Yanqi Xu is a reporter for Flatwater Free Press. She examined the agricultural industry in Nebraska as a part of The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.

Before becoming Nebraska’s governor three years ago, Jim Pillen built a multimillion-dollar hog enterprise. Casting himself as a conservative businessman who would grow the state’s economy, he defeated a Trump-backed candidate in the Republican primary.

This time around, Pillen, who is seeking reelection this fall, won President Trump’s endorsement. The governor — who had rarely spoken out about immigration issues until last year — had embraced Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Days after Trump’s return to the White House, the governor directed the Nebraska State Patrol to partner with ICE on immigration enforcement. He allowed the federal agency to use a former state prison, now referred to as the Cornhusker Clink, to hold hundreds of detainees caught up in the administration’s mass deportation sweep. He has echoed Trump’s rhetoric about “criminal illegal aliens” who have “invaded our country” and decried “the worst of the worst” immigrants he has claimed are hiding out in Nebraska.

But for more than a decade, Pillen’s hog business has employed migrant workers, those who are in the country legally — and those who are not, The New York Times and the Flatwater Free Press found.

His company, Pillen Family Farms, has taken on undocumented workers as it has grown into one of the nation’s largest hog producers, according to a review of state and federal court records and interviews with more than 40 current and former employees, prosecutors, immigration lawyers and community organizers.

Many farms in Nebraska and other states rely on immigrants because of labor shortages. While the scale of undocumented workers in the Pillen farm labor force — which has about 1,200 employees in four states and Canada — is not clear, the fact that the company has used them is an open secret at some of its Nebraska farms.

Pillen has faced little public scrutiny about his workers. His spokeswoman, Laura Strimple, said in a statement that “Jim Pillen never knowingly hired an illegal immigrant and went above and beyond the legal requirements to verify the immigration status of his employees.”

At least 20 Pillen hog farms employed undocumented immigrants, according to court documents and interviews with more than two dozen current and former workers, including several managers. Six former workers acknowledged in interviews that they themselves had no legal status.

Court records show that at least a dozen Pillen workers were charged with using fake or stolen IDs for employment between 2015 and 2024. Many Pillen workers interviewed said the practice was common. At least 10 who assumed false identities, according to them or their relatives, never faced criminal charges for that.

David Armendariz, a Mexican who overstayed his tourist visa in 2008, said he worked at two Pillen farms until 2023. When he was hired, he recalled in an interview, a farm manager accepted the fake driver’s license he had purchased. The same ID was rejected years later, he said, when he applied for a construction job elsewhere.

Over the years, Armendariz said, more Hispanic workers arrived at the farms, many of them undocumented. One co-worker changed his name multiple times, he said, and another went by a different name from the one on his sign-in sheets. Armendariz said he was open about his own status. “Everyone knows that it’s not your name,” he said, “but they don’t ask you what your name is.”

Quinten Rowley, who managed two boar farms for Pillen’s business until 2022, said the company ramped up background checks for applicants about the time Pillen decided to run for governor. After that, Rowley said, he had to turn away more applicants.

Samuel Bethune, Platte County’s public defender until 2009, said he had represented hundreds of undocumented immigrants every year, most of them employed in meatpacking plants. He recalled that a few clients charged with traffic offenses identified themselves as Pillen workers but lacked valid employment documents.

ICE identified no records of audits or inspections at Pillen farms in the past 15 years after a request from The Times and Flatwater. The federal agency has raided relatively few workplaces in Nebraska. The largest and highest-profile one was an Omaha meatpacking plant where more than 70 workers were arrested in June 2025 over alleged identity theft.

After the raid, Pillen suggested in interviews that ICE would not target established immigrants. “Anybody that is here working hard and being a good neighbor, they’re A-OK, they’re fine,” the governor told the Nebraska Examiner. But he also said that stealing identities was a “grave offense.”

The governor did not respond to interview requests and declined to answer written questions for this article. Pillen’s spokeswoman said in her statement that he “has the strongest immigration record in Nebraska history. Under the governor’s leadership, Nebraska has assisted the federal government in the deportation of nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants through its variety of partnerships with federal entities.”

ICE has arrested more than 3,000 people in Nebraska since Trump’s second term, more than doubling the rate under the Biden administration. By comparison, in Minnesota, the epicenter of some of the nation’s most aggressive urban immigration enforcement operations, such arrests have more than quadrupled, according to an analysis of ICE data released by the Deportation Data Project.

Federal officials have largely avoided clashes with agricultural employers in states that helped re-elect Trump, according to agricultural producers and labor economists.

“If you’re going to come and pound on farmers in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, whatever, and daily raid their farms or their processing plants, you’re going to have some problems politically,” said Al Juhnke, former executive director of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association. “The farms are right smack dab in the middle of red areas.”

Hogs, farmhands and fake names

The first farmer to lead Nebraska in more than a century, Pillen often talks about his agricultural roots. He grew up with livestock on his small family farm in Platte County in northeast Nebraska.

A Cornhusker football standout at the University of Nebraska, he studied animal science and then worked as a veterinarian before launching his own business more than three decades ago.

What is known as Pillen Family Farms, based in Columbus, started with 60 sows, or female pigs, on a dirt lot.

Now, after expanding and buying out competitors, the company owns about 100 farms in Nebraska alone, with workforces ranging from a handful to dozens of people. Since Pillen became governor, his children Sarah and Brock have run the company, which ranks No. 14 nationally on the Pork Powerhouses list, with 78,000 sows.

The family also owns a hog-breeding business and has a minor stake in Wholestone Prestage, which operates a pork-processing co-op in Fremont owned by some 200 producers. Since 2019, at least 56 Wholestone workers have been charged with using fraudulent IDs to work, according to state court records. More than half pleaded guilty or were convicted, several cases are going through court, and the other defendants fled or failed to appear. Wholestone did not respond to requests for comment.

At Pillen farms and elsewhere, workers labor long hours for relatively little pay to keep the hog barns running. They vaccinate pigs, feed them, move and ship them. The job is one that most Nebraskans do not want, hog farmers said in interviews.

Facing labor shortages, large corporate hog producers in recent decades have turned to a workforce of immigrants, whether legal or not, according to John K. Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.

Gary Stover, a consultant who helped a local producer manage a hog farm in Shelby, said in an interview that he replaced the crew there with Hispanic laborers in 2010 because their work ethic impressed him. He said that one employee there used a fake name, and that his other consulting clients also had undocumented workers with falsified documents.

Nathan Dallon, an immigration lawyer in Omaha who has defended hundreds of undocumented workers against criminal charges like identity theft and driving without a license, said Nebraska’s agriculture industry operated on the premise that there would be unauthorized migrant labor.

“HR for a lot of these companies are incentivized to take on workers that they know are using fake papers,” he said in an interview. “Sometimes, they even help them get the fake papers, and then they know full well that they are making the crime worse for the person working.” (Dallon, citing client confidentiality, declined to say whether he had ever represented Pillen workers.)

The use of fictitious documents by immigrants for employment is hardly new in Nebraska. In Schuyler, fake IDs used at the Cargill meatpacking plant created a controversy more than two decades ago.

Dave Reinecke, then Schuyler’s mayor, told “60 Minutes,” “Would you rather have growth, or would you want to pick and choose where they came from?”

Now, three-quarters of Schuyler’s residents are Hispanic, the highest share of any municipality in the state. Court records show some undocumented workers for Pillen farms have lived there.

Other Hispanic immigrants, including Pillen employees, have settled in small towns near their workplaces.

Carl K. Hart Jr. prosecuted a steady stream of identity fraud cases involving undocumented workers, including five employed by Pillen’s business, as Platte County attorney until 2022.

“There are folks who are facilitating all of this,” he said in an interview. “They’re in the community, and they’re filling a need for the agricultural industry to obtain workers.”

Nine of the 12 Pillen workers who were charged with identity theft or impersonation were convicted, and three failed to appear in court. Pillen Family Farms was not accused of any wrongdoing in those cases.

Employers are rarely the target of such investigations, making it hard to determine whether they had any knowledge or involvement, prosecutors and defense lawyers said.

One former manager at a Pillen farm said in an interview that he told an immigrant to obtain a different ID a few years ago after an initial fake document was flagged by the company. Before working for Pillen, he had advised workers on how they could make their fake IDs appear more genuine, said the manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he still has relatives in the industry.

When Armendariz worked at Inland Foods, a Pillen farm outside Hastings, only a handful of workers had legitimate documentation, he recalled. About 20 immigrants did not, including him, he said. Roughly half had been hired by a co-owner that Pillen’s business eventually bought out. (Armendariz, who asked not to use his full surname because he feared retaliation, said he was let go after disputes with his boss.)

Some Inland workers are still undocumented after more than 20 years there, said a current employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the company. Two people said their undocumented relatives currently work at a Pillen farm near St. Edward.

Ashly Cortez-Garcia worked at a Pillen-owned hog unit near Albion five years ago. In an interview, she said her manager learned from the head office that an employee was working under one name and had applied for state assistance under another. Cortez-Garcia recalled that the manager told her to ask the worker in Spanish, “Which one do you want me to use?”

The manager, now retired, declined to respond to requests for comment.

Pillen Family Farms was sued in 2021 by a former human resources specialist, Luis Lucar, who alleged that it knowingly hired undocumented workers.

Between 2015 and 2019, he said, he repeatedly complained that the business changed workers’ names in company and government documents, misclassified workers as contract labor and falsified employment verification forms.

Lucar was fired in 2019 and now works as an organizer in Schuyler for the Heartland Workers Center, a nonprofit advocating immigrant labor rights. The company denied the allegations in a legal filing. Pillen’s campaign spokesman at the time, Matthew Trail, said Lucar was lying and described him to a reporter as a “disgruntled former employee” and “pro-illegal-immigration activist.”

In 2022, both sides agreed to dismiss the lawsuit. Lucar and his lawyer declined to comment for this article.

As Pillen Family Farms grew, it stepped up compliance with employment laws, said Rowley, the former manager. The business brought in more immigrants from Mexico on a specialized visa for skilled workers in the past decade. The day Pillen launched his campaign for governor, records show, the business opted into E-Verify, a government system to bolster employment verification.

In a statement echoing the governor’s, Sarah Pillen, the farms’ co-chief executive, told The Times and Flatwater: “Our team takes a great deal of pride and responsibility in following all employment laws. We have never knowingly hired an illegal immigrant.” She said that the company followed all employment verification rules and ensured that “all required forms of ID are reviewed and approved. We also voluntarily participate in the E-Verify program to go above and beyond in our commitment.”

A pivot on immigration

Since Trump took office, Pillen has worked to build good will in Washington. He has visited the White House 11 times since last year and Mar-a-Lago twice, including a one-on-one meeting with the president in July 2025, according to the governor’s official calendar. That is far more than his recent predecessors.

Despite the president’s endorsement, Pillen is in a competitive re-election race. Neither he nor his opponents have highlighted his immigration stance in the campaign.

But immigration remains a polarizing issue, even in a conservative state. Less than a third of Nebraskans support the federal crackdown, one national poll shows.

Before his first run for governor, Pillen’s business donated to Centro Hispano, a Columbus-based nonprofit supporting both legal and undocumented workers, and he accepted an award from the group in 2018. As governor-elect, he spoke about the need for the federal government to expand the number of legal immigrants who could do vital work in Nebraska and other farm states.

Backing Trump’s immigration policies, Pillen has emphasized the risk of violent criminals coming into the country and the need to target them for deportation.

On a radio program in July 2025, he recalled learning on a trip to the southern border that intruders had butchered a steer on a Texas family’s ranch. “There have been so many terrorists and criminals swimming across the border,” he said.

“The criminal illegal aliens who have invaded our country must be removed,” Pillen said in a social media post in December. “I will do everything in my power to stand strong with President Trump to get the job done.”

At times, the governor has appeared to soften his tone. After unveiling the new ICE site last summer, Pillen said that the detention center was intended for criminals, not hardworking families. He also emphasized the need to address labor shortages in industries beyond agriculture, including construction and hotels.

“President Trump knows, right? He knows that there are people in his industry that have worked forever and done good work but are not documented,” he said. Pillen added that he was “100 percent opposed” to mass deportation.

Pillen’s language distinguishing hardworking people from criminals ignores legal reality, some local officials and immigration lawyers say.

Undocumented workers in Nebraska, though sometimes committing a crime to obtain employment, rarely break other laws and are largely “law-abiding residents trying to live their American dream and support themselves and their families,” said Hart, the former Platte County prosecutor, a Democrat.

After the January killing of two people in Minneapolis by ICE agents and the resulting outrage, the governor largely refrained from commenting publicly about immigration. More recently, under pressure to meet White House quotas, ICE agents have made arrests in record numbers nationwide, often deporting undocumented people with no history of criminal charges.

The Nebraska State Patrol has assigned more troopers to immigration enforcement roles. And the ICE detention center, in McCook, is expanding to house more people.

Cortez-Garcia, the former Pillen farm employee, said she was dismayed as a Republican voter that Pillen seemed to contradict himself on the immigration issue. “You can’t hire illegals and then stand against illegals,” she said.

Samantha Aguilar and Roselyn Gonzalez contributed reporting. Research was contributed by Emma Croteau,  Georgia Gee, Bob Glissmann,  Kirsten Noyes, Jane Bello Rivas, Asia Rollins and Jeremy Turley.  Sarah Cohen contributed data analysis.

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

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Mike graduated high school and then enlisted in the United States Air Force on August 26, 1974 at Los Angeles, CA. He served as an air cargo specialist and was honorably discharged March 31, 1976 at Norton Air Force Base, CA. He served during Vietnam in Guam.

After his discharged he worked as a cook and then worked as a mental health profession and was a counselor at Kern County Mental Health Hospital and then worked at the Salvation Army for recovering addicts and then went to work for Home Depot. He married Rose Martinez on August 31, 2012 at Indian Cave State Park and they have lived in Falls City since.

Mike is survived by is wife, Rose of Falls City, daughter, Sarah Kreitzer of Falls City, grandchildren, Vickie Ann Kreitzer of Falls City, Conner L. Kreitzer of Wichita, KS, step-grandson, Garriden Brandt of Horton, KS. He was preceded in death by his mother, Alice Tucker, grandparents, Ruby and Ray Garvin and a sister, Jacci Ricardo.

It was Mike’s wish to be cremated and there will be no service held.

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In 1951, at the time Jean was working in Colorado Springs at May-Daniels & Fisher department store, she met her future husband, Charles Kenneth Sandfort, who was stationed there with the US Air Force.  Charles and Jean were united in marriage on December 8, 1951. They remained in Colorado until Charles completed his service with the Air Force in 1954. After leaving Colorado, they moved to Humboldt, Nebraska, to farm. Charles and Jean remained on the farm until both moved to Colonial Acres in 2022.

Jean worked tirelessly on the farm to help make it an award-winning dairy. In addition to her work with the farm, Jean was always gardening, canning, cooking, and sewing for her family. Jean loved to read, travel, and spend time with family. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and follower of Christ. She will be sorely missed.

Jean is survived by her loving husband of nearly 75 years Charles “Chuck” Sandfort, four daughters: Carol Martin, Ann (Alan) Stevicks, Brenda (Keith) McKim, and Sally (Brett) Nanninga, her brother, Rich Ivie; sister, June (Bill) Bell; sister-in-law, Lorrie Spencer; 11 grandchildren; and 23 great-grandchildren; and many other relatives and friends.  She is preceded in death by her parents, and great-granddaughter Lydia Vallie Zost.

Funeral Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, at the Humboldt (North) Cemetery in Humboldt, Nebraska with Pastor Chris Hanley officiating.

Visitation will be held from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at the Wherry Mortuary, 207 N. Nemaha street in Humboldt, Nebraska. Family will greet friends from 6-8 p.m. at the mortuary.

Condolences can be shared online at www.wherrymortuary.com

Services entrusted to Wherry Mortuary-207 N. Nemaha St-Humboldt, NE 68376 (402) 862-2915

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Mike was raised in Falls City and graduated from Falls City High School in 1972. He later went on to graduated from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln with Bachelors of Science in Business Administration in 1979. He passed the CPA test and practiced accounting from 1978 until 2024. He served on the board of directors for ICC and VITELCO from 2000 until 2024. He enjoyed learning history and he was very loyal and shy. He loved his nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews dearly.

Mike is survived by his brother, Jeffrey and his wife Dawn, nieces and nephews, Adrian Prosser and his son, Lance, Michelle Springer and her husband Ryan and their children Tatum and Miles, Sybil Prosser, John Justin Prosser, Aunt, Elsie Jenkins, Ronald Park and James Allen. 

He was preceded in death by his parents and a sister, Laura Prosser.

A memorial mass will be held on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at 11:00 AM at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church with Father Jim Meysenburg officiating. Inurnment will be in Falls City Catholic Cemetery.

Friends may sign the guest registry during regular business hours at Dorr and Clark Funeral Home.

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Her early years spent on the family farm—surrounded by many pets, including a beloved goat and pig—helped shape a life marked by quiet resilience, practical wisdom, and an enduring appreciation for simple joys. Mary graduated from Honey Creek High School in 1960.  

In 1960, Mary married James Herman Tiehen. Together they built a family life first outside of Olathe, later retiring to Linn Valley Lake, where they enjoyed many years of lasting friendships, community activities, and lake adventures. In 2023, after James’s passing in 2016, Mary moved to Olathe where she resided until her death.  

Mary’s thoughtfulness was most evident in the way she loved her family, especially in her devotion to being a grandma. She found real happiness in baking for those she loved, quilting, gardening, and crafting, and she brought a warm, steady presence to everyday moments. She also delighted in cheering for the KC Chiefs and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and she enjoyed the familiar comfort and laughter of The Golden Girls.  

Mary is survived by her three children: Dawn Wake, Debbie Smith (Matt), and Cindy Rokoff (Oliver); six grandchildren: Josh Drury, Erin Boston (Gary), Lindsey Smith, Jamie Smith, Lyla Rokoff, and Sylvie Rokoff; and seven great-grandchildren: Kameron Boston, Quinn Boston, Merrick Boston, August Boston, Jackson Smith, Roman Brown, and Remington Brown.  

Funeral services were Saturday, August 29, 2026. Visitation at 9:30 a.m. and funeral service to begin at 10:30 a.m. First Christian Church of Olathe, 200 East Loula Street Olathe, Kansas. Interment will be in Pleasant Valley Cemetery 9501 159th Street Overland Park, Kansas. 

The family extends sincere gratitude to the Intensive Care Unit of KU Medical Center and the Olathe Hospice House for their care and compassion.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Olathe Hospice House, 15310 S Marion St Olathe KS 66061. 

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Jean married Glenn Niedfeldt on April 5, 1953.  Jean and Glenn enjoyed 40 years of marriage before Glenn passed away in 1993.  They were blessed with 3 children.  The family farmed near Stella before moving to the Verdon area in 1979.  In 1991 they moved to their final residence in Falls City.

Jean was a life-long member of St Paul Lutheran Church, six miles north of Falls City, where she was baptized, confirmed and married.  She was an avid member of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League and held various offices of the League.

Jean was a homemaker helping with the farm and raising three sons.  She helped out at school functions and attended music, sports and other activities her sons were involved in.  She enjoyed quilting and spent many hours at church making quilt tops for World Relief.  She also took up the hobby of painting china and shared her work with others.  Later in life she loved following her grandchildren spending countless hours supporting and attending their school events.

Jean will be forever missed by her three children and their spouses, Gary and Kay Niedfeldt of Stella, Neal and Julie Niedfeldt of Grand Island and David and Nancy Niedfeldt of Beatrice; her 5 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. She is also survived by her sister Joann Niedeldt of Falls City, Sisters-in-Laws Eileen Hall and Elaine Nispel of Lincoln and many nieces and nephews.

Jean was preceded in death by her husband Glenn, an infant daughter, parents Fred and Ethel Kruger, and twin sister Janice Niedfeldt.

Funeral Services will be held 10:30 am at St. Paul Lutheran Church, six miles north of Falls City, on Tuesday, September 1, 2026 with Pastor Ken Humphrey officiating. Interment will be in the church cemetery.

The family will greet friends on Monday, August 31, 2026 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Dorr and Clark Funeral Home in Falls City.

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He married Mary Jane Shaffer on May 29, 1976 at Falls City/

Dick was raised in Falls City and graduated from Falls City High School in 1965. He then attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and studied accounting and later transferred to Missouri Western College in St. Joseph. Following his education, he worked for his grandfather at Martin’s Sinclair Oil Company as a bookkeeper. In 1975, he began employment at the City of Falls City as the City Administrator, working in the capacity for 32 years, achieving multiple accomplishments on behalf of the city, most notably; securing the purchase of power from the Nebraska City power plant, the Falls City Library and Arts Center and the Falls City Aquatic Center just to name a few. In 2009 he started working for the Sac and Fox Tribe and was the Chief Financial Officer for the Casino, working up until the time of his death. He enjoyed golfing with friends, his coffee buddies and attending his grandson’s games. He was a member of Falls City Elks Lodge #963, Masons and Falls City Golf Course.

Dick is survived by his wife, Mary Jane of Falls City, son, Thomas of Falls City, brother, Joe and his friend Hope Schawang of Rulo, grandsons, Beckett and Graham, and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents.

His memorial service will be held on Friday, September 4, 2026 at 11:00 AM at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church with Father Jim Meysenburg officiating. Inurnment will be in Steele Cemetery at a later date.

Now viewing or visitation. Friends may sign the guest register at Dorr and Clark Funeral Home during regular business hours.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials be made to Family Choice for later designation.

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Her early years spent on the family farm—surrounded by many pets, including a beloved goat and pig—helped shape a life marked by quiet resilience, practical wisdom, and an enduring appreciation for simple joys. Mary graduated from Honey Creek High School in 1960.  

In 1960, Mary married James Herman Tiehen. Together they built a family life first outside of Olathe, later retiring to Linn Valley Lake, where they enjoyed many years of lasting friendships, community activities, and lake adventures. In 2023, after James’s passing in 2016, Mary moved to Olathe where she resided until her death.  

Mary’s thoughtfulness was most evident in the way she loved her family, especially in her devotion to being a grandma. She found real happiness in baking for those she loved, quilting, gardening, and crafting, and she brought a warm, steady presence to everyday moments. She also delighted in cheering for the KC Chiefs and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and she enjoyed the familiar comfort and laughter of The Golden Girls.  

Mary is survived by her three children: Dawn Wake, Debbie Smith (Matt), and Cindy Rokoff (Oliver); six grandchildren: Josh Drury, Erin Boston (Gary), Lindsey Smith, Jamie Smith, Lyla Rokoff, and Sylvie Rokoff; and seven great-grandchildren: Kameron Boston, Quinn Boston, Merrick Boston, August Boston, Jackson Smith, Roman Brown, and Remington Brown.  

Funeral services will be Saturday, August 29, 2026. Visitation at 9:30 a.m. and funeral service to begin at 10:30 a.m. First Christian Church of Olathe, 200 East Loula Street Olathe, Kansas. Interment will be in Pleasant Valley Cemetery 9501 159th Street Overland Park, Kansas. 

The family extends sincere gratitude to the Intensive Care Unit of KU Medical Center and the Olathe Hospice House for their care and compassion.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Olathe Hospice House, 15310 S Marion St Olathe KS 66061. 

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Gerry was born April 26, 1962, in Humboldt, NE. She attended Humboldt Public Schools, K-11th grade. Her family moved to Lander, Wyoming, where she completed high school at Lander High in 1980. She attended Oregon University. While there, she gave birth to her son. After her son’s birth, Gerry moved herself and her son back to Lander. Gerry graduated from Riverton College in Riverton, Wyoming with a Registered Nursing degree.

Gerry loved going to Com-a-cons and concerts. She was famous for her brownies, which were requested for all potlucks. She was an animal lover and her life was filled with many pets, both dogs and cats. Her final gift was that she was a bone and tissue donor.

Survivors are aunts, Marcia Blanton (Hiawatha) and Nancy Rowland (Falls City); uncle, Glen Hogue (Peru) and many cousins. 

Preceding her in death were her son, Jordan Peck; parents, Jerry and Shirley (Hogue) Fryer; grandparents; aunts; uncles; and cousins. 

A Memorial in Lander is being planned in the next couple of months. A Memorial in Humboldt is being planned for spring of 2027.

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Kenny, as he was commonly called, was born August 18, 1939 in Falls City, NE to Bernard and Dorothy (Stokes) Schawang.  He was a lifelong resident of the Barada area.  He was baptized as an infant at St. Mary’s Arago Parrish and attended schools in Richardson County.  Kenny was a lifelong farmer in Richardson County.  In addition. he was employed by A& K Railway Supply in Overland Park, KS for several years as a heavy equipment operator.  He was also employed by Sur-Gro Plant Food for 10 years, Scholl Fertilizer for 10 years and the Post Office for 10 years.  He served eleven years in the Nebraska National Guard Company B.

He was married to Linda Halterman in 1961 and they were later divorced.  On October 28, 1973 he was united in marriage to Elaine Thomas.  They were blessed to have been married over 52 years.  They lived in Overland Park, KS for one year and then returned to the Falls City area where they resided ever since. Kenny loved to hunt, play cards and attend school sporting events for his kids and grandkids.  He loved being outside and every aspect of farming.  He took pride in being from the Barada area and considered it the best place in the world to live. Kenny was a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, the Falls City Elks Lodge and the American Legion where he had served as Chaplain. He was also a member of the Falls City Rural Fire Department for many years and also enjoyed coaching Pee Wee baseball.  During the last several years he became an avid reader of over 600 books from the Falls City Library.

Kenny is survived by his wife, Elaine, of the home.  Children include Tammy (Gary) Bruns of St. Joseph, Mo., Kenneth (Michelle) Schawang of Falls City, NE, Korey (Alysia) Schawang of Falls City, NE, Glenn (Shawntay) Schawang of Lincoln, NE, Kiley (Taylor) Weisbeck of Omaha, NE, Joseph Hoak (Katie) of Pocahontas, TN, Helen Gauchat, Bill Hoak of Omaha, NE.  He is survived by many amazing grandchildren, great and great-great grandchildren.  He is also survived by brothers, Steve (Cheryl) Schawang, Ralph Schawang and Leon Schawang all of the Falls City area.  In addition, he is survived by his precious dog, “Poppy” who he lovingly referred to as his youngest daughter.  He was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Patty Schawang, his beloved grandson, Will Maddux, and brother-in-law, Tom Gappmayer.

Funeral services for Kenny will be held on August 29, 2026 at 10:30 AM at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church with Pastor Joanna Kathol officiating.  Burial will be at Steele Cemetery.  Military graveside honors by Falls City Ceremonial Honor Guard.

Visitation will be held on Friday, August 28, 2026 at the Dorr and Clark Funeral Home from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Honorary Pallbearers will be “The Barada Boys” Dan Scholl, Darren Eickhoff, Jim Schawang, Dan Schawang, Stan Duerfeldt, Scott Handley, Tom Georges and also Brad Smith of Omaha, NE.  Dorr Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

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