The central Nebraska community has stepped up once again. Approximately 1,000 acres of corn were harvested on Tuesday, November 16, but this was no ordinary harvest. According to Greg Coleman’s son Chad, his father went to the doctor with chest pains, but when he left he found out he had stage 4 colon cancer.
“Things got turned upside down. Went in [to the hospital] for some chest pains and came out knowing he had stage 4 colon cancer,” said Chad. “He’s still doing treatment and maybe going through a tumor removal here soon. We’ll see where God leads us on that.”
From there, the family began to make plans “to get things done.” One of the daunting tasks was figuring out how to harvest nearly 1,000 acres of corn. Jim Coleman, a cousin of Greg, told Chad he wanted to do a harvest event to help pick the corn in the different fields. Once word got out, neighbors, friends, and family volunteered their time, equipment, and labor to help.
Ten combines, approximately forty-five semi-trucks, and countless individuals made sure the harvesting would be complete.
Neil Colman, Greg’s brother, said the support from the community has been incredible. He noted they have had to turn people away because so many volunteered to help.
“People just kept calling wanting furnish trucks and combines. They had to turn some of them down. Just so many people wanted to come and help. It’s just so humbling,” said Neil.
With the harvesting process taken care of the question of where to take the corn was the next step. This is where Adams Land & Cattle and Thomas Livestock in Merna stepped in. Both companies agreed to take as much corn as they could handle allowing the trucks to empty their trailers and continue their round trips without having to stop for testing or other ‘normal’ procedures.
The help did not stop at the fields. Bruning Bank assisted in feeding the multiple crews providing the lunch meal which was delivered by AKRS Equipment. Off-Broadway also provided cookies and Dairy Queen supplied Dilly Bars to thank the crews for donating their time and energy to a great cause.
Chad said, “I just wanted to thank everyone for helping. Everybody for helping organize this, everybody that played a role in combine drivers, truck drivers, tractor drivers, everybody that has had a part in everything. The community pulled together and helped out.”
