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
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