It was passed in the closing days of the session with a small appropriation. The

following session a larger appropriation was passed and more land was acquired. During 1921-22 larger buildings will.be erected. Prof. McCarthy is in charge and is a man of considerable vision.

The result of the editor's experience in the state house is given best in his biennial report issued in 1918, a copy of which may be had by addressing the land commissioner's office, at Lincoln, Nebraska.

He is the only citizen of Scotts Bluff county elected to a state office, was renominated without opposition, and came the nearest of election of any candidate upon the democratic ticket in 1918.

THE CHURCH-- ITS ACCOMPLISHMENTS-- FIRST RELIGIOUS SERVICES

Rev. B. D. Yates was the first resident minister in Cedar valley and Scotts Bluff county. In the early years all the beautiful valley land about Gering was called Cedar valley. Father Yates was a United Brethren and held services at school houses or in the homes, and it mattered not what your faith, for he ministered to all the denominations. These first ministers were splendidly liberal.

On December 12, 1886, a few neighbors gathered at the home of E. P. Cromer and organized the first Sunday school in Cedar valley. Mr. Cromer was elected as superintendent, and Mrs. Sallie Pritchard as secretary-treasurer. Uriah Millikin, A. Porter Pritchard, and Mrs. R. M. Hanks were the teachers. They later held the school at the school house two miles south of Gering. This was old district number twenty-seven and the school house was built in 1887. The school house at Gering was not built until the following year.