North Platte, Ne - March 7 & 8 of 2024 will be one the Kuhlmann family will remember for a long time. The night of March 7 was the evening that the area received a record snow of over 15 inches, 14.6 inches of that came over a 6-hour period, some portions of the area received closer to 20 inches of snow. At the KJ's Boots & Western Wear store at the intersection of I-80 and the Hershey/Dickens road south of Hershey, all the snow that fell caused the business's roof to fail. Connie Kuhlmann (owner) said her husband Kevin had gone to the store on the afternoon of March 8 to clear their parking lot and scoop the walk when he went into the store around 5pm and realized part of the roof had collapsed.
A phone call went out from Kuhlmann at the time to friends and family, to rush to the store and try to get the inventory out of the building before a larger problem developed. Within an hour of the call, a dozen people showed up to help with trailers, moving dollies and manpower. Later a Facebook post for help went out on the local Hershey page, and within 15 minutes much of the community of Hershey came to the aide of the Kuhlmanns.
(POST PODCAST with Connie Kuhlmann, sponsored by North Platte Kubota)
Nearly 3 months later, KJ's has reopened in North Platte in the old Sun-Mart building, now home to New Life Church, MEGA Gymnastics and CMH Interiors. Plans are still in the air for the old KJ's building in Hershey, but Connie Kuhlmann says "we hope to reopen in Hershey, but in the meantime North Platte has become our new home."
KJ's opened in North Platte on June 1, and is running a 20% off special through June 15th during the Buffalo Bill Rodeo, part of Nebraskaland Days. Store Hours 9m-6pm Monday-Saturday, 1-4pm on Sundays.