SIDNEY -- Cheyenne County Tourism Director Kendra Mitchell addressed the Cheyenne County Commissioners today with a proposal from the State of Nebraska designating the Cheyenne County Visitors Center a State Visitors Center.

"The State Tourism Commission has been in contact with me. They would like to put a staff member that's trained by the state tourism commission at the visitors center in Sidney. They start mid-May and would end the Sunday after Labor Day. They would hire one person and it would work 32 hours a week. The State hires that person, does all the HR, the interviewing, all the hiring, all the payroll," Mitchell said.

Commission Chairman Darrell Johnson asked how the State proposal would impact her job. She said it would hopefully provide better service to the public and flexibility to her.

"With the goal of keeping it open on Saturdays and Sundays is what I asked them to look at when they hire somebody, somebody who is available on the weekends, and could also fill in the times when I have to be gone," Mitchell said.

She said she is questioning what the state will invest, besides a staff person.

"My question to the state commission was what are they going to do to drive more traffic to our visitors center to make it worth having another person there. We've discussed hiring seasonal labor in the past. The number of visitors we receive in our visitor center don't justify having that, but if we were able to reroute the visitors that come to Kimball. They get about 600 a month during the summer, 600 to 800 a month. I would say I have 150-ish a month," she said.

Mitchell said the County should not be affected financially.