By Larry Miller
Few people know as much about Chadron and Dawes County Nebraska as Conrad Marshall. And fewer still – nay, I believe no one – knows as much about Chadron State College as this self-described longtime “CSC news reporter,” who served as Director of Information, Sports Information Director, among other titles, which only begin to describe his role at the institution over the years. His love for and attachment to CSC are readily apparent in just about everything he does. Too, those passions reach well beyond the college and Chadron.
Few people know as much about Chadron and Dawes County Nebraska as Conrad Marshall. And fewer still – nay, I believe no one – knows as much about Chadron State College as this self-described longtime “CSC news reporter,” who served as Director of Information, Sports Information Director, among other titles, which only begin to describe his role at the institution over the years. His love for and attachment to CSC are readily apparent in just about everything he does. Too, those passions reach well beyond the college and Chadron.
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| Con Marshall with his new book "Say That Again"
(Picture courtesy of CSC)
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In July, Con put together a
booklet of stories he’d written about a few of the many exceptional speeches
delivered at CSC by a wide variety of folks over the past 35 years or so. It’s dubbed “Say That Again,” a
collection short stories about 32 of those speeches – including a bit about the selected speakers themselves. Many of those folks are now deceased – but their messages live on in these synopses, and
hopefully in the memories of folks who were there to hear them speak.
From Nobel Prize winner Val
Fitch and Olympic Champion Billy Mills to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist
Clarence Page and former U.S. Secretary of Education Terrell Bell, the topics
range from poignant stories about the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II
to topics related to the U.S. Constitution and the importance of knowing our
history.
Not all of the speakers were
nationally known – Con has tapped speeches delivered by highly-respected local
and regional folks, like Chadron State’s James Sheaffer, George Watson, Sam
Rankin and Rolland Dewing, newspapermen Don Huls and Tom Allan, and several
military veterans, like Ed Bieganski, to name just a few.
Of the 32 selected speeches,
several focused on regional and Nebraska history – including early Chadron, the
Great Plains, and Nebraska’s legendary U.S. Senator, George Norris.
This is an interesting and
fun book to read, but it left me
thinking Con should do another one, harvesting even more from other and earlier
speeches. He's been around CSC for more than half a century – reaching back to his years as a student beginning in 1959. There are likely a lot of other speeches he's encapsulated over the years , if only they can be found! But, as he explains in
his brief Forward to the book, the task is not as easy as one might think.
Nonetheless, I suspect down the road
we’ll be enjoying more Con Marshall stories.
“Say That Again” is priced
at $10 and can be ordered from Con at (308) 432-6478. We think you’ll enjoy it.
