More than 100 rural hospitals<\/a>\u00a0have been shuttered over the last decade in the U.S., according to the Boston University School of Public Health.<\/p>\nLexington Regional Health Center now is at risk of becoming another casualty caught up in the wave of rural health care deserts.<\/p>\n
In a scathing letter to Tyson CEO Donnie King, Board Chairman John Tyson and the company\u2019s board of directors, Lexington Regional Health Center CEO Jason Douglas pulls no punches in telling Tyson what it\u2019s doing to the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m watching what this means for health care access in our community,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhen thousands of people lose employer-sponsored insurance simultaneously, the ripple effect hits our emergency department, our clinics, and our beds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tyson workers now know they won\u2019t have jobs after Jan. 20, but those employed by the hospital and school district have an axe hanging over their necks.<\/p>\n
With a huge drop in patients and people to care for, doctors and nurses may be next in line for Lexington layoffs. Whether they\u2019ll wait and see how the chips fall or start looking for new jobs right away isn\u2019t known.<\/p>\n
What is known is that the Tyson decision has turned a small town on its ear, and many like Douglas are pretty dang mad about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe built our schools, housing, and health care system around the assumption that you would be here,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd when the corporate math changed \u2014 when beef margins tightened and certain tax advantages ran their course \u2014 you made a spreadsheet decision \u2026 and 3,200 families in Lexington, Nebraska, became nothing more than a line item.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglas didn\u2019t respond to multiple requests for an interview while Cowboy State Daily was in Lexington, but his nearly 2,000-word letter to Tyson leaves no room for doubt about his feelings on the announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decisions you make in a boardroom in Arkansas have consequences that cascade through every aspect of life here,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019m watching what this does to a community\u2019s sense of self \u2014 the dawning realization that 35 years of loyalty, of showing up, of giving everything to your production line, wasn\u2019t enough to earn even the courtesy of decent timing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He goes on to point out how bad that timing was, coming a week before Thanksgiving and just before Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had a choice about how to do this,\u201d Douglas wrote. \u201cYou chose the Friday before Thanksgiving. You decided to give people less than 60 days (notice). You chose shareholder value over human dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Lexington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Lexington-superintendent.jpg\")
Lexington Public Schools Superintendent Dr. John Hakonson says how many students return after the holiday break “is the million-dollar question.” (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)What About The Schools?<\/p>\n
As the local health care system is in wait-and-see mode about the true impact of the Tyson plant closure, the same is happening with the 500 people who work for Lexington Public Schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe estimate somewhere around 50% of our kids have one or both parents that work at Tyson,\u201d Superintendent Dr. John Hakonson told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n
When the announcement came down, it also sparked a wave of speculation about how many teachers and other support personnel will have to be cut as families move away for new jobs.<\/p>\n
Worst-case scenario is about half the district\u2019s 3,200 students (which mirrors the Tyson employment numbers), while best-case is perhaps a few hundred, which would put the district back to levels seen about a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plant\u2019s been here for 35 years, so yeah, it\u2019s multigenerational with its impact,\u201d Hakonson said. \u201cWe have grandparents that are in some of the houses, so I think there\u2019s a pull to try and stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school district began its holiday break Friday, which means the immediate impact of Tyson\u2019s pending closure will start to show in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
How many students don\u2019t return is what the superintendent calls \u201cthe million-dollar question,\u201d but his gut says most will come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked (parents) to please let us know they plan on relocating over Christmas break so that we can check their kids out, make sure that we sent the student records to the right place,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had very few parents respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to be shocked if we don\u2019t have very many that will leave over Christmas, because the plant doesn\u2019t close until Jan. 20.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that, those workers who stick around to the end will be eligible for unemployment benefits, which will keep them in their homes longer, he said.<\/p>\n
![\"About](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Lexington-Tyson-plant-Seasons-Greetings.jpg\")
About 3,200 of Lexington, Nebraska\u2019s 11,000 residents work at a huge Tyson Foods beef processing plant \u2014 for another month. News that the plant will close next month was an unexpected \u201cgut punch\u201d many fear will devastate this rural cow town. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)Some Breathing Room<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the pull of families wanting their kids to finish out the school year in their familiar classrooms and graduate with their high school class if they\u2019re seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t surprise us if maybe parents will take that option (of unemployment) and try to stay here until they absolutely have no income and then have to leave to do something else,\u201d Hakonson said. \u201cIt\u2019s normal right now, it\u2019s very normal because families haven\u2019t left.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to the same uncertainty felt by health care workers, teachers and the school district have a little more breathing room, Hakonson said.<\/p>\n
Schools in Nebraska are funded by student enrollment and a state payout per pupil.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The student count to fund the 2026-27 school year was done in October, which means Lexington schools will be funded at current levels at least through the next school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t expect a big fall-off in our funding for next year, 2026-27 isn\u2019t what we\u2019re worried about,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope that we don\u2019t have to lay people off through reduction in force, though. I hope that we can absorb most of the excess staffing we might have through attrition.\u201d<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean all the district\u2019s teachers will hang in until the end. If they see more stable, long-term opportunities, they may take them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think teachers and other employees are worried about, \u2018Am I going to have a job?\u2019\u201d Hakonson said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re just telling people, let\u2019s just take it a day at a time and see how many people leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could lose, you know, a few hundred kids and be back to where we were not that many years ago. But losing half the (student) population? That would be a different problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Fernada](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Lexington-Plum-Creek-Market-Place-walking-in.jpg\")
Fernada Rodriguez walks into Plum Creek Market Place. She said her entire family depends on the Tyson plant. Her father worked there for 35 years, and her aunts, uncles and brothers-in-law all still work there. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)So Unfair<\/p>\n
Tyson singled out a tight beef market as one of the reasons for closing the Lexington plant, so Douglas tried to appeal to the company\u2019s bottom line in ways a corporation could appreciate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that CEO King received $22.8 million in total compensation last year \u2014 a 73% increase from the year before,\u201d he wrote, citing numbers from Tyson\u2019s required filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. \u201cI know that Chairman Tyson received $18.4 million, including nearly $3 million for personal use of the company jet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the 525-to-1 pay ratio between the CEO and average frontline Tyson worker is out of whack and that closing the gap may be a better human option than closing the plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, when you talk about closing this plant out of necessity, what you\u2019re really saying is that you chose shareholder returns and executive compensation over the community that helped make those profits possible for 35 years,\u201d Douglas wrote.<\/p>\n
Instead, the thousands of immigrant families that have settled in Lexington over the decades to work at the plant seeking the American dream are now living an American nightmare, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany are immigrants who came to this country legally, following every rule, because they believed in what America promised: opportunity through hard work,\u201d Douglas wrote. \u201cThey didn\u2019t come here for handouts, they came for the chance to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd work they did \u2014 in conditions most Americans couldn\u2019t handle for wages that required careful budgeting, building lives one paycheck at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"About](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Lexington-Tyson-truck-on-I-80.jpg\")
About 3,200 of Lexington, Nebraska\u2019s 11,000 residents work at a huge Tyson Foods beef processing plant \u2014 for another month. News that the plant will close next month was an unexpected \u201cgut punch\u201d many fear will devastate this rural cow town. A steady stream of Tyson trucks and other semitrailers roll in and out of Lexington. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)\u2018Deserved Better From You\u2019<\/p>\n
Now Douglas said he sees families around town trying to explain to their kids why Christmas this year won\u2019t be the same or why they have to move.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m watching people wrestle with impossible choices,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDo we stay in the community we\u2019ve built hoping something else comes along? Do we uproot our children from the only schools they\u2019ve known and chase your \u2018relocation benefits\u2019 to a plant hundreds of miles away?<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we leave America altogether and return to countries that are no longer home?\u201d<\/p>\n
That anger and frustration laced throughout Douglas\u2019 letter \u2014 and expressed by residents all around the town \u2014 are pointed at Tyson corporate, not local management, said Hakonson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that the people who work at Tyson here, any of them, including local management, knew this was coming until that day,\u201d he said. \u201cIt came as a shock to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
However the plant closure shakes out for the hospital and school district, the heads of both those entities agree on how Douglas ends his passionate plea to Tyson officials: Lexington \u201cdeserved better from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Neb. \u2014 Many around this rural Midwest cow town seem to be going through the motions, handling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-364362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"About](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Lexington-downtown-water-tower.jpg\")
About 3,200 of Lexington, Nebraska\u2019s 11,000 residents work at a huge Tyson Foods beef processing plant \u2014 for another month. News that the plant will close next month was an unexpected \u201cgut punch\u201d many fear will devastate this rural cow town. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)Mad As Hell<\/p>\n