University of Nebraska \ Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, all turkeys processed in Nebraska go to the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative, which produces birds along with a Utah cooperative for a company called NORBEST. The Gibbon plant ships turkeys all over the world, Weeks said. Therefore, the turkeys grown 25 miles west of Lincoln in Goehner may end up in Tokyo, Moscow, Mexico City or Lincoln. Felber said the Seward Turkey Enterprises farm delivers different weights according to the cooperative’s orders, which reflects the mar Please see TURKEY on 6 _ • ' I •"^ j Williams’ execution day nears By Ted Taylor Senior Reporter Nebraska is in no danger of catching up with Texas, but the state penitentiary is pick ing up the pace in carrying out death sen tences. In less than two weeks, Robert E. Williams is scheduled to become the third Nebraska death row inmate in four years to die in the electric chair. But before Harold Otey was put to death in 1994 and John Joubert in 1996, the last person executed by the state was Charles Starkweather in 195 9. Prison officials in Huntsville, Texas, Wednesday gave a lethal injection to the 35th death row inmate this year. Since 1976, the Lone St&r state has exe cuted three times as many inmates than any other state. Williams, 61, was sentenced to die in 1978, a year after he confessed to the murders of two 25-year-old Lincoln women, Catherine M. Brooks and Patricia A. McGarry. Brooks was also sexually assaulted the night Williams shot the two women in McGarry’s northeast Lincoln apartment. Williams is one of 12 condemned inmates on Nebraska’s death row. He is scheduled to Please see WILLIAMS on 7 4 boys, 3 girls safely bom to Iowa couple DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa seam stress gave birth Wednesday to four boys and three girls, the first set of septuplets bom in the United States in 12 years. \ The babies were safely delivered by Caesarean section by a medical team of more than 40 specialists. Bobbi McCaughey, 29, of Carlisle, Iowa, gave birth to babies ranging in weight from 2 pounds, 5 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces. “I’m probably one of the proudest grandfa thers in this country at this moment,” said their grandfather Bob Hepworth, who announced the births. The babies, who were delivered within six minutes at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, were listed in serious condition. McCaughey and her husband had already selected names: Kenneth Robert (3 pounds, 4 ounces), Alexis May (2 pounds, 11 ounces), Natalie Sue (2 pounds, 10 ounces), Kelsey Ann (2 pounds, 5 ounces), Brandon James (3 pounds, 3 ounces), Nathaniel Roy (2 pounds, 14 ounces) and Joel Steven (2 pounds, 15 ounces). Please see BABIES on 2 Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb