Life is what you make of it

By Patrick Fisher, The New Prague Times

In the song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" singer John Lennon makes the quote, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” It is one thing about life, it doesn’t slow down as you try to figure it out or make plans for one or all aspects of it. Why am I going on about this? Well, this month marks 17 years that I came to live in New Prague and started working for The New Prague Times.

Those who know me, will know how I point out the changes to the east side of town. That’s not to say the other sides of the community haven’t changed, but to me the east end is one of the most visible aspects of how the town has developed. When I drove into town in August 1999 on Main Street, the view to the south was one huge field. The only structures in that area were Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, the brick Novak barn and some housing. Prague Estates, 10th Avenue SE, the two roundabouts, McDonald’s, Shopko, State Bank of New Prague, Coborn’s Superstore, Walgreen’s and the two strip malls all came later.

Covering the plans, construction and eventually opening of the businesses in that area resulted in some unique Planning Commission meetings. Former city council member Kay Wilcox was the council representative on the Planning Commission for several of those projects. She was one of the members who asked if there could be changes to buildings. At that time, more than one commission member didn’t want the cookie cutter aspect of a business in that it could be interchanged with any other store in other communities. There were some discussions, sometimes a little heated, about making a building fit in with New Prague’s architecture or its Czech heritage.

It was also at a Planning Commission meeting, that the city decided to make some changes to its rules for public hearings. The commission had scheduled more than three public hearings for its meeting. Most of the subjects were at the time hot button issues. One proposal was about setting up buffer zones around farms so that housing subdivisions could only come so close. A side-note is that the housing boom was happening and New Prague was growing. Because these topics were so hot, a good sized audience showed up and there were some heated exchanges on both sides of the issues and several rebuttals to comments made. Due to this the meeting lasted from 6:30 p.m. to nearly 2:30 a.m. Since then at public hearings, people are asked to keep comments brief, around 5 minutes, and rebuttals are kept to a minimum.

I still remember one conversation from that meeting. At midnight a resident asked, “Can we finish this up? I have to be up early tomorrow.” Then commission chair Grant Gengel responded, “You and me both.”

Over time, I’ve not only been covering the changes of New Prague, my duties have grown to also include Elko New Market and its development. One of the biggest was the merger of the two towns of Elko and New Market into one community. Other moments have been the construction of Eagle View Elementary School, changes in the city’s police department, the building of a new library and the addition and continued growth of Elko New Market’s Chamber of Commerce.

During my chronicling of the area communities, my life has continued. There have been changes in my own life, some happy, some sad, weddings, funerals, celebrations and graduations.

There are those like Toby Thietje and Craig Zimanske, who were in high school, or younger, when I arrived, who now have started their own families or careers.

Through many events I’ve been there taking notes or photos and I expect I’ll be there for some time to come.