Ewest, what makes me doubt the male was a pumkinseed is that NE has very few locations with pumkinseeds, most are located on the northeastern part of the state with a few places in the sandhills as well, other than that they are very uncommon, especially in southern NE. Here is a range map.

http://tnfish.org/SpeciesFishInformation_TWRA/Research/Pumpkinseed_LepomisGibbosusInformation_NS.pdf