Former Keith County News Co-Publisher Beverly Pollock dies at 86

Services will be held sometime in May or June, the Pollocks’ son, Andy, said in a Sunday Facebook post.

She was born in Lincoln on June 21, 1936, to Glenn and Sylvia (Lewis) Buck. Her father was president, publisher and board chairman of Nebraska Farmer magazine, according to Pollock’s obituary on the website of Ogallala’s Draucker Funeral Home.

Beverly Buck, a fourth-generation Nebraskan, acquired her western Nebraska roots when her parents bought the Rolling Stone Ranch in Cherry County in the 1940s. The family continued to live mainly in Lincoln.

After her 1954 graduation from Lincoln High School, she studied journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A Phi Beta Kappa and Mortar Board member, she graduated with distinction in 1958.

She met Jack Pollock, the son of District Judge F.H. and Gladys Pollock of Stanton, while both worked on the Daily Nebraskan student newspaper.

Jack, who became the paper’s editor-in-chief, and Beverly, who rose to the same position with The Cornhusker yearbook, became charter members of the Daily Nebraskan Hall of Fame in 2019 as winners of its Legacy Award.

After their marriage on Sept. 13, 1958, the Pollocks joined the Sidney Telegraph under longtime editor and co-publisher Jack H. Lowe. They were among several alumni from Lowe’s time with distinguished Nebraska journalism careers, including now-retired Omaha World-Herald Publisher John Gottschalk, editorial page editor Frank Partsch and reporter David Hendee.

Jack and Beverly Pollock moved to Ogallala in 1960 to join the Keith County News, then owned and published by W.E. “Boola” and Marge Buechler.

The couple bought the paper in 1966 and owned and published it together until 2000, when they retired and sold it to current owners Jeff Headley, Marilee Perlinger and Judy Curtis.

Jack Pollock died at age 77 on Feb. 20, 2009, five months after he and Beverly had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Both Pollocks regularly won state, regional and national journalism awards. Jack Pollock was Nebraska Press Association president in 1976, received the NPA’s Master Editor-Publisher Award in 1993 and was inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame in 2000.

Beverly Pollock also regularly contributed to the News’ pages, covering the Ogallala school board, pitching in on news stories and writing editorials signed “BBP” in like fashion to her husband’s pieces signed “JSP.”

Her best-known contribution was her weekly column, “The Diary of a Year-Round Beach Bum,” referring to the Pollocks’ lives raising children Andy and Allison in the K-1 Cabin Area on Lake McConaughy’s southeast shore.

Beverly Pollock, one of six inaugural Nebraska Women Journalists Hall of Fame members in 2011, won the Emma C. McKinney Memorial Award at the 2002 National Newspaper Association convention for “outstanding leadership and service to her community in the profession of journalism.”

She assembled a “Lonesome Dove” special section for the News on Keith County tourism, named for the 1985 Larry McMurtry novel and 1989 TV miniseries that prominently featured Ogallala. It won a first-place Nebraska Press Women award and a second-place award from the National Federation of Press Women.

Beverly Pollock also served on a variety of local, regional and state boards, including the Nebraska Humanities Foundation, the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, the University of Nebraska Foundation, NU’s President’s Advisory Council and the 13th District Judicial Nominating Commission.

She was secretary of the former Keith County School District 18 board when her children attended that K-8 elementary school. She was a former women’s division president of the Ogallala/Keith County Chamber of Commerce, president of PEO Chapter CL and charter president of the American Association of University Women’s Ogallala branch.

Beverly Pollock was most proud of her 1995-2004 service on the Nebraska Community Foundation board, including on its executive committee, her obituary said. She helped revitalize the Ogallala-based Keith County Foundation Fund and affiliate it with the state foundation.

She was a 50-year-plus member of Ogallala’s First Congregational United Church of Christ, where she taught Sunday school, produced the monthly church newsletter for 11 years and Sunday church bulletins for many more years for the church and Brule’s United Church of Christ, Congregational.

Beverly Pollock also was a longtime member of the Goodall City Library board and president of the Ogallala Library Foundation board.

Her husband and a sister, Barbara Buck, preceded her in death.

Survivors include her son, Andrew (Kris) Pollock of Pleasant Dale; daughter Allison (Larry Jr.) Welch of Beaver Lake; seven grandchildren; and her brother, Glenn, of Pensacola, Florida.

Memorials have been established at the Keith County Foundation Fund, the Ogallala Library Foundation and the 21st Century Endowment Trust at First Congregational United Church of Christ.

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Editor’s note: The writer began his newspaper career with the Keith County News as a carrier (1974-78), wrote an Ogallala High School activities column (1981-82) and worked for the News during college vacations (1983-86).