Harry D. Strunk dedicated his life to the development of southwest Nebraska and northwest Kansas as founder and president of the Republican Valley Conservation Association. Motivated by the Republican River Flood of 1935 that claimed more than 100 lives, Strunk fought for decades resulting in construction of six dams and reservoirs in southwest Nebraska, northwest Kansas and northeast Colorado, providing water to tens of thousands of irrigated acres, flood control, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. The 82nd Congress named the lake north of Cambridge in Strunk’s honor. Strunk, at age 19 with only an eighth grade education, founded the Red Willow County Gazette as a semi-weekly in 1911. The newspaper became the McCook Daily Gazette in 1924. In the pre-depression days of 1929, Strunk and the Gazette made journalistic and aviation history by being the first newspaper in the world to regularly deliver newspapers by air. The Curtiss-Robin C-1 airplane, christened “The Newsboy,” dropped papers to carriers in 40 area towns.