Stephanie Effken

    When gifts are given, rarely does the reciever of the gift find value or treasure in the box that harbors the gift. Rather, it is what's inside that has sentiment and worth.
     But to Moe Moravec of Papillion, a box made all the difference.
     In 1951 while in Masan, South Korea, with the United States Army during the Korean War, Moravec came across an unusual piece of home– a wooden box.
     Normally, a wooden box would seem unimportant, but at second glance Moravec realized it had come from a familiar place– his hometown of Seward.
     "Hughes Brothers, Seward, Nebraska" was written in black block letters across the box.
     "I saw that and my old heart went boom-boom-boom," Moravec said.
     The box was used to ship hardware that held cross arms for electrical poles. Moravec said he talked with the man working on the poles.
     "I talked him into letting me keep the box," Moravec said.
     And he has kept it ever since.
     On March 11, Moravec decided to return the box to where it came from, Hughes Brothers.
     Moravec was familiar with Hughes Brothers because he had worked there in high school. He worked the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at 60 cents an hour. At that time it was owned by the Hughes brothers Ted, Ben, Burr and John.
     John Hughes, president of Hughes Brothers, smiled when he looked at the box and said, "the funny thing is, we still make these."
     During the 50's, when the box was found, Hughes said Hughes Brothers was making products to help with the effort of rebuilding South Korea's electrical systems.
     As of right now, Hughes said they are not shipping anything to South Korea and 95 percent of their products are shipped within the United States.
     The other five percent is shipped to countries such as Iceland, Belize, Peru, Oman, Marshall Islands and Canada.
     Moravec graduated from Seward High School in 1945 and was drafted into the Army in 1950. After returning from the war, Moravec resumed a position at Seward's Hinky Dinky grocery store as manager, and then moved to Omaha.
     After opening other grocery stores in the Omaha area, a steak house, a neck tie business, a 50-plus dancing club and bringing Archway cookies to Nebraska, Moravec has settled in Papillion with his wife, Mary.