Andrew Wegley and Sara Gentzler
Flatwater Free Press
When the Tyson Foods plant in Lexington laid off more than 3,000 employees in January, it wiped out jobs for nearly half the town’s work force and left no aspect of life untouched.
Blanca Vazquez, 58, grew up in a small village in Mexico. When she was about 20 years old, she and her husband moved to Houston, Texas. They moved to Lexington in 1993 for the promise of jobs at IBP. She became a U.S. citizen.
Joel Lemus, 39, is a counselor and the boys soccer coach at Lexington High School. A native of Mexico, he grew up in Schuyler. He and his family moved to Lexington in 2018.
Edith Avalos, 39, moved to Lexington from California in 1991. Her parents worked at IBP for about a decade before opening a taco truck. They then opened Roos Taqueria across the street from the now-shuttered Tyson plant.
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Jason Douglas has been the CEO of Lexington Regional Health Center since March 2025. In December, Douglas penned an open letter to Tyson executives, accusing them of choosing “shareholder returns and executive compensation over the community that helped make those profits possible for 35 years.”
Hawa Mohamed, 29, was born in Kenya and moved to Colorado with her family as a teenager. She had friends in Lexington and joined them there, then her family followed.
Larry Allen, 78, has lived in Cozad his whole life, aside from a stint in the U.S. Navy that had him stationed in Antarctica at 17 years old. He started commuting to Lexington to work at the Sperry-New Holland combine plant when it opened in 1975. The plant shut down in 1985, slicing 900-plus jobs from a community of only 7,000.
Blanca Vazquez, 58, grew up in a small village in Mexico. When she was about 20 years old, she and her husband moved to Houston, Texas. They moved to Lexington in 1993 for the promise of jobs at IBP. She became a U.S. citizen.
Joel Lemus, 39, is a counselor and the boys soccer coach at Lexington High School. A native of Mexico, he grew up in Schuyler. He and his family moved to Lexington in 2018.
Edith Avalos, 39, moved to Lexington from California in 1991. Her parents worked at IBP for about a decade before opening a taco truck. They then opened Roos Taqueria across the street from the now-shuttered Tyson plant.
Jason Douglas has been the CEO of Lexington Regional Health Center since March 2025. In December, Douglas penned an open letter to Tyson executives, accusing them of choosing “shareholder returns and executive compensation over the community that helped make those profits possible for 35 years.”
Hawa Mohamed, 29, was born in Kenya and moved to Colorado with her family as a teenager. She had friends in Lexington and joined them there, then her family followed.
Larry Allen, 78, has lived in Cozad his whole life, aside from a stint in the U.S. Navy that had him stationed in Antarctica at 17 years old. He started commuting to Lexington to work at the Sperry-New Holland combine plant when it opened in 1975. The plant shut down in 1985, slicing 900-plus jobs from a community of only 7,000.
