Carving Creations

Published in L Magazine, June 2009
Copyright 2009 by L Magazine, used with permission
(This is my original, unedited copy)

While driving along Vine Street by Wyuka Cemetery, it’s hard to miss Mark Rexinger’s home. The first thing you notice is a bald eagle high in a nest, so realistic it’s fooled people. Turn the corner onto 38th Street and you’ll spot other birds of prey, whimsical faces, bears, Native American figures and welcome signs, all carved out of discarded pieces of wood. His carving tool? An ordinary chainsaw.

Rexinger first got the idea to try chainsaw carving while he and his family were vacationing at his mother-in-law’s cabin in Park Rapids, Minnesota. He stopped to watch chainsaw carver Scott Henderschot on the corner of the highway. For the rest of the vacation Rexinger spent as much time with Henderschot as he could.

“I hung around there and moved logs around for him,” he said. “I just asked him not to spin around real fast because I was going to be right behind him watching.”

About a week after he got home, a storm destroyed about a hundred trees in Wyuka Cemetery. Rexinger pulled his truck up to the sign marked “Free Firewood” and loaded it up. He took out the eagle he’d bought from Henderschot and set to work trying to copy it.

His only previous experience with carving was making a small dog out of pine in seventh grade art class (he got an A) and creating larger-than-life snowmen with his daughter. But he bought a few books on chainsaw carving and began experimenting with his new hobby. Like most artists, he threw away the first pieces he made, but after a while, he finished some carvings that he was comfortable displaying, and his outdoor gallery began to grow.

One day a woman drove by his place, circled around the block and finally stopped.
“Is this eagle for sale?” she asked. He told her he wanted $250 for it. “Can you load it up right now?” she responded.

Since then he’s sold a few hundred pieces for as little as $5 or as much as $750. He doesn’t advertise, but instead relies on word-of-mouth, business cards, and his high visibility location. He rarely accepts commissioned work; he prefers to create something he likes and hope someone will appreciate it enough to buy it. He especially enjoys carving eagles and other birds of prey, but many people prefer the ever-popular bear.

“At first I didn’t want to carve bears, because everybody does it,” he said. “But other carvers told me, ‘You gotta carve bears. You’re losing half your income.’”

He gets his wood from local tree services and has carved nearly every kind of wood. His favorite wood to carve is cedar because the red heartwood creates unique patterns. He’s used the same chainsaw for seven years and usually starts with a regular bar and moves to a tapered bar for finer detail , then finishes the piece with a sander. Sometimes he uses a blowtorch to add a burned look; other pieces are left plain; and occasionally he paints a carving. He gives every piece a thin coat of varnish for protection against the elements, since most of his work is displayed on people’s yards or decks.

His bald eagles are painted to make them look realistic. He anchors the eagles in an upside-down tree, using the roots to depict the nest (a technique he learned from Henderschot, whom he visits every year.) Once a wildlife conservation officer knocked on his door and said a friend had told him to check out the bald eagle out on 38th and Vine. They both had a good laugh over that one.

The main expenses are the gas he uses to get the wood and the cost of replacement chains. Nails in the wood are his “biggest enemy” because they can easily destroy a chain. He’s considered getting a metal detector to inspect the wood before beginning a carving.

He does most of his work in the yard of the duplex he and his family share with his mother-in-law. The neighbors have never complained about the noise. He makes sure not to start before 8:00 a.m. and he puts the chainsaw away at sunset. To give his wife, Bobbi, and daughter, Brandi, a break, he sometimes carves at friends’ houses.

Rexinger loves the feeling of taking an old tree limb or weathered board and creating something new out of it. “It’s like giving it a new life,” he said.

He’s demonstrated at a few public festivals. He and Rick Burgess, a North Platte carver who’s become a good friend, demonstrated at the steel chainsaw booth at Grand Island’s Husker Harvest Days. Rexinger was a guest carver at a contest in Hackensack, Minnesota, and competed in the “Whittle the Wood Rendezvous” in Craig, Colorado.

So far he’s kept his “day job” as a bricklayer, but his goal is to carve full-time, traveling, doing demonstrations and competing in shows. “That’s what chainsaw carving is about—drawing a crowd,” he said. “It’s a performance art.”

"I Am a Man"

Published in L Magazine, March 2009
Copyright 2009 by L Magazine, used with permission
(This is my original, unedited copy)

Joe Starita, a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska, is surprised at how few people know the story of Chief Standing Bear. It’s something he’s hoping to remedy with his new book, I am a Man, recently published by St. Martin’s Press.

“It’s such a powerful, compelling, magnificent story,” he said. “And it’s really surprising to me how relatively few people know the story of what happened to a middle-aged father when he set off to bury his only son by walking 600 miles on a bitterly cold January morning. I want to expand that audience.”

Chief Standing Bear was a leader of the small, peace-loving Ponca tribe who lived in the northeast corner of Nebraska, at the confluence of the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers. In 1877 the U.S. military forced the Ponca to relocate to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma, a 600-mile journey of hardship, disaster and death. After two difficult years in an unforgiving land, Standing Bear’s son, Bear Shield, was near death. He asked his father to bury him in the ancestral burial ground overlooking the Niobrara River. Upon Bear Shield’s death, Standing Bear and 29 other Ponca loaded Bear Shield’s body onto a rickety buckboard wagon and set out in a blizzard to keep the chief’s promise. When they reached northeast Nebraska, they were arrested and ordered to return to Indian Territory.

In what Starita calls an “improbable sequence of events,” General George Crook, the brigadier general who was ordered to arrest the Ponca, realized he did not have the heart to send these exhausted people back. Instead he rode by horseback under the cover of night to tell the story to Thomas Henry Tibbles, the assistant editor of the Omaha newspaper. Tibbles took up Standing Bear’s cause, and for the first time in our nation’s history, a federal judge declared that an American Indian is a person within the meaning of the law.

“For one moment in 1879 you had white ranchers and white farmers and white judges and white brigadier generals of the United States Army and white newspaper reporters and white Episcopal bishops and white clergymen and white wealthy citizens and governors and senators and congressmen—all rallying around the Standing Bear flagpole to do everything they could to make sure that this man was accorded the kind of justice that Americans were supposed to believe in. That’s not a story?”

It’s also the story of all three branches of the U.S. government working exactly as our Founding Fathers had planned, Starita explained. The court system did its job, in the form of Judge Dundy weighing the evidence and ruling in Standing Bear’s favor. The legislative branch conducted days of hearings and concluded that Standing Bear had been wronged. The executive branch of government, in the form of President Rutherford B. Hayes, dispatched a commission to interview the Ponca and agreed that the chief had been wronged. Furthermore, it’s an example of the press doing its job of informing the public.

I am a Man is not a “musty old relic packed away in mothballs,” Starita said. “One of the things I like very much about this book is the great variety of themes and the great variety of questions that it raises,” he said. “Some of those themes and questions resonate as loudly in the opening years of the 21st century as they did in the waning years of the 19th century. If you look at the relationship between the government and the native people of this country, you can see that it was one that was fraught with problems from day one, and those problems are still going on. One of the things that I think is important to take away from this is the notion that it simply may not be possible to impose American style democracy on tribal based societies.”

Starita’s interest in Native Americans began as a young boy growing up in Lincoln. Because of what he calls his “obsessive personality,” that interest continued into his adult years. “It’s something that clicked with me at an early age and it never stopped clicking,” he said.
His first book, The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into seven languages. It chronicles the changes that occurred in five generations of a single Lakota-Northern Cheyenne family on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This powerful story of struggle and survival is the result of three years of research and writing. Starita would throw a tent, a fishing pole and a couple of pairs of jeans in the back of his car and drive 500 miles to the Pine Ridge Reservation. There he would set up his tent on the ancestral homeland above Red Water Creek, where for two weeks he would spend 18-20 hours a day with the Dull Knife family. After six months, the family came to trust him and began telling him “rich, wonderful, textured stories that sank really deep into their family roots.”

He approached the story of Standing Bear with the same “Captain Ahab-like” determination. With the help of Kyle Wyatt, a graduate student majoring in history, he studied every article published about Standing Bear. He spent numerous hours in the traditional Ponca homeland in northeast Nebraska, talking with every Ponca he could find. Then he’d get in the car and drive to Oklahoma and talk to the key Ponca figures there. He also spent many hours exploring the land along the Niobrara River.

“You cannot write one word of the story unless you understand how sacrosanct the land was to the Ponca people,” he said. “So you have to go up there and you have to see it. You have to understand how the whole ecosystem works, what kinds of plants there are, how the rivers flow into one another, what kind of wildlife is there, what kind of fish, what kind of food can be grown there, how rich the valley was. You can’t write this story unless you spend a lot of time on the land so you understand why they would walk 600 miles to get back to this piece of property along the Niobrara River.”

The result is a book drawn from extensive historical research as well as rich oral history from real people, written in a well-structured, yet fast-paced, easy-to-read format. Starita wrote the book so each chapter stands on its own, at the same time forming a mosaic that fits together to tell a powerful story. It’s already generated positive reviews, including what Starita calls an “embarrassingly good review” in the Pequot Times, a newspaper produced by an influential New England Tribe.

What’s next for Starita? “What is really starting to get me excited is the story of Susan LaFlesche Picotte,” he said. “The more I hear about this story, the more I can feel the obsessive genes kicking in. It’s just a marvelous story.” Picotte was born on an Omaha Indian reservation and became the first Native American woman to receive a medical degree.

He’s also excited about a year-long class entitled “Native Daughters” he’s co-teaching at the University of Nebraska. Through a grant from the Carnegie/Knight Foundation, the University is bringing in some of the most impressive Native American Women in our country. Out of this year-long process of looking at the role of American Indian women in U.S. society, students will produce a 100-page full-color magazine, a one-hour documentary, a major website and several blogs.

For Starita, what started as a childhood interest has become a lifelong passion. He plans to continue researching, writing about and teaching about Native Americans and their place in our country.

Civil War Voices

Published in L Magazine, February 2009
Copyright 2009 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version.



A new musical written by Lincoln attorney Jim Harris looks at the Civil War through the eyes of five individuals, one of whom was related to the author. But don’t expect the program to be a dry history lesson. “Civil War Voices,” to be performed at the Lied Center on February 13 as part of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration, is entertaining, humorous, passionate and thought-provoking, and tells a timeless story in a fresh way.


The process of writing the musical evolved over a number of years, Harris said. It started when he discovered a diary kept by his great-great uncle, Joseph Henry Harris, who lived in Oak Bowery, Alabama, and fought for the Southern Militia during the Civil War. Although he had serious doubts about the wisdom of secession, Joseph Henry Harris (affectionately referred to as “Uncle Joe”) still wanted to be supportive of the South, and this internal conflict is brought out in the diary.


Harris began giving talks based on the diary, what he calls his “Uncle Joe Talk,” ending with the final entry—a prayer for reconciliation and forgiveness. About the fifth or sixth time he gave the talk, he added a mournful rendition of Dixie to the final prayer.


“I heard noises in the audience, and I looked out and a number of people were in tears,” he recalled. “Before I had added music, they were just simply saying, ‘My, what an interesting diary.’ But when you add in the music, it adds a different quality to that story.”


A while later, Harris went with his brothers on a business trip to Georgia. While they were driving from Atlanta to Savannah, it occurred to Harris that they were taking roughly the same path that General Sherman took on his famous March to the Sea. All of a sudden Civil War songs started running through his head, and an idea came to him. If he could find other interesting stories and combine it with songs from the period, it would make a great musical.


He discovered fascinating first-hand accounts of four other individuals: Elizabeth Keckley, who was born a slave, bought her freedom, and worked first for Jefferson Davis and then as Mary Todd Lincoln’s personal dressmaker; Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Union Soldier and the hero at the Battle of Gettysburg; and Theo and Harriet Perry, a married couple who wrote love letters to each other while Theo fought for the Confederacy. Harris decided to base the musical on the writings of these four people, as well as his great-great uncle’s diary.


Harris, who had never written much of anything except legal briefs, enlisted the help of Senator David Landis, who had written a one-act play based on the life of George Norris. In addition, Robin McKercher, who is currently the head of Doane College’s theater department, helped build structure into the play and serves as the director of the show.


Choosing the songs was the easiest part of the process, Harris said. Because he was familiar with the music of the period, specific songs would jump out at him as he wrote the story. The pieces are what Director Robin McKercher calls “The Greatest Hits of the Civil War” and include familiar pieces such as “Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Goober Peas,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” and several traditional spirituals.


When it came time to find an arranger, Harris went to Dietze Music Store and asked for every songbook with music from the Civil War period. One composer stood out far above the rest: Mark Hayes of Kansas City, known world-wide for his arrangements of spirituals, hymns and folk songs. His unique take on the traditional songs will surprise the audience, Harris said.
“I did not want people falling asleep in an 1860’s parlor,” Harris said. “I wanted it to be new. It’s certainly respectful of the original genre, but it’s surprising and there are moments when it sort of blows the roof off the house.”


Director Robin McKircher said Harris was “very lucky” to land this collaborative relationship with Mark Hayes. “The two of them have really honed a very meaningful, very emotionally heartfelt show that’s filled with great pathos and humor.”


Robin McKircher, who served as the artistic director of the Lincoln Community for almost eight years, first met Harris when Harris acted in a play called, ironically, “The Civil War.” Last spring Harris asked McKircher to direct what was to be the premiere showing of the play, a fundraiser for an Alabama museum. McKircher suggested they perform it at Doane College first, where it caught the notice of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Committee.


“Civil War Voices” incorporates Elizabeth Keckley’s often quirky and unusual recollections of life in the Lincoln household. She recalls the pet goats that Lincoln loved, much to the consternation of his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln make an appearance in the musical as well.


The show is a tribute to Harris’s parents, both of whom loved music and history. Harris’s mother was a pianist and violinist, and his father appreciated all kinds of good music. Harris grew up surrounded by music and participated in musical theater throughout high school and college. Harris’s wife, Vicki, is also a violinist and pianist and has her own studio.


Harris’s father was from Opelika, Alabama, and his mother was from McCook, Nebraska, so the family commuted between the two states, spending the school year in McCook, where his father worked at his grandfather’s store, and summers in Opelika, where his father had a farm.


His summers in Alabama gave the Nebraska boy a strong connection with the South. He grew up during the “tail end of segregation,” and remembers when he couldn’t go with an African-American friend to the theater because his friend had to sit in the balcony.


“It bothered me, but it also really interested me to learn more about what this was this all about,” Harris said. “My dad had a very innate, natural grasp of what America was about; he was very perceptive. He knew a lot about the history of the South and so I learned from him.”
Harris’s father founded the Museum of East Alabama in Opelika, which sponsored the showing of “Civil War Voices” last spring. His mother, who is still living at age 96, founded the High Plains Museum in McCook. The musical will be performed in McCook on February 21, as a fundraiser for the Fox Theatre.


The cast includes some of the Lincoln and Omaha’s best performers. Harris himself will play the part of Uncle Joe. Although the costumes are from the Civil War Period, the show has a contemporary rather than a “dusty, antiquated feel,” said McKercher.


“It’s timeless in its message,” McKercher said. “The stories Jim has concentrated on are stories of individuals who find beauty and joy. The solemnity of some of these occasions and the heart that these characters have all sewn up in the cataclysm of what they faced at that time is really quite inspirational.”


All tickets for “Civil War Voices” are general admission and are available at the Lied Center Box Office by calling 472-4747. Cost is only $15 for adults and $10 for students.

Elvis Lives

Published in L Magazine, January 2009
Copyright 2009 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version

Joseph Hall is still getting used to being famous. After finishing in the top ten on the national TV program “America’s Got Talent,” the 24-year-old Elvis Tribute Artist can’t seem to go anywhere without being recognized. While pumping gas or shopping for groceries, strangers congratulate him and tell him they voted for him. It’s still a little overwhelming, considering that around two years ago he was working in his father’s restaurant and had never performed on stage.

His road to fame started in October of 2006, when his family threw an employee Halloween party and opened it up to the public. Hall went as Elvis and sang a few songs. Afterwards one of the guests approached him and asked him to perform at her bar. That led to another show, which led to another show. Six months later, Hall placed in the top ten in an Elvis tribute contest and was asked to headline the first ever Elvis Presley cruise. Because of his success, he decided to quit his job and become a full-time entertainer.

He traveled to Chicago in February of 2008 to do a screen test for “America’s Got Talent.” Two days later he got a call saying he was on the show. He describes his time on “America’s Got Talent” as a “crazy ride” full of long days spent in rehearsals, meeting with tech teams, and a lot of “hurry up and wait.” His top ten finish earned him a spot in a Vegas show before 5,000 screaming fans.

“I enjoyed every minute of it, and I wouldn’t take back anything from the show,” he said. “It was the best time of my life.”

Since returning to Lincoln, his schedule has been packed. His father, Kyle Hall (who serves as his manager) and the rest of his support team are kept busy with booking, production and merchandise sales. Hall had about 30 shows from October through December, and a tour of U.S. cities is planned for the new year. In February he will be performing at the Astrodome with two other contestants from “America’s Got Talent”—Queen Emily and Nuttin’ But Stringz.

“In the beginning our team would go out and push the show, but now we don’t have time for that. We just book a show and then 500 people show up,” Hall said. “What ‘America’s Got Talent’ has done is it’s made me as a known entertainer, so basically the country is ours. Now that we’ve been in the living rooms of America, we want to be in their lives. It’s time to take advantage of the name that I’ve established.”

With over 700 Elvis songs to choose from, Hall will never run out of material. “The King” performed everything from rock and rhythm & blues to Gospel and country. Because Hall was born seven years after Elvis passed away, he never had the opportunity to see his idol in person. All he has are videos, records, CDs and photographs, which he studies to create “Joseph Hall’s translation” of Elvis.

“What I do on stage is pay tribute to Elvis, but at the same time I don’t try to become Elvis. People see Elvis and they see me at the same time. There are over 50,000 Elvis Tribute Artists out there, and everybody does their own show, so it’s just a translation.”

Though he sings a wide variety of Elvis songs, Hall personally prefers the later Elvis music, spanning from 1969 to 1977. His favorite Elvis tune, “Suspicious Minds,” earned high praise from all three judges on “America’s Got Talent.” Piers Morgan, often the more critical of the three, declared “Elvis is back in the building!” after the song, which Hall performed in the classic jeweled white jumpsuit.

Hall finds that most of his audiences prefer the younger look of Elvis, but like the later music. At the same time, they go nuts over the white jumpsuit, which Elvis wore in the later years.
“All my costumes are replicas of what Elvis wore,” he said. “I’ll do the 50’s replica—the gold lame’ jacket--and you get a couple of smiles here and there and people like it. Then when you come out in the ’68 black leather, you get a little bit more reaction. But when you come out with the white jumpsuit—the iconic white suit—people go nuts, because that’s the superhero look.”
After more than 230 shows, Hall no longer gets nervous before a gig. In fact, he finds that the bigger the crowd, the more comfortable he feels. As often happens with performers and actors, he loses himself in the music and the audience and, in his case, the character of Elvis.

What’s it like to entertain so many people? “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. It’s the greatest feeling to bring smiles to so many people’s faces. A 60-year-old woman comes up and she’s got tears in her eyes and she says, ‘Thank you for making me feel like I was 20 years old again.’ It’s a great compliment. And then you see 11 and 12-year-olds in the audience screaming and dancing and they come up to you after the show wanting you to sign their T-shirt. I’ve never seen anything like it, where there’s an act that’s brought every age group together.”

Lost in a book and so much more

Published in L Magazine, November 2008
Copyright 2008 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version.

When Pat Leach first began working at Lincoln City Libraries in 1979, things were a lot different. Patrons checked out materials by writing their names on a card. Lincolnites looked at the library primarily as a place to check out books.

Now technology has streamlined the checkout process and vastly increased the libraries’ services. And patrons look to the libraries for much more than just checking out books. As Leach begins as library director, she wants Lincolnites to realize everything the city’s libraries have to offer.

“Technology is not just making us do our work better, it’s giving opportunities for people to share information and be part of the whole process,” she explained. “For instance, customers can put book reviews into our on-line catalog.”

This past year the total circulation of Lincoln City Libraries was just over three million, but much of that included materials other than books. Library staff, which number over 120 at the eight branch libraries, are paying attention to what people are asking for, and selections are based on those requests. Some of the newer offerings include current movies and TV programs, downloadable audiobooks, and on-line electronic databases on practical subjects like genealogy, health, car repair and test preparation.

“Our website is well worth looking at, even if a person chooses not to come into our library building,” Leach said. “We kind of think of it as a small branch library.”

Many people aren’t aware of the services libraries offer, she said. For instance, you can have an item sent to any branch for no extra charge, and you may return library materials to any branch. There is no longer a charge for placing items on hold. Interlibrary loan, another free service, allows you to check out books from other libraries if something is not available in Lincoln City Libraries. Outreach programs mail library materials to shut-ins and take the bookmobile to smaller towns in Lancaster County. Other “best kept secrets” are the Polley Music Library and the Heritage Room for Nebraska Authors, two specialized libraries located within Bennett Martin.

Lincoln’s library system compares favorably with that of other similar cities. The 2008 Hennen’s American Public Library Rating Index, which ranks public libraries according to circulation, staffing, materials, reference service and funding levels, ranked Lincoln City Libraries sixth in its population category. “There’s always room to grow, but I think overall our library system is pretty strong, both in terms of our facilities and the kinds of materials that we offer,” Leach said.
Pat Leach took the position of library director on September 22, replacing Carol Connor, who retired after 30 years of service. Connor’s example, coupled with her own varied positions of service with the library system, have given Leach confidence in taking on this new challenge.
Growing up in Aurora, Nebraska, Leach spent a lot of time at the town’s library and got to know the librarians well. Her mother served on the local library board. Influential teachers furthered her love of reading. She began working part time at Lincoln City Libraries while attending the University of Nebraska and has worked in technical processing, the reference department and as director of the South Branch Library.

Most recently, Leach worked for 13 years as director of Youth Services, purchasing materials and planning children’s programs for all Lincoln libraries and collaborating with other organizations, such as the Lincoln Children’s Museum and Lincoln Public Schools, to provide services for children and youth. While in that position, two new branches opened, Eiseley and Walt, both well-known for their inviting children’s sections. She started the Kindergarten Kickoff program, a celebration of the start of school, which this year drew over 4000 participants. In collaboration with the Nebraska Humanities Council, she helped initiate Prime Time, a national program of storytelling and discussion, which encourages at risk families to read aloud at home and talk about books in a meaningful way.

Programs such as these demonstrate another recent change in libraries, in that people are looking at libraries as a community space, a place to come and spend time. Leach is looking at ways to increase that involvement, such as providing developmental toys for children to play with while at the library and encouraging parents who come for story time to interact with each other. “It’s sort of the community’s living room, where people are welcome to just spend time and meet each other in an atmosphere of books and learning,” she said.

Leach would like Lincolnites to take ownership of their libraries. Her goal is not just that people use the libraries, but that they consider their branch library their own, think of it as “their place.”

Libraries exist because of democracies, because we live in a country where we believe that all people should have access to information, Leach said. “A lot of people buy their own books, and the truth is, we’ve probably bought that book for you already and you could use it. We have things that address all interests.”

For more information on Lincoln City Libraries, see their website: http://www.lcl.lib.ne.us/

A childhood dream Fulfilled

Published in L Magazine, October 2008
Copyright 2008 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version

Mary Elizabeth Anderson remembers the first time she knew she wanted to be a writer. Like many little girls, she loved to read. One day, when she was about 9 or 10 years old, she looked down at the stack of books in her arms and realized that nothing in the world would be more exciting than to see her name on the cover of a book.

It took nearly 50 years for that dream to become a reality. Mary and her husband, Don, raised three children. Don worked as an executive in construction and manufacturing management. Mary taught school in Iowa, where the couple lived for 12 years, and then did substitute teaching and volunteer work in Grand Island, where they lived for 30 years. She wrote a few stories, but didn’t know how to market them. Then, in 1991, when she was 51 years old, she noticed an ad for a class entitled “Freelance Writing for Profit and Pleasure” at the local community college. Following that class, she took an advanced class, and then started writing articles for magazines. Rural Heritage published her first article, which was about draft horses.

“I was so excited that I really did get my first article published,” Anderson recalled. “I thought, This is going to be easy. Well, then I found out it wasn’t so easy. I had to learn how to gear my material to the market.”

She began collecting magazines from friends and neighbors. She’d ask doctors’ offices for magazines they didn’t want anymore. She studied the kinds of articles each magazine published, sometimes dissecting an article word by word, counting paragraphs and active words. Figuring out exactly what kinds of stories and articles each magazine wanted helped her become successful. Her articles and stories have been published in over 100 magazines, and she has given writing seminars at community colleges throughout Nebraska.

But Anderson still had not seen her name on the cover of a book. Then a friend told her about the Lincoln Highway Association, an organization seeking to preserve the pre-interstate road that stretches across the U.S. Intrigued, she began researching the history of the highway, which follows approximately the same route as I-80. The result was a hardcover picture book for grade schoolers entitled Link Across America: A Story of the Historic Lincoln Highway, published by Rayve Publications in 1997.

Since then, Anderson has written and published four more children’s books: Taking Cerebral Palsy to School, It’s Me Again, God, All About Manners, and her latest, Gracie Gannon: Middle School Zero, which she describes as a book about bullying, belonging and dealing with insecurities. A multicultural picture book entitled Why Did They Build a Fence? will be published in 2009.

Fiction stories for children are fun to write, Anderson said, because she loves developing the characters and story line. “I feel like Gracie Gannon is just a living, breathing character that lives with me,” she said. “It’s so fun to get to that part, to develop the story line and get the plot going and get the people interacting. I can sit down in the morning and before I know it, the day is over and I’ve spent the whole day writing.”

The most frustrating part about writing? Waiting to hear from publishers and promoting your work once it’s written. Small to medium-sized publishing houses, like the ones she’s published with, do not have large budgets for promotion, and the authors need to do much of it themselves. Anderson has done media interviews, sent out press releases, and given books away. She’s constantly on the lookout for opportunities to promote her work.

When Don retired four years ago, the couple moved to Lincoln to be near their children and grandchildren. Being with her six grandchildren gives Mary lots of ideas for children’s stories, she said. “They’re a wealth of information. I start writing down things they said, and that would just start a story.”

To further improve her writing, she reads lots of children’s books. Some of her favorite children’s authors are Katherine Paterson, Eve Bunting, and Dandi Dalely Mackall, who has written over 450 books and is a personal friend and mentor.

You’re never too old to pursue a dream, Anderson said. “I know more people who have said, ‘I’d like to write a book someday.’ They need to jump into it, start going to workshops, taking classes and networking. Keep reading and writing daily.”

For more information about Mary Elizabeth Anderson, see her website: http://www.meanderson.com/

More than a Thrift Store

Published in L Magazine, October 2008
Copyright 2008 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version

It seems the Junior League Thrift Store has always been a part of Lincoln. For most of its 56-year existence, the store occupied the corner of 18th and O, drawing Lincolnites from all over town: people who needed the low cost clothing and household items, as well as those just looking for a bargain or an unusual find.

The store was known for high-quality clothing and household goods, said Melissa Dirr, president of the Junior League of Lincoln, which opened the thrift shop in 1952 at 215 North 9th Street. Other locations have included the Alamo Center and University Place, a spot it occupied from 2005 until May of this year, when declining profits led the League to close the store.

Lavore Amgwert bought nearly her entire wardrobe there, including professional clothing, formalwear and casual outfits. “I was able to wear designer clothes for a very nominal amount,” she recalled. “You’d be surprised at how many people thought I had a lot of money.”

She and a friend used to go out for breakfast every Wednesday morning at a restaurant located next door to the shop, poised and ready to check out the new merchandise put out weekly. Some of her favorite finds were a 25-cent purse with a $20 bill tucked inside and a $5 bracelet with 14-karat gold charms, a treasure she still wears often. Her home is decorated with accessories she purchased at a fraction of the cost of new items, from lamps to candlesticks, to a living room desk and even Heisey crystal.

For Lavore’s 70th birthday, her daughter-in-law Susie Diers, who works as an administrative assistant for the Junior League of Lincoln, surprised her by throwing a party—where else? The Junior League Thrift Store. Lavore thought she was going out to dinner at the Old Country Buffet with her son. “There’s something in the thrift store window I want you to look at,” he commented. Then : “It looks like the store is open!” Inside were about 35 of her friends and relatives, some from out of town. After enjoying cake and sandwiches, some even stayed to shop.

Local poet and former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was a regular shopper at the Junior League Thrift Shop and even mentions one of his finds--a plaid flannel shirt--in his book, Local Wonders. Twenty years after buying it, he still has that shirt, along with countless other treasures. He recalls buying a painting for $20 and later discovering the artist was quite a noted painter. He bought a couple of suits purposely too large and then had them tailored to fit.

“The quality of clothes was really quite marvelous,” he said. “It was not unusual to find a suit from someplace like Hickey Freeman, a suit that today would cost $1200, but I’d pick it up for $25.”

Although the thrift store is now closed, the Junior League of Lincoln continues to impact the community through its programs and contributions. The local organization, which started in 1921, played a part in establishing and improving many Lincoln institutions, such as the Child Guidance Center, Folsom Children’s Zoo, Fairview, the Junior Golf Course, Hyde Memorial Observatory, and the Lincoln Symphony. Significant projects have included developing the docent program at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and helping with funding and construction of the new Friendship Home.

The Association for Junior Leagues International (AJLI) was founded in New York City in 1901 by Mary Harriman, a 19-year-old debutante who saw the need to help the new immigrant community. She mobilized a group of young women (hence the name “Junior”) to work toward improving health, nutrition and literacy among immigrant families. Its mission soon expanded to include all aspects of community improvement, especially as it relates to women and children.
The Junior League of Lincoln recently received the $10,000 “Fund For the Future” award from AJLI to develop “Dream Designs,” a program that hearkens back to the organization’s original purpose of helping immigrant families.

“Lincoln is a huge resettlement area for many communities, especially Sudanese and Middle Eastern,” Melissa Dirr explained. “Some of these families come separated—children without parents, one spouse without the other. When they first arrive, they are flooded with resources through many of the community organizations, but we’ve found that after three or four months, these things are seriously lacking.”

The goal of Dream Designs is to help Sudanese women use their traditional skills to earn money. Using the Entrepreneurship Investigation curriculum developed by UNL Extension, League members are partnering with Lincoln Literacy to help these women develop business plans and market handmade items such as traditional clothing, embroidery or crochet.

Well organized projects such as Dream Design give League members an opportunity to help local women and children through hands-on volunteering, said Dirr. “It’s a great way to be a part of something, to have that support of other women and also to give back to the community. And we’re fun.” The Junior League also provides leadership opportunities and a supportive environment.

Dirr joined the League about ten years ago, when she realized that everything she was involved in outside of the home was work related. “I wanted to focus on things that were completely outside of work, and I wanted to introduce myself to a new group of women, and I wanted it to be through a volunteer experience.”

At the new member open house, she was impressed with the women from different backgrounds and walks of life who were dedicated to the same mission. Serving with the Junior League helped expose her to different parts of Lincoln. The training she received has been invaluable in developing her leadership skills.

Dott Hoff, age 94, is one of the oldest members of the League, as well as the group’s most enthusiastic recruiter. She joined the organization in 1996, when the upper age limit restriction was lifted. Since then, she has served at the thrift store, helped with holiday parties and assisted with hospitality at social events. In 2004 she won the Distinguished Sustainer Award for the Junior League of Lincoln.

She rarely attends a League meeting alone; she nearly always brings along a young woman she has invited to come find out more about the organization. “It’s a wonderful way to meet women who have the same interests as you do,” she said. Once you get established in the organization, you can choose which projects you want to get involved in, she said. She’s always looking for potential members. “I ask them to a meeting, and from then on, it’s easy.”

The Junior League of Lincoln is looking for new members. They welcome any woman who is at least 21 years of age and a resident of the greater Lincoln area. For more information, call the League office at 464-2050 or visit their webpage at http://www.jll.org/

Challenge and Confidence

Published in L Magazine, August 2008
Copyright 2008 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version

“I am honored and humbled to be given such an extraordinary opportunity.”

That’s how Ann Chang-Barnes describes her thoughts on her new position as interim director of the Lied Center. What gave her the confidence to accept the appointment?

What gets me through those moments when I question whether or not I can do something like this is the experience I had with Meadowlark Music Festival,” she said.

Dr. Chang-Barnes founded the highly successful classical music festival in 2001 and served as executive and artistic director for five years, a position that included everything from planning the season to fundraising, administration and event coordinating. She describes the experience as the most difficult thing she has ever done.

“It’s created out of nothing, and it’s hard for people to support something that doesn’t exist. You have to work harder to communicate your vision. I was very fortunate that the community came and embraced the idea after the first season. I learned so much, and that is one of the reasons I felt that I had the nerve to accept this appointment.”

Although directing the Lied Center presents a much bigger challenge, Ann’s confidence has been further boosted by the capable staff who are dedicated to the concept of the Lied Center as a vital organization in our community.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Ann emigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was nine years old, settling in Chicago. Music has always been an important part of her life. Strauss waltzes and Beethoven’s symphonies on the record player were staples in their home. Ann started playing piano at age five and never stopped, going on to earn her doctorate in piano performance from Indiana University in 1993. It was there that she met and married Paul Barnes and the two started their family, which now includes Sarah, 16, Hannah, 15, and Peter, 11.

Ann was a piano instructor at De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, before moving to Lincoln in 1995, when Paul took the position of co-chair of UNL’s piano department and Ann was appointed senior lecturer in the department. She is taking a leave of absence from her most recent position of artist in residence, but plans to honor her performance commitments, including an August 18 concert at the Chicago Cultural Center, and a September 9 faculty recital in Kimball Hall in Lincoln. In addition, as part of her recent Fulbright Scholar appointment, Ann will be performing and doing research with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels in the summer of 2009.

“It’s important to keep that part of my identity intact,” she said. “Because that’s who I am—a musician. Being a musician will help me in this job because so much of it is about artistic creativity. I will try to keep on performing, because that’s what keeps me centered.”

Dr. Chang-Barnes got her first taste of presenting while serving on the board of Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music in the late 1990s. While curating her first season for the organization, she discovered how much she enjoyed finding talented musicians and putting together a season for the patrons. She tries to develop a season around a theme, though not always obviously identifiable.

“I see a season as a complete, sort of rounded whole,” she said. “With Lincoln Friends I had to program five concerts throughout the year, and so I tried to be diverse in who I brought in, but also keep the same kind of standard and direction.”

In addition to her work with Meadowlark Music Festival and Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music, Ann has served on the Lied Advisory Board, the Geske Lecture Series Board, the UNL International Programs Advisory Council and as Vice Chair of Woods Charitable Fund. Her three years in the latter position were life-changing, she said.

“Being a part of Woods Charitable fund has opened my eyes to philanthropy and the needs of the community and how ordinary people are out there serving the needs of the community of Lincoln. I see how big of an impact foundations like the Woods Charitable Fund can have by providing funding for this kind of work that is being done well and quietly around the city.”

Lincoln is an extremely sophisticated city, Ann said, stemming from university’s presence as well as a young, family centered population who recognizes quality performances. Her goal for the Lied Center is to continue to provide a high standard of performing arts, not only for Lincoln, but for the entire state of Nebraska.

“We take that position very seriously, and it’s a much more challenging goal than just going out and finding patrons,” she said. “We have to educate the patrons and bring performing arts to people who don’t even know they’re missing it.”

When the Lied staff create a season, they choose several artists with an affinity for community outreach and arrange a tour of smaller communities throughout the state, bringing the arts into the schools and to patrons who are not able to make it to Lincoln.

The 2008-2009 Lied Center season, which she inherited from previous director Charles Bethea, provides a diverse line-up, with holiday events such as a Celtic Christmas and Holiday with the Canadian Brass, a bit of nostalgia with the Beatles Experience, celebrities like Ruben Studdard in “Ain’t Misbehavin,” recognizable names such as Frankie Avalon, and timely humor by Capitol Steps.

For the 2009-2010 season, which Ann and her staff are currently putting together, she is seeking to generate interest from a wider range of patrons by providing artists with national recognition, increasing the diversity of the events, and “pushing the edges a little bit.”

There’s a lot of “wiggle room” within the standard genres of children’s programming, classical music, jazz, theater and dance, she explained. Some jazz artists push the genre more into rock, attracting an audience that may not normally choose to come to the Lied Center.

“With classical music, we will continue to present the first-rate talented classical musicians that the hard-core classical patrons would love, but at the same time engage a slightly younger audience by presenting a younger talent,” she said.

Though Lied Center ticket prices are below the national prime for acts of this caliber, the events do not come cheap. “If we’re presenting something of this quality you don’t want it to be cheap, because it’s not the experience that you’re going to get,” Ann said. “Our hope is that the audience will begin to see a Lied Center event as an entire experience that is worth that amount of money. We have to earn it, and there’s a lot of work, a lot of planning that goes behind putting on an event. Our job is to make sure that you get your money’s worth.”

With the difficulties of today’s economic times, it may be easy for some to consider the arts as superfluous, but Ann’s hope is that people won’t lose sight of the importance of the arts to one’s quality of life. “It’s what makes us human beings, and it’s what makes us alive and interesting, connected and engaged with the rest of the world,” she said.

If humanity had to leave something behind to show whoever came after us exactly how creative, complex and elevated we were as civilized beings, Ann believes it wouldn’t be a computer program or a machine, as complicated as those things might be. It would be a work of art. For her it would be a great musical piece such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations, while others might choose visual arts or literature.

“Just the fact that we think this way tells you how important art is to us,” she concludes. “Even if we don’t know it, even if we spend days, weeks or months never hearing a piece of music, never seeing a piece of beautiful art, we just know it; it’s part of our DNA to gravitate towards it. Sometimes the things that are the least visible are most important.”

Union Plaza

Published in L Magazine, April 2008
copyright 2008 by L Magazine, used with permission
This is my original, unedited version

When completed in 2010, Lincoln’s new Union Plaza will unite the entire city. Patterned after other urban parks, such as Millennium Park in Chicago and Discovery Park in Houston, the six-acre high amenity park is designed to appeal to all segments of the community and generate investment in the area.

“This park is about three things: discovery, gathering and celebration,” said Lynn Johnson, Lincoln Parks and Recreation Director. “The intent is to give the community a place where it can come together and celebrate in a park setting.”

Union Plaza, the centerpiece of the Antelope Valley Project, will extend from O to R streets between 21st and 22nd streets, connecting to the existing Trago Park. While the two will be seen as essentially one linear park, Trago Park’s focus is the immediate neighborhood, while Union Plaza will be designed for the entire community and region.

The area between O and P streets will include a fountain at channel level, a cascading fountain and a water wall fountain. The next block will feature an amphitheater and pedestrian plaza designed for outdoor festivals. Families will especially enjoy the area between Q and R Street, with its pond and huge slides built into a sloped area. The adjoining Trago Park, which already has a children’s playground, will add a motion-activated sprayground, where all ages can go to cool off on hot summer afternoons.

Plans for Union Plaza also include an art piece celebrating unity and a raised overlook area with ornamental plantings of native and introduced species. At the activity center park visitors will be able to grab a sandwich, rent in-line skates, fix a bike tire, learn about upcoming park activities, or attend a club in the indoor meeting room.

Walking trails will wind in and out of shady areas following the newly channeled Antelope Creek. The area also will serve as a hub for five city bike trails, including the new 1.4 mile Antelope Creek Valley Trail.

“Communities are recognizing the economic, health and social benefits of providing some green space in these densely populated areas,” said Susan Larson Rodenburg, the park’s fundraising campaign organizer.

Patty Pansing Brooks, campaign co-chair, is excited about the opportunity for discovery in the new park. Lincoln Parks and Recreation is collaborating with Arbor Day and the Groundwater Foundation to develop educational components in Union Plaza, such as landscaping that celebrates urban trees, a working model of a water pump and various opportunities to interact with water.

“We’ve got water running through the middle of the park, and this is a good way for people to start learning about one of our greatest assets in Nebraska, which is groundwater,” she said.

Union Plaza will likely be named one of the first Groundwater Guardian Green Sites by the Groundwater Foundation, a national program recognizing highly-managed green spaces that implement groundwater-friendly design principles and landscape management practices. Planners are looking at solar cells and wind turbines to help generate electricity, demonstrating sustainable management.

The park is unique in Lincoln, said Brooks, because it is designed as a downtown gathering place for city-wide entertainment, education and festivals. “Whereas we have a lot of things going on downtown, a lot of it’s held on the streets. This is going to be an exciting, awesome way to gather people in a beautiful spot. It allows us all to come together and connect with one another. I think that it also promotes a lot of collaboration and community connections among various groups, individuals and organizations within our community.”

T. J. McDowell, Executive Director of the Clyde Malone Community Center, who also co-chairs the campaign committee, grew up close to the park location, in one of the most diverse neighborhoods of the city, with a rich history and heritage. The green space will become a beacon to the families of the area as well as the university students nearby and will be used for programs sponsored by the nearby Malone Center and Hispanic Center.

McDowell envisions a wide variety of ethnic festivals in the new park, such as Juneteenth, an African-American celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, which the Malone Center has hosted for the past 28 years. “I think this is truly going to be a jewel of the city,” he said.

When key Lincoln business and civic leaders met in 2006, the group--now known as the 2015 Vision Group--identified 10 Pillars to Lincoln’s Future, one of which was a new urban park. Union Plaza will mark the first completed 2015 Pillar and will remain one that all residents will have access to.

The new park will also serve as a catalyst for economic redevelopment, said Johnson. Antelope Valley is about more than eliminating potential floods and relieving traffic congestion, he explained. “It’s really about community revitalization. This is the piece that’s going to help foster and encourage that revitalization.”

Roger Larson, the third co-chair for the fundraising campaign, served on the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission for many years. He sees Union Plaza as a keystone project for improving the quality of life in Lincoln, thus attracting businesses and individuals to the city. Along with good schools and opportunities for arts and entertainment, those seeking to relocate look for a good park system and lots of green space.

“This park is the opportunity to take advantage of something that was already in place with this Antelope Valley Project,” he said. “We were going to have a big ditch there, really, so why not make it something beautiful. Since it starts on O Street, it will be visible to everybody, practically, so it’s going to be sort of our front door and lead us to the proposed innovation park.”

The City of Lincoln is providing the initial $3.3 million to shape the land for the park, in conjunction with the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ work on the Antelope Valley Project. The Lincoln Parks Foundation, in partnership with the 2015 Vision Group, has begun fundraising for the remaining $4.6 million, which includes funding for the many park features and an endowment for continued care of the park. The Lincoln Parks Foundation, a 501C3 organization established in 1992, was a significant part of the recent renovation of Sunken Gardens and the current renovation of the rose gardens in Antelope Park. The Foundation is committed to developing Union Plaza and providing for its continued care, said current president, Christie Dionisopoulus.

“We are very committed to the endowment of this park, and we are also creating an endowment to take care of all of Lincoln’s parks, to continue that momentum after this campaign is completed,” she said.

A generous gift of $1.5 million has already been given by Union Bank and Trust Company. “Lincoln is the headquarters for Union Bank & Trust Company, and the vast majority of our associates live here. On behalf of the ownership and associates of Union Bank, we are very excited to present this gift for Union Plaza,” stated Angie Muhleisen, President & CEO of Union Bank & Trust Company.

“We have a strong desire to give back to the city that has allowed our bank to be so successful. Union Plaza is a unique opportunity to beautify our city and will be a gift to our city that all individuals and families will enjoy for generations to come,“ Muhleisen said.

The name, Union Plaza, not only honors the donor, but also addresses the purpose of the park, said Johnson. “This is a place of unity, a gathering place where the community comes together,” he explained.

The Lincoln Parks Foundation is offering Lincoln residents an opportunity to become involved in making this park a reality by joining the Friends of Lincoln’s Parks. Members of the Friends of Lincoln’s Parks donate their time and talents by doing volunteer work or their treasures by giving financially.

“This is going to be sort of a citizens’ park,” said Larson. “It’s something the citizens are doing themselves, and so it’s going to be quite unique. I hope that there develops a sense of ownership among all the people that this is going to be their park.”

For more information about Union Plaza and how you can become involved, see http://www.lincolnunionplaza.org/