Tilden, Neb. ? Raymond Whitwer sat bare-chested, bare-legged, immersed in a newspaper at the public library here recently.

Gasp! It appeared the Tilden native was nude. Cameras clicked away.

Actually, Whitwer was wearing striped swim trunks as he good-naturedly posed for photos, one of which will be included in a 2006 fund-raiser calendar.

It’s the Tilden community’s version of a pin-up calendar and features semi-clad “men of Tilden.”

It’s for a fund-raiser for the Tilden Community Hospital and Medical Clinic that was spurred by Whitwer and his wife, Marjorie, of San Diego.

In February, the couple announced their $100,000 match challenge to the city-owned, 21-bed hospital and medical clinic after Whitwer was unexpectedly hospitalized there with pneumonia while in Tilden on business.

The matching funds will be released once the community has raised $100,000.

The challenge grant is the couple’s second major gift to the Tilden community in recent years. Their first was the Raymond A. Whitwer Tilden Public Library, a multimillion-dollar, 14,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2001.

The library climaxed Whitwer’s career as a general contractor and construction company owner in San Diego.

The 1938 graduate of Tilden High School returned to his hometown recently in advance of a family reunion. First on his agenda was posing for the calendar, which was the brainchild of Susan Fields of Tilden.

Several months ago, she and others in the Tilden community began brainstorming fund-raising ideas for the hospital.

“Then, for some reason, it hit me,” Fields said. “We ought to do a calendar.”