MIDLANDS Business Journal 1975
CELEBRATING 50 YEARS
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY ACROSS NEBRASKA & BEYOND
MBJ.COM
VOLUME 52 No.7
2025
$2.00
FEBRUARY 13, 2026
Fighting for Culture TEACHING HIP-HOP’S TRUE ROOTS WHILE FIGHTING AT AGE 52 BY DAISY HUTZELL-RODMAN, DAISY@MBJ.COM Houston Alexander is seated in a comfortable lounge chair in a cryotherapy business in west Omaha, his legs in compression boots as he chats jovially with everyone in the room: the receptionist who rejects his idea of a perfect form of pasta, the fellow athlete Alexander’s seen a couple of times receiving cryotherapy at the same time as him, the person walking in the door he doesn’t know who’s here for a sauna session. His love of people has served him well. For more than two decades, Houston Alexander has walked into elementary schools across Nebraska to speak on a topic about which he is passionate: That hip-hop culture is about music, dance and art — not Jordans, jewelry or cars. The 52-year-old former UFC fighter and current bareknuckle boxing competitor is president of the Houston Alexander Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit he formalized in 2017. Through his Culture Shock School Tour, Alexander has visited more than 450 schools since 2003, teaching hiphop history while providing free personal training, free selfdefense classes and giving away bicycles to students who improve their grades or behavior, funding most of it himself. A product of East St. Louis who moved to Omaha as a child, Alexander became a founding figure in the city’s underground hip-hop scene, leading the graffiti collective Scribble Crew in the 1980s. He made his UFC debut in 2007, which ended by knockout of Keith Jardine in under 50 seconds, and now competes in bare-knuckle boxing with a 4-0 record. He’s ranked No. 5 pound-for-pound in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship as of July 2024. SEE ALEXANDER, PAGE 6
OMAHA STEAKS ADDS NEW RETAIL STORES AND EXPANDS DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER BUSINESS Feb. 11, 2026 – Omaha Steaks is accelerating its national growth strategy by opening more than a dozen new retail stores in 2026 and expanding its nationwide fulfillment center footprint — bringing its premium proteins closer to customers than ever before. SEE OMAHA STEAKS ON PAGE 17
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