Omaha Magazine - November/December 2018 - The Rwanda Issue

GLACIAL TILL CIDER // MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER // AU COURANT // LATE NIGHT WITH AMBER RUFFIN // DEVIANT REUBENS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

From the SLUMS OF RWANDA to the Halls of CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY

U.S. $4.95

TAB L E of CON T E N T S THE USUAL SUSPECTS 004 From the Editor 006 Between the Lines 009 Calendar of Events 105 Obviously Omaha

Reubenesque: a Guide to Deviant Reubens

129 Explore!

133 Instagram 134 Not Funny

Garbage In, Garbage Out

A R T S + C U LT U R E 020 Music

Mannheim Steamroller

022 Theater

Ashley Laverty

026 Art

Will Anderson

030 Comedy

Amber Ruffin

GIVING 082 Feature

F E AT U R E S

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COVER FEATURE

Heard by God. From the Slums of Rwanda to the Halls of Creighton University

POETRY

Omaha Poets Populate 2018 One Book One Nebraska Plus: Diversity on Stage in Omaha’s Poetry Scene (on page 52)

GOAT YOGA

Have You Herd of the Goat Yoga Craze?

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Tiffany Le Colst's Mission at Together

084 Giving Calendar PE O P L E 044 Sports

UNO Soccer Coach Bob Warming

054 Gen O

A 5-Year-Old's Día de Los Muertos

056 Adventure

Gary Petit's Wildlife Safari Park

063 Fashion

Juantiesha Christian's SuShe by J. Tracey

068 History

Francis Burt, Nebraska’s Two-Day Governor

THE 2018 GRE AT PL AINS J OUR N A LIS M AWA RDS

AUGMENTED REALITY

MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 60PLUS IN OMAHA

On Your Digital Device

GLACIAL TILL CIDER // MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER // AU COURANT // LATE NIGHT WITH AMBER RUFFIN // DEVIANT REUBENS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

089 60Plus Opener

Watch videos and view photo galleries of select stories from this issue of Omaha Magazine for FREE.

090 Curiosity

Artist Andy Acker

092 Active Living

Figure Skater Barbara Foster

096 Feature

From Japanese-American Internment Camp to Boys Town

From the SLUMS OF RWANDA to the Halls of CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY

U.S. $4.95

103 Health

A B O U T T HE COV E R

Vaccines for Seniors

Omaha Magazine editor Doug Meigs traveled to Rwanda with Imana Kids, a Council Bluffs-based nonprofit dedicated to helping disadvantaged youths and orphans who are struggling in the aftermath of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. During the trip, one of the sponsored orphans had his prayers answered. This issue features the story of that miracle.

Photo by Bill Sitzmann.

DINING 106 Review

Au Courant

110 Profile

Ling's Asian Cuisine

114 Feature

Glacial Till Hard Cider

118 Dining Guide SPECIAL SECTIONS 070 2018 Holiday Gift Guide

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512 trees have been reforested

due to the printing of our last round of publications.

Learn more at printreleaf.com

081 City Market

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Step ENJOY YOUR EXPERIENCE Watch, click, shop, explore!

read online at omahamagazine.com

FROM THE EDITOR // LETTER BY DOUG MEIGS, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

AFTER LIGHTS OUT, GENE LEAHY MALL DEMOLITION SCHEDULED TO BEGIN DOWNTOWN OMAHA TURNS extra mag-

ical the evening of Nov. 22, thanks to the annual ceremony for the Holiday Lights Festival. Festive lights will illuminate the mall until New Year’s Day. The mall’s next transformation will follow the lights turning off, with the scenic landscape rising to street level. Demolition of the Gene Leahy Mall is scheduled to begin in the spring.

The mall’s sunken green slopes and paths leading down to the lagoon will disappear under a pile of dirt and new amenities, according to the current master plan for the Missouri Riverfront Revitalization Project (available at riverfrontrevitalization.com).

The famous American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin designed the mall in the ’60s, in conjunction with Omaha-based architectural firm BVH. Then known as the “Central Park Mall,” it was the first phase of City Planning Director Alden Aust’s vision for Omaha’s “return to the river,” an initiative funded by federal grants and informed by public consultation.

The Gene Leahy Mall is one of five areas targeted by the current public-private Missouri Riverfront Revitalization Project.

Total cost for the project (including the mall) is anticipated at $290 million (with the bulk of funding coming from private and philanthropic investment). Mayor Jean Stothert has committed the city to $50 million on the project, which includes Lewis & Clark Landing and Heartland of America Park in Omaha. The rest of the development spans the Council Bluffs side of the Missouri River.

Proponents of flattening the Gene Leahy Mall argue the mall in its current form disconnects the Old Market from north downtown and various developments there: the Holland Performing Arts Center, CHI Health Center Omaha, the new Capitol District area, and other proposed developments (including Kiewit’s new headquarters).

Flattening the mall, advocates say, will make the area safer for police to monitor while also creating more space for amenities and programming. In turn, the altered space will help make downtown more attractive for developers and residents, while also helping local corporations attract and retain talent.

But the plan is not universally accepted by the community. Gary Bowen was one of the architects at BVH working with Halprin’s office to conceptualize and construct the Gene Leahy Mall. He applauds most of the Missouri Riverfront Revitalization’s master plan, but is concerned about the demolition of the mall outlined in the master plan announced June 12.

“The remaining portion of the current proposed plan [east of the mall] is appropriate and worth the investment. That is the part of our downtown that needs help,” Bowen says.

“But the Leahy Mall needs to be updated— not scrapped—to respond to the changing scene downtown.”

Bowen worked with Omaha Parks & Recreation staff and the Downtown Improvement District to create a 2014 proposal to update the mall (proposing the addition of an amphitheater, new activity spaces, an enlarged playground, and an additional pedestrian bridge across the mall). But the plans stalled without action from the city.

The 2014 plan from BVH would have preserved the integrity of the green space and lagoon while adding the new amenities at a projected cost of $20 million. Instead, the city pursued a less comprehensive update for $1.8 million that removed the mall’s walled sidewalk barriers to improve visibility for the sake of public safety.

“The original cost of creating the Gene Leahy mall exceeded $20 million. In today’s dollars, that value would be approximately $45-50 million, inflated at a modest 3 percent annually,” Bowen says. “To throw away that investment and add another proposed amount, will the end result justify that kind of cost? I think not.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

He continues: “The mall has become an iconic symbol of Omaha. How many times do we see it pictured on a website, a postcard, a calendar? People get married there, and people come from all over to enjoy the natural beauty. The current scenario seems eerily familiar to the attempt to take Elmwood Park for UNO parking, or taking Jobbers Canyon for ConAgra.”

But short of any public outcry in support of the mall’s conservation, the Gene Leahy Mall’s fate seems certain—buried.

Read more of Bowen’s counterpoint to plans to demolish the Gene Leahy Mall online at omahamagazine.com.

Note: the hotel edition of Omaha Magazine has a different cover, and it does not include all of the editorial content included in the magazine’s full city edition.

Omaha Magazine Joins CRMAs

Omaha Magazine is a new member of the City and Regional Magazine Association. Members must have an audited circulation (the audit period can take up to 15 months) and maintain editorial independence from advertisers.

Best of Omaha Soirée (Thursday, Nov. 8)

Join us in celebrating winners of the Best of Omaha contest.

The event will feature food and beverages from winners, and live entertainment. Location: Omaha Design Center. Dress code: business chic. Age restriction: 21 and older.

Ticket price: $60 VIP (6-7 p.m. pre-entry with free valet parking), $40 general admission (7-10 p.m.).

Purchase tickets at localstubs.com.

NOVEMBER // DECEMBER 2018 VOLUME 36 // ISSUE 5

EDITORIAL Executive Editor

DOUG MEIGS

Managing Editor

DAISY HUTZELL-RODMAN Associate Editor

TARA SPENCER Editorial Assistant

LINDSAY WILSON Editorial Interns

MEGAN FABRY · DYLAN LONGWELL · JUSTINE YOUNG Contributing Writers

LEO ADAM BIGA · TAMSEN BUTLER · ELIZABETH KOTTICH LISA LUKECART · KATRINA MARKEL · SANDRA MARTIN SEAN McCARTHY · NIZ PROSKOCIL · SEAN ROBINSON RYAN ROENFELD · LINDA PERSIGEHL · CARIELLE SEDERSTEN OTIS TWELVE · NADINE VODICKA · JOSEFINA LOZA WELLS SARAH WENGERT

CREATIVE Creative Director

MATT WIECZOREK Senior Graphic Designer

DEREK JOY

Graphic Designer II

MADY BESCH

Contributing Photographers

KEITH BINDER · LLOYD BISHOP · COLIN CONCES SCOTT DRICKEY · KELLIE HATCHER · KERI HATCHER WILLIAM HESS · SARAH LEMKE

Visit Santa

November 23rd – Christmas Eve See holiday shopping hours, times to visit Santa & more magical events at RegencyCourtOmaha.com

Contributing Videographers

CHRISTOPHER MARSHALL · MARK McGAUGH JEREMY WADE RODMAN · JOE PANKOWSKI

SALES DEPARTMENT Executive Vice President Sales & Marketing

120 Regency Parkway | Omaha

GIL COHEN

Senior Branding Specialist

MARY HIATT

Senior Sales Executive & 60PLUS in Omaha Contributing Editor

GWEN LEMKE

Publisher’s Assistant & OmahaHome Contributing Editor

SANDY MATSON

Senior Sales Coordinator

PATTERN AND PURPOSE American Quilts from Shelburne Museum

ALICIA HOLLINS Branding Specialist

GEORGE IDELMAN Local Stubs Ticketing Representative and Branding Specialist

JOSHUA PETERSON

Digital Sales Manager

JILLIAN DUNN Sales Assistants

DAWN DENNIS · SOPHIA GALARDI Managerial Assistant

KATE LOECKE

OPERATIONS Distribution Manager

MIKE BREWER

EXECUTIVE Executive Publisher

TODD LEMKE Vice President

GREG BRUNS Associate Publisher

BILL SITZMANN Chief Operating Officer

TYLER LEMKE

For Advertising & Subscription Information:

402.884.2000

Omaha Magazine Vol 36 Issue 5, publishes monthly except February, April, August, November, December, totaling 8 issues by Omaha Magazine, LTD, 5921 S. 118 Circle, Omaha, NE 68137. Periodical postage at Omaha, NE, and additional offices and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Omaha Magazine, 5921 S. 118 Circle, Omaha, NE 68137

Through January 6, 2019 This exhibition brings together thirty-four masterpieces ranging from early whole-cloth quilts, carefully-pieced Lemoyne stars, and embroidered botanical “best quilts,” to art quilts by contemporary makers.

Presenting Sponsor:

Supporting Sponsors: Shirley and Daniel Neary Teri and Ron Quinn

Major Sponsor:

Contributing Sponsor:

Additional support provided by: Constance Ryan

IMAGE: Dora Ernestine Witt Shiffelbein, Pieced Hexagon Quilt (detail), 1930-1945, cotton, 77 1/2 x 77 in., Collection of Shelburne Museum, Gift of Wayne Shifflebein, 1997-44.1.

2200 Dodge St. | Omaha, NE | (402) 342-3300 | www.joslyn.org NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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Between A LOOK AT FOUR OMAHA MAGAZINE TEAM MEMBERS DYLAN LONGWELL—Editorial Intern Dylan Longwell is an Omaha native with a passion for writing and exploring. He aspires to connect with others beyond the superficial level, as he believes that’s what drives culture forward in a positive way. At his job at Blue Moon Fitness, Longwell is exposed to the diversity of Omaha and strives to continually broaden his perspective on the city. He will earn a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in December 2018. Upon graduating, he hopes that his writing can help bring Omaha’s sometimes divided segments of the society closer together. Easier said than done, right? If Longwell isn’t working or studying, then he is probably spending time with family, friends, or lounging around the house with his cat, Slim.

KATE LOECKE—Managerial Assistant If you’re looking for Kate Loecke, check the racetrack. Loecke grew up in a family with more than 50 years of experience in competitive driving. She became active in the sport competitively about a year ago after her mother passed away. Nowadays, she travels and races with the Cornhusker Corvette Club. The (thus far) undefeated driver has broken multiple records and claimed the title of “Overall Top Competitor” in one of her family’s 15 Corvettes. But she hasn’t done it alone. Loecke says her mother is always there with her in the car in spirit. Although Loecke feels at home behind the wheel of her favorite yellow ’67 Corvette, she hopes to one day take a break from racing to visit Ireland—her dream vacation—before getting back to the track.

SANDRA MARTIN—Contributing Writer Sandra Martin is no stranger to Omaha Magazine. In her early days as a freelance writer, Martin’s many articles for the magazine featured offbeat topics such as a local coven of witches (“Do a Few Rites Make It Wrong?”) and what it's like to be imprisoned in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Martin has also written local and national ad copy and a weekly newspaper column focusing on human-interest stories, or “whatever was going on in my life at the time.” A later freelance assignment to write a video script opened up a whole new world and led to her not only writing but producing videos. In the early 1990s, she achieved her dream of producing a documentary collection titled “View from the Inside,” to help people better understand various life experiences.

SOL MARBURG—Marketing Intern Sol Marburg is a junior pursuing his bachelor’s degree in marketing at Drake University in Des Moines.

When not studying or working at Omaha Publications, Marburg does marketing work for the Jewish Federation in Omaha and is involved in the community it serves. He is also a passionate car enthusiast, and he organized the monthly Countryside Cars & Caffeine car show at Countryside Village during the summer. Aside from his time studying in Des Moines, Marburg has lived his whole life in Omaha and loves it here—though he also enjoys traveling whenever he can. His other hobbies include biking and writing. He hopes to pursue a career in advertising or possibly open his own vintage car dealership.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

omahalibrary.org

Omaha Public Library is your home for the holidays

holiday cookbooks · crafts · events · movies · music · storytimes & more NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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EVENTS

SLICE

Through Nov. 4 at Darger HQ, 1804 Vinton St. Erin Foley’s art was inspired by tennis, and Michael Willett creates collages that manipulate Artforum exhibition advertisements into abstract compositions. Admission: free. 402-209-5554.

—dargerhq.org

Through Nov. 30 at Petshop Gallery, 2725 N. 62nd St. This University of Nebraska-Omaha alum brings his sketches-turned paintings, films, gadgets, and more to the local gallery. Hours by appointment. Admission: free. 402-203-5488.

—bensonfirstfriday.com/petshop

MARCELA DÍAZ: CONTEMPORARY TEXTILES

Through Dec. 21 at El Museo Latino, 4701 S. 25th St. This exhibit represents the traditional textile fiber art of the Yucatan with works created using natural fibers of cactus and coconut. Admission: $5 adults; $4 college students; $3.50 K-12 students and seniors (ages 55+); free for active military, children under 5, and members. 402-731-1137.

—elmuseolatino.org

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ART & MUSEUM EXHIBITS

JOE PANKOWSKI

OMAHA BUG SYMPOSIUM 2018

Nov. 17 at OutrSpaces, 1258 S. 13th St. The science/art extravaganza features entomology lectures

by Dave Crane and Andy Matz, insect-themed live music, insect-infused treats, art and costume contests, and insect-themed art installations.

Adult-oriented content. 7p.m.-12:30a.m. Pre-sale tickets: $10. 308-224-4130.

—facebook.com/omahabugsymposium

PATTERN AND PURPOSE: AMERICAN QUILTS FROM THE SHELBURNE MUSEUM

Through Jan. 6 at Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge St. Quilting is an art form that bridged the gap Jan. between domestic life and public display. This exhibit showcases 35 quilts that range from complex geometric designs to delicate patterns inspired by nature. Tickets: $10 general public ($5 on Thursdays, 4-8 p.m.); $5 college students; free for Joslyn members and ages 17 and younger.

402-342-3300.

—joslyn.org

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RICHARD MOSSE

Through Jan. 6 at Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge St. Conceptual photographer R ichard Mosse studies localized conf licts that have broad social, political, and humanitarian implications.

He uses surveillance imagery to map landscapes of human displacement. General admission: free.

402-342-3300.

—joslyn.org

KATIE TEMPLE AND TODD MCCOLLISTER

Through Nov. 23 at Fred Simon Gallery, 1004 Farnam St. This collaborative exhibition examines the cozy nostalgia associated with finding the perfect home and the memories made there.

Admission: free. 402-595-2122.

—artscouncil.nebraska.gov

THE RACE TO PROMONTORY: THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD AND THE AMERICAN WEST NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE FACULTY INVITATIONAL

Through Nov. 9 at the Weber Fine Arts Gallery, 6505 University Drive S. This exhibit will feature nine faculty members from NWMS, with painting, drawing, sculpture, pottery, and installation art.

Admission: free. 402-554-2796.

—unomaha.edu

Through Jan. 6 at Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge St. Organized in conjunction with the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, the exhibition’s original photographs and stereographs document completion of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. General admission: free.

402-342-3300.

—joslyn.org

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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OMAHA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE || CALENDAR CALENDAR OMAHA

THOMAS D. MANGELSEN: A LIFE IN THE WILD

Through Jan. 6 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. The Durham Museum hosts the world premiere of 40 of this acclaimed nature photographer’s works. Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members. 402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

SUPER SPORTS: BUILDING STRENGTH, SPORTSMANSHIP, AND SMARTS

Through April 14 at Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 S. 20th St. Children can test their skills by throwing footballs and baseballs, take aim on the mini soccer, hockey, and basketball courts, attempt a CrossFit course, practice curling, and bump, set, spike on multi-level volleyball nets. Admission: $13 children and adults; $12 seniors (ages 60+); free for children under 2 and members. 402-342-6164.

—ocm.org

ROSANA YBARRA

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FRANK DAHARSH, DAR VANDEVOORT, AND HOPE DENDINGER

THE SECRET GARDEN

Nov. 2-Dec. 2 at Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, 405 S. 11th St. This month-long exhibit features blown-glass works by Daharsh and paintings by Vandevoort and Dendinger. Admission: free.

402-342-9617.

—artistscoopomaha.com

Nov. 3, 7-10,14-18 at UNO Theatre, 6505 University Drive S. This musical tells the story of a young Mary Lennox and dives into the subjects of discovery and friendship. 7:30 p.m.; 2 p.m. matinée on Nov. 18. Tickets: $20 general admission, free for UNO students with MavCard. 402-554-7529.

—unomaha.edu

AMY HANEY: ASCEND/DESCEND

Nov. 2-Dec. 2 at Lied Art Gallery, 2500 California Plaza. Haney investigates the personalities and physical attributes found in various types of bird species in her large format prints. Haney will also display her Birds of Mass Destruction series that has been in progress for several years. Admission: free. 402-280-2509.

—creighton.edu

WRITER’S WORKSHOP READING SERIES: JOSHUA FERRIS

HOLIDAY CULTURAL TREES

Nov. 23-Jan. 6 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. This holiday fixture showcases how cultures around the world celebrate the Christmas season.

Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members.

402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

LOCAL AFRICAN-AMERICANS WHO SERVED THEIR COUNTRY

SANTA’S MAGIC

KRISTINE ALLPHIN AND SIGNE STUART

BART VARGAS: AMALGAMATIONS

Nov. 2-Jan. 26 at Great Plains Black History Museum, 2221 N. 24th St. This exhibit will feature local individuals who have served in the military, including the Tuskegee airmen who called Nebraska home. Admission: free. 402-932-7077.

—gpblackhistorymuseum.org

Nov. 2-25 at Anderson O’Brien Fine Art, 1108 Jackson St. This exhibit showcases paper pieces that are inspired by weaving and the natural order of things. Admission: free. 402-884-0911.

—aobfineart.com

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

HOT SHOPS ART CENTER’S 18TH

Nov. 2-Dec. 28 at Petshop Gallery, 2725 N. 62nd ANNUAL WINTER OPEN HOUSE St. University of Nebraska-Lincoln instructor Dec. 1 & 2 at Hot Shops Art Center, 1301 Ybarra will show her sculpture and other Nicholas St. Guests can sip refreshments, Dec. artworks. Hours by appointment. Admisbrowse the galleries, and learn how artists sion: free. 402-203-5488. create their work in this open house featur—bensonfirstfriday.com/petshop ing over 80 artists. A non-perishable food donation is encouraged. Saturday noon-8 p.m; Sunday noon-5 p.m. Admission: free.

2018 UNION FELLOWS EXHIBIT 402-342-6452.

Nov. 16-Dec. 15 at The Union for Contemporary —hotshopsartcenter.com Art, 2423 N. 24th St. Artists Chikadibia Ebirim, Dominique Morgan, Pamela Conyers-Hinson, Ashley Laverty, and Barber will showcase their Stage Performances works, which range from painting and sculpture to musical performance and live theater. Admission: THERESA CAPUTO LIVE! THE EXPERIENCE free. 402-933-3161.

Nov. 3 & 4 at Holland Performing Arts Center, —u-ca.org 1200 Douglas St. The supernatural star of TLC’s Long Island Medium will deliver healing messages to audience members and tell personal stories of her job. 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $44.75-$94.75. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

Nov. 23-Dec. 23 at Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 S. 20th St. This OCM tradition includes an interactive show with indoor snowfall, an elf, the Snow Queen, and of course, Santa Claus.

Admission: $13 children and adults; $12 seniors (60+); free for children under 2 and members.

402-342-6164.

—ocm.org

Nov. 30-Jan. 25 at Fred Simon Gallery, 1004 Farnam St. Inspired by pop culture, Vargas’ works stand out as playful and entertaining ceramic figures. Admission: free. 402-595-2122.

—artscouncil.nebraska.gov

Nov. 7 at Weber Fine Arts Gallery, 6505 University Drive S. Bestselling author Joshua Ferris discusses his books and shares expertise on the craft of writing in this final installment of the Fall 2018 Reading Series. 7:30 p.m. Admission: free. 402-554-3020.

—unomaha.edu

OMAHA MAGAZINE | CALENDAR

COMEDY NIGHT

Nov. 9 & 10 at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, 3701 S. 10th St. This special event includes hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and a comedy show in the Aquarium Conference Center. 6:30-9 p.m. Tickets: $50 per person. Tickets must be purchased in advance. 402-773-8401.

—omahazoo.com

Nov. 21-Dec. 2 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. This second version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical features the same beloved story and score with different staging. Times vary. Tickets: $35-90. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

AN ACT OF GOD

THE GREAT PLAINS POETRY PILE-UP 2018

Nov. 23-Dec. 16 at Bluebarn Theatre, 1106 S. 10th St. This godly comedy by David Javerbaum features the supreme being himself, and 10 new commandments. Times vary. Tickets: $35 adults, $28 students and seniors. 402-345-1576.

—bluebarn.org

Nov. 9 & 10 (locations TBD). Poets from around the country will compete in this annual poetry slam hosted by the Nebraska Writers Collective.

Preliminary rounds begin 7 p.m. Friday, continuing 3 p.m. Saturday, with finals at 7 p.m. Registration fee: $20 (limited to 24 participants). Admission: $10 suggested donation.

—newriters.org

YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Nov. 23-Dec. 31 at Omaha Community Playhouse Howard Drew Theatre, 6915 Cass St. Audiences ADAM DEVINE: “WEIRD LIFE TOUR 2018” become a part of the British Invasion with this Nov. 10 at Orpheum Theatre 409 S. 16th St. all-request Beatles tribute show by sharing stories The up-and-coming comedian/actor (famous for and reliving memories. Showtimes vary. Ticket roles on Comedy Central’s Workaholics, ABC’s prices start at $40. 402-553-0800.

Nov. Modern Family, and the Pitch Perfect movie —omahaplayhouse.com franchise) will return to his Omaha hometown for recording a Netf lix comedy special. Adult OMAHA SYMPHONY: HARRY content. Back-to-back performances: 7 p.m. and POTTER AND THE CHAMBER 10 p.m. Tickets: $25. 402-345-0606.

OF SECRETS IN CONCERT —ticketomaha.com Nov. 24-25 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. Ernest R ichardson conducts CELESTE BARBER a performance of the music behind the cultural Nov. 15 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. This actress, phenomenon live-to-picture. 7:30 p.m. Saturday; comedian, and social media star will explain the 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $19-$89. 402-345-0606. stories behind her famous #ChallengeAccepted —ticketomaha.com Instagram photos, her new relationships with celebrities, and what it is like to be married to a #hothuELF: THE MUSICAL sband. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25-$50. 402-345-7569.

Nov. 30-Dec. 23 at The Rose Theater, 2001 Farnam —theslowdown.com St. Based on the successful book and movie, live through the story of Buddy the Elf, er… human.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Buddy travels on a quest from The North Pole to Nov. 16-Dec. 23 at Omaha Community PlayNew York City in this fun Christmas tale. Times house, 6915 Cass St. Audiences will experience vary. Tickets: $22-$27 non-members; $15-$20 the well-known tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his members. 402-345-4849. life-changing journey, featuring local actors and —rosetheater.org crafted sets even a ghost of Christmas past would love. Showtimes vary. Ticket prices start at $40.

PHYSICIANS MUTUAL OMAHA 402-553-0800.

SYMPHONY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION —omahaplayhouse.com Dec. 8-16 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. This traditional production of AN EVENING WITH RITA MORENO festive favorites and Christmas classics returns with Nov. 16 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 performances from the Omaha Symphony, and Douglas St. The winner of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar Broadway singers and dancers. Showtimes vary. and Tony awards will perform her newest all-SpanTickets: $19-$89. 402-345-0606. ish language album, Una Vez Más, in this evening —ticketomaha.com of experiences, anecdotes, and a songbook full of stories. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $20-$55. 402-345-0606.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED —ticketomaha.com

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REINDEER: THE MUSICAL

WILD KRATTS LIVE 2.0!

Nov. 16 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. This live version of the PBS Kids show Wild Kratts takes audiences on an animal rescue mission led by brothers and zoologists Martin and Chris Kratt. 6 p.m.

Tickets: $25-$45. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

CONCERTS

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Dec. 15 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. The beloved TV special classic dashes off screen and onto the stage with favorite characters like Santa and Mrs. Claus, The Abominable Snow Monster, Clarice, and of course, Rudolph. 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $20-$56. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV

Nov. 2 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. Inspired by masters such as Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen, this singer-songwriter will perform songs about his life travels. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25 advance, $30 day of show. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

CARL BROEMEL

Nov. 3 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. This rock musician, known for his contributions to My Morning Jacket, will perform from his new self-titled album Wished Out. Steelism will open the show. 8 p.m. Tickets: $15 advance, $18 day of show. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

MARK GUILIANA JAZZ QUARTET

Nov. 3 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. Mixing jazz and electronic styles with his extraordinary drumming, Mark Guiliana and his crew will entertain the 1200 Club audience in Scott Recital Hall. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $35.

402-345-0606 —ticketomaha.com

LIL XAN: “TOTAL XANARCHY TOUR"

Nov. 3 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. See this 21-year-old A merican rapper tour hits like “Betrayed,” “Moonlight,” and “Wake Up.” 8 p.m. Tickets: $32-$96. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

EMILY KINNEY: “SAME MISTAKES TOUR”

Nov. 4 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. Kinney is known for her singing and songwriting, as well as her character Beth Greene on AMC’s hit show The Walking Dead. Paul McDonald will open the show. 8 p.m. Tickets: $20. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

WHY?: “ALOPECIA 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR”

Nov. 5 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. This indie-rock band will celebrate their most successful album, Alopecia, 10 years after its release.

8 p.m. Tickets: $15 advance, $17 day of show.

402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

GHOST: “A PALE TOUR NAMED DEATH”

Nov. 6 at Orpheum Theatre, 409 S. 16th St. This Swedish rock band is a previous winner of Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. 8 p.m. Tickets: $39.50-$199. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

WILD NOTHING

Nov. 6 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. This American indie-rock/dream-pop band will bring their newest album, Indigo, on tour this fall. Men I Trust will open the show. 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 advance, $23 day of show. 402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 11 //

OMAHA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE || CALENDAR CALENDAR OMAHA

GARY CLARK JR.

Nov. 7 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. Clark is a bluesy soul, known for his remix of The Beatles’ “Come Together.” 8 p.m. Tickets: $29.50-$49.50.

402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

NEWSBOYS UNITED

Nov. 8 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. This four-piece Christian rock band, formed in 1985, will be joined by two former members on tour. 7 p.m. Tickets: $30-$105. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

THE REVEREND PEYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND

Nov. 10 at Reverb Lounge, 6121 Military Ave. This country-blues band, led by master finger-picker Reverend Peyton, will perform their unique music.

9 p.m. Tickets: $15. 402-884-5707.

—reverblounge.com

EL TEN ELEVEN

CANNIBAL CORPSE

JOHN PRINE AND CONOR OBERST

THE PRINCE EXPERIENCE

Nov. 16 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. Post-rock duo Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty will bring their complex, self-produced albums to life.

9 p.m. Tickets: $12 advance, $14 day of show.

402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com

Nov. 17 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. Singer-songwriter Prine released his first LP in 1971. After winning two Grammy Awards and recording with the likes of Carly Simon, George Strait, Johnny Cash, and more, he teams up with Omaha indie singer-songwriter Oberst for a night to remember. 8 p.m. Tickets: $63.75$103.75. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

JULIAN VAUGHN: BONA FIDE

Nov. 11 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. This bassist performs smooth jazz with a hint of funk. This show includes special guests DA Truth, Tim Clark, and DJ Houston Alexander. 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 advance, $30 day of show, $40 VIP. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

BEARTOOTH: "THE DISEASE TOUR"

Nov. 13 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. This hardcore punk band will play their newest album, Disease. Described as vintage screamo, they are sure to leave the audience shaken and thrilled. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $22. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

KEITH HARKIN

Nov. 14 at Reverb Lounge, 6121 Military Ave. Harkin performed as a member of Celtic Thunder for nearly a decade, and released his first solo album in 2012. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $35 general admission, $55 meet and greet, $75 soundcheck party. 402-884-5707.

—reverblounge.com

THE TALBOTT BROTHERS

Nov. 15 at Reverb Lounge, 6121 Military Ave. This duo will perform a combination of folk, rock, and blues with brotherly love. 8 p.m. Tickets: $15.

402-884-5707.

—reverblounge.com

// 12 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Nov. 24 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. The performance will include all of Prince’s greatest hits.

9 p.m. Tickets: $20 advance, $25 day of show.

402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com

HOLIDAY CONCERT SERIES

Nov. 24-Dec. 23 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. Local entertainers, school musicians, and choirs will perform under the glow of the Durham’s Christmas tree. Visit the museum’s website for updated listings. 5-8 p.m. Tuesdays; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays; 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members. Museum entry included.

402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

PALE WAVES

Nov. 25 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. This six-piece English indie-pop band is known for an edgy, yet upbeat sound. 8 p.m. Tickets: $15 advance, $17 day of show. 402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com

MENDELSSOHN’S ELIJAH

Nov. 11 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. Mendelssohn’s classic oratorio about the prophet Elijah is sung by a 500-voice chorus and professional soloists. 2 p.m. Tickets: $19-$72. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

Nov. 20 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. This eight-piece death metal band has released 14 studio albums. Hate Eternal and Harms Way will also perform. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25 advance, $27 day of show. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

UNDEROATH

JEREMY CAMP AND MATTHEW WEST: “THE ANSWER/ALL IN TOUR”

Nov. 17 at Baxter Arena, 2425 S. 67th St. These contemporary Christian artists showcase their newest albums. 7 p.m. Tickets: $28-$65.

402-554-6200.

—omavs.com

LOCAL H: “PACK UP THE CATS TOUR”

Nov. 17 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. Alt-rock band Local H is touring to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their third album, Pack Up the Cats. 9 p.m. Tickets: $15. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

SHALLOU

Nov. 17 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. Maryland native Shallou is an emerging electronic musician and producer. Japanese Wallpaper opens.

9 p.m. Tickets: $14 advance, $16 day of show.

402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com

THE FLOOZIES: “CROWN OF HORNS TOUR”

Nov. 17 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. Brothers Matt and Mark Hill will perform their funk EDM beats. SoDown and Recess will open the show. 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 advance, $25 day of show. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

Nov. 26 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. This rock band’s newest album, Erase Me, is their first since 2010. 7 p.m. Tickets: $27.50. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

Nov.

29

98 DEGREES AT CHRISTMAS

Nov. 29 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. The turn-of-themillennium boy band will bring their full-length Christmas album to life for a holiday spectacular.

This new tour is a fan’s wish list fulfilled. 7:30 p.m.

Tickets: $32-$62. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

THE MOTET

Dec. 1 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. The Motet is a jazz-inf luenced American funk group. Mungion will open the show. 9 p.m. Tickets: $21 advance, $25 day of show. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

JOYFUL NOISE

Dec. 2 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. The Salem Baptist Church will perform holiday classics and new music in this holiday special. 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $15.

402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

Upcoming Exhibits

October 13, 2018 - April 14, 2019

November 23 - December 23, 2018

KNOW OF A BEAUTIFUL HOME IN OMAHA?

St. Frances Cabrini

LET US KNOW AT

SANDY@OMAHAMAGAZINE.COM

The spiritual home of the Little Italy and Old Market neighborhoods since 1857.

stcabriniomaha.org 10th and Williams Street

10666 Sapp Bros. Drive Omaha, NE 68138 402-896-9140 Between Exits 439 & 440 on I-80

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 13 //

Omaha’s Holiday Traditon for 43 years!

A Beatles Experience featuring Billy McGuigan!

OMAHA MAGAZINE | CALENDAR

Winner of 5 Tony Awards including Best Play.

OMAHA MAGAZINE | CALENDAR

SAN HOLO

Dec. 4 at Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St. This Dutch artist and producer blends guitar and vocals for a distinctive sound among today’s DJs. Chet Porter, Taska Black, and BeauDamian will also perform. 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $25 advance, $30 day of show. 402-346-9802.

—sokolauditorium.com

THE WOOD BROTHERS

Dec. 4 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. This folk band is composed of brothers Chris and Oliver Wood and friend Jano Rix. 8 p.m. Tickets: $23 advance, $26 day of show, $30 reserved seating. 402-345-7569.

—theslowdown.com

Nov. 16 – Dec. 23

Nov. 23 – Dec. 31

On sale now!

On sale now!

Jan. 18 – Feb. 10 On sale Nov. 27!

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE: “THE MAN OF THE WOODS TOUR”

Dec. 8 at CHI Health Center Omaha, 455 N. 10th St. JT performs his new live show, highlighting songs from his most recent album, The Man of the Woods. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: starting at $135.

Dec. 402-341-1500.

—chihealthcenteromaha.com

DAVE KOZ AND FRIENDS: “CHRISTMAS TOUR 2018” 6915 Cass St. | (402) 553-0800 OmahaPlayhouse.com

8

Dec. 10 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. Grammy-nominated jazz saxophonist Dave Koz will perform Christmas classics and hit songs with an impressive roster of guest vocalists and musicians. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $20-$60. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

TRAVIS SCOTT: “ASTROWORLD— WISH YOU WERE HERE TOUR”

Dec. 10 at CHI Health Center Omaha, 455 N. 10th St. Known for his explosively wild performances, this Houston rapper will bring music from his Astroworld album to life on stage. 7:30 p.m.

Tickets: $26-$79. 402-341-1500.

—chihealthcenteromaha.com

November 23, 2018 - January 6, 2019

AT

PRESENTED BY

Come celebrate one of the region’s most cherished traditions, Christmas at Union Station! The holidays are always a magical time at The Durham Museum. From the area’s largest indoor Christmas tree, holiday concerts and Santa himself, you won’t want to miss all of the festive family fun.

Visit DurhamMuseum.org

for event details including times when Santa will visit the museum.

// 14 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

AQUEOUS

Dec. 11 at The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St. This four-man improvisational rock act is best known for their “groove rock.” 8 p.m. Tickets: $13 advance, $15 day of show. 402-884-5353.

—waitingroomlounge.com

DAUGHTRY: “CAGE TO RATTLE TOUR”

Dec. 11 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. This “Life After You” singer released a new album this past summer. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $44-$64.

402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

OMAHA MAGAZINE | CALENDAR

MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER

Dec. 22 & 23 at Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St. Since changing the game for Christmas music in 1984, Mannheim Steamroller’s holiday tour has become an annual tradition. 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $38.25-$78.25.

402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

JIM BRICKMAN: A JOYFUL CHRISTMAS

Dec. 28 at Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St. Brickman, who has traveled the U.S. on 22 annual holiday tours, will showcase new music and holiday favorites for everyone in attendance.

7:30 p.m. Tickets: $28-$58. 402-345-0606.

—ticketomaha.com

Family & More FALL CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW

Through Nov. 16 at Lauritzen Gardens, 100 Bancroft St. At the garden’s annual fall chrysanthemum show, bold mums combine with vibrant colors, diverse textures, and other design elements. Admission: $10 adults, $5 ages 6-12, free for children under 6 and members. 402-346-4002.

—lauritzengardens.org

A NIGHT AT THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

Nov. 9 at Fontenelle Forest, 1111 Bellevue Blvd N. Adults 21 and older can explore the Forbidden Forest, learn about magical creatures, and join in on a pub quiz. A costume contest provides a chance to win $25.

One drink ticket included with admission. 6-9 p.m.

Tickets: $20 for members, $30 for non-members.

402-731-3140.

—fontenelleforest.org

108th & Center rockbrookvillage.com

A HOLIDAY AT HOGWARTS

Nov. 10 at Fontenelle Forest, 1111 Bellevue Blvd N. Children of all ages can walk through the forbidden forest, visit the Sorting Hat, practice “swish and flick” wand moves and have a drink of Butterbeer (non-alcoholic, of course). Witch and wizard attire is encouraged and will be celebrated with a costume parade. 1-4 p.m. Tickets: $5 for members, $15 for non-members. 402-731-3140.

—fontenelleforest.org

HOLIDAY EXPO: ALL ABOUT HER

Nov. 10 at Baxter Arena, 2425 S. 67th St. This year's expo features all the latest in fashion, pampering, relaxation, fitness, and food. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Admission: $1. 435-229-8342.

—allaboutherexpos.com

Why Helix is Better Most machines work front-to-back.

Why Helix Istradition Better The Helix turns on its side— Why Helix Is Better literally.

Withwork lateral (or side-to-side) Most machines front-to-

movement, you usetradition more muscles, which MostThe machines work front-toback.

Helix turns on means you burn more fat than during back.

The Helix turnsWith tradition its side— literally. lateralon a traditional workout—in the same its side-to-side) side— literally.

With lateral ( or movement, you amount of time. ( or side-to-side) movement, you use more muscles, which means use which means youmore burn muscles, more fat than during a THANK YOU you burn more fat than during a traditional workout– in the same OMAHA! traditional workout– in the same amount of time. amount of time.

CAMP CONGRESS FOR GIRLS

Nov. 10 at Residence Inn Omaha Downtown, 106 S. 15th St. Girls ages 10 to 15 can participate in this day-long leadership program that teaches the structure of the U.S. political system and empowers young leaders to actively participate in democracy.

Fees include lunch and program materials. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Registration: $140-$160. 202-660-1457.

—girlsinpolitics.org

BLACKSTONE DISTRICT WALKING TOUR

AUTUMN FESTIVAL: AN ARTS & CRAFTS AFFAIR

Nov. 1-4 at Ralston Arena, 7300 Q St. Hundreds of handcrafted works will be on display. Attractions include stage performances, food and drinks, and an hourly gift card winner. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sunday. Admission: $9 adults; $8 seniors (62+); free for children under 10. 402-934-6291.

—ralstonarena.com

Nov. 10 at Blackstone District, 42nd and Farnam Streets. This culinary adventure mixes Omaha’s history with Blackstone District restaurant offerings. 1 p.m. Tickets: $45. 402-651-0047.

—omahaculinarytours.com

LA TEA DA SPECIALTEA TEAS: HOLIDAY TEA & CUP DECORATING

Nov. 13 at Lauritzen Gardens, 100 Bancroft St. Join tea master Gloria Kemerly to learn Nov. the history and tradition of loose leaf teas, SPORTS ALL-STAR NIGHT discuss holiday tea blends, and decorate Nov. 2 at Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 your own teacup. 6-8 p.m. Pre-registration S. 20th St. The museum will stay open late for required. Admission: $35 non-members, $25 a fun night of sports-themed activities. 5-8 p.m. members. 402-346-4002.

Admission: $13 children and adults; $12 seniors (60+); —lauritzengardens.org free for children under 2 and members. 402-342-6164.

—ocm.org

in Rockbrook Village in Rockbrook Village 10923 prairie brooke rd, omaha, ne 68144 10923 prairie brooke rd, omaha, ne 68144 402.991.2300 402.991.2300

13

402 FAMILY NIGHT

VETERANS SHINE ON

Nov. 8 at Memorial Park, 6005 Underwood Ave. The lighting of the W WII Colonnade. Speakers, special guests, hot cocoa, and music will contribute to this night for honoring veterans. 6-7 p.m.

Admission: free. 402-444-5900.

—parks.cityofomaha.edu

Nov. 16 at Hardy Coffee Co, 6051 Maple St. Musician instructors from the collective will perform live, the gallery will feature local art, and there will be giveaways throughout the night. 6-8:30 p.m. Admission: free. 402-913-1939.

— 402artscollective.org

Full Service

H a i r, N a i l s a n d S k i n

FICATE S AVAIL AB LE! HO LIDAY GI FT CE RTI Call today to schedule your appointment 11025 Elm St. / 402.397.7383 / reveomaha.com

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 15 //

OMAHA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE || CALENDAR CALENDAR OMAHA

JUNKTOBERFEST HOLIDAY EDITION

Nov. 16-18 at Southroads Mall, 1001 Fort Crook Rd. N., Bellevue. Junktoberfest promises plenty of collectibles, furniture, and crafts, as well as food and DIY classes. 5-9 p.m. Friday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $5 per person.

402-669-6975.

—junktoberfest.net

WINTER WONDERLAND

HOLIDAY ARTS & CRAFTS SHOW

Nov. 24 in Downtown Papillion, 122 E. 3rd St. This small-town festival includes festive lights, carriage rides, hot chocolate and s’mores, visits with Santa and his reindeer, and holiday shopping. 5-9 p.m. Admission: free. 402-331-3917.

—papillionfoundation.org

Dec. 1 & 2 at the Mid-America Center, 1 Arena Way, Council Bluffs. More than 200 vendors sell their wares. Saturday patrons will receive a two-day re-entry stamp. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $5 adults; free for children age 10 and under. 712-326-2295.

—caesars.com/mid-america-center

HOLIDAY CULTURAL FESTIVAL

OWL PROWL

Nov. 17 at Fontenelle Forest, 1111 Bellevue Blvd.

N. The forest hosts a night hike featuring hot cocoa around the fire pit, and a close up look at owls. 5-7 p.m. Admission: $3 members, $13 non-members. 402-731-3140.

—fontenelleforest.org

NIGHT OF LIGHTS WALK

Nov. 30 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. Learn how the world celebrates this joyful time of year.

Over 20 local cultural organizations will display their crafts and traditional dress, while musicians and dancers perform throughout the evening. Cultural foods and gifts will also be available for purchase. 5-9 p.m.

Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members. Museum entry included.

402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

Dec. 2 at Gene Leahy Mall, 14th and Farnam Streets. This 5k and 10k walk includes cookies, hot chocolate, and door prizes. 4-6 p.m. Admission: $2 for fun walkers, $3 for credit walkers.

—netrailblazers.club

Nov.

MIRACLE ON FARNAM

30

Nov. 17-Jan. 1 in Midtown Crossing, 30th and Farnam Streets. Businesses along Farnam Street feature window displays created by local artists and organizations. Times vary. Admission: free. 402-557-6006.

—midtowncrossing.com

THANKSGIVING LIGHTING CEREMONY

Nov. 22 at the Gene Leahy Pedestrian Mall, 14th & Farnam Streets. This community-wide celebration will culminate with the illumination of the 2018 holiday lights. 6 p.m. Admission: free.

402-345-5401.

—holidaylightsfestival.org

UNION STATION TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY

Nov. 23 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. This event includes live music, cookie decorating, holiday crafts, and an appearance from Santa. These festivities lead up to the lighting of the indoor Christmas tree. 4-8 p.m. Tree lighting at 7 p.m.

Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members.

Museum entry included. 402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

HOLIDAY POINSETTIA SHOW

Nov. 23-Jan. 6 at Lauritzen Gardens, 100 Bancroft St. This annual exhibition displays thousands of plants, model trains, and miniature Omaha-area landmarks. Admission: $10 adults, $5 ages 6-12, free for children under 6 and members. 402-346-4002.

—lauritzengardens.org

LIGHTS OF AKSARBEN

Nov. 23 & 30, Dec. 7 & 14 at Stinson Park, 2285 S. 67th St. This annual event starts with the tree lighting on Nov. 23 and includes community activities (in a heated tent), free visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and horse-drawn carriage rides. 6-8 p.m. Admission: free. 402-496-1616.

—aksarbenvillage.com

// 16 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FAMILY NIGHTS WITH SANTA

Dec. 4, 11 & 18 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. This museum event has holiday crafts and live performances by local choirs and ensembles along with Santa. 5-8 p.m. Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members. Museum entry included.

402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

CHRISTMAS IN THE VILLAGE: UNION CO-OP MEMBER MARKET

Dec. 1 at 24th and Lake Streets. This event showcases the work being made by The Union for Contemporary Art's Co-Op members, instructors, staff, and fellows. A wide array of gift items will be available for purchase. Noon-4 p.m. Admission: free. 402-933-3161.

—u-ca.org

CURLING WORLD CUP

Dec. 5-9 at Ralston Arena, Ralston Arena, 7300 Q St. Omaha hosts the North American leg of the new Curling World Cup. The city signed a contract to host the event for its first four years.

Times vary. Admission: $5-25 gate admission; $160 All Sessions Package; $55 Championship Package.

402-934-9966.

—ralstonarena.com

WIZARD’S YULE BALL

Dec. 1 at Omaha Comfort Inn & Suites Central, 7007 Grover St. This Harry Potter-themed event includes dancing, trivia, games, owls, costumes, food, and magic classes. 6 p.m. Tickets: $15 adults, $5 ages 4-10.

—britishfest.com

MILK & COOKIES WITH SANTA

Dec. 7 at Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 S. 20th St. The museum stays open late for a themed evening of holiday activities and treats. 5-8 p.m.

Admission: $13 children and adults; $12 seniors (age 60+); free for children under 2 and members.

Museum admission included. 402-342-6164.

—ocm.org

SANTA AT THE FARM

Dec. 1 at Gifford Farm Education Center, 700 Camp Gifford Rd., Bellevue. Complete with cookies and hot chocolate, children can participate in animal and Santa visits, music, crafts, story time, and letter-writing. 10 a.m.-noon. Admission: $4 per FAMILY GINGERBREAD HOUSE WORKSHOP child, free for accompanying adults. Families can Dec. 1, 8, 15 & 22 at Lauritzen Gardens, 100 get $1 off a children’s ticket if they bring a non-perBancroft St. Families can build and decorate their ishable food item for donation. 402-597-4920. own gingerbread house as well as view the —esu3.org Dec. houses on display. One gingerbread kit will be provided per family. Garden admission WINTER WONDERLAND included. 10-11:30 a.m. Admission: $40 per OPENING DAY AT THE FOREST non-member family, $30 per member family.

Dec. 1 at Fontenelle Forest, 1111 Bellevue Blvd 402-346-4002.

N. This event includes s’mores, cocoa, caroling, —lauritzengardens.org and a hike down the boardwalk to Ridge Trail, where children can meet Santa. 5:30-7:30 p.m. $3 ROYAL HOLIDAY BALL for members, $13 non-members. 402-731-2403.

Dec. 9 at DC Centre, 11830 Stonegate Drive. Santa —fontenelleforest.org and 15 of his fairytale friends will host this event with dinner, meet and greets, crafts, carriage rides, and of course, milk and cookies. Little ones are encouraged to dress as their favorite character.

Session 1: 11 a.m.-1 p.m.; session 2: 1:30-3:30 p.m.; session 3: 4-6 p.m. Tickets: $35-$50. Children under 2 free with an adult ticket. 402-393-7431.

—dccentre.com

1

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 17 //

OMAHA MAGAZINE | CALENDAR

NATIONAL POINSETTIA DAY

Dec. 12 at Lauritzen Gardens, 100 Bancroft St. The holiday poinsettia show offers all the opportunity to celebrate National Poinsettia Day. The first 100 families to visit the garden will receive a poinsettia (limit one per family) to celebrate. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission: $10 adults, $5 children age 6-12, free for children under 6 and members. 402-346-4002.

—lauritzengardens.org

Four Old Market

SUPPER WITH SANTA

Dec. 20-23 at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, 3701 S. 10th St. Attendees can meet Mr. and Mrs. Claus, have story time, decorate cookies, and eat dinner. 6-8 p.m. Admission: $25 for members, $30 for non-members 402-773-8401.

—omahazoo.com

Unique holiday décor, ornaments, collectibles and gifts for every season.

Chocolates and fudge made in our own kitchen, plus many other sweet temptations.

oTannenbaum.com • 402-345-9627

OldMarketCandy.com • 402-344-8846

PENGUINS AND PANCAKES

Dec. 26-30 at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, 3701 S. 10th St. Guests can munch on pancakes while creating crafts and viewing visits from the African penguins inside the zoo’s Aquarium Conference Center. 9-10:30 a.m.

Tickets: $15-$25. Tickets must be purchased in advance.

402-773-8401.

—omahazoo.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR

Dec. 31 at Gene Leahy Pedestrian Mall,14th & Farnam Streets. This incredible show fills the sky with bursts of color, choreographed to explode on cue to a unique musical score of iconic ’60s hits. 7 p.m. Admission: free.

402-345-5401. ­­—holidaylightsfestival.org

Travel essentials plus downtown’s largest selection of souvenirs and Nebraska-made gifts.

Authentic Italian desserts, coffee, and FlavorBurst TM soft serve ice cream.

OldMarketSundries.com • 402-345-7646

DolciOldMarket.com • 402-345-8198

All located at 10th & Howard OMAHA MAGAZ INE’S

FamilyGuide

NOON YEAR’S EVE

Dec. 31 at Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St. Music from Dino O’Dell and the T-Rex All-Stars and special crafts and activities are on the lineup, along with the celebratory bubble wrap stomp and balloon drop at noon in the Suzanne and Walter Scott Great Hall. 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Admission: $11 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $7 children (3-12); free for children under 3 and members. 402-444-5071.

—durhammuseum.org

NEW YEAR’S EVE BASH

Dec. 31 at Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 S. 20th St. Guests will ring in the New Year with a countdown and evening activities at the museum. 5-8 p.m. Admission: $13 children and adults; $12 seniors (age 60+); free for children under 2 and members. Museum admission included. 402-342-6164.

—ocm.org

TO THE NYnes

Dec. 31 at Omaha Design Center, 1502 Cuming St. Guests will ring in the New Year with Channel 94.1, Absolut Vodka, and DJ Kor from Las Vegas. Pose for red carpet photos and enjoy refreshments at the all-inclusive experience. Single and group tickets are available. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Tickets: $150 and up. Ages 21 and up. 402-915-2411.

—newyearseveomaha.com

Event times and details may change.

Check with venue or event organizer to confirm.

// 18 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

A+C MUSIC // STORY BY SEAN McCARTHY // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

instruments native to each location. For one track, he used Naval-grade hydrophones to record a whale song off the coast of Oregon.

In terms of drawing inspiration from newer bands, Davis says he typically sticks to listening to the classical music radio station KVNO. He rarely listens to the radio at home, but in the car, he prefers to listen to Supertramp’s album Crime of the Century.

“It's a fabulous album,” Davis says. “Their rhythm chops are so good.”

Though Davis may stick with the classics, he is a big fan of some of the musical software used by today’s electronic artists. Some of the tracks on Exotic Spaces were recorded with Pro Tools.

“The percussion sounds [in Pro Tools] are better than real. It’s dead clear,” Davis says.

and big-box stores like Target reducing their music inventory to a few small rows of releases, Chip Davis remains married to the physical product.

the routine, Davis says. As a result, he avoids over-rehearsing the material.

Another benefit of Pro Tools is it gives artists the ability to create a virtual symphony.

Records that used to demand a full recording studio can now be done on a laptop or tablet.

Davis agrees that software like Pro Tools can enable a person to record a symphony, but software can only accomplish so much.

“They’ve played this stuff so much, you don’t want to beat a dead horse,” Davis says.

“The next thing to that is, ‘Do you know how to use a symphony?’” he says.

His Omaha recording-rehearsal studio is connected to a warehouse full of Fresh Aire and Mannheim Steamroller CDs and albums, ready to be shipped out. But if you want to listen to Mannheim Steamroller’s latest release, you’ll have to pick it up at the merch booth during one of their performances at the Orpheum Theater.

On a hot August afternoon, Davis was in casual mode, wearing lime-green shorts and an Under Armor shirt. He walked through the process of choosing a setlist for each of the cities for this winter’s tour. Davis reviews the cities where Mannheim Steamroller will play, and then pulls up what has and has not been played in the past for those audiences.

If Pro Tools can offer a somewhat inexpensive way to record, then sites like Bandcamp and Spotify represent how artists now use technology to get their work out to mass audiences. Mannheim Steamroller is available on Spotify and iTunes. But Davis says streaming sites are not a good medium for his music.

Davis has released his share of physical product in 2018. In addition to his latest CD, Exotic Spaces (again, currently only available at performances), he released a young adult book trilogy in October. Titled The Wolf and The Warlander, the story about a horse and a timber wolf was written as a collaboration between Davis and Mark Valenti (who has written for Disney, Nickelodeon, and the Hallmark Channel).

“You have to have certain pieces in there, or the audience is going to mutiny,” Davis says. “But you have to have a certain amount of new.”

“One of the things that throws me for a loop is that this entire company has been devoted to creating the highest audio possible,” he says, “and when you get into streaming, you can’t really do that.”

Inside the Workshop of Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller DESPITE BEST BUY no longer selling CDs,

Releasing a book trilogy and a new CD in the span of a year would make a hugely productive calendar for most artists. But for Davis, it’s even more of an accomplishment, given that he was prepping for the holiday season for nearly half of the year.

In mid-August, Davis was at his studio, getting ready to welcome two different Mannheim Steamroller touring groups into his rehearsal room. The setup is old hat at this point: bring in the musicians, run through the set, and make tweaks where appropriate. Most of the musicians have been in the touring band for years and know // 20 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Davis won’t be in attendance for the majority of the touring Mannheim Steamroller shows.

Instead, he’ll be at Universal Studios in Orlando, conducting the production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with another Mannheim Steamroller band. Th is will be his 10th year conducting the production, which runs the week before Thanksgiving through Christmas.

“They’ll probably have me doing it until I drop dead on the podium,” Davis says with a laugh.

The success of the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums and tours has enabled Davis to pursue other sonic adventures.

For Exotic Spaces, he set out to do a musical characterization of places that inspired him, like the pyramids and the Taj Mahal. For each of the tracks, he tried to use musical

However, Davis believes there’s still a place for the physical product.

“There are people who want it,” he says. “The problem is ‘How do you fi nd them’ and ‘How do they find us?’”

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis will off er two live performances at the Orpheum Th eater in Omaha on Dec. 22-23. Visit mannheimsteamroller.com for more information.

For expanded content, return to the Table of Contents page and scan with your layAR app.

n g i s u a Ca Kerfuffle

Theater Keeps Ashley Laverty Young at Heart

A+C THEATER // STORY BY SARAH WENGERT PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

A

SHLEY LAVERTY GOT bit by

the acting bug at the tender age of 6, when she performed in her first play. It is fitting that she has dedicated her career to theater for youth.

“I was drawn to [theater] from then on,” Laverty says. “As both a performer and director, I love the ensemble. It’s kind of a cliché, but you’re really a family with your fellow performers and have to trust them so much. As a theater teacher, I love watching my students blossom and I love creating a safe space for them to be who they are and to be weirdos. That’s why I keep doing it.”

When the Worcester, Massachusetts, native took on New York City after college—bent on a Broadway career— she instead kept getting hired to do children’s theater. Laverty decided to let the universe steer her in that direction and sought her MFA in theater for youth at Arizona State University.

“That’s when I was really introduced to theater for the very young [a movement known by the acronym TV Y], which is theater intentionally created for children under age 5,” Laverty says. “Theater for adults doesn’t have to be a certain way, but so often theater for young people has to be overtly educational, didactic, and still isn’t seen as a legitimate art form.

But as a theater ma ker, I’m passionate about creating theater for theater’s sa ke. Something c a n be beaut i f u l, e xcit ing , dynamic, and it can also teach you something—because anything good will teach you something.

I’m really passionate about legitimizing the field of theater for young audiences by creating beautiful work.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

// 23 //

2018

// A+C THEATER //

“A 3-year-old deserves to see something high-quality and beautiful, just like a 35-year-old does. You know, seeing a beautiful painting, for example, can make you think about things in ways that you never have before, it doesn’t need to knock you over the head with a lesson.”

Inspired by that passion, Laverty and schoolmates Jeff Sachs and Amanda Pintore founded Kerfuffle, a TVY company where Laverty is the founding artistic director.

“Kerfuff le’s model is that we work directly with very young people through drama, creative movement, and art to facilitate open-ended drama sessions. With those ideas we create characters and stories with those young people, then we go into rehearsals and create shows in which adults are performing for very young people,” Laverty says.

In 2016, after graduating from ASU, Laverty brought her considerable talents to Omaha when she was hired

by The Rose Theater as a teaching artist and director of early childhood.

Kerfuff le came along with Laverty, and she and her partners—now located in Chicago and Lawrence, Kansas, respectively—hope to evolve it into a Midwestern theater company.

Kerfuffle’s first show, The Caterpillar’s Footprint, was remounted in 2018 at Lincoln’s Lied Center and Omaha’s OutrSpaces. In addition to the preceding creative workshops, characteristics of Kerfuff le shows include a pre-show experience to ease kids into a production, sensory elements throughout, shorter run times, and a post-show party with snacks aiming to transition kids back out of the experience and foster community among families.

"The Backline is really fun, and it is not kid-friendly. So that's also kind of nice, That way it's not like my whole life is theater for people under five.

Although I'm deeply passionate about TVY, it's good to have a balance. At first I just did it for fun, but I feel like improv actually has made me a much better teacher."

As a 2018 Union for Contemporary Arts Fellow, Laverty has created the latest Kerfuff le production, Nested, which will run Dec. 7-15.

She hosted several drama workshops for kids last summer in The Union’s Abundance Garden to help derive the concepts for Nested. “[When we come up with the concepts] they are acting along the way,” says Laverty. “We’re literally playing pretend in The Union’s garden, coming up with ideas for who lives in the garden and then going into my studio and building this giant nest.

It’s 10-feet wide, 4-feet tall, and we’re decorating it with sticks, leaves, yarn, and other materials. The show will take place with the actors in the nest and the audience seated around them in The Union’s gallery.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

// 24 //

2018

Approaching her two-year Omaha anniversary when she spoke with Omaha Magazine, Laverty was feeling adjusted and welcomed.

Even with her jampacked schedule she makes a point to make time for herself— hangout time with her cat (Ron Weasley), travel, and improv at The Backline (where she performs with Zip-Zopera, Less Mis, and The Carol Brunettes).

“The Backline is really fun, and it is not kid-friendly. So that’s also kind of nice,” Laverty says. “That way it’s not like my whole life is theater for people under 5.

Although I’m deeply passionate about TVY, it’s good to have a balance. At first I just did it for fun, but I feel like improv actually has made me a much better teacher.”

Speaking of improv, and its core philosophy of “yes, and…” Laverty praises Omaha for coming from a place of “yes.”

“What I love about Omaha compared to other places is that people are really willing to say yes here,” Laverty says.

“That’s how the OutrSpaces partnership happened. I just reached out to them and said I thought this would be a really great partnership and they were like, ‘Yes.’ And The Union, everything I’ve gone to them with, even stuff they’ve never done, they’re all about making it happen. So, I feel like people say yes here a lot, and that’s really exciting.”

Kerfuffle’s Nested runs Dec. 7-15 at The Union for Contemporary Arts.

Visit u-ca.org or kerfuffletvy.com for more information.

Out of the Blue Will Anderson Finds New Methods for His Madness A+C ART // STORY BY SEAN ROBINSON // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 27 //

"Even establishing meaning beforehand is crazy to me because then you're just working towards whatever that chosen symbolism is and all sincerity is lost.

A+C ART

It all started

with a chair. Then another. And another. Eventually, painter Will Anderson had enough chairs for his first solo show (at Petshop Gallery last year in Omaha). Don't expect to sit back, relax, and unwind with Anderson’s artwork, though. His furniture frenzy is just for viewing purposes—each chair exists only on canvas in bright cobalt blue hues.

After two years of monochromatic work and painting a number of chairs large enough to rival the collection at Nebraska Furniture Mart, Anderson is looking to expand the idea of what art can be by dipping into new colors and literally breaking boundaries through uncommon canvas making.

“For most of my life, I've had a stubborn attachment to painting,” Anderson says. “Recently, I'm cracking open new doors. I'm feeling more confident now, so I notice new things and try 'em out. That old, stubborn strictness is going away.”

Like many other artists, Anderson holds a side job to help support his career. It was there, owning his own small business as a carpenter, that he may have found inspiration for his next big venture—canvas making.

Just like hanging drywall and tiling a bathroom, this part of the painting process allows him to work with his hands while making bigger, more aggressive pieces.

But these aren't ordinary, average canvases. Instead, they have been stretched, warped, and contorted in strange shapes to purposely show the effort it takes to make each one. Unlike the monochromatic chair series, the newest work that lives on these canvases is full of color and takes no concrete form.

“Making a canvas is a private, mechanical necessity to many painters, and I had an interest in exposing that kind of stuff,” Anderson says. “Usually, the privilege of the viewer is you don't see that toil. Now, I can show that while also having a better relationship with the materials in my hands.”

At his Hot Shops studio in NoDo, Anderson is beginning to craft the next stage of his career while surrounded by pieces from his previous eras—and a whole lot of flower portraits. Nope, the artistic garden isn’t his own work.

It belongs to his mother and grandmother, two fellow artists he shares the space with.

If do-it-yourself could be personified, it would probably look a lot like Anderson. He's no muss, no fuss. So when a problem presents itself, like running out of canvas when painting a particular piece, he quickly finds a solution.

Just make a smaller one and hang it adjacent as an addon. The small cubes and rectangles can then be moved here, there, anywhere, and he isn’t confined by space.

“I never had a mission to be an artist as a kid, but I was always around and exposed to it,” Anderson says. “Art as a career was certainly normalized for me, but my style doesn't mirror my family's.”

“I had to quit planning ahead, so the add-ons are a reflection of that,” Anderson says. “Even establishing meaning beforehand is crazy to me because then you're just working towards whatever that chosen symbolism is and all sincerity is lost.”

After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2008, Anderson says he moved back to Omaha for its convenience and affordability, two things he was looking for in a home as he spent a portion of the last decade figuring out what kind of painter he wanted to be.

During this decade of self-discovery, he experimented by painting abstract portraits inspired by old Hollywood icons like Ingrid Bergman, pop art-styled Tyrannosaurus rexes harkening back to his love for Jurassic Park, and a blue chair (or more like 200 of them). In that time, his reputation in Omaha has also grown as he has participated in auctions at Bemis Art Center and shown work everywhere from RNG Gallery to Project Project.

“It's through the way Will renders his subjects that makes the seemingly familiar actually unfamiliar and forces us to question how much we think we know about the world around us,” says Angie Seykora, a local sculptor who worked with Anderson on a pop-up exhibition last year.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Visionary? Handyman? Or, just a dude looking to make a name for himself? Anderson proves to be all of the above and more as he attempts to reveal different parts of the artistic process to viewers while completing work in various forms of abstract. Whether he is using wood stain on canvas or grinding up his own batch of cobalt blue paint, Anderson's use of lowbrow methods to make highbrow more accessible is unmatched in the Omaha community.

“The way I play is a lot different than anybody else,” Anderson says. “For now, I'm really interested in participating in the dialogue of contemporary art making and experimenting with new ways to do that.”

Just don't expect him to create portraits of flowers anytime soon. Sorry, Mom and Grandma.

Visit willandersonart.com for more information.

// 29 //

2018

a

A+C COMEDY // STORY BY KATRINA MARKEL // PHOTOGRAPHY BY LLOYD BISHOP // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

appro Priately INappro priate late night with with amber ruffin (and seth myers)

WHEN BENSON HIGH School’s class of ’96 voted Amber Ruffin “Class Clown,” they were clearly onto something.

“It [comedy] came about because I was a very ugly child,” Ruffin says. “I had to do something if I was going to survive.”

For anyone who has noticed the bubbly actress and writer on NBC’s The Late Show with Seth Meyers, “ugly” is hardly an accurate description of the telegenic comic. She delivers incisive social and political commentary with a dose of adorability that makes her messages accessible to a network audience.

It is widely believed that Ruffin is the first woman of color to be a writer on a network late-night talk show.

“I did comedy for a million years and I never thought to write on a late-night show,” Ruffin says. “It never occurred to me that it might happen, and it’s because [the late-night comedy writers] have all been white men.”

Ruffin mentions Whoopi Goldberg as a comedy role model, but she also points out that it is important for people to see themselves represented in the entertainment they consume.

“I do freak out about representation because my entertainment [growing up] didn’t reflect my life,” Ruffin says. “You can’t look at the success of all of these minority-led shows and movies, and not realize that everyone got something horribly wrong for most of all time.”

Born and raised in Omaha, her performing career was launched as a 12-yearold. She was playing piano for the choir at Trinity Hope Foursquare Church when the director left, and Ruffin found herself in charge because she was the one who could play piano.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

// 31 //

2018

// A+C COMEDY //

“These old people are listening to me; everyone else better, too,” Ruffin says, recalling how that experience gave her confidence.

She went on to take major roles in plays at Benson High School, including a star turn as Princess Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress—a role once played by legendary comics Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman.

However, acting was not originally her plan.

Ruffin coached gymnastics after graduating from high school and says she envisioned a coaching career. During the same period, she became involved with the local theater scene and received positive attention for her work with the now-defunct Stages of Omaha at the Millennium Theatre while also taking improv classes.

While performing with an Omaha group at the Chicago Improv Festival, Ruffin says the co-founder of the iO Theater (formerly known as ImprovOlympic), Charna Halpern, saw her perform. Halpern told her that if she moved to Chicago she’d be performing full-time within a year.

Ruffin was 22 and had never lived anywhere other than Omaha. But she wanted to do improv, and Chicago is the cradle of the American improv scene.

“I interned at iO and I took classes at iO,” Ruffin says. “I was out of classes and did like three shows before I got Boom Chicago and had to go.”

Halpern’s prediction was right. Ruffin was on her way to a full-time job with Boom Chicago, which produces a sketch comedy show in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The progression took slightly less than a year.

“I’d never been out of the country,” Ruffin says.

The time performing in the Netherlands was formative for Ruffin. It allowed her to hone her craft and find her voice as a comedian.

“Just the sheer volume of shows that you do, you learn what people like to hear from you,” Ruffin says.

She points out that performing for audiences who spoke English as a second or third language was great for developing technique and timing because actors are forced to slow down and fine-tune their timing. Ruffin also says that she appreciates the directness of Dutch culture.

// 32 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

“Dutch people do not have a political correctness thing,” Ruffin says, explaining that the performers were told the only off-limits topics were cancer and the Holocaust. “It’s a country of people who look at the truth all the time, and there is no sugar-coating anything.”

She stayed in Amsterdam until 2006 and then worked with Second City in both Denver and Chicago. Ruffin was performing on tour in New York City when she met her Dutch husband, Jan. He happened to be on vacation in the city, and she gave him her email address. Not long after they met, Ruffin returned to Amsterdam to perform with Boom Chicago again.

After a few years, the couple moved to Los Angeles so that Ruffin could further her career. She worked as a nanny and Jan was employed as a security guard. They did not love it.

“In LA people are just so...polite [in a way] that reads false. In Omaha we’re polite in a way that reads genuine,” Ruffin says, explaining that the culture in Los Angeles was very different from the forthright qualities of the Dutch or the “Nebraska Nice” of her childhood.

A few years passed before Ruffin and a small cohort of black female comics were invited to audition for Saturday Night Live. During the 2013-2014 season, the show came under fire for the lack of black women in the cast, despite the growing need for an actress to play prominent women of color such as Michelle Obama and Oprah.

“Everyone got SNL but me,” Ruffin says.

She went back to LA empty-handed, and for two miserable days she thought nothing would come of the audition. Then Seth Meyers called and offered her a job on his writing staff.

“We screamed and we lost our minds when I called my mom,” Ruffin says.

Jan was working nights and she woke him up to share the news, “I jumped on the bed and was shaking him, ‘We’re going to New York!’”

Living in another country and being married to someone from that country has also given her a new cultural perspective. For instance, she recalls Jan noticing a security guard who followed Ruffin around a store as if she was going to shoplift.

“His seeing racism in action is absolutely shocking to him,” Ruffin says. “Having grown up in America—especially in Omaha, Nebraska—I have a high tolerance for racism.”

Ruffin expresses fondness for her hometown, but her “Nebraska Nice” blends with “Dutch Directness” when discussing inequality.

“I’m done explaining racism,” Ruffin says.

“I’ve served my time. You can kill yourself to get these people to understand the world, and I’m just not doing it.”

On Late Night she’s become known for several recurring sketches, including “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” in which Ruffin and Jenny Hagel, a gay woman, tell jokes that would be inappropriate if told by a white man.

“You always write jokes that you like the most, and it’s clear that Seth can’t tell them,” Ruffin says. “Jenny saw these jokes going to waste, and it was like, ‘What if we got to say these jokes?’ It came from watching all those jokes go in the trash.”

Ruffin says one of her favorite sketches was a reaction to professional athletes kneeling during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality. In a bit of manic comedy, Ruffin tumbles, jumps, and rolls around the set trying to figure out the right way to protest while Seth corrects her.

“That was so silly, but it was exactly what I wanted,” Ruffin says. “I wanted to goof around real hard, but I wanted to make my point. It was the cleanest, funnest way to say something that I feel is extremely important.”

As if she isn’t busy enough working on a daily television show, Ruffin is also a writer on the Comedy Central sitcom, Detroiters. She’s appeared multiple times on Comedy Central’s Drunk History, and says that’s she’s always looking for new projects.

This year she also has a big decision to make; what does one wear when they’ve been nominated for an Emmy (with the cast of Drunk History)?

“Oh, my God, please, what is that dress gonna be?”

For updates from the comedian, follow her on Twitter @ambermruffin.

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Thanks Omaha for 30 Years!

2016 Winner

A+ Rating 20 Consecutive Years

8 Consecutive Years

402.399.9233 | www.sparklingklean.com

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US

B E S T FA M I LY D E N T I S T 11 YEARS IN A ROW!

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DUNDEE 119 N. 51st Street Omaha, NE 68132 402.502.5593

WWW.THEDENTISTSOMAHA.COM NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 33 //

HE WAIT WAS TORTURE.

Six months of back-andforth, missing documents, interviews, and paperwork.

Finally, Ismail Ntakirutimana had a passport in his hands. Now all he needed was a student visa to the United States.

But on July 10, the day he was supposed to have an interview with staff at the U.S. Embassy, he was turned away. “You aren’t in the system,” they told him. His appointment had vanished.

“I felt like it was the end,” Ismail says. “When they told me that, I was really discouraged.”

With a heavy heart, he walked to the bus stop to catch a ride back to the apartment he shared with several other former street kids and orphans from the slums of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

Regardless of the application’s outcome, Ismail’s academic record is already a miracle. His impoverished upbringing, however, remains commonplace for youths growing up in the aftermath of the country’s 1994 genocide.

His identity card says he’s 20 years old, but his actual age remains a mystery. Ismail’s father abandoned him and two younger siblings when Ismail was only 5 years old. His mother eventually gave Ismail and younger brother Isaac to a neighborhood orphanage, hoping to spare them from starvation.

If he received the student visa, Ismail would be able to continue his studies at Creighton University on a scholarship. “By the grace of God,” Ismail says he received conditional admission to half a dozen American universities. Of the possible schools, only Creighton was located in the Midwest, close to the adoptive family that had been sponsoring him for the past five years.

Without the visa, he wouldn’t be attending any university in the U.S. He prayed for God’s mercy. But in this imperfect world of men, Ismail knew the student visa was not guaranteed.

He heard rumors that the U.S. had become tight-fisted with foreign-student visas, and he was all too familiar with how his story attracted scornful looks from neighbors in the slums of Kigali’s Kimisagara district.

Omaha, Nebraska—more than 8,000 miles away—seemed impossibly exotic from the tropical highlands of Rwanda. Ismail could imagine how embassy staff might view his case: a street kid with dreams bigger than his means. // 34 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

He had never seen snow or traveled on an airplane, let alone left the country.

Nevertheless, ever since his primary school days, Ismail had prayed for the opportunity to study overseas. Even when he was starving on the streets of Kimisagara.

The realization of that dream felt so close, yet so far. “Maybe it was just a fantasy after all,” he thought to himself, discouraged.

The bus continued onward. Ismail returned his attention to prayer.

“AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD SAID UNTO HER, BEHOLD, THOU ART WITH CHILD, AND SHALT BEAR A SON, AND SHALT CALL HIS NAME ISHMAEL; BECAUSE THE LORD HATH HEARD THY AFFLICTION.”

(Genesis 16:11) Ismail did not witness the Interahamwe militia shouting “Hutu Power!” as they rounded up his mother’s family for extermination. He did not see relatives butchered by neighbors, indoctrinated by a caste-like system of tribal identification that lingered from the days of Belgium’s colonial rule.

Blood stained the streets, and the air stunk of rotting human flesh.

The genocide in Rwanda lasted approximately 100 days, and the international community turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s economy came to a standstill amid the government-sponsored killing spree to purge the nation’s Tutsi minority population. By some accounts, nearly 1 million Tutsi died in the genocide—roughly 18 percent of the total population in the small, landlocked, eastern Central African country.

Ismail was not yet born when his homeland turned into hell on earth. But like so many young Rwandans, he would grow up under the crushing weight of trauma so heavy that his mother still struggles to get out of bed each April (the month when the 1994 genocide started).

“She doesn’t talk, she doesn’t eat, and she is always crying,” Ismail says of his mother’s recurring post-traumatic episodes.

Among those murdered in the genocide was her first husband. The Interahamwe—men and boys, civilians with machetes, rifles, grenades, and deep hatred for Tutsi—had a list of all the people with Tutsi identity. It was a death list. Ismail says the name of his mother’s first husband was at the top of the document.

From the side of the road, his mother saw her husband’s body piled in the back of a truck filled with corpses. “She only told us that she saw him,” Ismail says. “During the 1994 genocide, it was not easy to take someone who was dead to bury them or to have a funeral.”

She saw his feet had been cut off, and other body parts were mutilated. Burns covered his body. She could assume his fate. “The bodies were put in trucks so they could throw them in the river,” Ismail says.

She could not mourn. She escaped on foot, fleeing with their three children (Ismail’s half-siblings, with whom he does not have a relationship), as she had just enough money to bribe her way into Zaire, the country now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Horrific scenes repeated across the country.

Elderly were slaughtered alongside adults and children. Infants were ripped from mothers’ arms and left for wild animals to devour.

Men infected with HIV raped Tutsi women and girls. Hutu sympathizers and intertribal spouses met similar fates. Some were given the opportunity to pay for a swift death by gunfire rather than machete. But not all of the murderers would take payment, especially in the early days of the genocide.

“Weed out the cockroaches,” urged the newspapers and radio stations. “Get rid of the cockroaches!” jeered the Interahamwe, hunting their countrymen in public. Terrified Tutsi refugee families gathered in stadiums and churches for safety. Interahamwe attacked them in confinement. They tossed grenades into the stadiums and bulldozed the churches filled with innocent people, massacring the huddled masses.

The bloodshed made no sense. Hutu and Tutsi people speak the same language, Kinyarwanda.

They have intermarried for generations. They were neighbors and classmates. There were stereotypes that supposedly differentiated the groups: Hutus had wider noses, Tutsis were taller; Hutus were the working class, Tutsis were the royalty complicit in the old colonial system. But the reality wasn’t so simple.

Today, Rwanda is a model society in many respects. The economy is booming.

International investment is pouring in. Kigali streets are clean and orderly. Meanwhile, President Paul Kagame has remained in power since his Rwandan Patriotic Front (a militia consisting of exiled Tutsi and sympathetic Hutu) overturned the extremist Hutu government in 1994.

The nation’s future appears bright, and discussing Hutu or Tutsi tribal identity has become taboo. Tribal divisions once enshrined in identification cards—dating back to the colonial era—have been wiped clean from public discourse.

From the SLUMS OF RWANDA to the Halls of CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY FEATURE // STORY BY DOUG MEIGS PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN, KELLIE HATCHER, AND KERI HATCHER DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

Ismail Ntakirutimana

Scan the Table of Contents page with the LayAR app for expanded content.

In the early ’90s, regional massacres of Tutsi provided a testing ground for ethnic cleansing techniques and international reaction prior to the 1994 genocide.

Bugesera was one of those regions. Imana Kids sponsors children from Bugesera (including students at this school).

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

“You can’t say Hutu or Tutsi in Rwanda at this time,” Ismail says. “At the moment, it is like it is illegal, because they want us to see ourselves as Rwandans in one shape. What we are taught is this: We are all Rwandans. No one has to belong to one of these [tribal] groups.”

Ismail only knows of his parent’s tribal affiliation from the few times his mother spoke about the dark days that preceded his birth.

After the genocide, she returned to Rwanda from Congo. She began living with another as man and wife in Kigali. “She was Tutsi, and my father was a Hutu,” Ismail says. “After meeting him, she thought he was going to change her life.”

But her hopes never came to fruition. “Instead her life became worse, and that increased her trauma,” Ismail says.

“CALL ME ISHMAEL.”

(Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, 1851) In accordance with Rwandan custom, Ismail received his two names from his parents. One of his names, Ntakirutimana, means “nothing is greater than God” in Kinyarwanda.

Traditionally, Rwandan families do not share surnames or pass them from parent to child.

The names are meant to be unique.

His other given name translates from Arabic to “God will listen.” The choice indicates religious affiliation. His parents were Muslim, so Ismail received the Muslim spelling of “Ishmael.” In both Christian and Muslim accounts of Genesis, Ishmael is the firstborn son of Abraham and the ancestor of Muslim people. Ishmael is Abraham’s son by his wife’s servant in the Bible; the “wife’s servant” is Abraham’s second wife in the Quran.

Although the Constitution of Rwanda explicitly defines marriage as monogamous, Ismail says having multiple wives is not unusual among the minority Muslim population of the predominantly Roman-Catholic nation.

Ismail was the first son to his father’s third “wife.” They never officially married. Parents are supposed to list their offspring on their own identity cards, but Ismail’s father did not claim them.

With money from selling her previous husband’s home, Ismail’s father bought his third wife’s current mud hovel—located a 20-minute hike up a steep hillside on a

treacherous path of broken cement and sandbags for stairs—overlooking the crowded Kimisagara slum that stretches across the valley. There was no running water. They had to haul jugs of potable water for cooking and cleaning. In the rainy season, the steep path became a torrential waterfall preventing access up or down.

Ismail remembers his father leaving the family’s hillside home in 2002, but he returned after a while. “The oldest one of my father’s wives really hated us and didn’t want us to stay with him,” Ismail says. “I think she could be the one to tell him that he doesn’t need to come home.”

His father left again in 2003 and never came back. That was the end of their family unit.

Financial support disappeared with the father figure. Then came starvation. Meals were a luxury. Sugar cane was the only food in the house for a time, and there were days when they didn’t have that, either.

Paternal grandparents, aunts, and uncles turned their backs to the plight of the third wife. “Our dad’s family rejected us,” Ismail says. “They didn’t want us. Since then, I have carried a big burden in my heart. I was worried about my mother and younger siblings.

This made me want to work harder so I can bring a big change in their lives.”

He knew academic success would be his path to change. But his mother could not afford fees for the local primary schools. Fortunately, a school in the area waived tuition for Ismail and his siblings. Walking several kilometers there and back on an empty stomach was still difficult, though.

“Most of the time, I had to go to classes without taking any food,” Ismail says. “Going to school was somehow easier, but turning back was really hard. Sometimes I had to sit on the street and wait until I regained the energy so that I could move on.”

After classes or during holidays, Ismail and Isaac made extra money for food; they gathered scrap metal or crafted little metal toys from fence wires. Life on the streets could be dangerous. Police would capture street kids and put them in jail. Some of their friends carried razorblades to slash the officers in order to escape.

“When I was picking scrap metals, I had to communicate with my friends who were in the streets to give them what I had collected instead of going to the place,” Ismail says. “My friends on the streets were good at escaping the police. Then they would get the money and give me some.”

Adults in the neighborhood called him a “street kid” and “illegitimate.” The words stung his heart. Although Ismail slept at his mother’s home, he felt like one of the street kids. “I was on the streets most of the time, and many of my friends were street kids,” he says. “That’s why I felt rejected from society. I didn’t love the other kids from better families. I felt different, like the street kids were the only ones I could associate with.”

His mother converted to Christianity in 2008. Ismail and his siblings eventually followed her lead. Meanwhile, a makeshift orphanage sprang up on the hillside next to his mother’s home. The owner, Antoine, seized part of the family’s small plot of land for his orphanage. He also started offering Ismail and his family food. Without Antoine’s handouts, Ismail suspects they might have died.

When the time came to take the national high school entry exam, Ismail received one of the region’s top scores. It was news in the community, and the achievement brought him into the spotlight for ridicule.

His academic future was in limbo without enough money to even pay for the daily bus fare to attend high school, never mind the tuition fees.

“Everyone knew that I passed the national exam,” Ismail says. “People were making fun of me, saying I was a street kid from a really poor family, that I passed the national exams at the highest grade but I’m not going to high school. There were some adults who were being mean, because they had seen how we were living.”

Then, Ismail says, Antoine would only give them more food if they lived at the orphanage. He would also cover Ismail’s expenses associated with attending one of Rwanda’s top high schools, St. Andre College. Ismail couldn’t turn down the opportunity. He moved from his mother’s mud home into Antoine’s next-door orphanage with Isaac.

The small building housed anywhere from 60 to 100 kids (depending on the day) in roughly a dozen cramped, cage-like rooms.

He felt like an imposter. Ismail was a day-student at St. Andre because the boarding option was too expensive. When other students talked about their families, Ismail kept silent. He felt out of place at every turn, so he endured abuse from others without protest. Loneliness crept into his heart.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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Imana Kids purchased land in Bugesera to build Hope Village (a trauma-informed school, church, and foster care village). All of the “original Imana Kids� joined the land-dedication ceremony on July 18. Among the group was the first of the former orphans to be married. His wife joined, too, with their baby on her back.

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

“At St. Andre, I had a classmate that made fun of my name saying I am the son of a slave woman and saying that I’m an illegitimate kid,” Ismail says, comparing the at-school insult to the hurtful words hurled by adults in Kimisagara. “He [the classmate] didn’t know where I was from, but calling me that made me uncomfortable. The school was attended by many rich students from rich families, and this made me feel even more isolated.” He didn’t protest. He didn’t want to make a scene.

In those days, life at the orphanage was better than his mother’s home. At least there was food. But there’s no such thing as free lunch, Ismail learned. Antoine had the children make mud bricks, gather water, care for his cow, dispose of manure, and do other labor-intensive chores. When they misbehaved, Antoine would beat them or lock them in the dark without meals.

Girls at the orphanage suffered worst of all, though Ismail says he did not learn of their trauma until the end of his time lodging there.

Antoine had a prostitution ring on the side.

He made some girls go home with men to perform sex acts.

There were times when Ismail considered running away from Rwanda to join one of the militias in the forests of Congo. Most of the time, though, he dreamed of enrolling at a foreign university, somewhere far from his Kimisagara slum and the troubles of daily life.

Ismail turned back to his school books, and he prayed.

“RELIGION THAT GOD OUR FATHER ACCEPTS AS PURE AND FAULTLESS IS THIS: TO LOOK AFTER ORPHANS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR DISTRESS...”

(James 1:27) The 2004 film Hotel Rwanda reminded the world of the country’s genocide. Nominated for an Academy Award, it tells the heroic story of the manager of Hôtel des Mille Collines giving shelter to more than 1,200 Tutsi refugees in Kigali. The hotel manager responsible was Hutu (the son of a Tutsi woman) and married a Tutsi woman.

A few years after the film’s theatrical release, Kara and Ryan Higgins were watching a DVD rental of the movie at their home in the suburbs of Kansas City. The experience set in motion a series of life-changing events for the married couple.

“Initially, I was shocked that I didn’t know more about the genocide because I can remember seeing it on the news,” Kara says. “Later in the same week we watched the movie, the adoption agency we were in contact with told us about a new pilot program for adoption from Rwanda. We thought this must be a right fit, our kids must be in Rwanda.”

“At the time, I didn’t think of it as the turning point for our family, but it definitely was,” Ryan adds.

Adoption was an ongoing discussion for the Higginses since before they had married. By the time they watched Hotel Rwanda in 2009, they had two biological children—6-year-old Molly and 4-year-old Blake—but complications during both pregnancies meant they couldn’t have more biological kids.

Watching the movie, they realized a humanitarian crisis was looming over a new generation of Rwandan youth. The genocide had orphaned tens of thousands of children. Many were born to victims of rape during the ethnic cleansing. Some had watched the murder of their parents. Others—Hutu and Tutsi alike—were simply falling through the cracks of an overburdened child welfare system.

The Higginses added their names to the waiting list for adopting Rwandan orphans as part of the new pilot program. After months of waiting, nuns with the Sisters of Charity at the Home of Hope Orphanage paired the couple with Etienne and Ezekiel. The nuns estimated Etienne was close to 3 years old and Ezekiel was about 18 months old.

Kara and Ryan didn’t hesitate. They jumped at the opportunity to complete their dream family. Flying to Rwanda for the first time, they arrived and fell in love with the country.

The boys’ adjustment to the foreign, white American family was difficult, Kara admits, but worth the struggle.

“They were No. 7 and No. 8 to be adopted out of Rwanda,” Kara says. “The government closed international adoptions in 2012, so it’s a pretty small community in the U.S. of Rwandan-American adopted kids.”

Just before adopting the boys, the Higginses relocated to Council Bluffs to be closer to Kara’s family in Omaha. Ryan was teaching engineering at Abraham Lincoln High School. Kara was a midwife and nurse practitioner at OneWorld Community Health Center in South Omaha.

In the year that Rwanda closed foreign adoptions, destiny came calling again.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

Clockwise from left: Blake, Molly, Ryan, Kara, Etienne, and Ezekiel Higgins (the founding family of Imana Kids) // 40 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// FEATURE //

Ananias (pictured in the center) joined the Hope Village dedication ceremony.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2019 with help from Omaha-based Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture.

To the left of Kara and Ryan Higgins, James Odongo preaches at the future site of Imana Kids’ Hope Village.

American volunteers with Imana Kids play guitar and sing with sponsored students at Good Harvest Nursery and Primary School in Kigali, Rwanda.

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

“CONSEQUENTLY, YOU ARE NO LONGER FOREIGNERS AND STRANGERS, BUT FELLOW CITIZENS WITH GOD’S PEOPLE AND ALSO MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.”

(Ephesians 2:19) Visiting Orphans, a faith-oriented nonprofit out of Tennessee, wanted to know if the Higginses would lead a summer 2013 trip to volunteer at an orphanage in Kigali. The organization had learned of the Higgins family through Kara’s blog, Room4More, which had attracted a large following in the adoption community.

Eager to give more to the country that had completed their family, Kara and Ryan answered, “Yes.” But Kara gave one condition: “We wanted to go to the place with the greatest need.” The Visiting Orphans coordinator knew of just the place, a difficult-to-access orphanage in the slums of Kimisagara in Kigali.

The Higginses’ daughter, Kara’s parents, an aunt from Omaha, friends of the family, and Kara’s midwife mentor (Manya Schmidt) joined Kara and Ryan’s first organized group to Rwanda.

They had plans for a grand vacation bible school week, but the number of children they found crowded into Antoine’s dilapidated orphanage overwhelmed their plans.

Most of the kids weren’t even going to school. Ismail was one of the few children even interested in studying.

“That very first day, I knew that this is going to change the rest of our lives,” Kara says.

She started collecting profiles of the kids with the help of a translator. They asked each child what they wanted to do when they grew up. Very few had answers. The struggle of living day-to-day fully occupied their minds.

One of the older boys was Ferdinand. With broad strong shoulders, Ferdinand was one of the bigger kids. He was an orphan of the 1994 genocide. As an infant, his sister tossed him in a river to save him from killers. Then she jumped after him. She saved him, and she took care of him for several years—until she died of HIV-related illness, a result of being raped.

When he was living on the streets, Ferdinand was one of those street kids carrying razor blades to escape police. He was one of those street kids tossed into jail.

Eventually, he ended up under Antoine’s roof in Kimisagara.

The orphanage, high on the hillside, was packed with children. Sewage seeped into where the kids played, and many suffered from serious health problems. Overwhelmed by the dire circumstances of the orphanage’s living conditions, the Higgins family and their group of foreign volunteers didn’t notice anything amiss, at least not yet. Kara says they were naive.

“On the first day, we learned a phrase that means, ‘See you tomorrow.’” The kids didn’t believe us that we would come back a second day,” Ryan says. They had seen foreign aid groups before, but none returned for a second day. The kids were overjoyed when the muzungu (slang for “white people” in Kinyarwanda) actually came back to the mud-walled and mud-floored orphanage the following day.

Their final day was a tear-jerker. “We can’t come back tomorrow, but we will see you again,” the Americans told the kids. “That last day was gut-wrenching. I remember getting on the bus and just sobbing,” Ryan says. Kara had never seen him cry like that.

Discussions on how to help the kids began as soon as the volunteers returned to their hotel in Kigali, before they had even flown home.

Back in the U.S., the Higginses and the rest of their team began researching how to start a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to the desperate children trapped in Antoine’s orphanage.

By July 2013, about a month after returning home, they had formalized a nonprofit called Imana Kids, with headquarters at the Higginses’ dining room table. The first part of the name, Imana, translates to “of God” in Kinyarwanda. Their mission: “Love one child, change the world,” with a focus on building sustainable person-to-person relationships.

The first trip under the new nonprofit came in September. Ryan and Kara flew back to hire an in-country director, open a foreign Rwandan bank account, and find boarding schools for all the children. Most schools, however, declined to take “street kids” because of the potential liability.

Before they could do anything more, Imana Kids needed a dependable translator. Kara and Ryan contacted the Rwandan husband-wife pastoring duo who had helped with translation during the previous Visiting Orphans trip. But they weren’t available on such short notice. Jane, the wife of Pastor Peter, suggested her brother—a born-again Christian named James Odongo. James would eventually become the team’s in-country director (also accountant, chaperone, father figure, mentor, disciplinarian, pastor, and friend to the kids).

James grew up in a Ugandan refugee camp.

A Hutu-led revolution against Belgian colonialism overturned Rwanda’s monarchy and dispossessed the Tutsi ruling elite during the early 1960s. As persecution of Tutsis became a recurring threat in Rwanda, members of the minority group fled to neighboring countries.

Abandoned by his father, James led a life of vice and adventure before devoting his life to the gospel. He served in Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front, pursued Hutu militias into Congo, and occupied high-ranking military positions with regional revolutionary armies. He even led a gang of robbers before finding redemption through Jesus Christ.

He learned to speak English from the Lord.

James says he never studied it, but could one day make sense of the foreign tongue like the Book of Acts (where the Holy Spirit descended to earth in flames, granting Jesus’ disciples the ability to speak in foreign unfamiliar languages).

Ryan returned over Christmas. He and James got the kids from the Kimisagara orphanage ready with assorted school supplies and mattresses for boarding school rooms. During the visit, Ryan discovered that the secondary school had unexpectedly blocked the orphans from enrollment. So, they had to find a replacement school.

The orphanage’s academic all-star, Ismail, soon joined the rest of the older kids for a fresh start at the high school known as Lyceé de Kicukiro Apade. American sponsors began stepping up to cover associated fees and expenses. Ryan’s parents became Ismail’s sponsor. Kara and Ryan sponsored another boy named Ananias (who they later flew to Omaha for surgery to correct the uneven length of his legs).

Kara and Ryan began alternating their trips to Kigali. In January 2014, two weeks after Ryan’s trip to finalize new school logistics, Kara and another Imana Kids board member flew back to tie up loose ends.

They were worried about the younger kids trapped in the orphanage, not yet able to attend boarding school. But it was also on this trip when one of the older girls revealed a darker depravity of the Kimisagara orphanage. Antoine was forcing the older girls into prostitution. continued on pg. 73

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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SPORTS // STORY BY LEO ADAM BIGA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

Soccer Brings Bob Warming Home

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

Once a Bluejay, Now a Maverick BOB WARMING’S UNEXPECTED RETURN

to Omaha in 2018—this time to head the men’s soccer program at the University of Nebraska-Omaha—is the latest turn in a lifelong love affair with coaching.

Warming, 64, twice helmed the Creighton University program in town. He’s known as the architect of a Bluejay program he took from nothing to national prominence.

During his first CU run (1990-1994), Omaha became home to him, his wife Cindy, and their four children. During his second CU tenure (2001-2009), his kids finished school and came of age.

His passion for the game is such that even though he’s one of collegiate soccer’s alltime winningest coaches at an age when most folks retire, he’s still hungry to lead young people. After eight highly successful seasons at his last stop, Penn State, he did retire, albeit for less than two months, before taking the UNO post in April.

Love for family changed best-laid plans. It started when he and Cindy visited Omaha in November to meet their new granddaughter.

Their intense desire to see her grow up caused Warming to step down at Penn State and move to Omaha.

When then-UNO soccer coach Jason Mims decided to pursue new horizons (Mims had played and coached for Warming at Saint Louis University, and traveled with him to Creighton and Penn State before kickstarting the UNO program in 2011), Warming couldn’t resist continuing to build what his former assistant had started.

“I have come back with even more energy.

There’s a lot of younger guys I’m running into the ground,” Warming says.

He also brought knowledge gained from legendary peers and best friends at Penn State: women’s volleyball coach Russ Rose, wrestling coach Cael Sanderson, and women’s soccer coach Erica Dambach.

“I learned more coaching at Penn State than I had in all my previous years,” he says. “It’s not even close. I grew tremendously. I got a lot of new ideas about things. I derive tremendous energy from being a continual learner. Even in the 59 days I retired, I continued to research better ways to teach and train people.”

His son, Grant, played for him in Happy Valley and now assists at UNO. Grant’s twin sister, Audrey, died in a 2012 auto accident. The family honors her legacy with Audrey’s Shoes for Kids, an annual event

that gives away soccer shoes, shin guards, jerseys, and balls to disadvantaged children in Omaha. About 300 youths received gear in this summer’s giveback.

Warming first fell in love with coaching at age 14 in his native Berea, Kentucky. The multi-sport athlete was a tennis prodigy on the United States Lawn Tennis Association’s junior circuit when his coach taught him a lesson in humility by having him coach 9-year-olds. In the process, Warming found his life’s calling.

“I had been very into myself only,” he admits. “I was a selfish little brat. Then all of a sudden I realized it’s about helping other people. It’s a great lesson my coach taught me. He knew if I was ever going to go any place with my life, I had to give something to others.”

Warming’s outlook on life gradually shifted.

“I derive the most pleasure out of watching young people improve,” he says.

Soccer supplied his next life-changing experience. Berea College, a private college in his hometown, has a long history of inclusion. In the early 1970s, it recruited world-class footballers from Ghana and Nigeria. Warming was the squad’s goalkeeper (and also a varsity letter-winner on the tennis, swimming, and golf teams); he honed his knowledge of soccer from these foreign players and gleaned insights into diversity.

“I’m playing soccer and hanging out all the time with these black guys in the South— not the most popular thing to do in a town where on Sunday nights every summer the KKK burned a cross,” he recalls. “That was the dark ages in a lot of ways. But I was fascinated interacting with these guys from Africa and finding out how they live and what their culture is like.

“I was able to play with these incredible guys from a young age, and the game is the best teacher,” he says. “For me, it was a remarkable time in my life. I learned a lot about a lot of different things.”

Years later at Penn State, he brought more student-athletes of color into the soccer program than it had ever seen before. “That was a cool part of the whole deal,” he says.

He appreciates what a mentor did in giving him a progressive outlook. “The guy who eventually became my college coach was the leader of all this,” Warming says.

His own collegiate coach at Berea, Bob Pearson, succeeded his protégé a few years

later when Warming left his coaching post at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, for a coaching position at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte in the 1980s.

Four decades later, the veteran Warming succeeded his own protégé, Mims, at UNO. “I have all these crazy circles in coaching,” he says.

The kind of bond Warming has with Pearson, he has with Mims.

“Loyalty, trust, and respect are the basis for all relationships, and we have all three of those,” Warming says.

Pearson got Warming his first head coaching gigs in his 20s at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky (where Warming spent one season before heading to Berry University); he also coached tennis at both schools.

Warming was still only in his mid-30s when Creighton hired him the first time in 1990, poaching him from his brief tenure as director of athletics at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. At Creighton, he revived a dormant program that began winning and drawing fans.

He enjoyed the challenge of “building something from its inception and doing missionary work for our sport.” In exchange for free coaching clinics, he got local soccer clubs to turn out in droves.

“Thus, Creighton soccer was born. It came out of giving back to the community and coaching education,” Warming says.

He left CU in 1994 for Old Dominion. From there he went to Saint Louis University. The Rev. John Schlegel, then-CU president, lured him back in 2001 with the promise he could design a state-of-the-art soccer facility. continued on pg. 79

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

OMAHA POETS POPULATE

2018 One Book One Nebraska

Nebraska Presence HONORED A DECADE AFTER FIRST PUBLICATION FEATURE // STORY BY ELIZABETH KOTTICH // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

NEBRASKA POETRY IS not all about farms and cornfields (although some of it is).

The state has inspired a wide variety of poets and poems, as demonstrated by the 2018 One Book One Nebraska selection, Nebraska Presence.

The book presents an anthology of poetry written by Nebraskan poets. Some of the poems do reference Nebraska land and farming communities, says book editor Greg Kosmicki, but many poems also discuss “major life events, births and deaths, weddings and funerals… the fabric of life.”

“It’s not just Nebraska stuff; it’s human stuff,” Kosmicki says.

The Backwaters Press (a small publishing press in Omaha that mainly focuses on poetry) published Nebraska Presence in 2007. Kosmicki, founder of The Backwaters Press, co-edited the anthology with Mary K. Stillwell, author of The Life & Poetry of Ted Kooser.

Prior to 2007, the most recent anthology of Nebraska poets was Forty Nebraska Poets, edited by Greg Kuzma in 1981.

Kosmicki says the idea for the new anthology was conceived by poet Marjorie Saiser and himself, born out of the desire to highlight the many modern Nebraska poets.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Nebraska Presence features poems from more than 80 Nebraska poets, including up-and-comers and nationally acclaimed veterans. Kosmicki and Stillwell used word-ofmouth and classified advertisements in Poets & Writers magazine to solicit poetry submissions.

They invited poets to submit work on a variety of topics. Aside from Ted Kooser—a former U.S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry—no one had more than two poems included.

Kosmicki says, “We didn’t want to have an anthology that was typical of a lot of anthologies that will be lopsided with three or four or five [poems] of the really well-known poets, and then one by everyone else.”

Looking back on their selection process a decade ago, Kosmicki says they tried their best but did miss some people and types of poems.

Twenty poets in Nebraska Presence are Omaha residents (though two died in the years following the anthology’s 2007 publication).

According to Kosmicki, the goal of Nebraska Presence was to provide a collection of poetry that was accessible to the average reader. Many of the poems are about the events of ordinary life and are relatable on a basic human level.

“I’d like people to know that it’s accessible, and that the poems in it will make them think and make them move,” he says.

The editors at The Backwaters Press were ecstatic when the anthology was named the choice for the 2018 One Book One Nebraska on Oct. 21, 2017. In addition to bringing recognition and potential donations to the nonprofit press, the selection of Nebraska Presence marks the first time in the program’s 14 years that the One Book One Nebraska committee has chosen a collection of poetry.

As the 2018 One Book One Nebraska selection, Nebraska Presence has been the focus of library book clubs and reading groups across the state, allowing the general public to read poetry that they would not have otherwise.

The program’s website states that the goal of One Book One Nebraska is to promote one book, either written by a Nebraskan or set in Nebraska, for all Nebraskans to read and discuss. The focus on poetry across Nebraska this year promotes a different kind of discussion and spurs new ways of thinking about Nebraska—including its land and people—that the previous selections of fiction and nonfiction could not.

“I think that reading poetry can take the reader into a different place and to a different way of thinking about their world,” Kosmicki says.

Visit onebook.nebraska.gov or centerforthebook.nebraska.gov for more information about One Book One Nebraska.

ODES TO OMAHA

Short Home-Aha Poems by Local Poets Omaha Magazine asked local Omaha poets featured in Nebraska Presence—the selection for the 2018 One Book One Nebraska—to provide a short poem about how the city inspires them (along with a brief biographical summary).

Twelve poets responded. Their poems are featured alongside bios, listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Two of the Omaha poets published in the book, Brian Bengtson and Fredrick Zydek, died in the time that elapsed between the anthology’s original publication and the statewide recognition.

BRIAN BENGTSON

(May 13, 1966—Mar. 13, 2015) Bio: Bengtson was born in Omaha and wrote poetry from the time he was “old enough to hold a crayon.” He was the author of three collections of poetry: Leavenworth Street (The Backwaters Press, 2009), Gay...Some Assembly Required (Lone Willow Press, 1995), and First Chill (PublishAmerica, 2005).

Bengtson passed away on March 13, 2015.

MICHAEL CATHERWOOD

Bio: Catherwood’s first book was Dare,

by The Backwaters Press. His second book, If You Turned Around Quickly, was from Main Street Rag. His third book, Projector, was from Stephen F. Austin Press.

His work has recently appeared in The Adirondack Review, Bluestem, Louisiana Literature, Kentucky Review, Measure, The Minnesota Review, Numero Cinq, Red River Review, Galway Review, and Westview.

Since 1995, he has been an associate editor at Plainsongs, where he writes essays. He is the editor of The Backwaters Press.

“The Prayer” These are the days we imagine all light will soon go out, that our lives will end sooner than we want. It’s expected as we age while the sun directs the light show early mornings, the cardinals in their dances in the backyard sky, our histories that sit like gargoyles in the trees. Fatalist. No. Just the spring days with their documentary of joy and beauty— all the splendor that will be missed. All the beauty we will add slowly to while we return and return.

MARILYN JUNE COFFEY

LORRAINE DUGGIN

Bio: Coffey, a Nebraska native, lived for 30 years in New York City. While there, her controversial novel Marcella broke a world record (for being the “first novel written in English that used female masturbation for its main theme”) and her wry poem “Pricksong” won a Pushcart Prize. Now an internationally published author, Coffey lives in Omaha with a feisty orange cat and an undisciplined garden. She writes history books. Her work has appeared on the cover of The Atlantic, including “Badlands Revisited: A 1974 Memoir of Murderous Days in Nebraska” (which can be found online). Coffey’s Mail-Order Kid was a bestseller on Amazon, and her Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers also garnered accolades. Coffey’s latest—That Punk Jimmy Hoffa!—details her trucker father’s clash with the Teamsters.

Bio: Duggin was born and raised in Omaha, a graduate of South High with B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and a Ph.D. in English/ creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She’s been a Master Artist in Schools/Communities since the 1980s with the Nebraska Arts Council and Iowa Arts Council and is on the Speakers Bureau of Humanities Nebraska. Her poetry, fiction, and memoirs have been published widely in literary magazines and anthologies, winning numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize nomination, a Mari Sandoz Prairie Schooner Award for short story, an Academy of American Poets first prize, and a Nebraska Arts Council’s Individual Artists’ Award in Poetry, among others. She is an international folk dancer in three groups who perform locally and regionally, and plays recorder with an early music ensemble (Women of the Glen). She teaches English-language learners at Metropolitan Community College, where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010.

“From That Punk Jimmy Hoffa!

by Marilyn June Coffey” “That cussing of yours must of burnt up the reporter.”

“Come on. What difference would my swearing make?”

“In the Omaha World-Herald?

It’s a family paper, after all.”

“Poets in Omaha—a Series of Haiku)” Imagination, creativity blossom; secret gardens thrive.

Heavenward, earthbound, a cello’s sonorous drone— Symphony of words.

Like fish multiplied, gold splashing in backyard ponds, plotting our dreamscapes.

Lyrical lines form —Missouri’s meanderings— A poem is born.

Shagbark hickory —hiking Fontenelle Forest— Inspirational.

Cumulonimbi lure us; unlimited skies nourish this good life.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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From left: Michael Catherwood, Matt Mason, Lorraine Duggin, Michael Skau, Sarah Voss, J.J. McKenna, Rich Wyatt, and James Solheim

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FEATURE // POETRY

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 49 //

GREG KOSMICKI

MATT MASON

SARAH McKINSTRY-BROWN

Bio: Kosmicki is the founding editor of The Backwaters Press. His own poetry has been published in more than 100 literary magazines, and he is the author of 12 books and chapbooks of poems. His book of selected poems, Leaving Things Unfinished: Fortysome Years of Poems, is slated for publication

by Sandhills Press. He and wife Debbie are retired, live in Omaha, are parents of three, and grandparents of two.

Bio: Mason won a Pushcart Prize and two Nebraska Book Awards; was a finalist for the position of Nebraska State Poet; and organizes and runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana, and Belarus. He has over 200 publications in magazines and anthologies, including Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. His most recent book, The Baby That Ate Cincinnati, was released in 2013. Mason lives in Omaha with his wife, the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown, and daughters Sophia and Lucia. Mason is also the executive director of the Nebraska Writers Collective, an Omahabased nonprofit that supports and promotes both established and emerging writers. He was instrumental in organizing the Omaha affiliate of the national Louder Than a Bomb slam poetry competition.

Bio: McKinstry-Brown is the author of Cradling Monsoons (Blue Light Press, 2010) and This Bright Darkness (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, McKinstry-Brown is the recipient of two Nebraska Book Awards and an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her poems appear in RATTLE, Ruminate, Smartish Pace, Sugar House Review, West Virginia’s standardized tests (a beautiful irony given that she was, is, and will always be, a terrible standardized test-taker), and elsewhere.

“A Visit From the Master” Housefly lands on my keyboard Shows me I must write v, f, r, 4, e, s, z

STEVE LANGAN

Bio: Langan earned his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received the Paul Engle Postgraduate Fellowship from the James Michener Foundation. He is the author of Freezing, Notes on Exile and Other Poems, Meet Me at the Happy Bar, and What It Looks Like, How It Flies. Langan’s poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including the Kenyon, Gettysburg, Chicago, Iowa, Colorado, North American, Notre Dame Review, Southern Humanities Review, Fence, Verse, Jacket, Slope, Pool, Diagram, and others. He teaches at UNO in the English department and Writer’s Workshop (where he serves as program development coordinator). He also holds the title of UNO’s interim director and community liaison for medical humanities. Additionally, Langan is founder and director of the Seven Doctors Project, established at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2008.

“Omaha” (Excerpt from a longer poem) City no one’s said it best about; city that ignores its river, its young, its elderly, its myths.

I sat in its taverns for five years, my pledge not to miss a day— that pledge got me nowhere,

no perched bar to lean on, elbows dug in like roots, to watch its river spill mighty waste set down

to join its hostile older sister, the Mississippi. For five years I searched for the perfect tavern like Ponce de Leon...

(Reprinted from Witness’ American Cities Special Issue, 1994.)

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

“Omaha” Omaha is more than what you knew, this dirty town carnival windy small town metropolis you thought you were only passing through.

J.J. McKENNA

Bio: McKenna is professor emeritus of English at UNO. For him, Omaha is a great place to observe and participate in people’s lives: to see former students like David Martin, who directs a writer’s camp at UNO each summer; or Leslie Irwin, chair of the English department at Millard North; or his grandson, Mason, who wrote an award-winning poem about Martin Luther King Jr. Day. McKenna witnessed the scene described in his poem, “On the Last Day of School,” one May as he was driving past Westside High School and four girls in high spirits swirled onto Pacific Street in a bright red Ford convertible. “I shared their joy, if only for a moment,” he says.

“On the Last Day of School” On the last day of school four in a cherry red Ford cruising topdown long hair flying

wind lifting their laughter their spirits rising now this day this time flying

“What the Farmer Knows” (For Julie) Breathing is about giving each seedling a name, though it may not take.

Hope is backbreaking.

Even in dreams, feel the pull, the till, turning earth, soil so dark it becomes night sky, and the seeds in your hands, stars.

MICHAEL SKAU

Bio: Skau is professor emeritus of English at UNO, where he taught for 37 years. He studied under Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso at Naropa Institute in Boulder, and has published books of literary criticism on Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Skau was named the Winner of the 2013 William Kloefkorn Award for Excellence in Poetry. Wayne State College Press published his collection of poems, Me & God, in 2014. His chapbooks After the Bomb and Old Poets were published by WordTech Editions in 2017 and 2018. In 2014, Skau founded the Imaginary Gardens Reading Series, which he coordinates and hosts every month.

“James Joyce in Omaha” My first year teaching at UNO, I gave an exam in my fiction course.

One of the students, a little below a B so far, chose Joyce’s “The Dead” for his test topic, the lyrical force of the ending, its melancholy awe: “It would put your mind in a wonder,” he said.

I found my vocation in Omaha.

FEATURE // POETRY

JAMES SOLHEIM

SARAH VOSS

RICHARD DAVID WYATT

Bio: Solheim is a children’s author with books from Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, Penguin Random House, and other publishers. He gives presentations at schools, conferences, and libraries, with previous programs all across the nation—including Florida, Washington, Minnesota, Alabama, Vermont, Arkansas, and Nebraska. His inspirational Think Big! presentations involve fun-filled activities to help kids aspire to greater futures.

The Wall Street Journal and PBS included his book It’s Disgusting—and We Ate It in their lists of best books for getting boys to read. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he has taught writing at Southern Illinois University, Northwest Missouri State, and Washington University in St. Louis. He is also active in Omaha’s folk music and dance community.

Bio: Voss, a retired Unitarian Universalist minister, currently serves as a contract chaplain at Methodist Hospital and is a state family-plan mediator. Her first chapbook of poems—Possum, Beaver, Lion: Variants— was released in October 2017. A mother, grandmother, and step-great-grandmother, she lives in an old Omaha farmhouse with biochemist-spouse Dan Sullivan and two cats, Orange and Gravy. In an earlier career, Voss taught math at UNO and then was the math program director at the College of St. Mary.

She carried math into her ministry. Her doctoral dissertation eventually turned into What Number Is God? (SUNY, 1995) and she has since published and lectured extensively about the relationship between religion and math/ science. She’s now working on a collection of essays based on metaphors drawn from math, i.e., “mathaphors.” One such essay—“The Miraculous in Number(s)”—can be found in the summer 2018 edition of Parabola: The Search for Meaning.

Bio: Wyatt was an associate editor of The Backwaters Press for 15 years. He retired from UNO’s Criss Library in 2016, after 20 years.

He has published poems in publications such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Christian Science Monitor, Poetry, Southern Indiana Review, and The Midwest Quarterly. A book of poems, Gathering Place, was published by WSC Press in 2016. Born in California, Wyatt has lived in Omaha for 30 years, having earned a BFA in creative writing from UNO in 1977. He has also lived for stretches of time in Oregon, Illinois, and Long Island, New York. But Omaha, on the edge of the “sea that once solved the whole loneliness of the Midwest” (to borrow the words of James Wright) has been his “true home.”

“Winter’s First Note” (A triple haiku about the after-concert air outside the Holland Center) After Beethoven, the cool loose noise of night wraps us with Omaha’s last fall snap. Feels like the pond wind’s chilled just for us.

Whirling from on high, one flake, light enough to float, dimples the water.

A touch and it’s gone.

“The Gravel Road” where else can you live as close to a gravel road as the one framing the farm of my midwestern youth yet still be smack in the midst of a city filled with arts music, math, metaphor poetry, philanthropy, pride pleasure prayer

“Sunset” What the crow flies toward isn’t important—rather his shadow, ever-present, the sky, too, afraid it won’t have enough stars.

FREDRICK ZYDEK

(May 18, 1938—May 6, 2016) Bio: Zydek was the author of eight collections of poems, a biography of Charles Tase Russell, Learning the Way of Coyote (a novel), and numerous articles, reviews, and essays published in a wide variety of religious, commercial and educational journals. He published over 1,000 poems in literary magazines. Born and raised in the Northwest, he taught at UNO and later at the College of Saint Mary. When retired, he divided his time between home in Omaha, from which he edited Lone Willow Press, and a small working farm near Brunswick, Nebraska.

Fredrick passed away May 6, 2016.

Other Omaha poets published in Nebraska Presence include: • Paul Dickey • Art Homer • Bruce Koberg • Clif Mason • Sally Molini • Ernst Niemann Visit thebackwaterspress.com for more information about Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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From left: Michelle Troxclair and mentee Cory Chiles

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FEATURE // POETRY

DIVERSITY ON STAGE

in Omaha’s Poetry Scene FEATURE // STORY BY ELIZABETH KOTTICH // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

ROSES ARE RED. Violets are blue.

American poetry publications have a diversity problem. It’s true in Nebraska, too.

spoken mediums of poetry. “And my role in this is to try to open up these silos and cross-pollinate.”

It’s easy to assume that Omaha’s published poets are predominantly white people. After all, the anthology of poetry selected for the 2018 One Book One Nebraska (Nebraska Presence), does not feature a single AfricanAmerican poet.

She explains that spoken-word poetry comes out of the African-American oral traditions. Slam poetry incorporates influences of spoken-word poetry along with hip-hop (another artistic form rooted in the African-American experience).

But looking only at “published” work can be misleading.

Spoken-word and slam poetry are both performed. But the competitive form of slam poetry is more like a poetry recital combined with a rap battle and judges taking score.

Omaha’s poetry scene is incredibly diverse.

Anyone who has attended one of the myriad competitive poetry slams or open mic nights recurring throughout Omaha—featuring local poets from across the spectrum of ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual orientation/identity—already knows this.

Zedeka Poindexter and Michelle Troxclair know all too well about the struggle for representation in Nebraska’s poetry scene.

Poindexter and Troxclair are both leading voices in the local poetry community. These African-American women are dedicated to building an inclusive environment for spoken-word and slam poetry in Omaha.

Troxclair is the board president of Verse Inc. (a nonprofit dedicated to making “poetry exciting and relevant for future generations through innovative projects and unconventional collaboration” with consultative and financial assistance for local poets), and she is the founder of The Wordsmiths (a local spoken-word poetry troupe).

She also organizes an open mic night, Tapestries, with the goal of bridging the racial, cultural, geographic, and age divisions in the local poetry community. Tapestries takes place on the first Sunday of every month at The Omaha Lounge (1505 Farnam St.) “We all kind of function in these silos,” Troxclair says, commenting on the divisions that she has noticed among local poets and between those working in written vs.

Poindexter has served as an ambassador for Omaha through her involvement with Omaha Poetry Slam. Representing Omaha on the national stage is a point of pride for her.

“We’ve been respected as consistently good writers, which is the thing that I love,” says Poindexter, who was the first female Omaha Slam Champion and twice named Poet of the Year at the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards.

Poindexter has traveled across the country to read her poetry and perform in poetry slams (including the National Poetry Slam).

In Omaha, she has worked closely with fellow slam poetry organizers (including Matt Mason, director of the Nebraska Writers Collective and founder of the Great Plains chapter of Louder Than a Bomb) to help support new voices on the scene, such as Olivia Johnson, Shanketta Newsom, and Ryan Boyland.

The regional youth slam poetry chapter now encompasses teams pulling from more than 40 schools. Poindexter is thrilled to see students who were exposed to slam poetry through Louder Than a Bomb and other programs now coming back to work in the Omaha poetry community and compete at the National Poetry Slam.

Troxclair’s work with Verse and other poetry initiatives function in concert with the efforts of Nebraska Writers Collective, providing opportunities for teens and young adults to take their poems to the next level.

“We provide opportunities for poets to do these really innovative projects,” Troxclair says.

Located at 2205 N. 24th St., Verse not only allows local poets, young and old, to perform original poems and develop their writing through Tapestries, it also provides a space for collaborations between poets, spoken-word artists, rappers, and other vocal or musical artists. Previous collaborative partners have included local artists Lite Pole, Edem, Kiara Walker, and Marcey Yates.

The crew at Verse also puts on verse plays (theatrical productions consisting primarily of spoken-word poetry or monologues).

Casting for Troxclair’s play From the Ashes is scheduled for Jan. 15-Feb. 15, and Verse accepts submissions twice a year (Dec. 31 and July 31).

Verse is also developing curriculum for the Nebraska Writers Collective to use in work with the Douglas County Youth Correctional facility, and Troxclair is teaching spoken-word poetry at North High School through FLIYE Arts Youth Development.

Poindexter and Troxclair emphasize that supporting local poets—whether through financial donations or through attendance at open mics, competitions, and other events—should be a priority for the Omaha community.

“How will we be remembered,” Troxclair wonders aloud, “if we do not support our poets and our storytellers and our artists?”

Visit newriters.org for more information about the Nebraska Writers Collective.

Visit verseinc.org for more information about Verse and Tapestries.

Visit ltabgreatplains.org for more information about Louder Than a Bomb Great Plains.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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“We celebrate Día de los Muertos,” Viviana exclaims. “On that day, we remember Grandma Lucy. We don’t want to forget her. She was an important part of our lives.”

Monica Mora-Handlos and daughter Viviana Handlos // 54 // NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

GEN O // STORY BY JOSEFINA LOZA WELLS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

A 5-YEAR-OLD’S TRIBUTE TO GRANDMA EVERY YEAR IN late October, Viviana

Handlos’ home transforms into a place of honor, respect, and celebration for the dead.

In the middle of the foyer sits a table adorned with skulls, photographs, dancing skeletons, tissue-paper flowers, and candles among other cherished mementos.

of Avalor episode titled “A Day to Remember” aired on the Disney Junior TV channel. Both were instrumental in the family deciding to create their first ofrenda (Spanish for “altar”).

For three years now, the doe-eyed 5-year-old has created the elaborate three-tiered altar with her mother, Monica Mora-Handlos. She takes as much pride in placing Grandma Lucy’s camera and her favorite White Shoulders scent on the altar as she does placing fresh flowers on her grave.

For as long as she can remember, Viviana says she’s tiptoed over gravestones to visit her Grandma Lucy, who died three years ago after a battle with cancer. Her grandmother passed just days before Viviana’s first birthday. But the stories of Grandma’s baking and the mariachi music “Amor Eterno” and “Sin Ti, Usted” that blare from her kitchen make her feel as though she is still with her.

“We celebrate Día de los Muertos,” Viviana exclaims. “On that day, we remember Grandma Lucy. We don’t want to forget her. She was an important part of our lives.”

Death is sometimes a subject American families try to bury. But Viviana embraces her family’s traditional custom of celebrating the lives of bygone family members.

As Viviana creates her altar in the foyer, she places little things on the tiers that were specific to Grandma: the things she liked to do (like snap photos) and the food she loved to bake (like cake and banana bread). Creating the altar gives time for the family to reflect and really remember her.

Her parents have taught Viviana to realize that life and death are part of our shared human experience, and that acknowledging the beauty in death gives us a deeper appreciation for the living.

Incredible family stories unravel about deceased relatives when her parents talk about the family members in the photos on the ofrenda. Life is fleeting, but for a moment or so these little talks create the opportunity to really bring loved ones’ spirits back.

Día de los Muertos—Day of the Dead— gives Viviana a sense of deep-rooted cultural belonging as she honors her loved ones and Latino ancestors. But rather than dwell on her sorrow, Viviana is taught to celebrate life in the face of inevitable death.

Día de los Muertos is a 3,000-year-old Mexican ritual, with roots in Aztec culture and Catholic traditions. In the United States, observations start on Oct. 31 and continue through All Soul’s Day on Nov. 2. Unlike Halloween, which is more of a costume-inspired, candy-driven party, Día de los Muertos is about making meaningful actions.

In recent years, Day of the Dead celebrations have taken some regions of the country by storm. These beautiful, sometimes largerthan-life commemorations have inspired celebrations across the Southwest of the United States, while films such as Coco and countless bilingual children’s books have also highlighted this Latin American custom.

In fact, Viviana’s mom found a Día de los Muertos children’s book at her local library, which sparked the tradition for her family.

About the same time, Viviana says, an Elena

Creating poems and pictures is a form of healing that often allows the children to come to terms with death. In Viviana’s case, she’s come to memorialize Grandma Lucy in song. Every first of November—on the Day of the Dead—the Handlos family (including father David and little brother Gabriel, 2) visits the cemetery to clean relative’s graves and pay tribute to departed loved ones. It’s also the special time when Viv sings to her grandmother.

“It definitely means a lot to share about Mom, but to also include Viv,” Mora-Handlos says.

The kind of blow death has on a person’s heart hurts at any age, and Día de los Muertos offers Viviana’s mother an opportunity to soften the sorrow with the occasion for discussing death and making sure the youngster understands its place in natural life.

In Latino culture, how people say goodbye to and honor the dead matters as much as— if not more than—the death itself. People across Mexico clean relatives’ graves and decorate them with bright papel picado (colorful paper banners), flowers (typically marigolds), candles, and things the deceased loved in life (food, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco are common). In many Latin American nations, people stay overnight in the cemetery and hold a vigil at their loved one’s graves.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

Although Día de los Muertos focuses on death and honoring those who have passed away, integrating a sense of humor and lightheartedness is essential to celebrating the holiday in its true fashion.

It’s not something dark and frightening, Viviana says. Día de los Muertos is largely about laughing in the face of death—as seen in the decorative skulls and well-dressed skeletons, or calaveras (“skulls”), which are often depicted dancing or playing music. The sort of joyous flavor you get with music and humor.

Consequently, death only wins when you’re filled with sorrow…or worse, you forget.

For more information about Day of the Dead in Omaha, El Museo Latino hosts a related museum exhibition in the fall. Visit elmuseolatino.org to learn more.

ADVENTURE // STORY BY LISA LUKECART // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

Gary P etit ’s

wild kingdom adventure comes with the territory

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

The Wildlife Safari Park’s Cheetah Breeding Center is closed to the general public. // 58 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// ADVENTURE //

in the aftermath of

hurricane katrina, Gary Petit rolled toward New Orleans with one pressing concern on his mind. The cats.

The hurricane had made landfall weeks prior, but New Orleans remained devastated with access restrictions in place. Extinguished city lights plunged the once-bright metropolis into eerie darkness.

Petit knew it would be difficult getting in and out of the city. But he had to evacuate the big cats from the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center.

He stopped at a blockade on the outskirts of town. “Where’s your permit?” a police officer asked in a heavy Brooklyn accent.

Petit knew it would take months to get a permit. The cats didn’t have a month.

After a whole lot of convincing, the cop acquiesced, “Go ahead. Get out of my sight.”

The Nebraskan convoy to rescue African cats trudged onward. Petit led with a heavy-duty animal transport vehicle following. They relied on GPS as the storm had wiped out street signs. They drove past a sign warning, “We shoot looters,” boats on the interstate, and destroyed buildings.

Finally, Petit and his crew of two other men arrived at the Audubon Center. With forecasts of another storm on the horizon, they needed to act quickly. He sedated the African wildcats and lions, performed physicals, and crated them.

Loaded down with exotic wildlife, their vehicles departed the decimated city at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile, caravans of military and emergency vehicles barreled past.

“I never got flipped off more,” Petit recalls with a laugh.

In the end, it paid off. The lions had a new home at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, while the wildcats roamed at the Wildlife Safari Park in Ashland.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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Gary Pettit holds a screech owl in a restricted-access portion of the Wildlife Safari Park. // 60 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// ADVENTURE //

“Working with animals is always an adventure,” says Petit, superintendent of the Lee G. Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari (located in Ashland). He has overseen the 440-acre enclosure since it first opened in 1998.

Petit, 53, landed his first job at the Omaha Zoo right out of college in 1988. He earned his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology, but his plan of becoming a game warden with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed after applying at the zoo. He found his passion.

Petit even fell in love on the job, meeting his now-wife, Linda. (She still works at the zoo, too, as supervisor of the dietary kitchen for feeding animals.)

Petit worked as a keeper specializing in birds, cats, ferrets, and bears. He learned animals can be unpredictable. How do keepers have the courage to work with lions who weigh between 265 and 420 pounds?

“We don’t,” Petit says, chuckling.

It is always wise to keep a close eye out for any giraffes who might be in the mood to play a little joke, he adds. Petit has firsthand knowledge of this after one snuck up behind him to kick him into a pool of water while he was giving a talk in front of hundreds of people.

Ten years later, the zoo planned to open the Ashland conservation and safari park. Petit jumped at the chance to be involved since he understood land management from his previous work with the Nebraska Forest Service.

The park formed under his rough callused hands—with help from a small crew of colleagues, “his rocks.” Petit built roads, cut down trees, and bulldozed. He continued working part-time with the bird crew at the zoo until he earned a permanent spot as the safari park’s superintendent.

The scene might be familiar to human users of dating apps like Tinder. A male will walk down “lover’s lane” to meet a female, Petit says. She gets to decide to swipe right (by purring or rolling on her back) or left (with defensive body language). This way, cheetahs have a lot of options in the dating pool. Plus, it doesn’t waste an entire year of breeding season. The formula has proven successful, with the rural Nebraskan park producing 90 percent of the cheetahs in North America.

Construction has already started for on-site lion breeding, which should be finished by the end of 2018.

Another portion of the safari park off-limits to the general public is reserved for veterinary care for raptors. No, not the dinosaur variety—hawks, owls, and bald eagles.

Most of the animals are trained to walk next to the fence into a tube so it is easier to administer shots—which is much easier on them than knocking them out.

The safari park’s conservation mission is part retirement home as well. Two female cheetahs hang out together in one cage. Tearmark, the oldest cheetah in North America at 17, paces the floor (a mixture of compost so it is easier on the joints). She flashes her teeth and shows off her tawny, black-spotted coat.

Her companion, 13-year-old Sukari, observes with her amber eyes from the shadows during a hot summer day.

Slumbering in another part of the park is a 500-pound black bear named Starsky. He grew up on garbage and was confiscated from a private individual who had him illegally in eastern Nebraska. Because of illness, he is blind.

Petit built his house right in the safari park with support from his wife. Their three kids grew up playing ball in the parking lot. Petit drinks his morning coffee while watching wild elk at sunrise.

It became apparent the zoo would need someone at the growing park 24/7. Petit would get calls in the middle of the night to check out an “elk” hit by the side of the road, only to learn it was a deer. Or someone needed to bottle-feed the babies.

So, Petit built his house right in the safari park with support from his wife. Their three kids grew up playing ball in the parking lot. Petit drinks his morning coffee while watching wild elk at sunrise. His “backyard” is full of critters.

“I don’t have a typical day,” Petit explains.

Petit builds fences or assists his employees with the animals. During a drive around the park, he waves to visitors. When Petit stops to chat, he shares stories about the animals as if they were members of his family. After all, they are. continued on pg. 81

After opening, half of the park transformed into a North American drive-thru where people could see wolves, bears, and bison roaming the tall grasses of the prairie.

At first, the Ashland acreage was not meant to be open to the public. It was for research, conservation, and breeding—a quiet spot with little human contact, conducive for resident animals trying to get busy.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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// FASHION // STORY BY CARIELLE SEDERSTEN // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

JUANTIESHA CHRISTIAN IS a self-taught

“I would love for women with different styles and body types to have at least one statement piece of mine,” Christian says. “Whether they have more of a gothic style, or more of a preppy look, or a glam look. There’s a little bit of something for everyone, even if it’s not their everyday wardrobe.”

fashion designer. She does not have traditional training. She did not take any classes, and she does not hold a fashion degree. She learned her craft by feeling textiles and examining the stitching on clothes in her closet and in stores.

The realization of her dream to become a fashion designer was based on a feeling.

The feeling started when she was in college making costumes for her sorority pageant at Northwest Missouri State University. In 2009, she showed her first collection at Omaha Fashion Week.

After her collection walked the runway, a woman found Christian backstage and insisted on taking home the green mohair coat Christian designed. The prospective client offered her $400 to sell it.

Seeing people’s reactions coupled with the woman wanting to buy one of her designs gave Christian a new confidence. This was the moment she knew she was ready to go into the fashion industry.

Local artist Nate Gurnon is a family friend of Christian’s whose artwork was incorporated into some of her designs last season.

“I’ve know Tiesha for a long time,” he says.

“I’m truly impressed with her skill, style, dedication, and willingness to push the boundaries—including my prints from Satisfaction Not Guaranteed, which are a little out of the ordinary.”

Just as she learned to design by feeling, Christian still lets the fabric lead her when selecting materials for her collections. She doesn’t sketch. Instead, when she walks into a fabric store, she touches the different fabrics and lets the inspiration take her from there.

Christian’s designs show the history of her growth as a designer—from her very first collection, full of muted green and white dresses; to the later vibrant, Frida Kahloinspired clothing, bold and floral; to her most recent work, an interpretation of what Kahlo might have worn today. It is refined, more adult than earlier pieces, while still having that colorful, statement quality that distinguishes her design aesthetic.

Her ready-to-wear fashion label, SuShe by J. Tracey, is for women who want to stand out in a crowd.

The brand’s name references her middle name (Tracey) and her first experience with sushi.

“It was beautiful and different to me, but I assumed I was not going to like it because it was not my food ‘style,’” she says of sushi.

“Once I tried it, I fell in love with it, and it’s one of my favorite foods.”

Her mission for SuShe by J. Tracey is to create high-quality statement pieces that are affordable and that every woman will feel beautiful wearing.

Christian currently resides in New York City while working full-time as a college academic adviser at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She spends the rest of her time designing new collections and creating custom orders. Her long-term goal is to design full time and eventually have her own store.

Gurnon has no doubt she’ll be able to achieve these goals.

“To make the move to New York from Omaha with a dream of fashion design is unheard of,” he says. “But she has a lot of support from her family and friends in Omaha. She works hard and it shows, her heart is in fashion.”

“I want to be remembered for being a very versatile designer and knowing that fashion can be affordable and that it can be enjoyed by everybody,” Christian says. “I know some people want to be known as the all-natural designer, the cruelty-free designer, the plussize designer, and the vintage designer. I do a little bit of everything.”

Visit sushebyjtracey.com for more information.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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G Goat Yoga Craze?J FEATURE // STORY BY LISA LUKECART // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

HAVE YOU HERD OF THE

S

BE LIKE A KID AGAIN

WITH NONTRADITIONAL Y O G A A N D M E D I TAT I O N

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

// 65 //

2018

M

MEGAN ROTH SITS cross-legged on her mat

in black shorts, a white tank, and a blue baseball hat with the words “Live Simply” etched into the front.

“We know why you are here and it’s not because of me,” Roth announces, a certified yoga instructor with Simplicity Wellness Yoga + More.

Roth begins with gentle neck circles, side stretches, and cat-cow poses.

One participant, Roca, is ignoring all the commands. Instead of downward dog, he unzips a lady’s jacket, pulls it back up, and zips it down again. Up. Down. Roca loses interest and mischievously jumps on someone planking. His bewhiskered mother, Almond, would not approve of the kid’s behavior.

Welcome to yoga with goats and sheep, where four-leggeds and two-leggeds find inner peace together. Or something like that.

Roca’s sister, Joy, seems more concerned with sucking shoelaces, hair, and fingers than nailing a perfect seated twist. Two lambs, Cottontail and Toast, snuggle next to human yoga participants. Freckles begs for some chin scratches. Another little goat lays across someone’s neck like a soft scarf.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Instead of deep breathing, goats bleat and sheep baa from the al fresco “studio,” scented by pine trees and fresh farm air. It’s not a traditional yoga studio. It’s actually the lush pasture at Doe’s & Diva’s Dairy in Honey Creek, Iowa.

Yoga has been touted for its mental, physical, and emotional health benefits. Throw in some farm animals and it is a shot to the endorphins.

“Like triple the endorphins,” Roth says.

This could be why goat yoga is the hottest trend sweeping the nation. Starting in 2016, the format is the brainchild of Oregon’s Lainey Morse, who believed goats turned her depression around. Goat yoga isn’t about sweating it out and going all hardcore, but rather a cuddly mood lifter.

Roth has seen even the most cynical man melt at the sight of the brown, white, and black baby goats looking for a little attention.

“I love seeing how everyone lights up like 5-year-olds at Disney World,” Roth adds.

On a whim, Janna Feldman posted a photo with two baby goats on the Facebook page for Doe’s & Diva’s Dairy in January: “Thinking of offering baby lamb and baby goat yoga sessions.” The online feedback was encouraging, so she began looking into making it a reality.

When Feldman reached out to discuss a collaboration, Roth felt it was a win-win.

Feldman wanted to socialize her kids and ewes, who tended to be leery of humans.

Although bottle fed, they still weren’t used to leaping on a stand for milking. Curiosity almost always takes over the little ones in a pasture with colorful mats and yogis. It’s an easy way to get them accustomed to being handled and touched.

The dairy’s sheep and goat yoga classes began in spring 2018. Independent of the classes at Doe’s & Diva’s, a neighboring dairy in Honey Creek (Honey Creek Creamery) also offered goat yoga classes with five different yoga instructors during the initial spring 2018 season.

Rebekah Lowe, 35, joined a class at Doe’s & Diva’s to get centered in the midst of cuddly baby barnyard animals. But her shy lamb kept escaping back to the owner.

“Half the time I tried to get selfies [with the goats], and the other half I did some yoga,” Lowe says.

The 70-year-old dairy owner, Feldman, believes another benefit is just being outside the city limits. Doe’s & Diva’s is located roughly 20 minutes north of Omaha in western Iowa.

Feldman realized this potential on a stressful day when she just sat in the middle of her pasture. The does (another word for a female goat), her divas (the nickname Feldman uses for the ewes), dog, and cats came up to her one by one to offer comfort.

Even though it was only 10 minutes, she felt ready to take on the world again.

“It’s restorative. It’s peaceful. It’s beautiful,” Feldman says.

FEATURE // GOAT YOGA

The slow-moving rural life fits with mindful workouts like yoga. Feldman hasn’t joined a session yet due to a hip injury, but she stays plenty busy running around making cheese from “her girls.” People can taste the tangy samples once the class is finished (or they can sign up to take a cheese-making class).

Feldman started the dairy farm in 2005 with her husband when they discovered their daughter was lactose intolerant. Now she milks 30 sheep and 18 goats twice a day.

“The cheese is so good. I was very surprised,” Lowe says. Goat and sheep milk contains lactose but is easier for humans to digest than cows’ milk.

The real stars of the hour show are the goats, with their big personalities, and the sweet lambs. People laugh while doing some gentle yoga, close to the ground.

Goats do like to stand on some people, but only weigh about 5-10 pounds, so it feels more like a Swedish massage on the back. And they love to chew on just about anything, but have no top teeth. Sure, some do occasionally urinate on a mat, but it’s all about the experience.

It isn’t for everyone. Classes in April and May coincide with kidding season. Weather could range anywhere from bitterly cold to steamy hot or somewhere in the middle. The cost is $20 for one session at Doe’s & Diva’s.

Chanell Jaramillo, the owner of Transpersonal Health and Simplicity Wellness Yoga + More, grew up around goats on her aunt’s farm. As a child, she saw ornery, older adult goats butting heads.

When the idea came up, Jaramillo “wasn’t super-psyched,” but she had no qualms with the proposed collaboration so long as Roth led the classes.

Jaramillo opened her studio in January, only a few months before Doe’s and Diva’s inquired about goat yoga. Then, after the success of the dairy sessions, the Florence Home Healthcare Center reached out to discuss a fundraiser for launching an adaptive yoga program at the senior facility.

Jaramillo, who has a Ph.D. in psychology (her dissertation examined yoga as a healing modality for individuals with autoimmune diseases), noticed no one in town was offering adaptive yoga. She started by partnering with Quality Living Inc. to help rehabilitation patients recover from spinal injuries in 2014.

Repetitive motions and rhythms allow those with brain injuries or those confined to small spaces to be present in the moment, to expand and breathe. She figured that such an adaptive program would help upgrade services at the Florence Home for seniors who had cardio and pulmonary issues, dementia, or limited mobility.

Incorporating the goats into a fundraiser yoga session at the Florence Home helped provide the financing to get the center’s new yoga program up and running.

Roth, the goat yoga instructor/advocate on Jaramillo’s team, was out of town the day of the fundraiser (May 23). So Jaramillo had to take on herding duties.

WHEN FELDMAN REACHED OUT TO DISCUSS A C O L L A B O R AT I O N , ROT H F E L T I T WA S A W I N - W I N .

F E L D M A N WA N T E D T O SOCIALIZE HER KIDS AND EWES, WHO TENDED TO BE LEERY OF HUMANS. With help from Priscilla Russell, another yoga instructor, Jaramillo took two baby goats and a lamb over to the Florence Home in dog crates on a hot and humid day. About 60 people came out with mats or towels for two 30-minute sessions, raising about $500.

Since then, adaptive yoga has become part of the Florence Home’s regular schedule for one hour every week, helping participants with anxiety and mood.

Goats were just there for the initial fundraiser to generate public interest; however, Jaramillo says they will be bringing baby goats back to the facility in April 2019 when the kids are still tiny.

She is passionate about teaching anyone yoga, but she sees something special in nuzzle-friendly goat yoga classes.

“The reaction is always the same,” Jaramillo says. “Pure joy.”

Visit doesanddivas.com for more information about the Iowa dairy hosting goat yoga in the spring.

Visit omahaseniorcare.org/florence-home-healthcare-center for more information about the Florence Home.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 67 //

HISTORY // STORY BY RYAN ROENFELD // ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

Nebraska Territory’s Two-Day Governor

FRANCIS BURT THERE WAS MUCH excitement in October

1854 as the Nebraska pioneers eagerly awaited Francis Burt, the new territory’s first governor. Th at hope was felt most in Bellevue. After all, according to the Nebraska Palladium newspaper, the town of Bellevue was “destined by nature to become the metropolis of learning as well as of legislation and commerce in Nebraska.” Surely, Governor Burt would recognize the obvious.

He’d been appointed by President Franklin Pierce in August after General William Butler of Kentucky turned down the position. Burt was then serving as Th ird Auditor of the Treasury in Washington, D.C., and this seemed another political leap as Nebraska Territory (at that time) stretched from the Missouri River north to Canada and west to what became Idaho.

Burt was a Democrat who had served as South Carolina state legislator and treasurer.

He was also a member of the 1832 nullification convention, nominally a dispute over federal tariff s, but in actuality a defense of slavery and a state’s right to “nullify,” or ignore, federal law.

In the lead-up to Burt’s appointment as territorial governor, local European-American settlers advocated for the cession of Native American land rights. In 1852, Missouri traders gathered at Uniontown in present-day Kansas to agitate for territorial government. Th at year, a Missouri congressman introduced legislation to create the Platte Territory, covering lands west of the Missouri River. Likewise, in 1853, an estimated 150 Iowans ferried across the river to Bellevue to elect Hadley Johnson as their territorial delegate from the still non-existent territory.

Bellevue boosters then truly jumped the gun when (on Feb. 9, 1854) Peter Sarpy, Stephen Decatur, and a host of Iowa speculators organized the Bellevue Town Co. After all, where else would Nebraska’s new metropolis appear other than the main American settlement where fur trade posts first appeared in the 1820s?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act that created two new American territories was signed by Pierce on May 30. The floodgates opened as the 1820 Missouri Compromise was squashed by “squatter sovereignty,” allowing residents of the new territories to decide on the issue of slavery. Around this same time period, the Whig Party self-destructed with mounting North-South tension, the “Know-Nothing” American Party sought to keep the country safe from Catholic hordes of German and Irish immigrants, and “Anti-Nebraskans” coalesced into the Republican Party. Meanwhile, the country marched steadily toward Civil War. It’s also worth noting that treaties ceding eastern Nebraska to the U.S. by the Omaha and Otoe-Missouria Nations were not ratified until June (after already officially establishing the Territory of Nebraska).

Burt’s death marked the end of Bellevue’s ambitions, as Acting Governor Thomas Cuming’s interests in Omaha City soon became clear. Today, the name of Nebraska’s first territorial governor is commemorated

by Omaha’s Burt Street (a sore consolation to those early Bellevue boosters) as well as the state’s Burt County. Bellevue remained part of Douglas County until 1857 when Sarpy County was created (Bellevue served as the county seat of Sarpy County until 1875 when Papillion seized the distinction through election).”

Territorial governors were appointed. State governors are elected. Remember to vote in Nebraska’s gubernatorial election on Nov. 6.

These were heady times that greeted Burt’s arrival at Bellevue on Oct. 6, 1854. But these qualms of mortal men would soon be of little consequence to the rising politician. Burt had fallen ill during his voyage and was too sick to attend the reception held in his honor, where grandiose speeches went on without him. He sought refuge at the Presbyterian Bellevue Mission House, located on what is now the east side of Warren Street between 19th and 20th avenues. That’s where Burt took his oath of office on Oct. 16, and where he died two days later.

Today, the name of Nebraska’s first territorial governor is commemorated by Omaha’s Burt Street (a sore consolation to those early Bellevue boosters) as well as the state’s Burt County. // 68 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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2018

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2018

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2018

The Kimisagara district in Kigali, Rwanda

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

continued from pg. 43 “JUST AS A BODY, THOUGH ONE, HAS MANY PARTS, BUT ALL ITS MANY PARTS FORM ONE BODY, SO IT IS WITH CHRIST. FOR WE WERE ALL BAPTIZED BY ONE SPIRIT SO AS TO FORM ONE BODY—WHETHER JEWS OR GENTILES, SLAVE OR FREE— AND WE WERE ALL GIVEN THE ONE SPIRIT TO DRINK.”

(1 Corinthians 12:12-13) “She told us in passing, ‘Now that I’m at school, I don’t have to do anything for a meal,’” Kara says. James began to probe with questions. “What do you mean?” She explained, “Well, I used to have to work for Antoine.” “What do you mean by work?”

James continued. “I used to have sex, and then I would be able to get deodorant and things like that.”

The career midwife has seen many abused women in clinics. But she had never heard anything like this. “She was just sharing the facts like she was talking about the weather,” Kara says of the candid teenage girl.

Kara began reaching out to local representatives of International Justice Mission and the Rwandan government. “The law in Rwanda is that you need physical evidence of sexual assault crimes, and that was difficult for the girls who were underage,” Kara says. Four of the girls were willing to wear hidden cameras.

But the Imana Kids leadership didn’t feel comfortable asking the girls to let themselves be abused. Before catching her flight home, James hired nannies to look after the younger kids. Kara gave stern instructions to the nannies and the older boys that they should protect the girls.

Meanwhile, Antoine was out recruiting new orphans for the spaces vacated by the children Imana Kids placed in boarding schools. The older orphans were safe in their boarding schools, and Kara only had to worry about them during school holidays or sick days when they were out of their school’s dorms.

Back in the U.S., Kara persistently contacted officials who could close the orphanage.

“We were calling or emailing weekly, but we weren’t getting anywhere,” she says.

The first Imana Kids group trip was part volunteering, part Mission: Impossible. In July 2014, Kara and Ryan led a dozen board members, sponsors, and participants from the prior Visiting Orphans trip that the Higginses had led.

“We had to tell that team what was going on in advance,” Kara says. “The environment was really tense. Antoine had put padlocks on the door, and he had a notification system where they rang a cowbell when cars arrived at the base of the hill. But Antoine still wanted us coming in because he wanted food for the kids, and thought he could get money from us. He didn’t want to lose the relationship with us.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

In between time spent at the Kimisagara orphanage with children, Kara was trying to meet with government officials and aid groups.

One night early in the visit, several Imana Kids board members organized a secret rescue mission to meet four older girls at a Kimisagara gas station. The girls were in beautician trade school and didn’t have a dorm like the boarding school students.

Vulnerable and scared, they wanted out.

James arranged for a safe house with friends in another neighborhood.

The day before leaving Rwanda, Imana Kids rented a soccer field in the valley below the hillside to avoid the mounting tension and fear that pervaded the orphanage. Kids ran and frolicked away from Antoine’s surveillance.

Their group came back to say goodbyes the following day. When Antoine was out, Ferdinand surprised Kara by drawing the deadbolt on the door of the orphanage. He cornered her while other boys kept lookout. They needed privacy to discuss threats facing other girls. He also worried what would happen to everyone if the orphanage was successfully closed. Where would they go?

With their departing flight a few hours away, crying children followed the foreigners down the hillside to their rental bus. Just then, a fleet of expensive cars—shiny black BMWs and other luxury vehicles unusual for Kimisagara—pulled to the side of the road.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

“It was like a movie,” Kara says. “The minister of the Office for Vulnerable Children, who I had been emailing every week since the previous winter—until I gave up in April—walked up to me and asked, ‘Are you karahmidwife@gmail.com? I just got your emails.’”

The government official did not expect to find Imana Kids or Kara there. As the foreigners drove away from the coincidental encounter, authorities marched up the hill and closed the orphanage. It was a success and another crisis at the same time. Orphans scattered from Antoine’s building. Some ran away and were never found. Others were in school and found themselves without a home for the next school break.

James tracked down kids with help from the older orphans. Imana Kids bankrolled a transitional home they called the Sparrows’ Nest (a reference to Psalms 84:3). Kara and Ryan found themselves continuing to take turns on return visits every few months. James found himself the 24-7 custodian for up to 50 kids at once, depending on the time of year.

By 2017, Kara needed more time to focus on Imana Kids every week. She took a second job as a nurse-midwife in the Navy Reserve, a lieutenant position, which allowed extra hours for Imana Kids while working less at OneWorld in Omaha.

The reach of Imana Kids has grown steadily.

By fall 2018, the nonprofit has led 10 groups to Rwanda. They have 173 sponsor kids, including orphans as well as underprivileged children throughout Kigali and nearby communities. Ages range from preschool up to older students in trade schools and universities in Rwanda.

The Higginses refer to all the children from Antoine’s orphanage as the “original Imana Kids,” and they have enjoyed watching them gain confidence and mature into adulthood.

The first of the original Imana Kids got married in summer 2017; Ryan and Kara attended the ceremony in place of his parents.

Cows are a traditional status symbol in Rwanda, and an important feature of wedding ceremonies. Kara and Ryan hired a herdsman to bring the sounds of a herd to the wedding (the actual cows were too expensive, so they paid him to walk through the service carrying a tape recorder with mooing on loop—a cheaper alternative that the herdsman suggested for their budget).

The next major milestone for Imana Kids was to get one of the former street kids into an American university. “For the rest of the world, I think this would legitimize that what we are doing is working, that any kid can succeed,” Kara says. “They just need to be given a fair opportunity.”

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

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(Genesis 17:20) “From the very moment we met Ismail, we thought he could handle a university in America,” Kara says. During the wedding visit, she and Ryan started to lay out the steps that Ismail needed to follow. He had already finished high school and was volunteering for the country’s national service program as a census worker.

After taking the necessary English proficiency exams, Ismail began sending applications to several dozen American universities.

Creighton was always his No. 1 choice. But he tried not to get his hopes up.

His first conditional acceptance to an American university came from Franklin Pierce University, a private school in New Hampshire. He was also accepted to a university in Rwanda, backup if he could not secure a U.S. student visa.

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On the bus, after being unable to complete his first scheduled visa interview appointment at the U.S. embassy in Kigali, Ismail thought it was all over. Luckily, he had a guardian angel keeping tabs with the embassy from halfway around the world.

“I got on the bus and headed back home, feeling very discouraged,” Ismail says. “Then Kara sent me a message telling me to go back: ‘They said that you can meet someone there.’

I told the driver to stop. I was halfway home, so I took the moto [motorcycle taxi] and went back to the embassy.”

It was the middle of the night in the middle of America, but Kara Higgins was following up with the Rwandan U.S. embassy over the phone. She was texting updates back to Ismail in real time, and he followed her instructions.

His motorcycle taxi driver sped through traffic, swerving around honking cars and trucks.

He arrived back at the embassy, but was too late. Closing time. They told him to come back another day. “I was getting a little bit of hope,” Ismail admits with renewed optimism.

He returned the next day, and the embassy gave him an interview (thanks to Kara’s persistent phone calls).

Unfortunately, he still had to wait another week to receive confirmation of whether or not the visa would be approved or rejected.

With the uncertainty hanging over Ismail’s visa hopes, Kara and Ryan embarked on their largest-ever group trip to Rwanda. The 24-person team consisted of board members, family

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FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

relatives, a married couple from Minnesota going to meet their sponsor daughter for the first time, pastors, college girls seeking missionary experience, and strangers from across the country who had only recently learned of Imana Kids on the internet.

Upon arriving in Kigali, the Imana Kids team hopped between boarding schools and preschools. A mountain of suitcases stuffed with crafts, sports equipment, and bible lessons traveled along with them. It was a weeklong, multi-stop vacation bible school for the younger kids (the sort the Higginses’ Visiting Orphans group had intended but were unable to accomplish). Older sponsor kids participated in workshops to build life skills. Every sponsor kid received a care package stuffed with goodies and a letter from their sponsor family.

Ismail’s day of reckoning at the embassy was scheduled for mid-week of the Imana Kids trip. If approved for a visa, Imana Kids would book his airfare to travel back to Omaha with the Higginses.

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Though Ismail was anxious, Kara had no doubts. “Sure, he could be rejected,” Kara says. “But honestly, with every miracle that has happened for Imana Kids, I expected it.

Because every idea and dream we planted, we have been able to watch unfold…although it hasn’t always been on the timeline we were hoping for.”

En route to the embassy with Kara and James, Ismail asked to stop by the old Kimisagara slum. He wanted to say goodbye to his mother. He might not see her again for four or five years, the length of his visa for undergraduate studies.

Ismail led the way, wearing a blue Creighton T-shirt. They trudged up the steep hillside between ramshackle mud structures. Her home sat just above the old orphanage.

Antoine was still in the neighborhood, James says, but he remains under surveillance.

Entering inside the mud-walled home, Kara met Ismail’s mother for the first time. She thanked Kara and James, praising God, for everything they have done for her son. Tears poured down the face of Ismail’s mother.

The minutes slipped away, and suddenly it was almost time for Ismail’s embassy appointment.

If he received the visa, he told his mother, he would be leaving for a place called Nebraska.

He might not see her for several years. Then he was off, back down the hillside with Kara and James to discover his fate.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

* * * * * Their van speeds back to central Kigali for the appointment. A crowd of people hover outside the embassy’s entryway. When an

FEATURE // HEARD BY GOD

officer announces names for appointments, Kara pushes Ismail him to the start of the line.

An hour passes. Some of the people in line with Ismail begin exiting the embassy. Ismail was one of the first in, but he is one of the last to exit. Finally, he steps outside with a wide grin on his face. He’s holding a passport in his hand with the fresh visa page open. Kara screams and rushes to give him a big hug.

When they meet back with the rest of the Imana Kids team at a local boarding school, everyone swarms around Ismail offering congratulations.

Kara and Ryan’s checklist for Imana Kids is making progress: Ismail’s miracle. Check.

The next miracle on the agenda? Hope Village (a purpose-built, trauma-informed school, church, and foster care village in Bugesera, an hour south of Kigali). Imana Kids has already purchased the piece of land, which is empty except for bushes and wildflowers.

Construction is slated to begin in July 2019 with help from Omaha-based Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture.

They take the team to Bugesera to bless the land, joined by all the original Imana Kids from Antoine’s orphanage. Everyone forms a circle, holding hands. James offers a prayer. The Americans and former street kids sing, dance, and pray until the sun comes down. Just before sunset, a herdsman pushes a herd of cattle over the property past the revelries. Cows moo along with the singing voices.

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“We’ve seen too many coincidences for them to be mere coincidence,” Ryan says. Ismail says the cows are a sign of good luck.

Ismail’s brothers and sisters from the orphanage join the following day at the Kigali airport to say farewell.

On an airplane for the first time, he buckles in for a long haul—more than 28 hours with layovers in Burundi, Ethiopia, Ireland, and Washington, D.C. Many passengers try to sleep the time away. Not Ismail. He’s too excited to sleep.

At Dulles International Airport, he tastes his first American hamburger and samples sushi for the first time.

His final connecting flight lands at Omaha Eppley Airfield in the afternoon of July 21. There is a crowd waiting to greet him with balloons.

Ismail walks into his new life like a dream— and prayer—come true.

The spring gala for Imana Kids—“Love One Child”—will feature a film screening and international speakers over three days, March 21-23.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 77 //

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// 78 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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// SPORTS //

continued from pg. 45 “Father Schlegel said, ‘Build me a soccer stadium. We want an iconic building to define the new eastern borders of our campus. I’ll pick the facade because I want it to reflect how the rest of the campus will look,’” Warming recalls. “Think about that. Where else has a soccer stadium determined what the rest of the campus would look like?”

The result, Morrison Stadium, has become a jewel of north downtown.

THANK YOU

Warming’s CU and Penn State teams contended for conference and national titles.

Now that he’s back in Omaha, he looks to take fledgling UNO soccer to its first NCAA playoff berth and create a powerhouse like the one he did down the street.

Back in Omaha again, he organized “the largest free coaching clinic in the country” at UNO in August. Some 200 coaches from around the nation attended, including 150 from Nebraska. Tweets about the event surpassed two million impressions.

“The selfish reason I did it was I want to kickstart this program into something, and to take soccer in Nebraska to the next level,” he says.

“We have to get better.”

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In the full circle way his life runs, he feels right at home at UNO, where hundreds of students, including international students, get a free education. “We are the school of the people,” he says.

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His methods today are different than when he last coached in Omaha.

“If you really want to train people, you have to get them in the mood to train using all the different modalities—texting, tweeting, playlists, video—available to us now,” he says. “You cannot coach, you cannot lead, you cannot do anything the way people did it years ago. You won’t be successful. The why is so important in terms of explaining things and building consensus and getting people involved to where they say, yeah, we want to do this together.”

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Meanwhile, he’s busily stocking his roster with players from around the globe—including France, Spain, and Trinidad and Tobago— with many more players from Omaha and around the Midwest.

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Wherever he’s landed as a coach, it’s the new challenge that motivates him. No different at UNO. “One hundred percent,” he says. “I love it.”

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// 79 //

Lei has been with Streck for nearly 25 years.

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// ADVENTURE //

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continued from pg. 61

During a drive around the park, he waves to visitors.

When Petit stops to chat, he shares stories about the animals as if they were members of his family.

White pelicans (who love to block traffic) are a recurring nemesis for the keepers of the safari park. As soon as the flock hears the four-wheeler coming, they waddle over to the side. Petit then points out some freeloading geese who stopped by to enjoy the wetlands.

He has to watch for animals who try to sneak into the park. Amorous bachelor elk traveling down the Platte River Valley are not welcome rivals for the resident males.

Neither are unexpected human visitors.

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At night, along with his trusty terrier sidekick, Cooper, Petit rides his four-wheeler to ensure everything is running smoothly.

On such a frosty winter morning years ago, Petit took his spotlight out to check out the animals. He could hear someone faintly calling out from a remote part of the park. Petit flashed the light on a man who was hanging upside down, pants down, with no shoes on. The man, obviously on drugs, told Petit he had been sleeping with the ostriches. Although it keeps him on his toes, Petit wouldn’t change his “ranchstyle” life.

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“This fits me. The wide open space, sharing it with my family, it’s a wonderful place,” Petit says.

After a long day out in his wild office, Petit loves to sit around the fire pit with his wife at night. Wolves howl, cranes call, and elks bugle in the distance. Cooper paces back and forth. He barks back, reminding them all who the real superintendent of the park is.

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// 81 //

GIVING FEATURE // STORY BY LINDA PERSIGEHL // PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

TIFFANY LE COLST’S

M I S S I O N AT TO GE T H ER ONCE A MONTH, Tiffany Le Colst teaches

Mediation is another aspect of Le Colst’s liaison position. “A lot of times, clients have barriers to attaining housing, such as having a felony record or a prior eviction debt that needs to be paid off. We evaluate what they’ve been denied for, then deal with the issue or get an appeal process going in hopes that they’ll be approved and can move in.”

RentWise, an eight-hour class that educates new renters about the responsibilities of being good tenants.

She also mediates between landlord and tenant when a problem arises, helping to find a mutually agreeable solution and avoid eviction.

“We go over scenarios that might come up and help clients decide how to best handle them.

We ask, ‘Do you take the issue to the landlord?

Do you deal with your neighbor directly? Or do you rectify the problem yourself?’”

Le Colst makes great effort to treat her homeless clients with dignity and respect, without judgment, and to help them find the resources they need to get on their feet.

For example: “Say there’s a music disturbance.

We’d recommend they first approach their neighbor calmly about their concerns and try to come to an agreement. Ultimately, we want clients to build relationships with their neighbors and landlords so that they can keep their rental housing,” Le Colst says.

Her classes also teach renters their rights. “We make clients aware of what discrimination looks like, for example, and what to do if they find they are being discriminated against,” she says.

Le Colst’s role as teacher is one of her many duties as a landlord liaison for Together, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness in the Omaha community. The organization was founded in 1975 to help the hundreds of Omaha tornado victims left without food and shelter. Today, it provides case management, financial assistance, employment assistance, financial education, and other resources to nearly 22,000 individuals and families struggling with housing each year.

According to the Open Door Mission, approximately 2,000 people are homeless in Omaha every night.

Le Colst’s primary objective is to help the homeless find and maintain affordable, safe housing through Together’s Horizons program. She spends much of her time conducting housing inspections on properties before her clients sign a lease. “Typically, I’m checking for proper ventilation systems in kitchens and baths, making sure smoke detectors are operational, looking for signs of pest infestations, and ensuring electrical outlets are working.”

But not all landlords want inspections done on their properties. Sometimes, she must explain to them, “I do inspections to make sure normal maintenance on the property is done and meets the health and safety regulations to make a home habitable.”

// 82 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

“IT’S ESPECIALLY REWARDING WHEN YOU HAVE SOMEONE HOMELESS FOR 20-PLUS YEARS WALK INTO THEIR OWN APARTMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME.” - TIFFANY LE COLST “People are homeless for many reasons,” she says. “Some are on a fixed income.

For those clients, I try to mediate the cost of housing and get them connected with other resources like SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]. Others can’t work because of a disability, and I help them connect with SSI [Supplemental Security Income] or other forms of income to help.

Still others are fully capable of working, and we work with an employment specialist to determine their interests and what they’re physically capable of doing and help them find a job. Each case is different.”

Le Colst, who was born in Omaha, grew up in Texas in a military family. She moved back in 2006, earned a real estate certificate, and started a career in property management, working with Seldin Co., Lund Co., and Habitat for Humanity of Omaha before joining Together in December 2016.

“I realized I wanted to do more in the housing industry, and I have a heart for helping people,” she says. “Working closely with landlords while being able to help homeless individuals and families find a safe place to call home is truly the most rewarding job ever!”

Le Colst says her work is often made more challenging by economic factors, such as the subprime mortgage crisis of the past decade.

Many people who lost their homes in the crisis have now become renters, Le Colst explains.

“With these more stable families, landlords are comfortable with raising rents and rental standards, which is now pushing low-income families into the shelters. There just is not enough affordable housing in our community to meet the need.”

Property management companies in Omaha typically set renter income requirements at three to four times the amount of rent, Le Colst says, while the average rent increase is three percent annually. These factors create more barriers for fixed- or zero-income clients, such as those on Social Security, she adds.

Jessica Jones, program director at Together, believes Le Colst is doing great work to meet these challenges and further Together’s mission. “When I hired Tiffany as landlord liaison, the position was brand-new,” Jones says. “With her hard work and professional yet personable demeanor, Tiffany has grown her position to be much more than originally designed. She has grown Together’s landlord base, recruiting over 20 new landlords in 2017. She explains our Horizons program to landlords and breaks down stereotypes of homeless individuals. She advocates for our clients, while also keeping the landlords’ needs and rights at the forefront.”

Jones is optimistic that Le Colst’s efforts will pay off going forward. “It’s our hope that landlords will volunteer to come talk with the [RentWise] class, and will accept the class certificate from our clients in lieu of good credit or references, giving them another chance.”

Le Colst has another goal in mind: setting up a landlord mitigation fund. “The funds would provide financial assurances for landlords concerned about additional risks related to damaged property, non-payment of rent, or eviction costs,” she says. “These funds could be accessed to cover expenses that exceed a tenant’s security deposit.”

This insurance policy of sorts would likely bring more landlords on board and offer housing options for those facing the greatest housing barriers, Le Colst adds.

“It’s especially rewarding when you have someone homeless for 20-plus years walk into their own apartment for the first time…It’s a profound moment,” she says. “You realize they do want a special place they can call home.

They’re no different than the rest of us.”

Visit togetheromaha.org for more information.

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GIVING

CALENDAR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2 0 1 8

Nov. 1 (starts at 8:30 a.m.)

12TH ANNUAL NONPROFIT SUMMIT OF THE MIDLANDS Benefiting: Nonprofit Association of the Midlands Location: Embassy Suites-La Vista Conference Center

Nov. 2 (6-9 p.m.)

VISION BEYOND SIGHT

Benefiting: Outlook Nebraska Location: Embassy Suites-La Vista —outlookne.org

Nov.

02

—nonprofitam.org

Nov. 1 (6-9 p.m.)

TOAST TO DR. STEPHANIE AND JACK KORALESKI Benefiting: Merrymakers Location: Omaha Design Center —merrymakers.org

Nov. 2 (8 a.m.-3 p.m.)

NEBRASKA LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION CONFERENCE

Benefiting: Nebraska Hispanic Chamber Foundation Location: Embassy Suites-La Vista — nhldiconference.com

A TRUSTED TEAM FOR COMPLETE HEART HEALTH At Methodist, our team of cardiac experts helps improve the lives of patients and their families thanks to our comprehensive approach to preventing and treating cardiovascular disease. With our nationally recognized emergency response times, certified diagnostic centers, advanced technology and leading-edge rehabilitation services, we’ve earned the trust of families by helping our patients lead healthier lives. That’s the kind of care you deserve, and it’s what you can expect from those of us who wear the Methodist badge. bestcare.org

©2018 Methodist Health System

// 84 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Nov. 2 (6-8:30 p.m.)

LET’S GROW HERE GALA

Benefiting: Big Muddy Urban Farm

Location: Creighton University Harper Ballroom

—bigmuddyurbanfarm.org

Nov. 2 (6-9 p.m.)

THIRD ANNUAL DINNER & AUCTION Benefiting: p4:13 Ministries Location: Embassy Suites Downtown Omaha —p413ministries.org

Nov. 2 (6:30-9 p.m.)

BIG RED BLOCK PARTY

Benefiting: Junior League of Omaha Location: Scott Conference Center —jlomaha.org

Nov. 3 (6-11 p.m.)

2018 CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL & MEDICAL CENTER GALA

Benefiting: Children’s Hospital & Medical Center Foundation Location: CHI Health Center Omaha —childrensfoundationomaha.org

Nov. 4 (noon-4 p.m.)

HONEY SUNDAY

Benefiting: Ollie Webb Center, Inc. Location: multiple locations —olliewebbinc.org

Nov. 7 (4-10 p.m.)

2018 CHRISTMAS CARAVAN PREVIEW GALA Benefiting: Assistance League of Omaha Location: Champions Run Country Club —alomaha.org

Nov. 8 (10 a.m.-8 p.m.)

2018 CHRISTMAS CARAVAN TOUR OF HOMES Benefiting: Assistance League of Omaha Location: Various homes in Omaha —alomaha.org

Nov. 8 (5:30-9:30 p.m.)

ONEWORLD 2018 MILAGRO DINNER

Benefiting: OneWorld Community Health Centers Location: Hilton Omaha —oneworldomaha.org

Nov. 8 (5-8:30 p.m.)

SALUTE TO VETERANS DINNER

Benefiting: La Vista Community Foundation Location: Embassy Suites-La Vista —lavistacommunityfoundation.com

Nov. 8 (6-10 p.m.)

THE JASON AWARDS

Benefiting: Children’s Square USA Location: Mid-America Center, Council Bluffs

Nov. 10 (7-11:30 p.m.)

Nov. 16 (6 p.m.)

Benefiting: The John Atkinson Lun Cancer Foundation Location: St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church hall

Benefiting: The Durham Museum Location: The Durham Museum

ROCK TO RAISE

—johnatkinsonfoundation.org

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY: WITH HONOR —durhammuseum.org

—childrenssquare.org

Nov. 8 (5:30-7 p.m.)

TREE OF LIGHTS CAMPAIGN KICKOFF

Benefiting: Salvation Army Location: American National Bank, 90th and Dodge streets —salarmyomaha.org

Nov. 9 (5-8 p.m.)

PATRON PARTY FOR HISTORIC HOME TOUR AND BOUTIQUE Benefiting: Joslyn Castle Location: Joslyn Castle —joslyncastle.org

Nov. 10 (8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

HOOPS 4 LIFE 3 ON 3 BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

Benefiting: Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition Location: NorthStar Foundation campus —somsne.com

Nov. 10-11 (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday)

HISTORIC HOME TOUR AND BOUTIQUE Benefiting: Joslyn Castle Location: Various locations —joslyncastle.com

Nov. 15 (5-9 p.m.)

NURSE OF THE YEAR AWARDS Benefiting: March of Dimes Location: Hilton Omaha

—nurseoftheyear.marchofdimes.org

Nov. 15 (6-9 p.m.)

Nov. 17 (8 p.m .-midnight)

Benefiting: Heartland Family Service Location: Happy Hollow Club

Benef iting: Nebraska A IDS Project Location: Oma ha Design Center

SALUTE TO FAMILIES

—heartlandfamilyservice.org

NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS —nap.org

Nov. 17-24 (hours vary)

FEZTIVAL OF TREES

Benefiting: Tangier Shrine Center Location: Tangier Shrine Center —tangiershrine.com/Feztival

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 85 //

// GIVING CALENDAR // Nov. 22 (7:30 a.m.-11 a.m.)

Dec. 1 (6-8 p.m.)

Dec. 7 (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.)

Benefiting: Make-a-Wish Nebraska Location: Lewis & Clark Landing

Benefiting: Children’s Square USA Location: Hoy-Kilnoski Funeral Home

Benefiting: Urban League of Nebraska Location: Hilton Omaha

2018 TURKEY TROT

CHRISTMAS ENCHANTMENT

—nebraska.wish.org

Nov. 27 (all day)

—childrenssquare.org

Dec.

GIVING TUESDAY

Benefiting: Various Omaha organizations Location: Online —givingtuesday.org

7

2018 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AWARDS LUNCHEON —urbanleagueneb.org

Dec. 1 (time TBA)

Dec. 7 (7-10 p.m.)

Benefiting: Catholic Charities Location: Hilton Omaha

Benefiting: Roncalli Catholic Location: Roncalli Catholic Student Center

HOOPS FOR HOPE

—ccomaha.org

TASTE OF PRIDE WINE EVENT —roncallicatholic.org

Nov. 29-30 (6 a.m.-6 p.m.)

Dec. 5-7 (8 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Dec. 8 (7:30 a.m.-noon)

Benefiting: Salvation Army Location: Star 104.5 FM

Benefiting: Child Saving Institute Location: Child Saving Institute building and website

Benefiting: Arthritis Foundation Nebraska Location: Strategic Air Command & Space Museum

ADOPT A FAMILY RADIOTHON —salarmyomaha.org

SUBSTITUTE SANTA 2018 —childsaving.org

Dec. 1 (2-4:30 p.m.)

Dec. 6 (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.)

Benefiting: Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation Location: Sweat Cycle Strength

Benefiting: Lauritzen Gardens Location: Lauritzen Gardens

SPIN4 CROHN’S & COLITIS CURES —crohnscolitisfoundation.org

2018 NEBRASKA JINGLE BELL RUN —arthritis.org/nebraska/

LAURITZEN GARDENS GUILD HOLIDAY LUNCHEON —lauritzengardens.org

Dec. 8 (5-9 p.m.)

JOSLYN CASTLE UNLOCKED

Benefiting: Joslyn Castle Trust Location: Joslyn Castle —joslyncastle.com

Dec. 9

RUTH SOKOLOF CHRISTMAS PARTY

Benefiting: Nebraska Foundation for Visually Impaired Children Location: Westroads Mall —nfvic.org

Dec. 24 (10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.)

CASTLE AT CHRISTMAS TOURS Benefiting: Joslyn Castle Location: Joslyn Castle —joslyncastle.com

Savor the experience Dec. 27 (6-11 p.m.)

OMAHA SYMPHONY DEBUTANTE BALL

Benefiting: Omaha Symphony Location: Embassy Suites-La Vista Conference Center —omahasymphony.org

Event times and details may change.

Voted Best of Omaha EIGHT Years in a Row 402.558.3202 cateringcreations.com // 86 //

JULY/AUGUST 2018

Check with venue or event organizer to confirm.

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// 87 //

60PLUS // OPENER

’T

for snowbirds to fly south. It’s hard for me to imagine being a snowbird, though.

I genuinely enjoy Nebraska’s winter months: the blowing snow, beautiful scenery, and families gathered for holidays.

IS THE SEASON

These days, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas is arriving earlier every year. Santa’s face appears in promotions around town as soon as we clean off Thanksgiving dinner plates. Nevertheless, my heart warms with anticipation for candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

But not everyone in the Lemke family is—in the words of Bing Crosby—“dreaming of a white Christmas.”

One of my granddaughters will be traveling to Japan, taking advantage of her school’s winter break. Japan is still in the northern hemisphere, and it can get quite cold in the winter. This granddaughter, Sarah Lemke, must take after me—not being a snowbird and all. (She is a contributing photographer with Omaha Magazine.)

Japan is a truly remarkable country, and I feel so blessed to have traveled to Japan on multiple occasions over the years.

Although Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan, the holiday is celebrated by many throughout the country. Devout Christians may shudder at the thought, but it’s true that Christmas has become a commercial holiday (enjoyed even by those who do not observe the date’s religious significance) all over the world.

In Japan, there are many unique Christmas variations that American travelers—including my granddaughter—may discover to be delicious. Local restaurants have capitalized on the occasion to create Christmas ramen (designed to look like a Christmas tree), sashimi Christmas cakes (with raw fish), and seasonal bento boxes (lunch boxes produced with artistic flair).

It came as a surprise to me, but Kentucky Fried Chicken is a beloved Christmas dinner in Japan, thanks to the long-running marketing campaign “Kentucky for Christmas” (which the American fast-food franchise launched in 1974).

Call me old-fashioned, but when I gather with family and friends for Christmas, I think I’ll stick with a more traditional family dinner spread.

Merry Christmas!

Barbara Foster

Contributing Editor NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

// 89 //

CURIOSITY // STORY BY NADINE VODICKA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH LEMKE // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

The

Crow

Andy Acker

and the Artist T

HERE IS A flock of metaphorical

crows hovering over Andy Acker.

Crow-related artworks, meanwhile, have taken over the Omaha-born artist’s home studio in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

The 69-year-old Acker creates bizarre sculptures out of carvings and miscellaneous domestic detritus: keys, old coins, nuts, bolts, and other random bits.

A figurative painter earlier in his art career, he cuts a striking figure himself at just over 6 feet tall, slender, with glistening white hair and beard, a boyish smile, and mesmerizing green eyes.

Crows are now his figurative obsession. Acker says they started creeping into his work 20 years ago.

He began crafting sculptural assemblages when he was working at Heartland Scenic Studios in Omaha. At first, they were just fun projects using leftover bits of wood from the carpenters in the studio. But the pieces eventually took on deeper artistic and philosophical significance for the artist.

“I love to find art in our everyday surroundings and to show others the beauty in a tree shadow, patterns in broken parking lot surfaces, peeling paint, or our sunsets,” says Acker, who moved to the Milwaukee area with his wife in 2013 to be closer to grandkids.

He began seriously considering a career in art as a student at the University of NebraskaOmaha in the late ’60s. He majored in art, dabbling in various mediums—oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, etc.

// 90 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

After graduation, he joined his wife’s family business helping out at the New Tower Hotel in Omaha. Eventually, Acker found his way into teaching art at McMillan Junior High.

He taught there for 10 years and adored his students.

After teaching, he spent the subsequent decade painting large canvas backgrounds and building stage sets for local theaters, museums, commercial clients, and various other venues.

Starting during his time as a junior high school art teacher, Acker would draw cartoon caricatures of departing colleagues as goingaway presents. All the co-workers would sign his poster-sized drawings.

“We would zing them with all the things they would say,” he says, explaining how the caricatures would roast the outgoing colleagues with funny quotes written onto the posters. “We had one teacher that would come into the teacher lounge and cuss about kids like a railroad worker. He hung it in his den, and it was popular. I also did that for retiring co-workers at Heartland Scenic Studios.”

Cartooning was another of Acker’s favorite artistic formats before the crows flew into the picture. “I used to always do our Christmas cards as cartoons, but even those have been taken over by the crows,” he says.

His interest in crows began in Omaha. One morning, while driving to McMillan to teach art classes, he heard a crow caw. It seemed to be following him. The bird flew alongside his car through several lights. Finally, it gave one last “caw, caw” and turned into a cemetery nearby the school.

Acker went about his daily routine. But the crow’s cawing nagged in the back of his mind.

He began to notice crows more and study their behavior as well as the historic place that the crow has in history, literature, and art.

A crow is often a symbol of either bad luck or death, but that is not always the case, he says.

A crow may be a symbol of life, magic, and mysteries. The prophetic bird also symbolizes intelligence, flexibility, and destiny.

Soon, Acker started to notice crows appearing almost everywhere he journeyed. He began to study crows, and that eventually led to them appearing in his varied mediums of artwork— painted, sculpted, carved, and showcased in mixed-media assemblages.

In his art, the crow offers a reflection on the human condition, a foil for various universal struggles. For example, “Crow Dreaming of Becoming a Man” shows the carved bird riding on a train engine.

“My future is to continue to experiment with different media and characters from nature to explore human feelings of isolation and wonder, leading to bigger questions relating to our human condition,” Acker says.

His work last showed in Omaha during a group exhibition, Tinkerbell’s Mausoleum: Assemblages from Whimsy to Macabre, at the historic Florence Mill’s ArtLoft Gallery on July 1-Aug. 31.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

// 91 //

ACTIVE LIVING // STORY BY MEGAN FABRY // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN AND PROVIDED // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

The Queen of Omaha a r Ice arb a

B os t e r F

// 92 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

// 93 //

// ACTIVE LIVING //

T

HE ICE RINK

is smooth like glass. A young woman glides across the surface, breaking it in with her skates’ sharp blades. Across the rink, her coach watches closely, analyzing each move.

Barbara Foster has been working at the Tim Moylan Tranquility Iceplex as a coach since it first opened in November 1995. Throughout her extensive career, she has coached students as young as 2 and as old as 82.

Foster was born and raised in the small mining community of Noranda, in Canada’s Quebec province. She attributes her perfectionist tendencies to her no-nonsense upbringing.

“The best part about teaching is the relationships,” Foster says with a smile. “There is no better job, and I get a lot of satisfaction from feeling that I’ve impacted my students.”

Named after Barbara Ann Scott—a Canadian Olympic gold medalist and world champion in figure skating—there was little doubt that she would become comfortable at the rink.

Her father put her on the ice for the first time when she was only 2 years old, during the intermission of a local hockey game. Her first pair of skates were actually hockey skates.

Dad was a high school principal and also refereed games in his spare time. He laced up her tiny skates, and she was a natural on the ice from the very beginning. Foster’s parents knew then that she would live up to her namesake.

As a young student of figure skating, she trained with coaches in the summer, but was left to practice on her own during the brutal Canadian winters. She trained at a recreational rink, where she would come in through the back door and practice before school every morning.

// 94 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// ACTIVE LIVING //

“Figure skaters have techniques that even hockey coaches don’t quite understand,” Foster says. “It really helps if you can break it down and help them get the most out of their legs while their body is still handling a puck.”

When she was 14, she began training with Hans Gerschwiler, a World Figure Skating Champion and silver medalist at the 1948 Winter Olympics. When Gerschwiler moved to the United States in 1960, he asked Foster’s parents for permission to take her with him to continue her training.

“He was an incredible skater for a long time,” Foster says.

Foster trained with Gerschwiler in New Jersey and eventually became a teacher for his young students. While there, she developed a passion for coaching.

“The best part about teaching is the relationships,” Foster says with a smile. “There is no better job, and I get a lot of satisfaction from feeling that I’ve impacted my students.”

Since her days in New Jersey, she has coached all around the Midwest, Australia, and New Zealand. A perfectionist by nature, she stood out from other coaches and pushed her students to achieve the goals they placed for themselves. She eventually settled down in Omaha with husband Larry Foster, who retired from his job as the director of Council Bluffs Parks in August.

After knee surgery this past February, she was in Boston to support two of her students who went to the U.S. Adult Figure Skating Nationals in April. After her first back surgery in 2013, she was lacing up her skates again after three weeks of recovery (instead of the three months that doctors had expected to be necessary).

While teaching has always been a passion of hers, there is one passion that surpasses all others: her family. As a grandmother of nine, she is often on the road to visit her grandchildren, who are scattered across the country from Jacksonville, Florida, to Olathe, Kansas, to Takoma Park, Maryland.

Each summer, the grandchildren make a trek to Nebraska for one of their favorite annual events: “Camp Nana.” Foster started Camp Nana when the oldest grandchildren were toddlers. The parents drop off the grandkids for two weeks of fun-filled activities and bonding time.

“I never had an opportunity to be connected to my cousins,” Foster says. “I just really wanted to make sure that I could provide that opportunity for my grandkids.”

As a 74-year-old retired coach, she still enjoys teaching students of all ages, but she says she does not miss the rigorous seven-day training schedule she once lived by.

For the last 23 years, Foster has worked with youth and adult hockey players, and she even worked with the University of NebraskaOmaha men’s hockey team to help correct players’ skating technique.

In the past five years, she has undergone numerous procedures, including two back surgeries, total knee replacement, and treatment for a torn rotator cuff in her shoulder. But she refuses to let these procedures discourage her.

“Figure skaters have techniques that even hockey coaches don’t quite understand,” Foster says. “It really helps if you can break it down and help them get the most out of their legs while their body is still handling a puck.”

Although she considers herself retired, she does still instruct a few students (teaching two days a week instead of seven). Even aside from her teaching, Foster says she would be at Tranquility Iceplex at some point every day doing a variety of jobs and chores that need to be completed: mounting figure skate blades, selling equipment at the rink’s pro shop, and fitting customers with new skates.

“It’s allowed me to have a lot of diversity,” Foster says. “So even at this age, where I’m not actively teaching, I have lots of other interests that keep me involved with the rink and the people in it, which is the fun part.”

Foster says she is never bored because of all the activities she has taken on. She works at the rink, teaches lessons, spends time with friends and does Pilates, which helps align her spine and strengthens her back.

“I am really looking forward to skating again,” says Foster, who gets on the ice with her students for instruction but is not attempting toe jumps, double axels, or triple lutzes. “After my knee replacement, I’m struggling to be able to demonstrate the power that correct technique can generate. I think that as everything settles down, I would like to get myself feeling really comfortable again on the ice.”

Foster is an unstoppable force to be reckoned with. She holds students to her own high standard of excellence, too. They shouldn’t expect coddling or ego-stroking. If that’s what a student wants, then Foster says, “you’re with the wrong coach.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

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FEATURE // STORY BY LEO ADAM BIGA // PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY BOYS TOWN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

From Japanese-American Internment Camp to Boys Town Christmas and Other Bittersweet Memories During World War II // 96 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Toshio “James” and Margaret Takahashi with their children at the Boys Town Farm, 1944 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

// 97 //

Clockwise from top: Uchiyamada and Takahashi families with Father Flanagan in March 1944; the Takahashi family outside their residence at Boys Town; Father Flanagan and children during Christmastime // 98 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FEATURE // BOYS TOWN

X

ENOPHOBIC FEARS RAN wild after

the Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. promptly entered World War II, and nearly 120,000 JapaneseAmericans were relocated or incarcerated in internment camps across the country.

The Rev. Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, strived to calm the hysteria in part—while alleviating the trauma falling upon his fellow Americans—by sponsoring approximately 200 Japanese-Americans from internment camps to stay at his rural Nebraska campus for wayward and abandoned youths.

Among them were James and Margaret Takahashi and their three children.

They joined the individuals and families escaping to Boys Town from prison-like internment camps. Flanagan offered dozens of families a place to live and work until the war’s conclusion. Some remained in Nebraska long after the war. Many used Boys Town as a stopover before World War II military service or moving to other American cities and towns, says Boys Town historian Tom Lynch.

Few outsiders knew Boys Town was a safe harbor for Nisei (the Japanese word for North Americans whose parents were immigrants from Japan) who lost their homes, livelihoods, and civil rights in the fear-driven, governmentmandated evacuation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

“It was a very disruptive thing,” she recalls.

“I was very upset by all of this. I can remember being confused and wondering what was going on and where are we going. I couldn’t understand all of it.”

She and her family joined hundreds of others in a makeshift holding camp at the Santa Anita Assembly Center, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.

Stables at the converted race track doubled as spare barracks. Food riots erupted.

By contrast, at Boys Town, the Takahashis were treated humanely and fairly, as the full citizens they were, with all the comforts and privileges of home.

The Takahashis were provided their own house and garden within the incorporated village of Boys Town’s boundaries. James, father of the family, worked as the grounds supervisor. The children attended school. The family celebrated major holidays—including unforgettable, bittersweet Christmases—in freedom, but still far from home.

None of it might have happened if Maryknoll priest Hugh Lavery, at a Japanese-American Catholic parish in L.A., hadn’t written Flanagan advocating on behalf of his congregation then being relocated in camps.

Flanagan recognized the injustice. He also knew the internees included workingage men who could fill his war-depleted employee ranks. He had the heart, the need, the facilities, and the clout to broker their release from the Civil Exclusions Order signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Marilyn’s initial impression of Flanagan

was of Santa Claus with a cleric’s collar: “Father came to meet us at the station.

He had this big brown bag of candy.

I will always remember that candy. It was so thoughtful of him to give us that special treat.”

The oldest Takahashi child, Marilyn, was almost 6 when her family was uprooted from their Los Angeles home and way of life. Her gardener father lost his agricultural nursery.

“We felt welcomed and did not have fears about our environment. The German farmers nearby were friendly and kind,” remembers Marilyn Takahashi Fordney.

Helping identify “good fits for Boys Town” was Patrick Okura, who ended up there himself, Lynch says. “It sort of started a pipeline to help bring people out,” and Flanagan “eventually took people of all different faiths,” not just internees from the Catholic parish that started the effort.

“People from that parish went to the camps, and they met other Japanese-Americans, and they started communicating about this opportunity at Boys Town to get out of the camps.”

During her family’s fourmonth camp confinement, Marilyn’s parents heard that the famous Irish priest in Nebraska needed workers. James sent a letter making the case for himself and his family to come.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

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FEATURE // BOYS TOWN

“People could leave if they had somewhere to go,” Marilyn says. “Permission didn’t come right away. It took writing back and forth for several months. Then, when we were all about to be moved to Amache [Granada War Relocation Center] in Colorado, the head of our camp sent a telegram to the War Relocation Authority. He received a telegram back with the necessary permission. We were released to Boys Town Sept. 5, 1942.”

Boys Town became legal sponsor for the new arrivals.

“It was very radical helping these people,” Lynch says. “Father thought it was his duty because they were good American citizens who should be treated well. But it wasn’t universally accepted. What made Boys Town unique is that we were way out in the country, so we were our own little bubble. Visitors really wouldn’t see the internees much. The men worked the farm or grounds. The women tended house. The kids were in school. But they were there all throughout the village.”

A similar effort unfolded at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where 100-plus Nisei students continued their college studies after the rude interruption caused by the “evacuation.”

During her Boys Town sojourn, Marilyn first attended a nearby one-room public school. She later attended a school on campus for workers’ children taught by a Polish Franciscan nun.

Besides the standard subjects, the kids learned traditional Polish folk dances and crafts.

“We are forever grateful Father Flanagan hired my father to take care of the grounds,” Marilyn says, “because it enabled us to get out of that internment situation.”

Flanagan is part of her holiday memories, she says, as “he always made a point to come to our Christmas plays, and we would always take a photograph with him.” For the resident boy population, Flanagan “played” Santa by visiting their apartments and handing out gifts.

According to the Takahashi family’s file in the archives of the Boys Town Hall of History, Margaret said she was taken by Flanagan’s humanity, that she “could feel this warmth.

I’ve never felt that from another human being.

He was so full of love that it radiated out of him.”

She continues: “We built an ice rink and would skate in front of the farmhouse or in front of the brick house. We even made an igloo one time. It got so tall the adults came out to help us close the top with the snow blocks because we were too little to reach it.”

According to Lynch, Flanagan considered the newcomers “part of the family of Boys Town.” They could access the entire campus or go into town freely.

Leaving altogether, though possible, was not a realistic option.

The Takahashis started their new life in an old farmhouse they later shared with other arrivals. Then Boys Town built a compound of brick houses for the workers and their families. “Single men lived in a dormitory on campus,” Lynch says. “Boys Town didn’t host many single women because Father would find jobs for them in Omaha, where they would stay with families they worked for as domestics.”

“They could leave at any time, if they really wanted to, but there was nowhere to go [without authorization]. They would have been detained and returned,” he says.

From Santa Anita, the Takahashi patriarch was allowed to go to L.A. to retrieve his truck and what stored family belongings he could transport. James drove to Nebraska to meet Margaret and the kids, who went ahead by train.

“Christmas and midnight Mass was very special at Boys Town,” she says. “It was something we looked forward to. I will always remember getting bundled up to face the blizzard-like winds. My father would carry each one of us to the truck. We would head off in the dead of night in that blasted cold to get to the church, which was dark except for the altar lights. The boys would be in a long line in their white and black cassocks, with red bows, each holding a big lit candle. They would begin to sing and come down the main aisle. It was an awesome sight and a special experience. The choir was exceptional. There was always one singer with a high-pitched voice who did a solo. It was amazing.”

Marilyn’s initial impression of Flanagan was of Santa Claus with a cleric’s collar: “Father came to meet us at the station. He had this big brown bag of candy. I will always remember that candy. It was so thoughtful of him to give us that special treat.”

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60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Marilyn’s experience of losing her home and living in a camp was dreadful. Going halfway across the country to live at Boys Town was an adventure. Her fondest memories there involve Christmas.

“We were happy at Christmas,” Marilyn says.

“In the farmhouse, my father would cut a pine tree and bring it in, and the decorations were handmade and hand-painted cones with popcorn strung. He always did the final placement of things so that it looked perfect. We had wonderful Christmas days even though it was difficult to get toys because many things were not available due to the war.”

Weather always factored in.

“The summers were extremely hot and the winters so severely cold,” she says. “We had never experienced snow. That was a tremendous adjustment for my parents.

But, as children, we delighted in it. We’d run out and eat the snow with jam and build snowmen.”

Marilyn recalls visiting Santa at J.L. Brandeis & Sons department store in downtown Omaha with its fabulous Christmas window displays and North Pole Toy Land.

The Takahashis were content enough in their new life that they arranged for family and friends to join them there. Marilyn and family remained in Omaha for two years after the war (and anti-Japanese hysteria) ended.

“Eventually, my parents decided they couldn’t withstand that cold, and we headed back to California in 1947,” she says.

They endured tragedy at Boys Town when Marilyn’s younger brother contracted measles and encephalitis, falling into a coma that caused severe brain damage. His constant care was a burden for the poor family.

Another motivating factor for the family to leave was the father’s desire to work for himself again.

FEATURE // BOYS TOWN

Leaving Boys Town just shy of age 12 was hard for Marilyn.

The kindness shown by Boys Town to relieve their plight made a deep impact.

“I was heartbroken because I loved the snow and cold and all my friends there,” she says.

“I did not want to go to California and live three families to a house and struggle. I knew what was coming. I also had a pet cat I was sad to leave. My pet dog Spunky that Boys Town gave me had passed on.”

“We are forever grateful Father Flanagan hired my father to take care of the grounds,” Marilyn says, “because it enabled us to get out of that internment situation.”

Her parents had also bonded with some of the resident boys, and with some adult workers and their families.

“We went by Father Flanagan’s residence to say farewell, and he came out to bless us and to bless the truck we drove to the West Coast,” she says.

As an adult, Marilyn shared her story with archivists just as her parents did earlier.

She came to view what Flanagan did for her family and others who had been interned as a humanitarian “rescue.”

Then there were the scholastic and life lessons learned.

“A Boys Town education gives you the tools needed to succeed in life,” she says.

Even though discrimination continued after the war, the lessons she learned during the internment and the Boys Town reprieve emboldened her.

S

OON AFTER ARRIVING at Santa

Anita Assembly Center, James Takahashi learned that Father Flanagan was hiring individuals with certain skills to work at Boys Town.

James hand-wrote an appeal to Flanagan asking to be considered. He provided references. The priest wrote Takahashi back requesting more information, including how many were in his family, and checked his references, all of whom spoke highly of “Jimmy,” as he was called, in letters they sent Flanagan.

“We considered ourselves fortunate,” Margaret told interviewer Evelyn Taylor with the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project in 2003.

(This article for Omaha Magazine merged excerpts from that oral history with original interviews conducted over the telephone and e-mail correspondence.)

“I am grateful that I went through the experience because it made me who I am today,” she adds.

Internees were granted reparations by the U.S. government under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Marilyn received $20,000, and she gave it all away.

Here is the text of the original letter James wrote (references excluded):

There are occasions when Marilyn’s internment past comes up in casual conversation. “It is amazing how few people know about this,” she says. “It is now mentioned in history books in schools, but it wasn’t for a long time.”

She divided the reparations money into equal parts for four recipients: two younger siblings who also grew up in poverty (but did not experience the internment camps of World War II), to create the Fordney Foundation (for helping future generations of ballroom dancers), and Boys Town.

Today in camp I heard that you are asking for some Japanese gardeners. I am very interested as I have been a gardener and nurseryman in Los Angeles for the past five years.

When she brings up her Boys Town interlude, she says, “It is always a surprise and I am asked many questions.”

The retired medical assistant, educator, and author now runs family foundations supporting youth activities. She credits her many accomplishments to what the wartime years took away and bestowed.

“The internment made me an overachiever.

Because I was the eldest and experienced so much, I have become actually the strongest of the siblings,” she says. “Nothing can stop me from reaching my goals.”

Her late parents also felt that the experience strengthened the family’s resilience. Margaret said, “I think from then on we were very strong. I don’t think anything could get us down.”

Forty-four years after the Takahashis left their safe haven in Nebraska, Marilyn returned to Boys Town in 1991. During the visit, she made her donation to the place that gave her family a temporary home and renewed faith in mankind.

Visit csujad.com for more information about the California State University Japanese-American History Digitization Project.

Visit boystown.org for more information about Boys Town.

Dear Father Flanagan,

Just before the evacuation, I was gardener at St. Mary’s Academy in Los Angeles.

I re-landscaped the grounds and put in several lawns.

I am 30 years old of Japanese ancestry but was born and educated in this country. I was converted to the Catholic faith by my wife, who is half Irish and half Japanese.

I studied soil, plants, insect control, and landscape architecture at Los Angeles City College, and am confident that I would be able to handle any gardening problem.

I would be so grateful if you would consider me for this position.

Very sincerely, James Takahashi

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

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// FEATURE //

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60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

HEALTH // STORY BY SANDRA MARTIN // ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

VACCINES ARE NOT only for children.

That’s one of many confusions about vaccinations, says Dr. Mark Rupp, a professor and chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

“Certain vaccinations are very important for adults as they age in order to maintain their health,” he explains, “and especially important for those with chronic health conditions.”

Rupp says the most essential vaccines for seniors are for shingles, influenza, pneumococcal disease, and tetanus/Tdap.

Other common misconceptions concern the vaccines themselves. “People believe that if they get the influenza vaccine, for example, it will give them the flu,” he says.

“But since it is made from a killed virus, not a live virus, there’s no way it can transfer the infection to you.”

Meanwhile, misinformation has circulated in recent years about vaccinations causing certain illnesses or conditions, especially in children. “We may not fully understand what causes those conditions, but we do know there

Beware of Anti-Science Conspiracy Theories is absolutely no link between them and vaccines,” he says.

A fraudulent study by British doctor Andrew Wakefield inaccurately linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to childhood autism in a now-retracted and discredited 1998 scientific paper. Unfortunately, the damage lingers still among conspiracy theorists. A movement of antiscience skeptics known as anti-vaxxers has led to increasing outbreaks of measles.

“Vaccines aren’t perfect,” Rupp admits.

“But they are our best weapon to protect us from horrible diseases.” As an example, he cites how vaccines for smallpox and polio have basically turned these devastating, lifethreatening diseases into “medical curiosities” that are rarely seen today. “Viruses still remain in the world,” he adds, “and if we let our guard down, our children will experience these diseases just like our grandparents did.”

Rupp believes we all need to be vaccinated because, “It’s the right thing to do...It’s called herd immunity,” he says, “where we form a protective bubble around those individuals who are immune-suppressed, for example, and cannot be given live-virus vaccines.”

“All vaccines recommended for adults are carefully evaluated, and the benefit of getting them clearly outweighs the small risk of side effects or toxicity,” he says. The website of the Center for Disease Control also states that the current U.S. vaccine supply is the safest in history.

For those with chronic health conditions or high-risk factors, Rupp recommends talking with a doctor about additional or earlier vaccinations, and also to investigate which vaccines are covered by Medicare or other insurance providers.

Shingles

Influenza

Tetanus/Tdap

• Recommended age: 50

• Recommended age: 6 months through adulthood, repeated yearly to keep up with changes in virus.

• Recommended age: childhood through adulthood, with boosters every 10 years.

• Approved last year, the new vaccine Shingrix is a two-part injection given one to six months apart.

• New feature: no longer made from hen eggs, the vaccine is safe for individuals with egg allergies.

• One of those tetanus boosters should be the Tdap vaccine, which also protects against diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough).

More effective in preventing shingles and complications from shingles (90-95 percent success rate compared with 50-60 percent); longer lasting immunity (four to five years); and doesn’t contain a live virus, so can be given to immune-suppressed patients.

• Possible side effects include soreness at injection site, aches/ pains, and low-grade fever.

• The Tdap booster shot is especially important for grandparents, as whooping cough is very contagious and can be deadly for infants.

• Possible side effects include pain at injection site and low-grade fever.

• Recommended age: 65 for healthy adults, younger for adults with diabetes, heart disease, asthma, or other chronic illness.

• Benefits over previous shingles vaccine:

Pneumococcal

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 • 60PLUS

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// 104 //

60PLUS • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

OBVIOUSLY OMAHA // STORY BY JUSTINE YOUNG // PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

Reubenesque

A Guide to Local Reuben Sandwich Variants OF ALL THE flavors of Omaha, one of our most famous is the Reuben. First served at the Blackstone

Hotel in the 1920s (and named after local grocer Reuben Kulakofsky), the sandwich can now be found on restaurant menus worldwide. Omaha’s love for the sandwich is apparent in all the ways we recreate it. For decades, Omaha chefs have been pulling apart the historical combo of corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and rye bread, and reassembling the ingredients to create new ways of celebrating the dish. The result is a range of fare, from those that closely resemble their breaded ancestor, to others more deserving of the title “Reubenesque.”

Crescent Moon Reuben Sandwich

Here are just a few of the places you can grab a fresh taste of an Omaha classic remixed, right in the city where it all began.

01. REUBENFEST AT CRESCENT MOON Located just across the street from the old Blackstone Hotel, Crescent Moon (3578 Farnam St.) dedicates an entire week every November to the Reuben sandwich and its many variations: Reubenfest. Last year, Reubenfest brought in an estimated 500-600 visitors per day, with more than 4,000 Reuben-themed dishes served by the end of the week. Reubenfest 2018 runs from Nov. 5-10 and will see the return of many crowd favorites, including Reuben pizzas, burritos, egg rolls, and calzones, as well as new Reubenesque offerings. If you hope to catch a bite of the action, plan your visit to avoid peak meal times when the restaurant is packed and tables are hard to come by.

02. TEX-MEX Ever in the mood for Tex-Mex and a Reuben, and you simply can’t decide?

Omaha’s got your back—and your taste buds. You can head on over to Dundee’s Place (7024 Maple St.) for that Reuben flavor stuffed inside a shell with their tasty Reuben tacos. Or drop by Two Fine Irishmen (18101 R Plaza) and ask for a plate of their Reuben nachos.

03. SAUSAGES / HOT DOGS Is a hot dog a sandwich? What about a Reuben sandwich/hot dog mashup?

Find out for yourself with this tribute to a tribute, the Kansas City Reuben at B&B Classic Dogs (1020 Lincoln Road in Bellevue). The Bellevue dog was inspired by a concessions item at Kauffman Stadium. Stoysich House of Sausage (multiple locations) offers the Round Reuben, a fully cooked sausage made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut for those looking to take the Reubenesque home.

Chicago Dawg House’s food truck, the Weenie Wagon, also offers the Stoysich Round Reuben on St. Patrick’s Day.

04. DEEP-FRIED Aside from Crescent Moon's Reubenfest, you can find Reuben egg rolls at a variety of restaurants around town, including Paddy McGown’s Pub & Grill (4503 Center St.), Dundee Dell (5007 Underwood Ave.), or further west at Clancy’s Pub (2905 S. 168th St). For those reminiscing over Localmotive Food Truck’s famous Reuben rounders, stop by Over Easy (16859 Q St.) on a weekend night, where the food truck’s menu is served seasonally.

05. PIZZA You might know that March is National Reuben Month, but did you know that Omaha declared a Reuben Sandwich Day? March 14, 2013, was the inaugural Reuben Day. If you missed the holiday this year, you can always join the fun in March at Mama’s Pizza, where they serve a Reuben pizza all month long at all of their three Omaha locations.

06. VEGGIES Veggie lovers can celebrate Rueben pride, too. At Wilson & Washburn (1407 Harney St.), order a traditional-style Reuben sandwich with their original beet dressing added.

For more animal-friendly takes on the Reuben, Modern Love (which recently moved to 3157 Farnam St.) has offered Reuben Mac & Shews (a variation of their vegan Mac & Shews) and recently added the Seitan Beet Reuben to their permanent menu.

07. ALTERNATIVES & VARIATIONS Still want more Reuben? Try the glutenfree California Reuben at Big Green Q (6023 Maple St.), a sweeter take on the original recipe. If you’re looking for a slightly leaner version of the sandwich, try the Rachel, a variation made with turkey instead of corned beef. The Rachel can be found at a variety of restaurants around Omaha, including Brazen Head Irish Pub (319 N. 78th St.). Or if you’re looking for a little extra on your plate, head on over to Gorat’s Steakhouse (4917 Center St.), where you can order a triple-decker Reuben.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

// 105 //

2018

Dundee's Place Reuben Taco

Two Fine Irishmen Reuben Nachos

Dundee Dell Egg Roll Reuben

Mama's Reuben Pizza

Modern Love Veggie Reuben

DINING REVIEW // STORY BY NIZ PROSKOCIL // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

NG CURREN I Y A T ST

Au Co urant WITH

T H E M E N U I S A LW A YS C H A N G I N G .

FO C U S O N R E GI O N A L , S E A S O N A L I N G R E D I E N T S R E M AI N S .

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

Ch

e e' s ovi

gg

“Our menu changes

weekly sowe can really

adapt towhat’savailable locally. I need tobe

really in tune with

what’scoming out of the ground.”

- Benjamin Maides Clockwise from top: Black bass, agnolotti, and cantaloupe tartare

// DINING REVIEW //

F BEETS ARE on the menu, I’m order-

ing them. A beet dish I tried during an August dinner at Au Courant Regional Kitchen was the best I’ve had in a long time. The plate of roasted and marinated beets, thyme aioli, and thin-sliced speck (a smoked ham) was made even more delightful by the juicy sweetness of cantaloupe—bright orange, glistening cubes of compressed cantaloupe with the most sublime texture and f lavor.

Other dishes my dining partner and I sampled, from starters to mains, were equally impressive, well-executed, and beautifully presented. And they ref lected the restaurant’s commitment to offering diners the best of what’s in season.

“ Our menu changes weekly so we can

really adapt to what’s available locally.

I need to be really

in tune with what’s coming out of the ground.”

- Benjamin Maides

“We’re sourcing the absolute best products we can get our hands on,” says chef and co-owner Benjamin Maides, who works with area farmers and producers to find the freshest ingredients. “Our menu changes weekly so we can really adapt to what’s available locally. I need to be really in tune with what’s coming out of the ground.”

The Swiss-born, Omaha-raised chef has worked at a number of local restaurants as well as establishments in Italy, Colorado, and California (including the award-winning Bouchon in Yountville, California). Maides and local restaurateur Carlos Mendez opened Au Courant in November 2016 in the former España spot near 61st and Maple streets, in the heart of Omaha’s Benson neighborhood. The warm and welcoming space—with wood f loors, high ceilings, a plethora of plants, and walnut tables built by Maides—combines rustic and elegant elements.

The restaurant’s dynamic menu is divided into four sections—amuse-bouche, aperitif, pasta, and protein. My favorite amuse, the Chovie’s egg, is a soft-boiled egg with a creamy, satiny yolk. The halved egg was set atop crisp, tender green beans with crème fraîche and topped with crispy purple potato chips. Think of it as a deviled egg, but exponentially better.

Both the egg and a slightly briny and sweet Beausoleil oyster from New Brunswick were perfect little bites to prime the palate.

Another amuse featured local organic potatoes—crispy, golden-brown wedges served with dijonnaise, bits of bacon, and julienned green apple.

The kitchen also excels at pasta, all made in-house. Mushroom gnocchi with braised oxtail, heirloom tomatoes, and shaved pecorino Romano was perfectly pillowy and tender with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. A plate of agnolotti (a small, stuffed pasta similar to ravioli) with taleggio, roasted and pickled corn kernels, and pistachios was rich without being heavy.

Pickled ramps added bright acidic notes that balanced the sweetness of the corn.

The night we dined, octopus and black bass were among the protein options.

Served alongside chorizo and potato, the octopus was tender, delicately sweet, and slightly smoky. The black bass filet—flaky and moist with super-crispy skin—arrived atop a bed of yellow squash, zucchini, and some lovely tiny yellow tomatoes.

Guests who can’t decide what to order may want to consider the chef ’s tasting menu, a six-course meal for $55 per person that highlights some of the staff’s favorite dishes.

Maides says he’s pleased with the response from the community since Au Courant opened its doors two years ago. The goal isn’t to be the best restaurant, but to offer the best food at the best price. “We want to get rid of the notion that a quality dining experience has to be really expensive,” he says.

An inviting atmosphere, well-made cocktails, and top-notch service are all reasons enough for repeat visits to Au Courant, but the refined yet approachable menu is the real draw.

Visit aucourantrestaurant .com more information.

for

AU COURANT REGIONAL KITCHEN 6064 MAPLE ST. | 402-505-9917 FOOD SERVICE AMBIANCE PRICE OVERALL

$$$$ 5 STARS POSSIBLE

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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DINING PROFILE // STORY BY TAMSEN BUTLER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

LING’S NAMESAKE IN WEST OMAHA PA N - A S I A N C U I S I N E F RO M TA I W A N E S E - N E B R A S K A N S

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

Banh mi is a Vietnamese sandwich, a legacy menu item from the restaurant preceding Ling's Asian Cuisine

// DINING PROFILE //

wanted a seamless transition for the existing customers, so while they were absolutely going to put their own spin on the dishes served, they knew that they weren’t going to completely overhaul the menu.

The menu is unusual for an Asian restaurant in the sense that it isn’t jam-packed with items.

“Some restaurants have over a hundred items on their menu, but we don’t want to do that,” Kim says.

KIM LING, PROPRIETOR of Ling's Asian

Cuisine, has a difficult time staying away from the restaurant business.

After successfully running China Road in Bellevue for 27 years with her family, Kim decided the time had come to retire.

After all, she wanted to enjoy her gardening, walks around the lake, and relaxing while watching movies at home. It sounded like the perfect retirement for Kim and her husband, Justin (who was content with spending his days golfing).

The bliss of retirement lasted for nearly a year before Kim started to feel antsy. “I felt like I wanted something to do. My passion has always been the food business,” she says, adding that after successfully running both China Road in Bellevue and China Inn in Lincoln for so many years, she found herself missing the customers. As for Justin, he was willing to put on the chef apron again and set aside his golf clubs—for now.

When the Lings noticed a Vietnamese restaurant in their neighborhood was up for sale (at 6909 S. 157th St.), they started seriously considering coming out of retirement. “We wanted something that was a good, small size,” Kim says. This place fit the bill. The interior is small yet welcoming—more like a dining room in a home than a bustling restaurant. “I do enjoy a smaller restaurant,” Kim explains.

“We spend a lot of time here.”

When they decided to purchase the restaurant, they did it with one caveat: the previous owner had to walk them through the process of how things were done there. The Lings

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

First-time customers should try the general’s chicken or the lo mein, she says. Return customers love the pad thai (a Thai noodle dish) and the classic Vietnamese selections—including vermicelli rice noodles and pho—legacies from the restaurant previously named “Vietnamese Cuisine” before its sale to the Lings.

After reopening the location, the veteran restaurant owners added a Taiwanese beef noodle soup to the menu, offering a delicious taste of a famous Taiwanese culinary delight. Commenting on the menu, Kim says, “Nothing is too crazy spicy.”

Online ordering for takeout is popular at this restaurant, but those who choose to dine in enjoy the laid-back atmosphere while waiting for homemade dishes that Justin pulls together with fresh ingredients. “He likes to create, and he’s good at it,” Kim says. “He has a passion and always thinks about quality. He has a chef’s attitude and listens to what people say.” As a matter of fact, a running joke among regular customers is to ask Justin, “Hey, what’s different today?” He isn’t afraid to try new things and tweak his recipes a little to better suit his customers’ palates.

Justin started cooking right out of school in Taiwan. He married Kim before she came to the United States in 1981, but he had to wait to join her as he finished up his mandatory two years of military service. They worked for other

people for a few years until Kim’s sister, Judy Thomas (who she refers to as “The Leader”), declared the family ready to own their own restaurant. That’s when they all came together and started China Road in 1990. “It was our first time running a family business—there were five of us,” Kim says.

Some of the family has since moved back to Taiwan, and though Kim used to visit her family in Taiwan annually, she doesn’t have the opportunity to visit as often anymore. “I do miss Taiwan,” she says of the island (which governs itself as a sovereign nation but is claimed as a territory of the People’s Republic of China).

“It’s my home. But this is my home now, too.

I raised two daughters here. Nebraska is perfect for me. The people are nice and there’s a slow pace.”

Her feelings are echoed in the dining area of the restaurant, where Asian décor mingles with “I love the USA” decals on the window.

“I love my job and I like to deal with people.

I want people to have a good time,” Kim says, adding that Ling’s Asian Cuisine is very much a family-friendly eatery. She loves when customers bring their kids along to enjoy a meal.

Sometimes she’ll fashion little umbrellas for the kids to play with while they wait for their food.

She intentionally wants families to feel welcome, not only because the restaurant is located within a neighborhood full of families, but also because she wants everyone who steps through the door to feel at ease and comfortable. “We have lots of regular customers; they’re more like family. I see them more than I see some of my family,” Kim says.

The feeling seems to be mutual. Customers don’t balk at the 8 p.m. closing time. “They understand this takes a lot of energy,” says Kim, who doesn’t appear to be running out of energy anytime soon.

Visit lingsasiancuisine.com for more information.

" T H I S I S M Y H O M E N OW, TO O. I R A I S E D T WO DAUGHTERS HERE . NEB R A S K A I S PERFECT FOR ME. THE PEOPLE ARE NICE A N D T H E R E ’ S A S LOW PAC E ."

-KIM LING

Since moving to the U.S. from Taiwan, Justin and Kim Ling have managed several restaurants in eastern Nebraska.

DINING FEATURE // STORY BY DYLAN LONGWELL // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY MATT WIECZOREK

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

From left: Craig, John, Mike, and Tim Murman at Glacial Till in Palmyra, Nebraska

HA RD C I DE R , E A S Y DR I N KI NG NEBRASKA TAPS INTO HOT TREND FOR FERMENTED APPLES

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

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2018

// DINING FEATURE //

T

HE STORY OF hard cider in Nebraska is tangled in the vines of local wine production.

In the spring of 2003, Mike Murman planted his first grapes on recently acquired rural property on the outskirts of Palmyra, just southeast of Lincoln. As his vines slowly spread across the land, Murman’s winemaking hobby grew into the family-owned Glacial Till Vineyard & Winery. The vineyard’s name is derived from the rocky soil deposited by glaciers that occupied eastern Nebraska thousands of years ago. Within three years, Murman and his three sons were producing more wine than they could drink, and they opened their winery to the public in the summer of 2009.

After winning several awards for Glacial Till’s wine, the Murmans faced a harsh reality—Nebraska weather. The winter of 2014 took a major toll on grape yields and destroyed their chambourcin grape harvest.

With a 1,000-gallon tank absent of fermenting wine, the youngest of Murman’s three sons, Craig, suggested venturing into the red-hot market for hard apple cider.

That fall, the Murmans contacted Kimmel Orchard in Nebraska City with Glacial Till’s first order. Murman’s eldest son, John, the winemaking aficionado of the family, began tinkering with recipes as soon as the raw, cold-pressed cider arrived. The result was their “Original” hard cider.

The Original offers a crisp balance of sweet and tart apples and a hint of citrus f lavor.

The recipe hasn’t changed since their first successful batch in 2014. Six-pack cans became available at local grocery stores in 2017.

“Any time you’re first to market everyone else is playing catch up” Murman says, an enviable position that he admits was possible due to capital from other entrepreneurial successes—including his Lincoln-based wiretap software company Pen-Link, which Murman sold to employees in 2007.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Glacial Till’s initial and ongoing relationship with Kimmel Orchard connects the hard cider producer to the historic heartland of Nebraska apple production.

Back in the days before Prohibition, hard cider was a common beverage made by farmers with apple trees, and the southeast corner of Nebraska was once one of the nation’s major apple-producing regions between 1860 and 1940, says Vaughn Hammond, orchard operations and education team leader at Kimmel Orchard.

In fact, during the early 20th century, more than 90 orchards were situated between Plattsmouth and the Kansas state border. The apple market continued to f lourish in Nebraska until the devastating Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 that wiped out nearly every existing orchard. Kimmel Orchard was fortunate enough to avoid any detrimental damage and is now one of the few remaining orchards in the area.

“I’m sure hard cider was consumed during that time,” Hammond says. “I don’t know of any established industry [for processing and marketing hard cider from the region in the past], but with apple orchards comes hard cider.”

Currently, apple trees cover 40 of Kimmel Orchard's 96 acres. Rows of fruit trees stretch across the seemingly endless horizon.

Orchard staffers harvest tree-ripened apples for cider production, but they must retain enough supply for visitors wanting to handpick fresh apples directly from the trees (one of the major tourist draws at the location). In spite of this limitation on their cider production, Hammond says Kimmel Orchard still produces 25,000-30,000 gallons every year.

Such a large production allows them to sell their raw cider to regional vineyards that want to experiment with apple wines or ciders. Glacial Till hard cider is on tap at the gift shop, and Whiskey Run Creek Vineyard & Winery (located in Brownville, Nebraska) bottles two flavors of apple wine for Kimmel Orchard. The orchard’s other Nebraskan vineyard clients include James Arthur, Mac’s Creek, and Cellar 426. But none of these customers have ventured into the scale of production displayed by the Murmans at Glacial Till.

In their first year of production, every drop of Glacial Till cider was sourced from Kimmel Orchard. But their production grew rapidly to meet demand (outpacing local supply and affordability). “The first year was about a 1,000 gallons, the next year was around 9,000 or 10,000, then 19,000, and this year is going to be 30-40,000 gallons,” Murman says.

Nebraska’s hard cider market is unique compared to other states. Under state law, hard cider is considered as a craft beer and is taxed and regulated accordingly. However, federal law classifies hard cider as a wine and requires a federal wine license to produce it. This excludes craft breweries from producing hard cider unless they apply for a federal wine license, which limits the accessibility to the market. The executive

director of the Nebraska Winery and Grape Growers Association, Lori Paulsen, estimates that six to eight Nebraska wineries (out of the 34 total) are experimenting with hard cider.

Industry standards distinguish between hard cider and apple wine. Paulsen says it is not unusual for regional vineyards to experiment with apple wine (which comes with a higher alcohol content than hard cider).

“That’s why we got the craft brewery license in the state, because then they would allow us to have that volume fall underneath the brewery license,” Murman says.

After the first year of producing hard cider sourced from Kimmel Orchard apples, Glacial Till began seeking additional suppliers. Though the Nebraska orchard still contributes seasonally, the Murmans needed more. So they turned to established apple markets in New York.

During a visit to the Ashland taproom in August, there were four ciders on tap. Along with the Original, there was Hibiscus Ginger, a subtle ginger spice paired with sweetness from the hibiscus f lower; Hopito (an homage to the classic mojito cocktail), a blend of hard cider, hops, and fresh mint; and Passion Pineapple, a fusion of apple and tropical sweetness perfect for counteracting the scorching Nebraska summers.

Seasonal and experimental small-batch Keeping up with demand is the only At Glacial Till’s remote facility outside f lavors rotate with John’s inspiration. problem that Glacial Till has encountered Palmyra, tanker trucks full of raw and Another of his popular concoctions was since that devastating winter of 2014. “It’s unfiltered apple cider arrive year-round.

Cold Brew—a sweet apple cider balanced a great problem to with hints of black have,” Murman says, cof fee, chocolate, surrounded by the and caramel. family’s new brewing GLACIAL TILL’S INITIAL AND ONGOING equipment and new So far, only two f laRELATIONSHIP WITH KIMMEL ORCHARD canning line. vors have transitioned into Glacial Till’s sixCONNECTS THE HARD CIDER PRODUCER TO In 2017, Glacia l packs: the Original Till nearly doubled and Hibiscus Ginger.

THE HISTORIC HEARTLAND OF NEBRASKA the size of their Other new varieties Palmyra facility. The are in the works.

APPLE PRODUCTION. Murmans expected Having tracked the to grow into the space success of new f laover the next three to vors in the tasting four years, but they have already hit a wall.

Though he values the local relationship, room, Murman says, “The next f lavors The decision to expand production into Murman says “the cider we buy from in line for canning are Passion Pineapple aluminum cans allowed for Glacial Till New York is every bit as good of quality and Hopito.” to rise, quite literally, to the ceiling of as Kimmel’s.” Meanwhile, his eldest son, production capacity. Empty cans, awaitJohn, uses the steady f low of cider to conWithout a firm timetable for the release of ing cider, are stacked from f loor to roof. tinue experimenting with new hard cider new f lavors, the family’s Ashland taproom f lavor varieties. remains a welcoming place to sample the With Glacial Till cans now reaching grolatest innovative ciders to come out of cery stores, bars, liquor stores, and events For curious drinkers in the Omaha area, Glacial Till. (on top of the kegs they had previously the latest inventive f lavors can be found distributed to bars) the company is suron tap at Glacial Till’s taproom in the Visit glacialtillvineyard.com for more inforpassing the 30,000-gallon volume limit heart of downtown Ashland. The cozy mation about Nebraska’s first commercial that would bump them from farm to comspace occupies the first f loor of a renohard cider. Learn more about the historic mercial winery. Fortunately, Nebraska’s vated, historic brick building with an art Nebraska City apple orchard that got them unique liquor laws have allowed them to gallery upstairs. going at kimmelorchard.org. stay local and continue to self-distribute their wines.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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- Sponsored Content DINING GUIDE LEGEND

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140th and Dodge streets (402-431-0023) 76th and Dodge streets (402-991-0055)

Charleston’s is a casual, upbeat restaurant with a menu filled with dishes prepared from scratch daily. We focus on providing our guests with excellent prices and selecting the highest quality ingredients. Whether you are new to Charleston’s or a long-standing guest, we look forward to seeing you soon!

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DJ’S DUGOUT - $

636 N. 114th St. (402-498-8855) 1003 Capitol Ave. (402-763-9974) 10308 S. 23rd St. (402-292-9096) 2102 S. 67th St. (402-933-3533) 180th and Q streets (402-292-9096) Highway 75 and Oak Hill Road (402-298-4166)

Catch all of the action at six Omaha-area locations. DJ's Dugout features burgers, sandwiches, wraps, salads, appetizers, and an impressive drink menu along with HD TVs and projectors.

Home to Blazin’ Pianos, Omaha’s only dueling piano concept.

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JAMS- $$

7814 Dodge St. (402-399-8300) 1101 Harney St. in the Old Market (402-614-9333)

Jams is an Omaha restaurant legacy, an "American Grill" that offers a melting pot of different styles and varieties. The dishes are made with high-quality ingredients that pair well with award-winning wines or creative cocktails.

—jamseats.com

KITH & KIN - $$

402-991-1552 5018 Underwood Ave.

Kith & Kin comes from a southern term that means "Friends & Family." We offer a family-friendly restaurant in a beautiful space with scratch-made food at a reasonable price. Southern hospitality is our main objective.

Located in the heart of Dundee. Welcome to the family.

—kith-kin.us

LE PEEP - $

177th and Center streets (402-934-9914) 156th Street and W. Dodge Road (402-408-1728) 120th and Blondo streets (402-991-8222)

Le Peep puts a wholesome perspective on your favorite neighborhood breakfast and lunch spot. Fresh. Simple. Elegant.

Inviting. We put the emphasis on people, both patrons and staff. We focus on providing each of our guests the fresh food and friendly service that they have come to expect. Open daily 6:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

—lepeepomaha.com

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

A Legacy That Lives On

The Art OF BAKING Since 1921

Thank You Omaha!

RotellasBakery.com

Louis Rotella Sr. learned The Art of Baking at an early age from his father, Alessandro. He then carefully passed on this legacy to his son Louis Rotella Jr., and now this same legacy is being passed on to the 5th generation of the Rotella Baking family. Nearly 100 years in the bakery business, Rotella’s is now recognized as one of the premier bakery’s in the industry.

LISA'S RADIAL CAFE - $ 402-551-2176 817 N. 40th St.

TWO WORLDS...

American. Cafe. Diner. Vegetarian-friendly. Gluten-free options.

This old-school diner serves hearty portions of American comfort classics for breakfast and lunch. Family-owned and operated. This business is a must if you’re in the area. People rave about our chicken-fried steak, stuffed French toast, coffee, and friendly staff. Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 7 a.m.-2 p.m.

RUSTY NAIL PUB - $

402-933-9753 144th and Pacific streets

GR E AT H A P PY H O U R SP E C I A L S!

The Rusty Nail Pub has been a local West Omaha favorite since 1981. Serving up cold drinks and hot food daily. Our specialties include juicy burgers, hand-cut fries, smoked-inhouse pulled pork, and traditional Mexican dishes. Daily food and drink specials.

STELLA’S - $

402-291-6088 106 S. Galvin Road, Bellevue

Since 1936, we’ve been making our world-famous Stella’s hamburgers the same way. The family secrets have been handed down to each owner, ensuring that your burger is the same as the one you fell in love with the first time you tried Stella’s. And if it’s your first time, we know you’ll be back! Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., closed Sunday.

—stellasbarandgrill.com

One Amazing Experience 12221 MARY PLAZA • 402-541-7963 RGCATERINGEVENTS.COM/RYANS-FOOD-SPIRITS

Omaha’s Only

Authentic German Restaurant Locally Owned Since 1976

Omaha’s most unique

I TA L I A N D I N I N G E X P E R I E N C E

stop in for fresh bakery items, holiday dessert trays and classic German dishes.

gerdasgermanrestaurant.com

402-932-0444 3814 Farnam St.

Stirnella is a refined gastro-pub in the historic Blackstone District, located on 38th and Farnam streets. Featuring local produce, proteins, beer, and spirits. The menu is influenced by local ingredients with dishes from all over the world. The bar program features bottled/canned beer, local beers on tap, craft cocktails, and wine.

—stirnella.com

UPSTREAM BREWING COMPANY - $$ 402-344-0200 514 S. 11th St.

Upstream features an extensive menu of new American pub fare including appetizers, thin-crust pizzas, superb cuts of meat (featuring Omaha Steaks), fresh fish, pasta, salads, sandwiches, and a great children’s menu. Fresh, handcrafted beer and root beer on tap. Extensive wine list. Call ahead for group reservations or to be placed on our waiting list. Visit our classic, upscale poolroom located on the second level.

—upstreambrewing.com

Gerda’s Family is carrying on her traditions and recipes,

10 mins from Downtown Omaha 5180 Leavenworth 402.553.6774

STIRNELLA - $$$

BARBECUE TIRED TEXAN BBQ - $$ 402.884.9800

13110 BIRCH DR, OMAHA, NE | LOMBARDOSOMAHA.COM

402-991-9994 4702 S. 108th St.

Barbecue. Desserts. Traditional American. Family-owned and operated in Omaha. You'll be able to taste the freshness of barbecue straight from the smoker, sliced or pulled to order. We strive to offer the finest ingredients, with the utmost freshness, in a comfortable environment. You’re family around here, and if something’s not right, be sure to let us know. Since all of our smoked products come right off the smoker, we may even sell out! Don’t worry, we won’t let you leave hungry. Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., or until we're sold out of meat.

—tiredtexanbbq.com

DINING GUIDE LEGEND

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// 120 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

7-31-13 Option A

ICE CREAM TED AND WALLY’S - $ 402-341-5827 1120 Jackson St.

Come experience the true taste of homemade ice cream in the Old Market. Since 1986, we’ve created gourmet ice cream flavors in small batches using rock salt and ice. We offer your favorites, plus unique flavors like margarita, green tea, Guinness, and French toast. Special orders available.

—tedandwallys.com

ITALIAN LA CASA PIZZARIA - $$

402-556-6464 45th and Leavenworth streets

La Casa Pizzaria has been serving Omaha its legendary Neapolitan-style pizza and pasta for 60 years. We offer dine-in, carry-out, party facilities, catering, and now pizza shipments to the 48 contiguous states. Open Option Bat 11 a.m. and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday-Saturday —lacasapizzaria.net

Option C

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LOMBARDO'S BISTRO & BAR - $$ 402-884-9800 13110 Birch Drive

We are a locally owned and operated neighborhood eatery with an Italian flare. We offer a full, made-from-scratch menu along with extensive wine, craft cocktail, and craft beer lists. Casual is the best way to describe the warm and friendly service you will come to enjoy when choosing us. We offer dine-in, carryout, catering, a daily happy hour (3-6:30 p.m. and all-day Sundays), live music Tuesdays and Sundays, and half-price bottles of wine on Wine Down Wednesdays.

—lombardosomaha.com

LO SOLE MIO RISTORANTE ITALIANO - $$ 402-345-5656 3001 S. 32nd Ave.

The restaurant is located in a residential neighborhood, surrounded by charming homes. Everyone is greeted with homemade bread, a bowl of fresh tomatoes and basil, a bowl of oven-roasted garlic cloves, specially seasoned olive oil, and (at night) a jug of Chianti! The menu includes a large variety of pasta, chicken, veal, seafood, and even a delicious New York steak. Traditional dishes such as lasagna, tortellini, and eggplant parmigiana are also available. Lunch offerings include panini, salads, and one of the best pizzas in town. Patio seating, full bar, and a great wine list complete the atmosphere. No reservations, except for private rooms.

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PASTA AMORE - $$

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An Omaha Tradition since 1981

402-391-2585 11027 Prairie Brook Road

Pastas are made fresh daily, including tortellini, fettuccine, and capellini. Daily specials and menu items include a variety of fresh seafood and regional Italian dishes, such as linguini amore and calamari steak, penne Florentine, gnocchi, spaghetti puttanesca, and ossobuco. Filet mignon is also offered for those who appreciate nationally renowned Nebraska beef. To complement your dining experience, the restaurant offers a full bar and extensive wine list. Be sure to leave room for homemade desserts, like the tiramisu and cannoli. Lunch is 11 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner starts at 4:30 p.m.

Reservations recommended.

—pastaamore.com

H A PP Y HOU R E V E RY DAY $1.00 OFF ALL DRINKS

HAPPY HOUR FOOD SPECIALS

See you at the Nail!

402.933.9753 / 14210 Pierce Plaza

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// 121 //

PITCH - $$

402-590-2625 5021 Underwood Ave.

Thank You, Thank You,

Thank You

For Continually Voting For Us!

th

9201 N 30 (next to the Mormon Bridge) Omaha, NE

Serving Lunch & Dinner Mon-Sat 3001 S. 32nd Ave / Omaha, NE 402.345.5656

402.451.3266 / 11-2 reopen 4-9 Tues-Fri Winter hours: 11-2 lunch / Tues-Sat 4-8 / CLOSED Sun & Mon

An OpenTable's Diners' Choice for 2014 HotSpot Restaurant in America. Keeping up with the traditional way the first pizzas in Italy were made, our pizzas are cooked in a coal-fired oven.

The menu also features seafood, hand-cut steak, housemade pastas, and burgers full of flavor. Our goal is to provide you with local, housemade, and imported ingredients. We offer a happy hour menu through the week. Our bar provides an array of in-house concoctions as well as your traditional libations. Our wine selection is well-thought-out and most impressive. You will enjoy Pitch. Monday 3 p.m.-10 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday 11 a.m.10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 3-10 p.m.

—pitchpizzeria.com

SPEZIA - $$$

402-391-2950 3125 S. 72nd St.

Choose Spezia for lunch or dinner, where you'll find a casual elegance that's perfect for business guests, get-togethers, or any special occasion. Exceptional food, wine, and service, with a delectable menu: fresh seafood, certified Angus steaks, innovative pasta, risotto, gnocchi, cioppino, lamb, entrée salads, Mediterranean chicken, flatbreads, and fresh salmon daily. Enjoy a full bar, Italian and California wines, Anniversary/Lovers' Booth (call to reserve), private dining rooms, and wood-fired grill. Open Monday-Sunday.

Cocktail hour 4-6 p.m., when all cocktails, glasses of wine, and beers are half price. Evening reservations recommended.

—speziarestaurant.com

EST. 1986

Now Serving Farm to Table Street Food at our Benson Location

MEXICAN FERNANDO’S - $

Old Market: 1120 Jackson Street • (402) 341-5827 Benson: 6023 Maple Street

7555 Pacific St. (402-339-8006) 380 N. 114th St. (402-330-5707)

tedandwallys.com 11 Years In A Row

THANKS FOR VOTING US

#1 BREAKFAST

10 YEARS IN A ROW!

Featuring Sonoran-style cooking made fresh daily. Catering and party rooms also available. Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 4-9 p.m.

—fernandosomaha.com

JULIO’S - $

402-330-2110 2820 S. 123rd Court

Locally owned since 1977, Julio’s prides themselves on serving the finest Tex-Mex cuisine and offering top-notch customer service. Our loyal customers are the reason we have been around for nearly 40 years. We have an extensive menu that has both classic and innovative dishes—giving everyone the opportunity to find something they love. Salivating for Southwestern fare? We have tacos, tostadas, a dozen different enchiladas, and classic fajitas.

And, of course, nachos!

—julios.com

LA MESA - $$

158th Street and W. Maple Road 156th and Q streets (402-763-2555) 110th St. and W. Maple Road (402-496-1101) Fort Crook Road and Highway 370, Bellevue (402-7338754) 84th Street and Tara Plaza, Papillion (402-593-0983) Lake Manawa Exit, Council Bluffs (712-256-2762)

. Locally Owned Since 1970 . . .

Featuring Omaha’s Most Popular Patio The Old Market’s Longest Jazz Gig Live Music Every Sunday 9pm and Wednesday 7pm-10pm Never a Cover Charge 402.345.4488

10th and Howard St. MrToadsPub.com

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

Enjoy awesome enchiladas, fabulous fajitas, seafood specialties, mouth-watering margaritas, and more at La Mesa. Come see why La Mesa has been voted Omaha’s No. 1 Mexican restaurant 13 years in a row. Sunday-Thursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.

—lamesaomaha.com

NOW OPEN at 69th & Pacific! • 993-2776 177th & Center • 934-9914 156th & Dodge • 408-1728 120th & Blondo • 991-8222 Drive-Thru Open (Center St. Only) Open Daily 6:30am-2:00pm Serving Breakfast & Lunch All Day!

DINING GUIDE LEGEND

$=$1-10 • $$=$10-20 • $$$=$20-30 • $$$$=$30+

OJ'S CAFE - $$

402-451-3266 9201 N. 30th St. (next to the Mormon Bridge)

Family-owned for 41 years. All homemade food, including our signature enchilada dish, homemade salsa, and some of Omaha's best margaritas! Tuesday-Friday 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturday 2 p.m.-9 p.m., Closed Sunday and Monday.

—ojscafe.com

MARGARITA'S MEXICAN RESTAURANT - $ 402-393-7515 4915 S. 72nd St.

Margarita's is a business with more than seven years in the food world. We offer authentic Mexican food where you can enjoy a nice moment with your family.

—margaritasmenu.com

ROMEO'S MEXICAN FOOD AND PIZZA - $

90th and Blondo streets (402-391-8870) 146th Street and W. Center Road (402-330-4160) 96th and L streets (402-331-5656) Galvin and Avery roads, Bellevue (402-292-2028) 29th and Farnam streets (402-346-1110)

Romeo's is your friendly, family Mexican food and pizza restaurant.

We take real pride in serving our guests generous portions of the freshest, most flavorful dishes made with the finest ingredients available. Zesty seasonings and the freshest ingredients combine to ensure the ultimate in flavor. Our savory taco meat is prepared every morning at each location.

Make sure to try our chimichangas; they're the best in town.

—romeosomaha.com

SPECIAL DINING BÄRCHEN BEER GARDEN - $ 402-502-9902 6209 Maple St.

Located in Benson, Bärchen is a modern American beer garden and beer hall influenced by German communal drinking culture.

Indoor seating for approximately 125 people and outdoor seating in our beer garden for approximately 125-150 people. The laid-back atmosphere pairs well with our 30 rotating taps, international beer list, unique sausage & sandwich menu, and locally made pretzels. We are family and dog friendly—all are welcome. Hours: Tues-Thurs 3 p.m.-11 p.m.; Fri & Sat 11 a.m.-1 a.m.; Sun 11 a.m.-10 p.m. For more information or to host an event, please email gm@barchenbeer.com —barchenbeer.com

pitchpizzeria.com | @pitchpizzeria offer good until 12 • 31 •18 see store for details

CRESCENT MOON ALE HOUSE - $ 402-345-1708 3578 Farnam St.

Founded in 1996, we’ve grown into Beer Corner USA with the additions of The Huber Haus German Beer Hall, Max and Joe’s Belgian Beer Tavern, and Beertopia—Omaha’s Ultimate Beer Store. With more than 60 beers on tap and Omaha’s best Reuben sandwich, we are a midtown beer lover’s destination. Hours: Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Kitchen hours: Monday-Wednesday 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m.-midnight. Closed Sunday.

—beercornerusa.com

FIRST WATCH - $

6350 E. THOMAS RD. SCOTTSDALE, AZ 480-272-7500

5021 UNDERWOOD AVE. OMAHA, NE 402-590-2625

17808 BURKE ST. OMAHA, NE 402-289-4096

The Original Whiskey Steak

1222 S. 71st St. (402-932-5691) 2855 S. 168th St. (402-330-3444) 3605 N. 147th St. (402-965-3444) 304 Olson Drive., Papillion (402-965-3444) 2015 Pratt Ave., Bellevue (402-991-3448)

Voted Best of Omaha 6 years in a row

We begin each morning at the crack of dawn, slicing fresh fruits and vegetables, baking muffins, and whipping up our French toast batter from scratch. Everything is made to-order here at First Watch. We use only the finest ingredients possible for the freshest taste around.

—firstwatch.com DINING GUIDE LEGEND

$=$1-10 • $$=$10-20 • $$$=$20-30 • $$$$=$30+

2121 S. 73rd St.

DroverRestaurant.com

402.391.7440 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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1:43 PM

GERDA’S GERMAN RESTAURANT & BAKERY - $ 402-553-6774 5180 Leavenworth St.

Omaha’s only authentic German restaurant, a little piece of Germany in the metro. Inspired by Gerda's recipes for homemade spaetzle, schnitzels, and rouladen. Fresh-made soups, red cabbage, sauerkraut, and dumplings are a few other treats. Stay for a dessert of Black Forest cake or grab a fresh bakery item for breakfast on your way out. Check hours online.

—gerdasgermanrestaurant.com

GREEK ISLANDS - $ 402-346-1528 3821 Center St.

Greek cuisine with specials every day at reasonable prices.

We are well-known for our gyro sandwiches and salads. We cater and can accommodate a party for 65 guests. Carryout and delivery available. Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

—greekislandsomaha.com

J.COCO - $$$

402-884-2626 5203 Leavenworth St.

The building that once housed a beloved neighborhood grocery has a new future. Built as a grocery back in 1925, it is now home to J. Coco. Our seasonal menus, rooted in tradition, showcase our natural ingredients. Local, organic, and sustainable when available. We feature craft bartending, housemade desserts, and pastas. We celebrate the traditional with a modern twist. Lunch: Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Dinner: Monday-Saturday 5 p.m.-close.

—jcocoomaha.com

KOREA GARDEN AUTHENTIC ASIAN CUISINE AND SUSHI - $$ 402-505-4089 5352 S. 72nd St.

Lunch specials served Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-2 p.m., featuring signature Korean dishes like bulgogi, doenjang jjigae, and grilled mackerel. Menu includes appetizers, traditional specialties, rice, noodles, soup, and beverages.

—koreangardenomaha.com

O’CONNOR’S IRISH PUB - $ 402-934-9790 1217 Howard St.

Try Omaha’s Favorite Reuben!

Omaha’s largest selection of craft beers.

3578 Farnam St • 402-345-1708 www.beercornerusa.com

Comfortable, relaxing atmosphere. Great before and after games.

We offer pub-style food—burgers, Reubens, daily specials, and homemade soups—as well as all the traditional, favorite Irish libations: Guinness, Harp, and Irish whiskey. Grill hours: MondayThursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

—oconnorsomaha.com

PARADISE BAKERY - $

17305 Davenport St. (402-934-5757) 120 Regency Parkway (402-991-3000)

Paradise Bakery offers freshly prepared baked goods made from scratch every morning with the finest ingredients available. Offering a variety of meals including soups, salads, and sandwiches. Our associates are extremely proud of the reputation Paradise has earned for providing exceptional service and producing the finest-quality products.

—paradisebakery.com

TAJ KABOB AND CURRY - $ 402-933-1445/402-238-4317 654 N. 114th St.

Taj of Omaha shares its love of traditional Indian cuisine with friends and family in the Omaha area. The owners invite you to come enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and new menu. Taj offers both lunch and dinner specials, delivery and catering services, and a free party room.

—tajofomaha.com

www.romeosOMAHA.com

DINING GUIDE LEGEND

$=$1-10 • $$=$10-20 • $$$=$20-30 • $$$$=$30+

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// SPONSORED //

FLEMING'S

PRIME STEAKHOUSE Locally Inspired Dishes & WINE BAR

by Chef Doug Case WHETHER A PERSON is entertaining clients

or having a special gathering for friends and family, Fleming’s Private Dining provides a unique and memorable venue for entertaining six-to-200 guests. Experience a multicourse tasting prepared by Fleming’s new chef, Rafael Ponce, paired with exceptional wines and JOIN served by US a team of professional ON wait staff. Fleming’s private dining director, MONDAY’S FOR Mara Taylor-Mejstrik, can also create a customized menu for any group and any budget. $50 FILET & LOBSTER

DOWNTOWN 10th & Capitol

MIRACLE HILLS 114th & Dodge

MILLARD 180th & Q

AKSARBEN VILLAGE 67th & Center

BELLEVUE

PRIVATE DINING OPTIONS INCLUDE Private dining space available • All-day meeting, lunch, for parties up tobreakfast, 200 guests for or dinner experiences breakfast, lunch and dinner.

23rd & Cornhusker

PLATTSMOUTH Hwy 75 & Oak Hill

6 OMAHA AREA LOCATIONS

• An intimate reception hour with hors d’euvres, champagne, wines, or any cocktail from our full bar

DJSDUGOUT.COM | 11839_DJ'sOmahaMag_Aug2018HalfV6.indd 1

7/19/18 3:27 PM

Best Greek

JOSH ORSINI • A custom, special, five-to-seven course Operating Partner menu, with wine pairings carefully selected by our sommelier 402.393.0811

Contact Mara PKWY directly at 402-405-5839 140 REGENCY / OMAHA, NE 68114 or pdomaha@flemingssteakhouse.com FLEMINGSSTEAKHOUSE.COM

Your table is waiting,

Family Owned Since 1983 Family Owned Since 1983 Catering ~ Party Room Available CATERING / PARTY ROOM AVAILABLE Homemade, Fresh Food ~ Always HOMEMADE, FRESH FOOD, ALWAYS.

Josh Orsini–Operating Partner 402-393-0811 140 Regency Parkway Omaha, NE 68114 flemingssteakhouse.com

3821 Center St. 402/346-1528

3821 Center St / 402.346.1528

GreekIslandsOmaha.com GreekIslandsOmaha.com

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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STEAKHOUSES CASCIO'S - $$ 402-345-8313 1620 S. 10th St.

STEAKS • CHOPS • SEAFOOD ITALIAN SPECIALTIES

Cascio's is Omaha's No. 1 steakhouse. We have been serving Omaha for 69 years. We feature steaks, chops, seafood, and Italian specialties. We have seven private party rooms, seating for up to 400 people, and plenty of parking.

—casciossteakhouse.com

7 private party rooms Seating up to 400 Lots of parking

THE DROVER RESTAURANT & LOUNGE - $$$ 402-391-7440 2121 S. 73rd St. 1620 S. 10th Street

402-345-8313

www.casciossteakhouse.com

Famous for the original Whiskey Steak. Truly a one-of-a-kind Midwestern experience. Excellent food, wine, service, and value. Rare...and very well done. Lunch Monday­-Friday 11 a.m.-2 p.m., cocktail hour 3-6 p.m., dinner nightly 5 p.m.

—droverrestaurant.com

FLEMING'S PRIME STEAKHOUSE - $$$$ 402-393-0811 140 Regency Parkway

At Fleming’s, a steak is never just a steak. It’s the culmination of a meticulous process of selection, preparation, and service that ensures it reaches your table at its very best. We obsess over every detail so that you’ll savor every bite. This is why we offer the finest USDA Prime beef, available both wet- and dry-aged and broiled at 1,600 degrees or iron-crusted. You can elevate your selection even more with our indulgent steak companions, including truffle-poached lobster, diablo shrimp, and lump crabmeat. Each dish is crafted from scratch by our culinary team and served by our skillful staff. Reservations recommended.

—flemingssteakhouse.com

JOHNNY'S CAFÉ - $$$

11th & Harney

78th & Dodge

402-731-4774 4702 S. 27th St.

Years of quality dining and hospitality make Johnny's Café a restaurant to remember. We serve only the finest beef the Midwest has to offer. Aged steaks and prime rib are the specialties, with homemade bread and pies to complete a meal. An excellent wine list adds to the enjoyment at one of Omaha's original restaurants.

Hours: Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m.

—johnnyscafe.com

STEAK & GRAPES - $

402-884-8966 16920 Wright Plaza, Suite No. 118

We are obsessed with really, really good grapes; creative, gourmet comfort food; and a funky, fun atmosphere in which to share them. We search all over the world to find you great wines. Many wines come from our relationships with smaller, undiscovered vineyards, which offer a great value to our guests. Wine is supposed to be fun. We pour heavy and will open any bottle for our guests to try by the glass.

When you taste a new varietal at Steak & Grapes, let us know how it changed your concept of what wine is supposed to be.

Our gourmet comfort food is made fresh, using eco-friendly and local ingredients. As for the fun, we instigate it, but count on you to see it to fruition (literally through the fruit).

Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 10 a.m.11 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m.-9 p.m. (Join us for Saturday and Sunday brunch.)

—steakandgrapesomaha.com

DINING GUIDE LEGEND

$=$1-10 • $$=$10-20 • $$$=$20-30 • $$$$=$30+

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Thanks to our customers for voting us the “Best Burger in Omaha” Stella’s Bar and Grill

“Serving World Famous Hamburgers since 1936” 106 Galvin Rd • Bellevue, NE • 402-291-6088 • Open Monday-Saturday, 11:00 am - 9:00 pm

Lunch Specials

With Free Glass of House Wine HAPPY HOUR M-F / SAT & SUN BRUNCH

LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED 16920 Wright Plz, #118 / Omaha, NE 68130 On the corner of 168th & West Center St.

402.884.8966

O’Connor’s Irish Pub 1217 Howard St. • Omaha, NE 68102 402-934-9790 • oconnorsomaha.com

OMAHA’S ORIGINAL STEAKHOUSE

• Proudly serving visitor & locals for 90 years.

• Featured on CNN.com Best Meat Cities in America • Serving hand cut steaks, aged on premise and slow roasted prime rib with pride.

402.731.4774 www.johnnyscafe.com 27th & ‘L’ St., Kennedy Frwy, ‘L’ St. Exit 8 Minutes from Downtown Omaha.

Best Of Omaha 12 Years Running

WHERE GOOD FOOD AND GOOD SERVICE NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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// EXPLORE CALNENDAR //

STAY & PLAY IN SARPY COUNTY! Shadowlake Towne Center, Papillion

Sarpy County awaits with a wonderful mix of fun things to see and do this holiday season!

And you’ll find numerous stores decked out and ready for you to enjoy, including those at our exclusive Shadowlake Towne Center and Nebraska Crossing Outlet Mall. So grab your list, check it twice and make the journey to Sarpy County. Located just south of Omaha and along I-80.

For a full list of shopping, restaurants and holiday events, visit us at

GoSarpy.com.

BELLEVUE • GRETNA • LA VISTA • PAPILLION • SPRINGFIELD • OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE • OMAHA METRO Fontenelle Forest

Fairfield Inn & Suites

Chocolaterie Stam

Nebraska Brewing Company

Nebraska Crossing Outlet Stores

// EXPLORE CALENDAR //

NEBRASKA

STARRY NIGHTS CHRISTMAS TREE FESTIVAL

HAYRACK RIDE, STORYTELLING, AND S’MORES Through Nov. 10, Friday & Saturday evenings at Lied Lodge and Conference Center, Nebraska City. Arbor Day Farm’s popular fall activities include hayrack rides, cider, s’mores, and storytelling. 402-873-8733.

—liedlodge.org

FORT ATKINSON CANDLELIGHT TOUR Nov. 3

Nov. 24 & 25 at Speedway Village, Lincoln. The festival includes designerdecorated Christmas trees, pictures with Santa, a children’s workshop with crafts and activities, free holiday treats, entertainment, and raffles. Attendees will have the opportunity to bid on the trees and purchase wreaths. 402-475-1303.

—starrynightslincoln.org

at Fort Atkinson State Historical Park, Fort Calhoun. Visitors to the park will experience a guided tour of the fort by candlelight that reveals a mystery. Each stop along the way will unravel another part of the evening’s plot. Reservations can be made by calling 402-320-4055.

—outdoornebraska.gov/fortatkinson

GATEWAY FARM EXPO Nov. 14 & 15 at Buffalo

CHRISTMAS CABARET Dec. 7-9 at James

Arthur Vineyards, Raymond. The vineyards welcome visitors for an evening of holiday-themed songs. 402-783-5255.

—jamesarthurvineyards.com

HOLIDAY TROLLEY TOUR OF LIGHTS Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 30-Dec. 29 at Lied Lodge and Conference Center, Nebraska City. The Arbor Day Farm trolley will take visitors on a tour of historic Nebraska City to view the best Christmas lights. A classic Christmas book is read during the ride. 402-873-8733.

—liedlodge.org

17

23 at Arbor Lodge Mansion, Nebraska City. The historic 52-room mansion features vintage-inspired decorations and holiday-themed displays. 402-873-7222.

—arbordayfarm.org

TWENTY ONE PILOTS Nov. 20 at Pinnacle Bank

Arena, Lincoln. This American music duo from Columbus, Ohio, brings a mix of piano, synthesizers, drums, vocals, and occasionally the ukulele and bass to the stage. 402-904-4444.

—pinnaclebankarena.com

1

7-9, Brownville Concert Hall, Brownville. This annual Christmas concert features Broadway star Christine Andreas, and guests Joel Higgins and Martin Silvestri. 402-825-3331.

—brownvilleconcertseries.com

County Fairgrounds, Kearney. Guests will see the latest agriculture technology and services at this 49th annual expo, which will feature market analyst Sue Martin, free barbecue, and hundreds of exhibits. 308-234-2712.

Nov. —gatewayfarmexpo.org

CHRISTMAS AT THE MANSION Nov. 17-Dec.

Strategic Air Command & Dec. Aerospace Museum, Ashland.

Santa Claus and Star Wars (with Imperial Stormtroopers of the 501st Legion) join forces for a fun-filled family day. Young guests can visit with Santa and experience spacerelated booths, Star Wars characters, activities, make-and-take ornaments, and holiday music. 402-944-3100.

—sacmuseum.org

A VERY MUSICAL “CHRISTINE” CHRISTMAS Dec.

VETERANS DAY Nov. 11 at Strategic Air

Command & Aerospace Museum, Ashland.

The museum honors America’s military veterans with a special program and lunch on Veterans Day. This lunch program features posting of the colors and a keynote speaker. Veterans are encouraged to attend this event in uniform.

Online RSVP required. 402-944-3100.

—sacmuseum.org

SANTA GOES TO SPACE Dec. 1 at

CHRISTMAS ON THE PRAIRIE Dec. 1 at

Scotts Bluff National Monument, Scottsbluff. This annual event includes a variety of activities that evoke a time gone by. Visitors will be able to make pioneer crafts and enjoy complimentary treats. 308-436-9700.

—nps.gov

FORT ROBINSON HISTORICAL CHRISTMAS DINNER “LIGHT UP THE FORT” Dec. 1 at

Buffalo Soldier Barracks, Crawford.

Christmas lights installed on park buildings will be lit and guests can feast on a Christmas dinner. 308-665-2919.

—discovernebraska.org

CHRISTMAS PAST AND PRESENT Dec. 7-9 at Stuhr Museum, Grand Island. This event features a lamplit tour of Railroad Town and live music. 308-385-5316.

—stuhrmuseum.org CHRISTMAS AT THE CODYS' Fridays through

Sundays, Dec. 7-23, North Platte. Buffalo Bill’s magnificent Victorian mansion is decorated for the holidays and open to the public during the Christmas season each year, as is the barn. Evening events include outdoor caroling and hayrack rides.

Complimentary hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts are available. 308-535-8035.

—outdoornebraska.gov

IOWA LORD OF THE DANCE: DANGEROUS GAMES Nov. 3

at Orpheum Theatre, Sioux City. This dance and musical performance features cuttingedge technology, including a giant flatscreen that spans the width of the stage, special effects lighting, dancing robots, and world champion acrobats. 712-244-5000.

—orpheumlive.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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// EXPLORE CALENDAR //

MOSCOW BALLET’S GREAT RUSSIAN NUTCRACKER

Dec. 3 at Orpheum Theatre, Sioux City. This performance presents world-class Russian artists, hand-painted sets, Russian snow maidens, and jubilant nesting dolls. Great Russian Nutcracker brings the Christmas spirit to life for all ages. 712-244-5000.

—orpheumlive.com

FINDING NEVERLAND Dec. 26 at Orpheum Theatre, Sioux City. Based on the film of the same name, this show teaches people that— with a little bit of pixie dust and a lot of faith—nothing is impossible and the wonder of childhood lasts forever. 712-244-5000.

—orpheumlive.com

KANSAS CHILI & SOUP FESTIVAL Nov. 3 in downtown LIGHTED CHRISTMAS PARADE Nov. 23 in

downtown Clarinda. Over 75 lighted floats decorate the Clarinda downtown square for this holiday parade. 712-542-2166.

—clarinda.org

JULEFEST Nov. 23 & 24 in Elk Horn and

Kimballton. This celebration of the arrival of the Christmas season is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Events include a “Naughty or Nisse” 5K Polar Run, a pancake supper, and a concert. The Museum of Danish America and Danish Windmill will be open throughout the weekend. 712-764-7472.

—danishvillages.com

Hutchinson. This annual festival features a variety of soups and chilis, which can be voted on by attendees, along with music, entertainment, and shopping in the downtown area. 620-694-2677.

—hutchgov.com

SINTERKLAAS DAY Dec. 1 in downtown Orange City. Holland’s version of Santa arrives on his white horse during a large parade. Other activities include Dutch games and a puppet show. 712-707-4510.

—orangecityiowa.com

NORWEGIAN CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION Dec. 1

at The Vesterheim National NorwegianAmerican Museum and Heritage Center, Decorah. This lively day of events includes Scandinavian holiday traditions, crafts, music, a movie, and other treats. 563-382-9681.

—vesterheim.org

TANNENBAUM FOREST Nov. 23-Dec. 16 at

the Amana Colonies. The colonies will be decorated with more than 40 real Christmas trees. Guests can visit Santa, stop by St. Nick’s Cafe for a warm drink, and see the 17-foot, Germanstyle Christmas pyramid. 319-622-7622.

—festivalsinamana.com

FIND THE WINE Nov. 3 at Walters' Pumpkin Patch, Burns. Snacks and samples of wine will be available, but the guests must try to locate samples hidden within the corn maze. 21+ only. 316-320-4150.

—thewaltersfarm.com

BOB SEGER & THE SILVER BULLET BAND Nov. 27

at Wells Fargo Arena, Des Moines. Inducted to both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Seger has earned 13 platinum and seven multiplatinumcertified sales awards. 515-564-8000.

—iowaeventscenter.com

GERMAN CHRISTMAS MARKET Dec. 1 at Riverfront Community Center, Leavenworth. This Kalona. Children can fill their “walking indoor Christkindlmarkt includes a variety stockings” with gifts from local of handmade crafts for sale, German food merchants, have their picture taken with and beer, and a silent auction. 913-682-0387.

Santa, decorate cookies and ornaments, —stpaul-lcms.org take a cookie walk, tour churches, and ride in a carriage. 319-656-2660.

HYDE PARK LUMINARIES Dec. 22 at —kalonachamber.com Dec. Hyde Park, Hutchinson. Hyde Park neighborhood celebrates OLD WORLD CHRISTMAS MARKET its 35th annual Christmas Dec. 1 & 2 at the National Czech Luminaria with visits from Santa, and Slovak Museum and Library, music, horse-drawn wagon rides, Cedar Rapids. Specialty imports and cider, and cookies. 620-694-9310. handmade gifts will be available, along —visithutch.com with seasonal treats, live music, and dance performances. 319-362-8500.

—ncsml.org CHRISTMAS IN KALONA Dec. 1 in downtown

1

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// EXPLORE CALENDAR //

MISSOURI BRIAN WILSON: GREATEST HITS LIVE Nov. 13

at Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City. Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson will perform his greatest hits, with special guests Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin. 816-994-7222.

—kauffmancenter.org

2018 NCAA HALL OF FAME WEEKEND Nov. 18-20

in Kansas City. The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Induction will take place on Sunday at the Arvest Bank Theater. The Hall of Fame Classic Tournament will follow over subsequent days at Sprint Center. 888-929-7849.

—halloffameweekend.com

CHRISTMAS IN THE SKY Nov. 21 at Longview

Lake Beach, Lee’s Summit. Musicians and dancers will perform as attendees witness the arrival of Santa in a mule-drawn sleigh, Nov. the first gift of Christmas, and a holiday fireworks s h o w.

816-503-4800.

—makeyourdayhere.com

21

ST. CHARLES CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS Nov. 23-Dec. 24. Locations vary, St. Charles.

In addition to the 80-plus characters who are always "making seasons bright,” there are a host of other activities in St. Charles at Christmastime. 800-366-2427.

—discoverstcharles.com

DOWNTOWN KC OPTIMIST HOLIDAY FESTIVAL Dec. 1 & 2 at American Royal/Governors Building, Kansas City. This familyand pet-friendly event will feature a Christmas cookie contest, raffle, and pet costume contest. 816-221-9800.

—kcoptimist.com

Dec.

1

CANDLELIGHT HOMES TOUR Dec. 1 & 2,

throughout Weston. Historic homes in this antebellum city will be open and the streets will be decorated with luminaries. Father Christmas will be present. 816-640-2909.

—westonmo.com

Event times and details may change.

Check with venue or event organizer to confirm.

844.271.6909 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 131 //

People Love Magazine’s!

// 132 //

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// INSTAGRAM //

#OMAHAMAGAZINE SHARE YOUR PHOTOS OF OMAHA TO BE FEATURED HERE.

@alexispateraxx

@rockhoppingpenguin

@alisontopphotography

@eternal_and_unchanging

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@sixhexsix

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instagram.com/omahamagazine

facebook.com/omahamagazine

twitter.com/omahamagazine

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

// 133 //

NOT FUNNY // COLUMN BY OTIS TWELVE // PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL SITZMANN

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

B

ACK IN LATE 1969, America could

do anything and meet any challenge. After all, those were the days of the Apollo Project. Neil Armstrong had taken his “small step,” and two days later blasted off the lunar surface, leaving behind the landing module’s descent stage and a collection of various scientific apparatus, tools, flotsam, jetsam, and flagpoles behind. In other words, we had successfully sent a man to the moon and back and left litter behind, because that’s what we humans do.

Speaking of garbage.

As a nation we were optimistic and sure of ourselves, and John Boyd of Falls Church, Virginia, was a visionary to match the times. Boyd had been working in the waste management field for years when he had his “Eureka” moment. What did America need? It all seemed so clear to him, America needed a household appliance that could convert our trash into neat little cubes—kind of like those bundles that Wall-E stacked sky high in that movie. It was a “can’t miss” idea, and Boyd got his patent. The kitchen trash compactor was born. The world was never the same.

Soon Kenmore, Whirlpool, and a host of brand names rushed the machine into appliance stores. The hydraulic power of the

under-the-counter miracles would receive its daily allotment of debris and with a hum, a bit of a grinding noise, three or four clunks, a crack (no glass in the trash please), a slight ultrasonic hiss, and voila! That loose clump of garbage would be transformed into a super-dense odoriferous singularity. “What a boon,” the ads trumpeted, “Only take out the trash once a week!”

The other thing we Americans are good at, besides having visions, is marketing. Trash compactor sales took off…at first…and then….somebody said, “Why would I spend $300 on a machine that turns 30 pounds of garbage into 30 pounds of garbage?” The light bulb went on above everybody’s head almost simultaneously, and the miracle appliance miraculously flopped.

Yes, Americans can achieve anything if we put our minds to it. The problem is that sometimes we achieve extremely stupid things.

Right now, some visionaries have a new vision, which of course, is what visionaries are supposed to have. They imagine our streets and highways full of driverless cars.

Computers and little servo motors will, they say, seamlessly operate all our motor vehicles—even huge semi-trailer trucks—freeing us from the drudgery of paying attention to the traffic jam that surrounds us and giving us more time to stay riveted to our Twitter

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feeds for the latest absurdities of the dysfunctional electronic family we are all welded to these days.

Of course, the idea seems cool. Unless it’s foggy, or raining, or there’s a bit of construction on your route, or somebody tries to cross the street on foot. Yes, there can be, and have been, tragic consequences. OK, maybe it would be good news for Uber drivers, because none of them would work for Uber’s robot fleet anymore. Freedom! Other than that, it’s a cool idea that we should relegate to dystopic science fiction movies.

Sometimes we humans have too many ideas.

Ask John Boyd.

Driverless cars? Really? Why do we need a technology that will turn a freeway full of one million cars into a freeway full of one million cars?

Just asking.

Otis Twelve hosts the radio program Early Morning Classics with Otis Twelve on 90.7 KVNO, weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. Visit kvno.org for more information.

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SECTION // NAMES

KA RAS B E N SELING COUN

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

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