@thelaw09
Kearney is not a bad town. There are nice parts and lousy parts. You'll know what's what when you drive through.
It has a Walmart, Target, shopping mall, etc.
It's about 30-45 minutes from Grand Island and the Heartland Public Shooting Park which has a bunch of options for shooting - trap, skeet, sporting clays, USPSA, Steel Challenge, 3-gun, and quasi-F-class.
I believe there is fishing at the Harlan County Reservoir.
If you want to hunt, you'll need to find someone with some land and get their permission.
There are a bunch of small towns around Kearney. Holdrege is about 35 minutes or so away. Other smaller and closer towns include Gibbon, Shelton, Minden, Elm Creek, Wood River, and Amherst. If you can handle the drive from Holdrege or Gibbon, those might be better choices for schools, although Kearney has a ton of elementary schools. I don't know which are the better ones.
ETA - I'm a transplant from NYC. Nebraska's not as bad as people make it out to be.