KEARNEY — Most days if you asked Frank Dineen how he was he would give you a big smile and say, “Practically perfect.”
His youngest daughter, Peggy Davidson of Omaha, would love to know how that expression originated.
“He said it for years, and we joked about putting it on his headstone. I remember mom saying it at times, so it must have come from something between them,” she said.
As one of Buffalo County’s longest living World War II veterans and a former Buffalo County Sheriff, Dineen, 96, died Thursday in Kearney. He was laid to rest today in Kearney with full military and law enforcement rites.
Background
Dineen was born Aug. 15, 1925, in Omaha to Frank M. Dineen Sr. and Esther C. (Wilson) Dineen. He grew up in Omaha and graduated from Creighton Prep High School in 1944.
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Dineen’s father, a Douglas County District Court judge, wanted his son to become an attorney. Frank Jr. served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-1946, serving in the Asiatic Pacific. He was wounded by shrapnel when his ship was hit during the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945, and received a Purple Heart.
When he returned home, he attended Creighton University in Omaha for one year majoring in pre-law before joining the Nebraska State Patrol on Oct. 17, 1949. He was first stationed in the Norfolk/O’Neill area. At the time there were only about 100 troopers across the state, and radio communication was spotty at best.
“I could’ve been dead a week, and no one would’ve ever known it because there was no radio communications,” he told the Hub in a 2015 story.
Dineen married Bernadine “Bernie” Flaherty in Omaha in 1951, and in 1956, they moved to Kearney. At the time, Interstate 80 hadn’t been completed and traffic on Highway 30 was chaotic.
“I couldn’t wait for the interstate to open up, and then when it opened up it was the Indianapolis Speedway,” he said.
Dedication to Buffalo County
Dineen was promoted to corporal with the state patrol in 1971, and retired from his 30-year career in 1979 when he was elected Buffalo County Sheriff. At the time, the county was building a new jail, and Dineen hired current Sheriff Neil Miller as one of his deputies.
Miller, who sometimes called Dineen “Frankie,” was later promoted to be Dineen’s chief deputy in 1980. Miller recalled Dineen had a knack for handling a car at high speeds.
“I’ve been with him in more than one pursuit at 130 mph,” Miller laughed. “Stolen cars, armed robberies... He was a master at precision driving.”
It was Dineen, Miller said, who first required deputies to wear hats as a part of their uniform. Dineen also instituted 24 hour coverage for road patrol in the county. “And we’ve had it ever since,” said Miller, who succeeded Dineen in 1990.
Dineen continued to work for the sheriff’s office doing prisoner transports and court security. While transporting a prisoner in the late 1990s from Buffalo County to the state Department of Corrections, Dineen, then 71, had to fire his service weapon.
An inmate had been sentenced in Buffalo County and Dineen was taking him back to Lincoln where the inmate also was serving another sentence. The inmate somehow gained control of the county van Dineen had been driving and tried to escape. Standing outside the van, Dineen, fired one shot through the driver’s side window and hit the inmate in the upper torso.
The van then crashed into a retaining wall at the prison. The inmate received four non-life threatening wounds, three from shards of glass. The prison’s staff immediately apprehended the inmate, and he was treated by prison medical staff.
“I think he (Dineen) picked up a nickname or two out of the incident,” Miller later joked.
In 1998, Dineen was inducted into the Nebraska Law Enforcement Hall of Fame. He completely retired in 1999, after 50 years in law enforcement and started working part-time security for the late Don Kearney and at the then-Kearney State Bank.
In 2003, Dineen was part of Buffalo County’s first Hero Flights which took World War II veterans to Washington, D.C., to see the World War II Memorial.
He retired from the bank in 2012, and the following year continued his love of driving and started working part-time transporting vehicles for a Kearney dealership, a job he had until he was 95.
Over the years Dineen was known for his practical jokes on fellow law enforcement officers, and joke telling. “I never knew what was going to come out of his mouth,” Davidson said.
Lessons learned
For all the years Miller and Dineen worked together, the most valuable lesson Dineen handed down, Miller said, was that people are the most valuable asset to the success of any organization.
“He taught me the value is in your people,” Miller said earlier this week.
Dineen lived at home until he was 95, then moved to Brookstone Garden in Kearney where he lived for about a year. Despite his failing health Miller and Davidson said Dineen continued to have a sharp mind.
Davidson recalled one of Dineen’s final days when she walked into his room and asked him how he was doing. He softly replied, “practically perfect.”