This op-ed originally appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on June 28, 2026, and is reprinted here with permission.
Nebraska’s contributions to U.S. history sometimes are low-profile but quite notable. As our country prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, let’s note and appreciate three such examples involving Nebraskans.
First, an example tied closely to Nebraska agriculture.
For decades after World War II, most countries erected steep barriers to foreign agricultural products, depriving Nebraska farmers and ranchers of important export opportunities and profits. But in the 21st century, that’s all changed, dramatically.
In 2024, overseas sales of Nebraska soybeans, beef, corn and other ag products exceeded $8 billion.
More than half of Nebraska's soybean crop and about half of its wheat crop are sold abroad. Our cattle sector leads all other states in beef exports. Exports generate nearly a third of the state’s net farm and ranch receipts.
Opening overseas markets to Nebraska producers didn’t occur by happenstance. On the contrary, the achievement took enormous work involving skilled diplomacy and complicated negotiations. A central figure in securing that ag-export progress was a dynamic Nebraskan, Clayton Yeutter.
As U.S. trade representative during the Reagan administration, Yeutter (1930-2017) secured landmark export openings to Canada and Japan and successfully pushed for reductions in ag-trade barriers through the multilateral Uruguay Round trade negotiations.
“For 50 years he was one of the leading proponents of an export-oriented American agriculture,” said Warren Maruyama, a former USTR general counsel. “He was an incredibly skilled negotiator who could really land some of the biggest deals to open markets for American products.”
The deals Yeutter secured, Maruyama said, “are bedrocks of agricultural trade and the global trading system.”
Yeutter, a native of Eustis, Nebraska, earned three degrees from the University of Nebraska (bachelor’s of science; law degree; Ph.D. in agricultural economics) and served as U.S. agriculture secretary in the George H.W. Bush administration.
At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, I’ve written about the energetic work of the Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance. The institute, under director Jill O'Donnell, provides students with comprehensive multidisciplinary instruction and wide-ranging real-world learning opportunities.
Now, an example involving national security.
Many World-Herald readers will well remember the shock of Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists carried out horrific assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
The unimaginable attacks exposed troubling flaws in our nation’s intelligence operations, which failed to connect the dots beforehand, largely due to the rigid siloing among the various government agencies.
“We had an improper alignment of agencies,” former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey told me in a recent interview. “Often the agencies didn’t talk to each other — they didn’t have authority to talk to each other.”
Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor, served on the 10-member 9/11 Commission that did crucial work in describing the intelligence failures and setting out a set of reforms that have proved vital in buttressing our national security ever since.
“Prior to 9/11, pieces of the warning picture existed across government, but the system was not organized to connect them quickly enough or act on them decisively,” said Austin Doctor, director of strategic initiatives for the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “The commission helped drive reforms that improved intelligence sharing, strengthened counterterrorism coordination, and pushed agencies to work with their counterparts.”
Unity of purpose was central to the commission’s work and messaging, Kerrey said. That’s why he successfully pushed for the commission members to stand as one in their recommendations, without a minority report even though the members each had individual viewpoints.
The core lessons from the commission’s work “are still highly relevant,” Doctor said. “Today’s terrorism threat is more fragmented, technology-enabled and fast-moving than it was a generation ago. Our country relies on a counterterrorism workforce that can distinguish signals from noise, share information responsibly, and adapt before threats become crises.”
Lastly, an example involving international stability.
During tumultuous debates in 1919-20, the U.S. Senate rejected the Versailles Treaty promoted by President Woodrow Wilson (and championed by his chief Senate lieutenant on the issue, Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock, publisher of The World-Herald). A few years later, the German government faced big difficulties in making wartime reparations, and European powers likewise fell behind on war debt repayments to the U.S.
France and Belgium occupied Germany’s industrial Ruhr region, German political instability worsened, and the global financial system came under enormous strain.
A commission crafted a complex set of financial adjustments, known as the Dawes Plan, that provided much-needed stability. Charles Dawes, who had served as U.S. comptroller of the currency, headed the commission.
I’m skimping to a degree in connecting Dawes to Nebraska, since he was raised in Ohio. Still, it’s interesting that after law school, he chose to relocate to Nebraska and begin his legal career in Lincoln.
In 1925, he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize honoring his work to help resolve the international crisis. That same year, he began service as vice president under Calvin Coolidge.
The Dawes Plan “signaled American willingness to reengage Europe after isolationists defeated the Treaty of Versailles in the Senate,” said Michael J. Kelly, Creighton law professor and a specialist in international law. “Although the U.S. continued to vacillate between isolation and engagement through the 1920s, the Dawes Plan was an early blueprint for how America could confidently reengage and, in fact, serve as the chief architect of the post-World War II international financial and legal order that still benefits us to this day.”
A common thread in all three examples is how conditions overseas often connect to Nebraska in important ways. As we celebrate our 250th anniversary, we can benefit by appreciating those connections and the contributions that figures such as Yeutter, Kerrey and Dawes have made in furthering our national understanding.
Geitner Simmons, a former World-Herald editorial page editor, writes news articles and teaches advanced writing for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. This essay reflects his personal viewpoint only and not necessary that of the University of Nebraska.
