BROKEN BOW – Nancy Sedlacek was handed the keys to a pearl white 1979 Pontiac Trans Am on Monday afternoon in Broken Bow. Sedlacek was recently drawn as the winner of Mid Plains Community College’s annual classic car raffle.
Sedlacek said she bought a single ticket at the state fair this summer with the thinking that her husband, Stan, would really love the car. Her ticket was chosen out of 6,307 sold this year.
Nancy and Stan are not strangers to classic cars. The couple had a yellow and black 1969 Pontiac GTO after they got married. “But then we had a family, and we had about one child too many to fit in the back seat,” laughed Stan.
The newest addition to the Sedlacek’s garage holds a 2000 Trans Am LS 5.7L engine under the hood, a shaker intake, and modernized digital gauges. The car is the 19th to be restored from the ground up through a collaboration between the college’s automotive and auto body classes.
Both originally from North Platte, Stan and Nancy were also excited to hear about winning because Stan is a North Platte Junior College alum, part of the 1967 graduating class.
“Nancy took the call and says ‘You better talk to my husband because he’s not going to believe this’. As it turned out, I took a little convincing but she said she was for real,” said Stan.
As far as the first cruise? The couple says they want to “get a feel for” the vehicle before traveling too far with a lunch date in Thedford, Kearney, or elsewhere as soon as tomorrow.
