Outlook 2017

OUTLOOK

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH By David Hendee // WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Omaha was a territorial capital wallowing in streets of mud, stewing in political intrigue and echoing with whistles of riverboats and railroad locomotives when Nebraska steamed toward statehood in early 1867.

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city’s crude and undeveloped appearance was striking. It was a typical frontier outpost in the Old West, said David Bristow, editor of Nebraska History magazine at the State Historical Society. Boardwalks linked businesses. Residents pumped water from private or community wells and answered the call of nature in back-door privies. • “When you look at photos of that period, Omaha looks like it somehow just plopped down on the prairie,’’ Bristow said. • But it was a time of tremendous growth. Omaha-dominated Douglas County started the decade of the 1860s with 4,300 people. The population was 20,000 by 1870. Change was constant. • See Hendee: Page 2

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

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A view of Omaha in 1867.

Hendee: Greatness was on the horizon for this frontier town Continued from Page 1 Statehood arrived two years after the end of the Civil War, but the Indian war across Nebraska continued to flare. By the end of 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad completed track across Nebraska and rolled into Wyoming Territory on its transcontinental push. Land seekers taking advantage of the federal Homestead Act swelled Nebraska’s population. Henry Stanley — the same Henry Stanley of the famous, “Mr. Livingston, I presume,’’ encounter in Africa — grumbled in his diary about 1867 Omaha. He wrote that “no town on the Missouri River is more annoyed by moving clouds of dust and sand — when the wind is up — than Omaha. It is absolutely terrific. The lower terrace along the river is a waste of fine sand, which is blown about in drifts, and banked up against houses like snow in a wintry storm. For two or three days, people have been obliged to shut themselves up in their houses for protection from the sand.’’ Dust storms were merely one of the plagues early Omahans endured. Others included mud, stray animals (both dead and alive), garbage and sewage, as historian Bristow chronicled in his book, “A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tales of 19th Century Omaha.’’ When Omaha was laid out in 1854, it had streets of native prairie grass. Horse hooves and wagon wheels quickly wore away the grass and exposed bare dirt that endured for years. The city made its first attempt at pavement in 1877 when a few blocks of Farnam Street were covered with a crushed-rock surface called “macadam.’’ Omaha did not impress Grant Marsh, who would become a noted steamboat captain, when he saw the town for the first time a decade before statehood. Marsh’s biographer’s description of 1857 Omaha: “It was a veritable mud hole, consisting of two wretched streets straggling along the river bank and lined with flimsy frame and log structures of a people too eagerly bent upon the pursuit of success to squander time or expense on the niceties of civilization.’’ Even two years after statehood, in 1869, the editor of the Omaha Daily Herald (a forerunner of today’s World-Herald) wrote: “There is not a citizen of Omaha who does not feel ashamed of the condition of our streets. From the deluges of the passing season for weeks together they have been well nigh impassable for teams and most uncomfortable for pedestrians. Ditches, holes and unfathomable mud have been the rule, an eyesore to ourselves as well as to strangers, and an expensive inconvenience to business men.’’ Another news clipping from the era: “Yesterday afternoon an express wagon containing the driver and a lady sitting in it and a horse hitched to it were going at a rapid rate down Farnam street when

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The Second Territorial Capitol and John Meredith House almost complete at 20th and Dodge Streets in 1867. The capitol was razed in 1870 and replaced first by Omaha High School, then by Central High School. suddenly the horse plunged into a deep mire near Eleventh street. He became detached from the wagon and at once made a break for the stable, leaving the wagon, lady and driver in the mud to paddle their own canoe.’’ And another clipping: “Near the corner of Twelfth and Douglas streets yesterday there stood in the mud hole a whitewashed barrel upon which was painted in large letters, ‘No bottom! Trains leave daily for China and intermediate points.’ ” Bristow writes that, as late as 1880, Farnam Street reportedly had mud holes that could sink a horse belly-deep. As Omaha grew in the early years of statehood, its dog population expanded, too. City ordinances requiring the fencing or muzzling of dogs were generally ignored. Countless strays, often moving in packs, roamed streets and alleys, fighting, eating, excreting and reproducing, Bristow writes. By 1876, an exasperated Omaha Herald editor wrote: “Men and women of Omaha: Your dearest liberties are being taken from you! Unless you rise up in honest indignation and kill off a few thousand dogs, the blessed privilege of going out at night without a corporal’s guard will be taken from you. “When the fire alarm sounded yesterday morning, and the clattering engines rushed to the fire, five thousand dogs rushed out and pursued, and came very near eating up everybody who rushed out on the street to see whose house was on fire. “Constantinople obtained a world-wide reputation on account of the number and worthlessness

of her dogs. Omaha, proportion to her population, has more dogs than Constantinople.’’ Then there were stray farm animals, including hogs that took shelter beneath Omaha’s wooden sidewalks in winter. Sometimes they died there. Bristow writes: “Come spring, the result was ... unpleasant.’’ Not until 1881 did city government create the job of “city scavenger” to remove dead animals from public property. The scavenger was paid $1 for each horse, mule, cow or other large animal removed. Pigs, goats and calves brought 25 cents. Chickens, ducks and dogs brought a dime apiece. Omaha’s original garbage collectors were hogs, naturally. The city had no garbage collection and no sewer system during its first few decades of existence. With no sewer system, Omahans relied on the outdoor privy — a hole in the ground covered with a little shack for privacy. Privies eventually filled up and had to be cleaned out. Most Omahans, however, avoided the chore, according to historian Michael Harkins. He wrote in 1975: “To avoid cleaning privies, Omahans usually provided openings in the rear of the outhouse and allowed waste to freely run out. The fecal matter found its way into alleys, streets and eventually into the local water supply.’’ Hotels added to the mess when their cesspools backed up. The City Council proposed a sewer system in 1878, but it wasn’t fully developed until 1895. Not until 1945 did the city outlaw privies and cesspools, but they continued to exist in some parts of the city into the 1970s.

There weren’t many brick structures in 1860s Omaha, but one of them was the Omaha Daily Herald building at the corner of 13th and Douglas Streets — precisely where the 16-story Omaha World-Herald Building stands today. The office of the Democratic Party-leaning newspaper was above a billiards saloon. The Republican Party headquarters was five doors up the street. Neighbors included a restaurant and shops that sold clothing, cigars and carriages. Other Douglas Street neighbors included at least three saddle and harness shops. An ox yoke and nails store also sold threshing and reaping machines. Empire Bakery and Confectionery advertised fresh bread, cakes and crackers. George T. Hoagland and Son operated Omaha Lumber Yard across the street. There were grocers, a jeweler, a gun dealer, stables and corrals. Two blocks up Douglas, bonnets could be “altered, bleached and pressed in the latest styles” at Miss A. McAusland’s millinery. The city’s landmark structure was the Capitol on the hill now occupied by Central High School. Omaha had many of the institutions of a city. There were hotels and a 170-acre poor farm. An Odd Fellows lodge had organized, and there were congregations of Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and others. Prospect Hill Cemetery had been in business since 1858. Omaha’s prosperity was linked to railroads, particularly where the Union Pacific Railroad built its bridge across the Missouri River from Iowa. George L. Miller, editor of The Daily Herald, a tireless Nebraska booster, advocated for

The World-Herald’s David Hendee brings the state’s history to life in “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties.” The counties have served as the building blocks for Nebraska, and Hendee weaves their stories into a tapestry of Nebraska’s people, places and events. Order the 196-page hardcover book online at OWHstore.com or by phone at 402-444-1014. It also is available in The World-Herald’s lobby at 1314 Douglas St. and at local bookstores. The cost is $29.95.

roads and bridges to make Omaha “the future chief city of the Missouri Valley.’’ When in New York City in 1867 to push for Omaha as the location of the railroad bridge across the river, he filed a dispatch to his newspaper: “A gentleman of good standing, speaking of Nebraska yesterday in Broadway, inquired, ‘How far is Nebraska from Omaha?’ This is fact. Besides illustrating Eastern ignorance of Western affairs, it has a good deal of meaning. It shows that even with otherwise intelligent men Omaha, as a town, has greater reputation than Nebraska as a state.’’ Union Pacific’s first tracks were laid in Omaha in 1865, but Omaha would not necessarily get the river bridge. Options included a site three miles south of Omaha at Child’s Mill and another farther south at Bellevue. An early railroad decision to build at Child’s Mill was viewed as a death knell to Omaha. The obvious result of the decision, Miller wrote, was that “Council Bluffs would be the Great City and Omaha would be a farm.’’ A state and city delegation, including Miller, traveled to New York to appeal. They won. When Miller, the city’s first physician, arrived in Omaha in 1854 — the year Nebraska Territory officially opened for settlement — he was among the first wave of men and women who shaped the destiny of the state and city. His dream was to help “build Nebraska into a great agricultural state, and Omaha into a great commercial city.’’ For better or worse, Omaha’s fate wasn’t to be a farm. david.hendee@owh.com, 402-444-1127

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

MAN ABOUT TOWN

B R E N D A N S U L L I VA N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Martin Shukert served as Omaha planning director during most of the 1980s. He is photographed at West Farm on South 144th Street, just north of Pacific Street in Boys Town. In Shukert’s youth, this area was a dairy farm on the far reaches of the city. Today, it’s prime real estate for a $1.2 billion mixed-use development announced by Noddle Cos.

FLASHBACK TO MID-CENTURY OMAHA

FORMER CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR CHRONICLES OMAHA’S PROGRESS By Howard K. Marcus WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

For Outlook 2017, The World-Herald tapped former city planning director Martin “Marty” Shukert for a series of essays on Omaha. Growing up during the 1950s, Shukert’s experience with cities was largely based on two places: Omaha and Chicago, where much of his family lived, including his maternal grandmother and many of his closest family members. On family vacations, his adventures included long walks along Chicago’s neighborhood commercial corridors, and rides with his grandmother to the Loop on the city’s elevated and subway trains. An architect, Shukert’s interest in urban design began early. As a second-grader at Fontenelle School, he explained a large map that he and his fellow pupils had made to then Omaha Public Schools superintendent Harry A. Burke. Shukert’s later educational career included Central High School followed by Yale University, where he earned a self-designed bachelor’s degree in city planning. His master’s degree in architecture is from the University of California at Berkeley. During college, he was a summer intern in the Omaha Planning Department. Following two years of work at architectural firms in Austin, Texas, he returned to Omaha and its planning department. In 1981, then Mayor Mike Boyle appointed him housing and community development director. Shukert became city planning director in 1983, succeeding two of his mentors, Alden Aust and James Kelly. Six years later, Shukert started a community- and regional-planning practice within what is now RDG Planning & Design. He is a principal of that firm and a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He and his wife, Aveva, a clinical psychologist, live in Omaha. They are the parents of two adult daughters, Rachel and Ariel, and have two grandchildren.

MARTIN SHUKERT

Shukert has been fascinated by the design of cities and their infrastructure since boyhood. This picture of an Omaha city bus dates to first grade.

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Downtown was the center of Omaha — full of people, departments store, office buildings and movie theaters. Christmas shoppers take to the crosswalks in December 1965.

East to west and back By Martin Shukert SPECIAL TO THE WORLD-HERALD

As a child in the 1950s and an adolescent during the 1960s, Omaha was much smaller geographically. When I was born in 1950, my parents lived above a grocery store near 26th Street and St. Mary’s Avenue. After a few years, we moved to the “suburbs” — 54th and Sprague Streets. Sprague was a dirt road, and the land to the north was a farm. In that part of the city, the boundary of urban Omaha was 72nd Street — then a narrow, two-lane road, paved but without curbs. Trips to places like Boys Town and Irvington — which had an iconic ice cream store — were adventures to remote areas, at least from a child’s perspective. Omaha was essentially a north-south place, extending about six miles from east to west and nine miles from north to south. I remember the density of the city and the vitality of the city centers that this density created. Downtown was the true center of Omaha and — as historic photographs suggest — was full of people and excitement with its department stores, office buildings and movie theaters. Major downtown buildings — including the Brandeis Store and Theater Building, J.C. Penney, Woolworth’s, the Medical Arts Building and others — were connected below street level, producing the same wonder of entering in one place and coming out somewhere else that I also found fascinating in childhood visits to Chicago. But this density also had an impact on other places where people went to shop

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Growing up in Benson, Shukert recalls a business district thriving with groceries, hardware stores, restaurants and a theater, shown here in 1940. and have fun. Benson was our local downtown and was a busy district of grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, hardware stores, a great educational toy and bookstore, card stores and the Olson & Clark Hobby Center. It really was a magical place. The kosher meat market my family ran was near 24th and Decatur, and the 24th Street corridor was also full of small businesses and shoppers. On the other side of town, South Omaha was another exotic place that, in our part of the city, made its presence evident in

summer from the odors of livestock and packing houses carried north by the prevailing southern winds. But South 24th Street, with four department stores and its own combination of retail businesses and banks, was second only to downtown in its scale and crowded streets. Omaha was also a transit city. Streetcar lines both directed and responded to growth patterns. The streetcar system grew incrementally, and sometimes “suburban” developers like Erastus Benson and Samuel Mercer built their own lines to serve their residential development projects. Streetcar lines created the conditions for commercial or high density residential corridors such as 16th Street, Leavenworth, Park Avenue, Farnam Street and 32nd Avenue. Where the lines ended or crossed — near 40th and Dodge, 45th and Bedford, 33rd and Parker, 24th and N, and 16th and Locust — neighborhood activity centers sprang up. My working-class family, like many others, depended on one car, a 1951 Chevrolet. Some of my clearest memories are trips downtown with my mother, taking a feeder bus on 52nd Street to 45th and Bedford, and traveling downtown on the 45th Street streetcar. Given that streetcar service ended in 1955, these memories date from the time I was 3 or 4. Yes, I was a weird kid. By the time the streetcar reached its destination, it was standing room only. Even through the 1960s, a large percentage of trips were made by bus.

OMAHA HAS FEW NATURAL BARRIERS. “PHENOMENAL GROWTH” ENSUES. PAGE 13

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

“WE WERE FAIRLY SELF-SUFFICIENT. YOU HAD TO KNOW HOW TO SURVIVE” Lillian Burkhalter

Lillian Burkhalter, 82, holds a photograph of herself in her youth. M E G A N FA R M E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

History’s lessons on her mind today By Kim Carpenter WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Lillian Burkhalter sits in her living room, which is filled with objects collected over a lifetime — cheerful clown figurines, charming Hummels, graceful Lladro porcelain — all artfully arranged in a display case without so much as a speck of dust on their gleaming surfaces. “I’m a hoarder,” the 82-year-old said with a wry smile. Though the mother of four, grandmother of 14 and greatgrandmother of 14 first landed in Omaha at age 13, she still has a trace of the lilting accent that followed her from the Deep South. Over the past eight decades, she’s witnessed history up close: the Great Depression, World War II, segregation, race riots, the fight for African-Americans’ civil rights and the election of the nation’s first African-American president. Though Lillian readily acknowledges that her experiences weren’t always representative of those of her peers, they are powerful reminders for her of where we’ve been as a country and how far we’ve come in terms of civil rights. As the U.S. segues from one of the most contentious presidential elections in its history to a new political administration, the octogenarian’s reflections on her life and Omaha’s history might suggest that the past isn’t quite as distant as we think. Lillian was born in 1934 in Plumerville, Arkansas, the only child of hardworking landowners who grew cotton and milled sorghum. They lived in a part of town nicknamed “The Bottoms,” which took the brunt of flooding

whenever the Arkansas River left its banks. Life wasn’t easy during the Great Depression. Lillian’s mother made her daughter’s dresses out of flour sacks (but the young girl didn’t mind; she got to pick out a bright new gingham pattern each time), and the family always had enough to eat. “We were fairly self-sufficient,” she recalled. “You had to know how to survive. We had our own meat and a sorghum mill. It consisted of a rock and a mule. I tell you, we were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. We never suffered.” Though segregation was the way things were, as a child Lillian wasn’t struck too much by the inequality. Her uncle owned a house that he rented to a white family. Lillian had white neighbors, and their children were her friends. “You played with everyone, no matter what,” she said. “We were always in and out of each other’s houses.” With World War II came change. In 1940, Lillian’s family moved to nearby Menifee, which had a population of 500, “if you counted the chickens and the mules.” Segregation in Menifee was more striking. Students in the allblack community were bused about 40 miles to classrooms where they studied from used textbooks. “We got hand-me-downs, but our teachers were all degreed and devoted to all the students’ success,” Lillian said. “We might not have had the money for a lab, but our science teacher took us into the woods to study the bugs and the trees. Education was always drilled and drilled and instilled into you.” In the late 1940s — when Lillian

BRINGING OUR COMMUNITY TOGETHER. STRENGTHENING OUR URBAN CORE. www.MidtownCrossing.com

was 13 — the Arkansas River flooded so badly in The Bottoms, the family was forced to relocate to Omaha where her father had relatives. She entered the ninth grade at Central High School, although she had expected to have been put in the eighth grade at an elementary school. “If you were black and came from the South, you were automatically put back a grade,” she said, concluding that somehow, she slipped through the cracks. Lillian recalls an Omaha of her youth that, while segregated, had strong African-American communities that supported one another. That’s why, she said, there are so many churches in north Omaha. “Everybody went to church, but people didn’t have cars, so you walked,” she said. “We were so bonded together. Everything you needed was in your community.” After graduating from Central in 1951, she continued living with her parents and found work in downtown Omaha’s department stores. She began as a stock girl at Natelson’s, where she earned $22.50 a week, and eventually operated an elevator at Brandeis. “There were women at the head of the store who steered customers into the right elevators . . . If you had that job, you were moving up in the world.” Saturdays were spent doing chores before heading to the Orpheum Theater for a movie preceded by a live show. “There was always an entertainer back then,” she said. “I saw Jack Benny and the Mills Brothers.” By the mid-1950s, Lillian had secured a job as a secretary at the Jewish Community Center,

which then was at 20th and Dodge Streets. While there she met Jiles Burkhalter, who had enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. Jiles was smitten enough to phone Lillian at home, even though she didn’t immediately return his persistent calls. “My mother said, ‘I guess it would be all right if you called him back. He’ll just keep calling you,’ ” said Lillian, recalling how she was uncertain whether it would be proper for a young woman to phone a man she didn’t know. The couple married in 1956 and relocated to California. Jiles had tours of duty in Libya, Pakistan and Vietnam. While he was overseas, Lillian returned to Omaha to be close to family. Though the 1960s and the civil rights movement were unfolding around her, she was occupied with raising her four children. “I was focused on my family,” she recalled. “I had my children so quickly. My 90-year-old aunt wrote me and said, ‘I know the Lord wants us to replenish the earth, but you don’t need to do it all by yourself.’ ” In the early 1970s, one of Jiles’ tours took the couple to Spain and Torrejón Air Base near Madrid. Lillian relished living in Madrid for four years, becoming a “professional volunteer” with the American Red Cross and soaking up as much local culture as she could. When Jiles retired from the Air Force in 1975, the couple returned permanently to Omaha. Lillian was struck by how much the city had changed. Jobs weren’t as readily available, and it was harder for African-Americans to

aspire to the middle class, she said. Gangs, she observed, were also making their way into the city, and the once tight-knit AfricanAmerican communities were fraying. Lillian resumed her volunteerism with a passion. From 1987 to 1992, she was board president for the Girl Scouts Great Plains Council and from the early 1990s until 2011, she served as a member of the Omaha Economic Development Corporation. As she entered her senior years, Lillian didn’t slow down. At age 65, she opened JB’s Beauty Salon in north Omaha with Jiles and ran it until she turned 80. “I worked on the back end of my life,” she said. “If I had worked earlier in my life, I wouldn’t be talking to you here today. I’d be sitting someplace nice and warm. But I’m good.” As Lillian revels in the accomplishments of her children, “grands” and “great-grands” — one of whom is Wellesley Michael, the reigning Miss Omaha — she is happy with her life and proud of her life choices. “I’m thankful the Lord has blessed me to live so long.” Outspoken in a genteel manner, she confides that she’s concerned about a resurgence of the racism she grew up with in the Deep South. She also laments what she sees as an “I” and “My” generation that doesn’t focus on the “Us” and “We.” “Growing up, we were survivors. We didn’t suffer. Today, I listen to people complain, and I say, ‘Come on, people! You don’t have the obstacles that we had!’ They said, ‘You can’t,’ and ‘you couldn’t,’ but we did.”

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

B R E N D A N S U L L I VA N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Although livestock prices are a concern, the outlook for the red meat industry is generally positive for 2017 as producers rebuild herds and packers like Greater Omaha Packing keep up with export demand.

INSIGHTS ON ECONOMY’S NEXT MOVES

Business mood? Cautiously optimistic By Steve Jordon WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

It’s a new year with perhaps unparalleled uncertainty. While macroeconomic factors get plenty of consideration in any business projection, present-day realities are the real guideposts. In that way, 2017 is a year like all years — different from every other. Here, local experts peer into the proverbial crystal ball and wager a few predictions from their particular vantage points.

Eric Thompson, director, Bureau of Business Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Prices for corn, soybeans and livestock may improve and at least stabilize this year, although at below-record levels, steadying farm income. Nebraska has potential to add manufacturing jobs in food processing, as shown by the proposed chicken plant near Fremont that would create 1,000 jobs starting in 2019. The region’s population growth — and job growth — depends on its metro areas overcoming outmigration to other states. “If Omaha gets bigger, it’s going to become more attractive to young people. You’ve got to grow any way you can.” Nationally, one economic key this year will be tax policy changes, which could be positive or negative. Lower taxes for business, positive; trade war with tariffs, negative. “It’s hard to know how all that will balance out.”

Esther George, president, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri Three key issues confront the U.S. banking industry: low interest rates, technological disruption, and changes in regulation and supervision. To elaborate, low interest rates hurt bank earnings, which remain near a 30-year low for small banks. Keeping interest rates too low encourages too much debt, and low rates can be difficult to unwind. Technological changes enhance productivity, making the flow of money more efficient, but raise the threat of cyber attacks and require security improvements. Those calling for rolling back bank regulations based on their ideological views should consider that putting bank shareholders’ money at risk is the most effective

way to control risk-taking. “We have much more work to do in ensuring banks are not too big to fail, that we do not drive smaller banks ... out of the market and that our interest rate policies do not create disruptive structural imbalances for which there are no tenable policy options.”

Henry Davis, owner, Greater Omaha Packing The red meat industry is affected by many factors, some outside local control, but overall is looking better than last year. Producers are rebuilding their herds, which will increase Greater Omaha Packing’s raw material. The company exports to 58 countries, and a recent World Trade Organization ruling will help with exports to Europe. A Chinese delegation inspected the Omaha operation in advance of reopening beef trade with the United States. At home, finding new employees remains a challenge, but the firm is making plans for a robotic cold storage addition that could hold 85,000 boxes of beef. A new ground beef line is expected to result in sales greater than 2016’s total of $1.7 billion.

Mary Ann O’Brien, founder and CEO, OBI Creative For the Omaha marketing firm, 2016 was profitable, crammed with the hard work of business development, namely selling its services. “The last few months, I really started believing that 2017 is going to be our best year yet,” O’Brien said, citing several new long-term relationships for her agency. “That gives the sales and marketing team the confidence to go out and get after the business. There’s a lot of momentum here.” OBI’s clients — Miller Electric, the Nebraska Humane Society and SAC Federal Credit Union are local examples — also are growing, she said, a sign of an overall good economy. “Corporations are becoming more discerning in their advertising and demanding more thoughtfulness around their plans and execution,” said O’Brien, adding that the agency’s research-based strategy is paying off. The company has about 30 employees and is looking to hire three or four more, but it’s hard to find people who are both qualified and fit the company’s culture, O’Brien said. It helps, she said, that job applicants from out of

town know about OBI from the national and international awards its campaigns have recently won.

Patrick Burke, spokesman, Gavilon The grain-trading company saw low prices but great production in 2016, with record or near-record crops of corn, soybeans and wheat in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Though prices aren’t increasing much, agriculture may benefit this year with lower costs for fertilizer, chemicals, fuel and other ingredients, both for corn and for soybeans. The result might be restored profits after two difficult years in agriculture. Area farmers now have an opportunity to lock in better margins than a year ago. At the same time, Gavilon is watching for potential increases in interest rates, uncertainty in farm policy because of the new federal administration, renewal of the Farm Bill and rising oil prices. Besides fuel costs, increased oil prices can hinder grain transportation, making it harder and more expensive to ship grain by rail.

Kevin Forristall, chief investment officer, TS Bank of Treynor, Iowa The bank’s growth spurt — four recent acquisitions plus new branch offices — may continue, although prices for small banks have increased lately on the possibility of rising interest rates. The bank’s wealth management group is watching how the stock market is evaluating prospects for the coming year. Based on what is known now, Forristall said, the market’s “euphoric” reaction might be based on unrealistic estimates of economic growth and corporate profits. Although the Federal Reserve has said it may raise interest rates as much as 1 percentage point this year, it’s more likely the raise will be in the 0.5-point range, he said. “Interest rates going up is generally a really good thing for the banking industry,” he said, as long as inflation and rates don’t get out of hand. But higher rates would almost certainly make the U.S. dollar stronger in relation to foreign currencies, which would hurt agriculture and other export-influenced industries, he said. “It’s not going to be just rainbows and valentines moving forward.” steve.jordon@owh.com, 402-444-1080, twitter.com/buffettOWH

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Economic forecasts predict farm income will increase slightly, but will still be well below the 2003-2012 average.

OMAHA METRO AREA 2017 ECONOMIC FORECASTS Gross Metropolitan Product: Up 2.5 percent to more than $50 billion, but lower than the 3 percent U.S. forecast. Farm income: Slight increase, but well below 2003-2012 average. Inflation: 1 percent locally, 1.5 percent nationally. Labor productivity: Up 5 percent locally and nationally. New-home construction: Up, but rising interest rates a headwind. Unemployment: 1 to 1.5 percentage points lower than the U.S. rate. Commercial real estate: Plenty of room, especially downtown. Sources: MarketGraphics Research Group and Creighton University economist Ernie Goss

EVENTS WITH IMPACT » Major employer West Corp. exploring strategic alternatives. » Major retailers The Buckle and Gordmans in same-store sales slump. » Continued strong dollar affecting grain exports. » Renewable Fuel Standard expected to boost ethanol demand. » Rail freight comeback expected to spur Union Pacific, reduce furloughs. » Loosened federal regulations to benefit trucking firms, but driver shortage persists. » Nebraska manufacturing jobs up 0.5 percent, but regional jobs declined.

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

OUTLOOK STAFF

Project editor Chris Christen, 402-444-1094, chris.christen@owh.com Deputy project editor Howard K. Marcus, 402-444-1397, howard.marcus@owh.com Designer Kiley Cruse • Contributors David Hendee, Martin Shukert, Joanne Stewart, Steve Jordon, Kim Carpenter, Kurt A. Keeler, Todd von Kampen, Dan McCann, Maggie O’Brien, Mike Whye, Mike Watkins, Christine Laue, Melinda Keenan, Josie Loza, Joe Hearn, Jim Hegarty, Joe Janowski, Legacy Preservation/James D. Fogarty, John Prescott, Eileen Wirth, Anne Walsh • Advertising Dan Matuella, 402-444-1485, dan.matuella@owh.com Additional copies 402-444-1419 • Photo reprints 402-444-1014

CHAPTER COVERS: GREATER OMAHA, ILLUSTRATED Graphic artist/designer Quentin Lueninghoener, special to The World-Herald

OUTLOOK 2017

Page 1: CenturyLink Center Omaha, St. Cecilia Cathedral, Livestock Exchange Building, Florence Mill, Memorial Park, The Omaha Building, rail and grain, U.S. National Bank arch/Gene Leahy Mall, Douglas County Courthouse, Fritz Mueller Building/ Vinton Theater, Dundee Theater, Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge

REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT

Page 13: Blackstone District, Midtown Crossing, HDR Inc., Aksarben Village, Gottlieb Storz House, Anheuser-Busch Beer Depot, Bain Wagon Building, the Mercer Building, Kiewit Plaza, Blackstone Hotel

HEALTH & MEDICINE

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Page 7: Werner Enterprises Inc., Warren Buffett residence, Mutual of Omaha, TD Ameritrade, Pacific Life, Woodmen Tower, First National Tower, Union Pacific Railroad, The AIM Exchange Building

ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

Page 19: Joslyn Art Museum, The Waiting Room Lounge, Rose Theatre, Slowdown/Film Streams block, Holland Performing Arts Center, Stinson Park, The Durham Museum, Desert Dome/Henry Doorly Zoo, Orpheum Theater, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

•

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OUTLOOK: BUSINESS & FINANCE

NFM: PILLAR IN 80TH YEAR By John Prescott // WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

America in 1937 was on the brink of war and just starting to emerge from the Great Depression when a tiny but determined woman opened a store in Omaha. It stands today in its 80th year as the nation’s largest home furnishings company. • Nebraska Furniture Mart currently operates stores in four major metropolitan areas — Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City and Dallas — selling furniture, flooring, carpeting, appliances and other electronics. • The woman behind the success story is Rose Gorelick Blumkin. She was born in a village near Minsk, Russia, in 1893. She went to work in her mother’s grocery store at age 6 to help support seven brothers and sisters and her rabbi father. • At 13 she became a clerk in the store and by the time she turned 19 she was store manager with six men reporting to her. A year later she married Isadore Blumkin,

•

See NFM: Page 9

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

— Excerpts from “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties,” a World-Herald book by staff writer David Hendee

BUSINESS ROOTS RUN DEEP, GO FAR

CHARLES B. DEMPSTER BOUGHT INTO A RETAIL PUMP AND WINDMILL SHOP IN BEATRICE IN 1878.

THE DEMPSTER MILL MANUFACTURING CO. STARTED PRODUCING WINDMILLS, PUMPS, WATER TANKS AND TOWERS IN 1886. THE COMPANY SOLD NATIONWIDE AND HAD BRANCH OFFICES IN SIX OTHER STATES BY THE 1920S. WINDMILLS ALLOWED SETTLERS TO HARNESS THE FREE AND LIMITLESS POWER OF THE PRAIRIE WIND TO TAP THE VAST SUPPLY OF UNDERGROUND WATER IN AREAS WITH LITTLE OR NO AVAILABLE SURFACE WATER. A DEMPSTER WINDMILL STILL STANDS OUTSIDE THE OLD BURLINGTON RAILROAD DEPOT, NOW HOME TO THE GAGE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, IN BEATRICE. A MEANS TO GROW

Neligh Mill, built from locally fired brick in 1873 by John D. Neligh, was the first business in the newly platted town of Neligh. Popular brands produced included Neligh Patent Flour, So-Lite Flour and Crescent brand feeds. A good mill was a major factor in the growth of Nebraska communities during the 1870s and 1880s. Mills turned locally grown grain into flour, reducing expensive long-distance shipping. Mills with an ample water supply and situated on main rail lines were able to produce quantities in excess of local needs and sometimes received lucrative contracts with the Army and Indian Bureau or for overseas export. The Neligh Mill’s original 1880s equipment is still in place.

HOME BREW

Cody was a notorious gambling and bootlegging center. A train-car load of sugar a week was used for manufacturing moonshine in hidden stills.

HALLMARK ROOTS Adam and Nannie Bozarth Hall homesteaded southeast of Brainard in 1870. Their three grandsons, Joyce, Rollie and William Hall, above, pooled their money and opened the Norfolk (Nebraska) Post Card Co. in about 1907. Three years later, they started selling greeting cards in Kansas City under the Hall Brothers label, which later became the Hallmark Co. The Hall brothers are shown in a photo at a 1909 family gathering in Norfolk.

THE ROGERS MOTOR CAR CO. IN RALSTON PRODUCED EIGHT

VEHICLES IN THE EARLY 1900s.

A NAME BRAND

Dairy products from Beatrice Creamery Co. (started in 1894) were shipped across the nation early in the 20th century. The firm’s headquarters moved to Chicago in 1913, and the name changed to Beatrice Foods in 1946. The company has had the Meadow Gold brand since the 1890s.

MOSES H. SYDENHAM WAS A BUFFALO COUNTY PIONEER WHO FOUNDED A NEWSPAPER IN KEARNEY AND USED IT TO PROMOTE HIS IDEA TO MAKE KEARNEY THE CAPITAL OF THE UNITED STATES.

GOOD BUSINESS SENSE

Nannie J. Osborne, who worked as a cook and housekeeper for the families of ranchers Ed Cook and Dr. George Towar, also was an astute businesswoman. She claimed a homestead as a head of household, and her 160 acres were along the railroad rightof-way in the new town site of Ainsworth. In addition to providing building sites for two churches — Congregational and Methodist — she filed a deed designating one full block for a courthouse. When the county was organized and Ainsworth was named seat of government, Osborne was ready.

COTTON MILL

Kearney Cotton Mill was the largest manufacturing plant in Nebraska when it opened in 1892. Raw cotton came from the South by barge and railroad. At peak efficiency, the mill employed about 450 workers and produced 26,000 yards of muslin daily, with some of it shipped to Asia. The plant never operated at a profit and closed in 1901.

BANK ON IT

Banking came to Belden when Fred Kimball, a bank clerk from Coleridge, arrived on horseback with a gunnysack of money on his saddle horn. He set up a “banking shop’’ in front of the combination post office, drugstore and general store.

PICK UP A RENTAL

Located in a former horse stable, Ford Livery Co. at 1314 Howard St., was America’s first car rental company, dreamed up by Joe Saunders in 1916. Saunder’s Drive It Yourself System expanded to 56 cities by 1926. Saunders and his partner brothers sold to Avis in 1955.

NEBRASKA FLAVOR Dorothy Lynch Home Style Dressing — the sweet-and-tangy, orange salad dressing with a signature flavor associated with Nebraska by Dorothy enthusiasts — was invented by a woman named Dorothy Lynch when she and her husband ran the Legion Club in St. Paul, Nebraska. Tasty Toppings of Columbus bought the brand in 1964. The dressing is bottled in nearby Duncan. The company and the product celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2014.

AN EARLY START

Ponca is one of Nebraska’s five oldest communities. The town got its start in 1856 when 11 settlers crossed the Missouri River into Nebraska Territory and camped south of Aowa Creek. Land on the north side of the creek was Indian territory and marked offlimits. Two settlers, however, knocked down the warning signs and laid out a 24-block town. Flour and saw mills along the creek helped the town grow in its early years.

SLEEPY HOLLOW FIELD IN RED WILLOW COUNTY IS NEBRASKA’S MOST PRODUCTIVE OIL FIELD. IT HAS PRODUCED MORE THAN

55.6 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL SINCE ITS DISCOVERY IN 1960.

TALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

It is said Cairo got its name when a railroad surveyor thought the land around a water stop 14 miles west of Grand Island resembled the African desert. Street names followed the Egyptian theme: Alexandria, Egypt, Nile, Said, Suez, Syria and Thebe. The village promotes itself as an “Oasis of the Prairie.’’ (It should be noted: Nebraskans pronounce the town name Cairo: “KareRow,’’ not “Kye-Row.’’)

‘HOUSE OF NINES’

La Vista was created in 1959 by a developer who planned to sell 335 houses priced at $9,999 each. It soon became known as “House of Nines.” The village incorporated in 1960.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

• 9Y

NFM: Grit, determination grew small storefront business into an empire Continued from Page 7 a shoe salesman who would soon flee to the United States to avoid being drafted into the czar’s army. Rose would follow a few years later, crossing Siberia. Bob Batt, Rose’s grandson and unofficial family historian, says his 4-foot-10 grandmother talked border guards into supplying exit papers for her with the promise of vodka. Rose crossed the Pacific Ocean and joined Isadore in Fort Dodge, Iowa, before the Blumkins moved to Omaha in 1919. Isadore opened a used clothing store. Rose and Isadore had four children by the time the Great Depression began. By pure grit and determination Rose opened Nebraska Furniture Mart by borrowing $500 from her brother. The early days were tough going and at one point the Blumkins had to sell their own home furnishings to pay off a debt. Furniture suppliers stopped selling to Nebraska Furniture when larger competitors complained about her low prices. Rose went to Kansas City, Chicago and New York, bought from department stores there and still undersold her Omaha competitors. The original store at 2205 Farnam St. in Omaha was supplied from three warehouses east of 10th Street. Elevators were used to bring merchandise to street level for delivery to the store on Farnam. In 1965 Nebraska Furniture Mart opened a modern warehouse at 400 S. 77th St. and three years later, opened a second store at 700 S. 72nd St. Two years after that, the downtown store closed and the 72nd Street location began to grow. On May 6, 1975, a tornado roared up 72nd Street causing major damage and claiming three lives. Bob Batt says the storm caused $5 million in damage to the NFM building, which had housed an insurance firm before it became a retail outlet. That company had built a bomb shelter in case of a nuclear attack. When the tornado was closing in, four dozen employees and shoppers took shelter and escaped injury despite the damage to the surrounding structure. Batt remembers his grandmother saying, “We’ll be all right, don’t worry. It’s OK.” After the storm she donated money to the American Red Cross and Salvation Army to help those affected by the now-infamous twister. “That always struck me,” said Batt. “When somebody gets whacked, you need to step up and help them.” Over the years Rose Blumkin eventually became known simply as “Mrs. B” and her business credo, “Sell cheap, tell the truth, don’t cheat nobody,” became the stuff of legend. As other members of the family took on expanding roles in the company, the seven-day, 70-hour workweek became the norm for the Blumkins and the Batts. Success followed success, but as she turned 90 Rose wanted to make sure the company would continue to prosper and famously made a 1983 handshake deal with another famous Omahan, Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. purchased controlling interest in Nebraska Furniture Mart without an audit. Buffett said the deal was based on his own personal experience shopping in the store and his respect for all the Blumkin offspring, who kept the business vital and growing. But it was Rose who made the deal.

THE WORLD-HERALD

Nebraska Furniture Mart, above, at 1312 Farnam St. during Golden Spike Days in 1939. At left, Isadore and Rose Blumkin, 1939.

Warren Buffett and Rose Blumkin announcing a partnership between Nebraska Furniture Mart and Berkshire Hathaway in September 1983. Not long after that transaction, Buffett would say, “Put her up against the top graduates of the top business schools or chief executives of the Fortune 500 and, assuming an even start with the same resources, she’d run rings around them.” She proved that again at the tender age of 95 when she retired — not altogether happy about it. She started her own store in competition with Nebraska Furniture Mart. By 1991 Mrs. B’s Clearance and Factory Outlet was turning a profit as the third largest carpet dealer in Omaha — located directly across the street from Nebraska Furniture Mart. A year later, the family made peace and Warren Buffett purchased the new business, merging it into Nebraska Furniture Mart. Buffett later joked he would never again allow Mrs. B to retire without signing a non-compete agreement. Rose Blumkin was active in business and civic activities until her final days. She died in 1998 at 104. The Omaha store continues to thrive in its 80th year. The retail space covers more than 420,000 square feet on 77 acres of land. The store sits on a single campus of buildings on South 72nd Street. In 1994, the store added an electronics and appliance store, offering computers, software, music, movies and personal electronic items as well as TVs and appliances. Mrs. B’s Clearance Center and Factory Outlet continues to exist within Nebraska Furniture Marts in Omaha and the newer Kansas City location. Omaha’s Outlet contains more than 85,000 pieces of furniture, 185,000 appliance and electronic products and one million square yards of carpet. The company’s first venture outside of Omaha involved the Iowa store, which opened in 2001. Located in the Des Moines suburb of Clive, it’s the smallest of today’s four Nebraska Furniture Mart locations, with about 24,000 square feet of appliances, flooring and electronics. Nebraska Furniture Mart also owns Homemakers, a furniture store in Urbandale, Iowa. A Kansas City megastore opened in 2003 in the Village West development on the far western edge of Kansas City, Kansas. Only 12 miles west of downtown Kansas City, Missou-

COME ON IN

ri, this store is near the Kansas Speedway and Children’s Mercy Park. With 1.1 million square feet of retail and warehouse space on 88 acres, it is the first location outside Omaha to offer the full range of products offered in Omaha and, like the Omaha location, it draws visitors from all over the United States. The opening of the Kansas City location hit a few stumbling blocks. It was the company’s first megastore outside of Omaha and for nearly two years the store was overwhelmed by large numbers of customers and delivery delays. The company learned from the Kansas City experience, and that learning curve eventually led to development of a Texas location. Construction of the newest Nebraska Furniture Mart began in September 2012 in The Colony, a Dallas suburb. The new location began operations March 4, 2015, with unadvertised sales to friends and family. More than 2,000 employees

were trained during the next two months, and a successful grand opening was held May 7, 2015. The Colony location is the largest of the four locations, with 560,000 square feet of retail space and 1.3 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space. In this 80th year of operation, NFM benefits from the continued full involvement of the Blumkin family. The family is engaged in future planning that will include opportunities for others who have joined the growing business. In December 2016, NFM President and COO Ron Blumkin announced he would be leaving his position as part of the firm’s succession planning. Tony Boldt, director of the Mart’s Kansas City store, is taking on the role of president and COO. Blumkin will serve as chairman and Irv Blumkin will remain chief executive. John Prescott spent his career in television news and public relations. He currently writes for Legacy Preservation.

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10Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

HOT JOBS

Top spot for the long haul: Trucking By Melinda Keenan WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

If you want to steer your career in a new direction, slip behind the wheel. One of the hottest jobs for 2017 is in trucking, according to the Nebraska Department of Labor. In its annual analysis of eight industry segments, the state found a shift toward employment opportunities in the transportation and warehousing segment. Statistics show not only a greater demand for truck drivers but also plenty of positions for people who can dispatch trucks, handle freight, repair vehicles and provide other types of support. The biggest demand in transportation will be for drivers of heavy trucks and tractor-trailer trucks. Nebraska companies will be looking to fill 798 of those jobs this year. These will be newly created jobs and employment opportunities that open up due to retirement and turnover. But companies will also be looking for drivers of light trucks and delivery service vehicles, and industrial truck and tractor operators. These job descriptions are new to the transportation’s hot jobs list this year and are projected to create a total of 69 positions. Also new to the list are dispatchers, with 21 positions, and bus/truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists with 20 job opportunities. Falling from the transportation hot jobs list are two descriptions relating to the railroad industry: rail car repairer and signal/track switch repairer. “In the past the list had a total of four railroad occupations listed, and the new one has two,” said Jodie Meyer, research analyst with the Department of Labor. “I looked deeper into the data and I believe this shift is in part due to a projected slowdown in growth in the railroad industry and a bit of a projected increase in the truck transportation industry.” Most jobs in the trucking industry require a high school or equivalency diploma and on-the-job training, according to the Nebraska Department of Labor. Annual average salaries range from $29,003 for freight, stock and material handlers to $43,953 for big-rig drivers.

SARAH HOFFMAN/THE WORLD-HERALD

High demand in 2017 is in trucking, according to the Nebraska Department of Labor.

HELP WANTED IN SEVEN OTHER INDUSTRY SEGMENTS Job title (positions available), average salary, degree requirement. Professional, scientific and technical services » Accountant, auditor (167), $68,899, bachelor’s degree. » Application, software developer (104), $82,628; bachelor’s degree.

Health care and social assistance » Registered nurse (479), Nursing assistant (267), Licensed practical/ vocational nurse (169); $26,326 to $60,383; bachelor’s degree or postsecondary training required for all.

Source: Nebraka Department of Labor

Educational services » Teacher assistant (156); $23,838; some college, but no bachelor’s degree. » Elementary teacher (150), low $50,000s; bachelor’s degree and internships. » Secondary teacher (117), low $50,000s; bachelor’s degree and internships.

Finance and Insurance » Customer service representative (193), $33,316; high school or equivalency diploma. » Loan officer (140), $81,993; bachelor’s degree.

Leisure and Hospitality » Food service (1,500). •Supervisors and cooks, $31,214; high school or equivalency diploma required. •Preparation workers, waiters/ waitresses, other positions, low $20,000s; no high school diploma required.

Manufacturing » Meat, poultry and fish cutters/ trimmers (165), $30,095; no high school diploma required.

ON OMAHA.COM

Find information on anticipated jobopening numbers for 10 occupations in eight industries.

Real estate and rental/leasing » Counter and rental clerk (74), $27,344.

Industry evolves, keeping the U.S. moving By Mike Whye WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

When Leon Zeitner wants to see where one of his trucking company’s long-haul trucks is, he looks at a computer monitor. It shows not only the truck’s location but its route, fuel economy, last stop, maintenance needs — even how long the driver has been at the wheel. The trucking industry has come a long way from when Leon’s parents, Rollen and Phyllis, started Zeitner & Sons Inc. in 1976 with one truck. Then, loads were tracked by phone. Today, electronic logs spew data on Zeitner’s entire fleet of 100. “Everything is definitely comBrad puterized in the Morehouse trucking industry,” said Brad Morehouse, vice president of the family firm, W.N. Morehouse Truck Line Inc. Morehouse and his brother, Curt, run the Omaha-based company that their great-grandfather, William N. Morehouse, started in 1932 in south-central Nebraska to haul ice to packing plants and then later carry meats in refrigerated trucks. Morehouse and Zeitner use refrigerated trailers, nicknamed “reefers” by drivers, to carry cold goods across the states. “Trailers today are made of better materials that are lighter-weight and more durable,” said Zeitner, explaining that the interiors of his Great Dane trailers are

MIKE WHYE

Leon Zeitner’s fleet is outfitted with deer guards. Last year, they saved his firm $200,000 in repairs and downtime. lined with a multilayer, lightweight plastic that’s more resistant to physical abuse from loads moving in and out of trailers. Also, the new materials can be repaired by applying heat to damaged areas. Trucks, also called tractors, have evolved from a time when many driving compartments sat directly over the engines to today where all cabs now sit behind the engines, making working on the

engines far easier. “The engines are more fuelefficient now too,” said Morehouse but, he added, at a cost. Requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency have increased the operating costs of the trucks. For example, truck engines now must inject two to three gallons of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), at about $2.50 per gallon, into every 100 gallons of diesel fuel. While this

produces cleaner exhaust, DEF ups overall operating costs in an industry that uses about 37 billion gallons of diesel every year, as calculated by the American Trucking Associations. Even with the EPA’s requirements, the efficiency of diesel engines has increased from about 4.5 miles per gallon not long ago to an average of 7 miles per gallon, according to Morehouse, whose

fleet consists of 120 tractors and 180 reefers. On average, he said, his trucks are driven about 120,000 miles a year. Driver comfort has improved too. “They ride more like cars now,” he said, citing power steering and automatic transmissions. Safety is a big factor for trucking companies. Walking among some of his newly painted yellow Kenworth tractors, Zeitner pointed to the heavy-duty framework of aluminum and stainless steel pipes fastened to the front of the trucks. “These are deer guards,” he said. “Last year we saved $200,000 in repairs and downtime that trucks would have lost while being repaired.” Attracting new drivers is a priority for Bob Wynne, president of Wynne Transport Service Inc. of Omaha, which hauls liquids and compressed gasses such as anhydrous ammonia. Wynne has seen several companies consolidate over the years because of the shortage of truck drivers, who can earn $40,000 to $70,000 a year, he said. Zeitner prefers to pair new drivers with four to five experienced drivers over the course of the year before allowing them to drive solo. “The new drivers learn a lot from the experienced ones over the seasons,” he said. “Especially winter.” The general public does not realize how important the trucking industry is to daily life, Wynne said, citing fuel to gas stations and food to supermarkets. “If two or three trucking companies in Omaha shut down, everything shuts down.”

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

A legit get-rich plan POWER OF TIME, COMPOUND INTEREST IS STAGGERING Whenever I’m asked to give investment advice to a specific age group, I feel conflicted. Joe On one hand, Hearn certain financial advice will vary RETIREMENT by age. A recent graduate, for example, has a different set of opportunities and challenges than a recent retiree. On the other hand, some advice is universal, regardless of age. Just like “eat right and exercise” is good health advice for anyone, some financial advice applies to everyone. The challenge is to take the universal principles that are key to success and combine them with generation-specific advice. With that in mind, here are 10 principles of investment success for millennial workers and entrepreneurs.

1. START EARLY

Early in life, your biggest asset is time. Those extra years can make a huge difference to your investments. To see why, imagine Sarah and Jacob. They save identical amounts each month ($500) and earn identical rates of return (8 percent per year, compounded monthly) on their investments. The only difference is the age at which they begin saving. Sarah starts at 20; Jacob starts at 30. How much difference do those 10 years make by the time Sarah and Jacob reach 65? About $1.5 million. Sarah saved $60,000 more than Jacob ($6,000 per year for 10 years) on the front end, but that extra money resulted in an extra $1.5 million on the back end. The crazy thing is that she could have stopped saving at 30, never added another dime to her account and still would have ended up with more than Jacob. Behold, the power of time and compound interest.

2. USE THE RIGHT ACCOUNTS

If you’re saving for retirement, it’s best to put the money in tax-advantaged accounts. The most common are IRAs (either Traditional or Roth) and employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k), 403(b) and Simple Plan. Traditional IRAs allow tax-deductible contributions for people below a certain income. The money grows tax-deferred, then is taxed when taken out for retirement. Roth IRA contributions aren’t deductible, but the money grows tax-deferred and is free from federal taxes when withdrawn. Roth IRAs are particularly beneficial to those who have many years to allow them to grow. A 401(k) plan is similar to an IRA, but the money is deducted from your paycheck and the contribution limits are higher. Most 401(k)s offer Traditional and Roth options that have similar tax treatments as their namesake IRAs. If you own a company where you and your spouse are the only employees, you can start a Solo 401(k) that has the same benefits and contributions limits as a regular 401(k) without the same costs and regulations.

3. MAKE IT AUTOMATIC

Saving for retirement takes discipline. This is especially true if you are in your 20s and won’t see the payoff for decades to come. It’s like making a car

payment each month for a car that you won’t be able to drive until the 2060s. Instead of relying on willpower, make your saving automatic by having your employer take money from your paycheck each month to add to your 401(k). Set up a Roth IRA that systematically pulls money from your checking account. You will get used to living without the money, and soon you won’t even think about it.

4. GET A JOB THAT PAYS

You can’t save what you don’t earn. Though it’s currently popular to “follow your passion,” sometimes passion won’t pay the bills. Ask yourself: What do I enjoy (passion)? What am I good at? What are people willing to pay me for? If your job choice doesn’t appropriately answer all three questions, you will likely be unsatisfied, frustrated and-or broke. The good news is that we live in a world with more options than ever. Consider Swedish comedian Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known online as PewDiePie, who made $12 million last year playing video games while making snarky comments. That’s not bad, but he’d be a slacker in his parents’ basement without YouTube’s video monetization. He loves video games, he’s good at them and YouTube pays him. He has the trifecta. Find yours.

5. HAVE MULTIPLE REVENUE STREAMS

What if there’s something you want to do, but it doesn’t yet tick all three boxes mentioned above? Or what if you need more money or want a different set of challenges than your job provides? Keep your day job and do the other on the side. This is becoming more common (done by 35 percent of the workforce by some accounts) and goes by many names — the gig economy, freelancing or a side hustle. Whatever you call it, there are real potential benefits, including skill-building, networking, additional income, more saving and the ability to pursue a passion project or bootstrap a startup while you still have the security of your main job. Add to those benefits the fact that many of today’s jobs — app developer, graphic designer, freelance writer — are well suited as side hustles.

6. SAVE ENOUGH

One of the most common questions people have when it comes to saving for retirement is “How much should I be saving?” The answer depends on your specific situation. Research indicates that to maintain in retirement the same standard of living enjoyed during working years, the typical person will need Social Security plus savings of about 11 or 12 times his or her annual income. How do you get there? Again, there are many variables, but professor and writer Wade Pfau has done some interesting research on this topic. He calls it the “safe savings rate.” At the risk of drastically oversimplifying his research, someone in their 20s (who can save for 40 years) would need to save 10-15 percent of their income to hit their goal. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of the future, but the research is helpful in that it gives you a specific number as a goal. Saving 10-15 percent of your income might seem like a stretch, but you don’t need to get there overnight. Start with something small, like 1 percent per year, with the goal of

increasing it each time you get a raise. Combine that with the employer match on your plan (most employers match a certain percentage of what you put in), and you’ll be at 10 percent before you know it. The annual contribution limits for IRAs and 401(k)s are $5,500 and $18,000, respectively.

7. ALIGN YOUR BUDGET WITH YOUR PRIORITIES

When deciding how to spend your money, it helps to think like an investor. Investors expect a Return on Investment, or ROI. Periodically review your spending. Are there line items in your budget that eat up your paycheck without providing much ROI (which in this case translates to joy, purpose, fulfillment, security or self-improvement)? Are there things you would love to do, now or in the future, that are stuck on the drawing board for lack of capital? If so, you’re probably spending too much on things that don’t matter to you. Think through your budget and align your spending with your priorities. If travel has a high ROI for you, find a way to invest in travel. Just realize that you’ll probably have to buy a more economical car or eat out less often as a trade-off.

8. AVOID DEBT

No one has become rich spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need. Every dollar you spend servicing your debt is a dollar you can’t save or use for something more productive. The more debt you have, the less freedom and control you will have.

9. ALLOCATE PROPERLY

Asset allocation — the breakdown between stocks, bonds and other asset classes — is a critical element to investment success. Research indicates that it is responsible for as much as 90 percent of return. The remaining 10 percent is determined by the specific investments you purchase and when you buy them. Work with a trusted adviser or the representative assigned to your plan at work to make sure your allocation is appropriate for your situation. Review that allocation regularly and make changes as necessary.

10. DON’T RAID THE PIGGY BANK

These works by Greg Pugh, an artist with Tethon 3D, were created with ceramic printing technology. Pugh, who has spent eight years researching and advancing ceramic 3-D printing, provides consultation to 3-D modelers and other clients of Omaha-based Tethon 3D.

New-age ceramics OMAHA’S TETHON 3D AT FOREFRONT OF TECHNOLOGY By Mike Watkins WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Omaha venture capitalists Jim and Karen Linder are at the cutting edge of ceramic 3-D printing. Seeing its art applications five years ago at Kaneko, the Linders quickly invested in the technology and established Tethon 3D as part of their Linseed Capital LLC holding corporation. “We first became aware of the ceramic 3-D printing technology in late 2011 as part of an academic research project,” Karen Linder said. “We stepped in to help commercialize it because the developer didn’t know how, and the university didn’t have the capability and expertise to help him. We saw the growth opportunity and potential pretty quickly.”

Though traditional ceramics are often crafted by hand from clay, fired in a kiln and then painted, 3-D ceramics are produced using ceramic powder and resin in a state-of-the-art 3-D printer, then fired. Tethon 3D has carved a market niche making materials to produce ceramic 3-D objects (via electronic scans) ranging from intricate vases to reproductions of artifacts and archaeological pieces, and specialized medical and automotive parts. Tethon 3D also specializes in printing objects for clients worldwide, including artists. “These are usually prototypes or objects that are too intricate and time-consuming to be made by hand,” Jim Linder said. “With traditional ceramic creation, clay is subtracted from a block of clay to create a shape,” he explained. “We are creating by addition, and leftover pieces can be recycled and used again.” Among the company’s pro-

The average person changes jobs five to 10 times over a lifetime. Each time you change, it’s tempting to take the money from your 401(k) instead of rolling it over to an IRA or to your new employer’s plan. This is especially true if you have moving expenses or if you lost your job involuntarily and need resources to make ends meet. Do everything you can to avoid taking these premature distributions. Not only will you pay taxes and a penalty — assuming you’re younger than 59½ — but the advantages you gained from starting early will go out the window. The biggest objection to an early start when saving for retirement is that it’s not easy to do at the beginning of your career when your income is limited, and you have expenses such as a new work wardrobe or furnishings for a house or apartment. I’ll let you in on a little secret. It doesn’t get any easier. Wants and needs always will compete for your limited resources. The key is deciding to start, no matter the amount, then making saving a lifelong habit. Joe Hearn is an Omaha financial planner. He can be reached at 400-331-8600 or joe@intentionalretirement.com.

Boys Town Fieldhouse, 1948

Hope Lodge, 2017

Growth starts with that first step forward. Iowa Western Engineering Building, 2015

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prietary products is Tethonite, a pure clay that when combined with a binding agent, is applied layer upon layer to create an object from a virtual design. The Linders also have developed a proprietary Porcelite ceramic resin for UV light 3-D printing and a photo-curing polymer resin called Genesis. Because of the detail and intricacy of designs, ceramic 3-D printing isn’t meant for mass production, the Linders noted. “These pieces are about customization,” Karen Linder said. Tethon3D currently does business with companies in more than 30 countries, she said. It continues to seek new avenues for product development and distribution, especially outside the U.S. “We’re the only company in the U.S. making ceramic material for 3-D printing,” she said. “This technology continues to grow in use and popularity, and we’re excited for that opportunity.”

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

BROUGHT TO YOU BY NEBRASKA’S LEADING PROFESSIONALS

The Real Assets are People Congratulations to all of Nebraska’s Leading Agents and Financial Advisors qualified for Million Dollar Round Table in 2016! who have qualified

These are the best. These 87 local financial advisors have qualified and make us feel proud to have some of the brightest minds working hard for you and your family’s financial security right here in Nebraska. Will the United States deficit ever go down? These past few years, we have also witnessed a major shift in consumer awareness. Families are looking for ways to protect their wealth, to reduce risk, and to provide for their long-term financial stability. Financial education starts at home and within our communities. Most Advisors

ers, thes these among report that a majority of their business As MDRT Qualifi fiers, se ar aree am mon ng th thee comes from personal recommendations best in Nebrask ka. If yo ou’r ’ree se ’r ear arch arch chin ingg in Nebraska. you’re searching and referrals. for answers to questions ns aabout bo bout your long-ter rm fin aan nci c aall long-term fin nancial MDRT Qualifiers are among the Top ment plann niin ng, g retirement planning, Agents and Financial Advisors in security, retirem and wealth a ccumulat t ion io n accumulation the industry. These Agents have se give th hese please these worked for many years to achieve this strategies, pleas visors a ca all ll Advisors call accomplishment and we should be Agents and Adv grateful for those Agents who have stood and introduce yo ourself.. yourself. the test of time, and to those who are here when our families need them the To these Agen nts, “Th he Agents, “The most. Real Assets are People” ”, People”, and they’d love e to hea a r hear Today, having a Financial Advisor that from you! you can trust to keep you abreast on changes in financial matters is of the utmost importance.

Carol A. Anderson Paula Anderson, Harris Michael J. Booth Thomas Buescher James C. Bradford Robert J. Brown J.D. Darrin L. Brumbaugh LUTCF, CFP, FSS Curnes Financial Group Williams & Deras & Associates

Dusty Cook

LUTCF, FSS Principal Financial Group 402-490-2517

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Michael Croker David L. Darlington Croker & Associates LLC 402-727-6017

James Daubert

Jonathan Jacobi

Legacy Wealth Strategies L.L.C. 402-614-9489

Keith A. Deras

Rick J. Dhabalt

CFP, ChFC, CLU, CLTC, CASL, MBA CLU CLU, ChFC Northwestern Mutual Daubert & Butler Associates Williams & Deras & Associates 402-484-3890 402-429-1300 402-398-9898

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CPWA, CIMA, CFP, AEP, MSFS, CAP Harrison Financial Services 402-891-2302

CLTC Northwestern Mutual 402-390-8247

Rod Jewell

FSS, LIC, LUTCF Headley Financial Group 402-492-2773

Mary Pat Heck

LUTCF, CFP Heck & Moeler Financial Services 402-492-8444

CLU, ChFC, CFP Northwestern Mutual 402-362-1832

Jill Ehlers

Bob Burk

CLU, CLTC Northwestern Mutual 402-390-8287

Nathan Elias

FLMI, QPA DC Retirement Strategies 402-401-2327

Vintage Financial Group LLC 402-932-7233

Northwestern Mutual 402-483-7871

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Jesse Hinrichs

Bryan Holen

Vintage Financial Group LLC 402-932-7233

CFP, ChFC, CLU Northwestern Mutual 402-379-6960

Plat1num One Investment & Insurance Group 402-690-9623 or 308-236-2001

CLU, CFBS, CLTC MassMutual Nebraska 402-397-8600

Joseph M. John

CLU, ChFC Marcotte Wealth Management 402-926-2850

Douglas B. Kelly F. Nicholas Kelley Knights of Columbus 402-578-5563

AIF, CLU Kelley Financial Services 402-991-7595

Northwestern Mutual 402-483-7871

Nate Kruse

Tony R. Larsen

James Meyer

Jamison Moeller

Todd A. Morris

Michael Murphy

Robert Nelson

Adam Olson

Mike Owens

Nicholas J. Ramaekers Patrick J. Ramaekers

Craig J. Reiser

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Plat1num One CFP CLU, ChFC Investment & Insurance Group Vintage Financial Group, LLC Heritage Financial Network Inc. 402-690-0962 402-932-7233 402-934-9505

Pat Ricketts

Steve Ross

Northwestern Mutual 402-390-8282

CLU, ChFC, CASL Northwestern Mutual 308-384-2790

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Richard Strevey

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CLU, CLTC Northwestern Mutual 308-384-2790

AAMS, CMFC, CRPC Heck & Moeller Financial Services 402-401-2309

LUTCF, CFS PJ Ramaekers & Associates 402-331-3337

CLU, CFS PJ Ramaekers & Associates 402-331-3337

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Dave Skutnik

LUTCF, CLTC New York Life Ins. Co. 402-496-6450

LUTCF Charter Financial Grand Island 308-675-1881

CLU, ChFC Midwest Capital 402-571-1505

Mutual of Omaha 402-379-6745

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CLU, ChFC, CASL, CLTC Northwestern Mutual 402-390-8248

LUTCF, FSS CLU, LUTCF, FSS Nelson Murphy Insurance & Nelson Murphy Insurance & Investments 402-963-0205 Investments 402-963-0206

CFP, CLU, ChFC Guy Strevey & Associates 402-493-0253

CFP, RFC Strevey Financial Services 402-445-2288

Mutual of Omaha 402-379-6745

CLTC Northwestern Mutual 402-483-7871

Vintage Financial Group LLC 402-932-7233

Ameritas Insource Inc 402-827-4467

CRSP DC Retirement Strategies 402-401-2326

Kyle Fuchtman

Lori A. Gartner

Kay E. Georgiana

Northwestern Mutual 402-379-6960

LUTCF, AAMS

Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC Vice President - Investment Officer Officer

308-968-0150 or 800-658-4435

LUTCF, FSS HealthMarkets Insurance Agency 402-517-0732

New York Life Ins. Co. Burwell, NE 308-346-4786

Brad R. Burwell James R. Christensen Jr. Greg V. Cismoski

LUTCF, MSFS Principal Financial Group 402-462-6871

Colby Conover

Heritage Financial Services 402-379-1811

Mark Guilliatt

CFP, CLU, ChFC, CASL TheRetirementGuys.org 402-819-7680

R Douglas Hoops Chad A. Horsham Jason S. Houston Rodney D. Hunt Hoops Insurance Services North Bend 402-652-8163

Jonathan Leymaster Lewis Linkugel

LUTCF, CLU, ChFC Horsham Financial Group 402-657-9750

John L. Lord

Northwestern Mutual 402-391-6651

Lewis P. Linkugel Financial Services 402-423-9500

RHU, LuTCF New York Life Ins. Co. 402-496-6429

Kevin P. Pearce

Northwestern Mutual 402-933-7555

AEP, ChFC, CASL, LUTCF Farm Bureau Financial Services 402-462-2920

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CLU, ChFC, RFC Strategic Legacy Advisors Inc. 888-394-2442

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FICF, MBA, FSCP Knights of Columbus Wayne 402-992-1156

Neil J. Pfeifer

S. Kent Porter

Mark E. Prince

Scott Royal

Steve Ryan

Chris Schaedel

Paul Schlieker

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Mark Scholz

Landon Troyer

F. Joe Vlock

CLU ChFC Northwestern Mutual 402-391-6651

Northwestern Mutual 402-933-7555

Northwestern Mutual 402-484-3895

FICF Knights of Columbus 402-379-0180

LUTCF Prudential 402-861-3679

CLU, ChFC PM Financial 402-491-3400

ChFC, CLU Ameritas Financial 402-397-1952

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About MDRT

Justin D. Wanek CFP, CLU, CLTC, ChFC Northwestern Mutual 402-390-6320

Kevin M. Weber Knights of Columbus 402-630-7877

Raymond Welsh Michael R. Williams

CFBS, LUTCF MassMutual Financial Group 402-385-2449

Williams-Deras & Associates 402-398-9898

Greg Wilson National Investors 402-333-3656

Founded in 1927, the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), The Premier Association of Financial Professionals, is an international independent association of more than 38,000 of the world’s leading life insurance and financial services professionals from more than 450 companies in 74 countries. MDRT members demonstrate exceptional professional knowledge, strict ethical conduct and outstanding client service. MDRT membership is Warren “Tony” Wolpa Lincoln Financial Group recognized internationally as the standard of excellence in 402-392-1018 the life insurance and financial services business.

When Making an Investment Decision, You Should Have a Round Table Discussion. There are 172 current Million Dollar Round Table Members in the Nebraska area. Those pictured are participating members who brought you the information included in this Financial times.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

•

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OUTLOOK: REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT

POPULATION IS A DRIVER

By Martin Shukert //

SPECIAL TO THE WORLD-HERALD

The 1880s were the decade of greatest proportionate growth and represented a sea change for Omaha. During this 10-year period, the city’s population grew from 30,000 to 140,000 and marked the transition from a fairly wild frontier town to an aspiring metropolitan city. • This period saw the development of many neighborhoods east of today’s 42nd Street, including Bemis and Hanscom parks, Kountze Place, South Omaha and major parts of north Omaha. It also was marked by construction of major downtown buildings, notably the New York Life Building (now the Omaha Building), City Hall and the Bee Building (where the Woodmen Tower stands today). • At the beginning of the next decade, a concept was in place for a connected park and boulevard system that would be largely realized by 1920. A master plan for a great city was beginning to take shape. • Shukert’s essay continues, Page 14

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

AN OMAHA TIMELINE

Omaha’s growth has been relatively steady on a decade-by-decade basis. These projects and events, among others, have affected the expansion of the city.

1920s

Country Club and Happy Hollow developments

1930s The Great Depression

1940s World War II

1950s

THE WORLD-HERALD

A chaotic network of private streetcar lines led to the creation in 1903 of the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Co. Roads also were being improved and developed at the time, as was the city’s infrastructure. Above, 24th and N Streets in 1951.

‘Phenomenal investment’ as neighborhoods evolve

Maple Village (largest residential development to date — N.P. Dodge), The Center (first indoor shopping mall — John Wiebe), Crossroads (opened in 1960 — Brandeis), Western Electric and Millard growth

1960s West Center Road corridor and surrounding areas (Seldin Development), Regency platting (Mutual of Omaha), Westroads (John Wiebe)

Continued from Page 13 Omaha’s park and boulevard system was designed by Horace W.S. Cleveland, noted master planner of the Minneapolis Park and Parkway system. Hired by parks commissioner and Omaha Daily Herald co-founder George Miller, Cleveland conceptualized a linked greenway and park system extending from Miller Park to Riverview Park (now Henry Doorly Zoo). Meanwhile, roads were being developed and improved as the city’s population continued to expand west. Infrastructure, including sewer and water systems, also developed. Meanwhile, roads were being developed and improved as the city’s population continued to expand west. Despite this phenomenal investment in what we now think of as public works, it’s not clear that much coordinated planning was done. However, there were exceptions. South Omaha originally was intended to be a model company town, but expediency took over and most of the residential areas were platted in a regular grid. Bemis Park, platted in 1889, adapted the pioneering plan of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Riverside, Illinois, with a challenging topography to create a development that remains a landmark in this century. An interesting observation in residential development is the tendency for higher-end housing to be situated along ridgelines. In a way, this also determined development patterns. Take a section of Omaha’s central corridor. The Gold Coast — 38th Street, as an example — developed on the ridgeline rising out of the Missouri River valley. Before the Gold Coast, some mansions developed in the vicin-

1970s

CHRIS MACHIAN/THE WORLD-HERALD

The Bemis Park neighborhood was platted in 1889, adapting the pioneering plan of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Riverside, Illinois, creating a development that remains a landmark today. ity of 24th Street, also on an intermediate ridge. Continuing west, we drop to the Saddle Creek drainageway. It’s an exception to the rule, probably because the Belt Line Railroad ran along that corridor and generated heavy industries that wealthy people preferred not to live near. In Happy Hollow, 57th Street generally follows a ridge, then we drop again to the Elmwood Creek drainageway and climb to Fairacres Road, consistent with the theory. Then we drop down to the Little Papio floodplain and climb back up to the 90th to 96th Street area, which again helps prove the point. Other than the Missouri River, Omaha itself has few natural barriers to growth. While not flat, its topography

is not troublesome. The Papillion Creek drainage system runs from northwest to southeast, and allows most wastewater to be treated at one location — the city’s Papio Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Sarpy County. Nebraska’s annexation statutes have been favorable to Omaha’s growth by allowing annexation of incorporated places with populations up to 10,000, subject to required public procedures. This allowed Omaha to annex much of the city’s suburban growth, in contrast with cities like Des Moines, St. Louis and Kansas City. On the other hand, Omaha is the only city in the state that cannot annex across county lines. This has been a challenge for Omaha’s growth, but has had minimal effect on metropolitan area growth.

Return to the river, the Central Park Mall (now Gene Leahy Mall)

1980s One Pacific Place, riverfront, beginning of downtown housing programs, development in Zorinsky Lake area

1990s

Riverfront North planning and initial implementation, West Maple corridor

2000s

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Nebraska’s annexation statutes have been favorable to Omaha’s growth by allowing annexation of incorporated places with populations up to 10,000, subject to required public procedures. This allowed Omaha to annex much of the city’s suburban growth, like this subdivision near 144th Street and West Maple Road.

Midtown Crossing, Aksarben Village, acceleration of downtown and central city housing development, Western Electric site redevelopment, North Downtown

2010s Remains to be seen!

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

BACK STORIES ON 12 ICONIC PROJECTS By Martin Shukert //

SPECIAL TO THE WORLD-HERALD

Over the years, most Omaha developers have not been innovators but rather calculated risk-takers. They have generally acted on their perception of the market, taken a chance and responded to demand. • For example, planners in Omaha and elsewhere have promoted the concept of mixed-use development, in contrast to highly “zoned” projects that had distinct and separated residential and commercial areas. An old friend and colleague once said something to the effect of “Omaha doesn’t have mixed-use developments because it doesn’t have mixed-use developers.” Here’s a dozen developers I’m familiar with; the list is somewhat personal and not comprehensive. JOHN WIEBE

John Wiebe was the pioneer of shopping centers in Omaha. His early efforts during the 1950s included Hillcrest Mall in Ralston and the area’s first true regional center, The Center Mall. The Center, on a small site with difficult topography, is basically a multistory regional mall surrounded by a parking structure — an innovative and cutting-edge design on an urban site. Wiebe is best known as the developer of Westroads, then the behemoth of commercial projects that deeply affected Omahans’ shopping patterns.

BOSTWICK-FROHARDT COLLECTION; C O U R T E S Y K M T V, D U R H A M M U S E U M

Dr. Sam D. Mercer’s mansion at the northeast corner of 40th and Cuming Streets in about 1906.

THE WORLD-HERALD

Maple Village, August 1970.

N.P. DODGE COMPANY This company, a well-known name in Omaha history, developed what was the city’s largest single residential development, Maple Village, during the 1950s. This gigantic community of largely single-family, middle-class homes built for baby boomers rarely gets the appreciation it deserves for design innovations — a great central greenway design with topography, parkways and boulevards, intelligent street connectedness and some level of use-mixing. It also managed to get local street access over I-680.

ERASTUS BENSON

He developed the City of Benson. He also developed the Benson Motor Railway, which introduced public transportation to northwest Omaha. Mayne Street, named after Clifton E. Mayne, one of the interests in the town’s steet railway, eventually became Maple Street. Benson, which was annexed by Omaha in 1917, has gone through several iterations and is again one of Omaha’s leading neighborhood hubs.

METCALFE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

Ted Metcalfe developed the Country Club district on the original site of the Omaha Country Club, following the tradition of thoughtful residential design pioneered by Bemis Park. Country Club also is notable for its unified residential architecture, which features consistent form but subtle details and innovations, such as the “House of Tomorrow” and Country Club Apartments, both designed by architect Reinholdt Hennig.

SELDIN DEVELOPMENT

Seldin Development and its longtime president Ted Seldin understood market forces leading to westward expansion. The company acquired land along what was to become the West Center Road corridor, then developed the property largely during the 1960s and 1970s. West Center Road tends to be viewed as a continuous commercial strip, and there are aspects of its commercial development that might have been developed somewhat differently, had we known what we do today. But this long-term development defined patterns in southwest Omaha and established West Center Road as the sector’s major commercial destination. As with Maple Village, there are subtleties in its design that are sometimes not appreciated. These include internal connectivity within shopping centers; a connected greenway including a golf course, school site and drainageway; an excellent collector system that keeps local access off the arterial street; and integration of different housing types and land uses.

MUTUAL OF OMAHA

THE WORLD-HERALD

A view of North Fairacres Road from the 1940s.

C.C. AND J.E. GEORGE These developers were responsible for developing Dundee, Fairacres and Happy Hollow. The layout of Happy Hollow Boulevard is an extraordinarily skillful design that uses topography to great advantage to create an internal character that maintains connections through its street and walkway network.

OMAHA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION AND AL GOODWIN

As a city staff member involved in embryonic neighborhood development efforts during the 1970s, Goodwin founded and directed OEDC. He was able to combine federal grants with private financing to move north Omaha projects forward when no one else could. Goodwin and his successor, Mike Maroney, accomplished the Kellom Heights redevelopment project north of Creighton and the redevelopment of the Logan-Fontenelle Homes public housing site with new owneroccupied housing. OEDC remains active on the North 24th Street corridor and created conditions that are making other redevelopment projects feasible.

THE MERCER FAMILY The patriarch of the family, Dr. Samuel D. Mercer, chief surgeon for the Union Pacific Railroad, reportedly founded an early hospital in Omaha and was a master developer and builder of streetcar lines. He developed the Mercer Park neighborhood (a continuation of Bemis Park, where he built his own home), areas around Hanscom Park and a number of streetcar lines, vestiges of which remain in service as bus lines. Later, his son acquired much of the real estate in the Old Market, and his grandson, Sam Mercer, had the vision in the 1960s to turn that assemblage of buildings into a mixed-use creative district. A certain amount of fighting city hall was involved. The Central Omaha Plan (1966) called for demolishing and redeveloping this district, keeping a couple of buildings for historical flavor. As I was quoted in Sam Mercer’s obituary, “Sam Mercer was the Old Market. No Sam Mercer, no Old Market.” His son, Mark, has continued this tradition.

GEORGE BEMIS

Bemis Land Company subdivided the Bemis Park neighborhood, which in many ways represented the first “designed” development in Omaha. Prior to that, most residential areas were “additions” of rectangular lots delineated on standard rectangular blocks. Bemis Park used the site’s topography, applying the design principles that Frederick Law Olmsted pioneered in Riverside, Illinois, which involved breaking the grid without creating discontinuities in the street network. Bemis Park is skillfully designed, and generations of residential developers and engineers have copied portions of it.

Though Mutual is an insurance company, not a developer, it was the force behind two of Omaha’s most influential projects — Regency and Midtown Crossing. Regency was probably the first completely designed and horizontally integrated mixed-use project in Omaha, and it remains an excellent example of good development design. Around Mutual’s Midtown headquarters site, the company had for years concentrated on building employee parking and expanding office facilities. While understandable from a corporate viewpoint, this tore into the fabric of the surrounding neighborhood and created an evening wasteland along the Farnam corridor. During the 2000s, the company understood that a vital urban environment around its facilities was more important than an abundant supply of surface parking. In the teeth of the Great Recession, it built and supported Midtown Crossing, an enormous and unconventional project for Omaha that changed that part of the city. It also created the conditions for reinvestment projects such as the Blackstone District and helped cement the connection between Downtown, Mutual and UNMC.

NODDLE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

Noddle Development, under the leadership of Harlan Noddle, grew as a developer of shopping centers and retail boxes in towns and small cities in the Midwest and also in Omaha. But its breakout project was development of the former Rehnstrom farm at about 100th and Pacific Streets, which became One Pacific Place and remains, arguably, the most controversial rezoning action in the city’s history. This was also the first project that came into my office after I became planning director. The project evolved from a large office park to a horizontally integrated mixed-use project. In addition to its design and use mix, it included for the first time a development agreement that capped the amount of office space and required at least a set number of residential units. After One Pacific Place, Harlan, his son Jay and the company focused on a different level of development, including Downtown’s Landmark Center with Betawest Properties and First National Business Park with First National Bank. I consider the First National Bank building one of the city’s best contemporary buildings. Noddle has since become highly identified with major New Urbanist developments such as Aksarben Village, Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, and the Boys Town Farm/DiMarco property west of 144th Street. Aksarben Village has had an enormous impact on how Omahans see development.

HOLY NAME HOUSING CORPORATION AND SISTER MARILYN ROSS

Sister Marilyn Ross may be the first nun on a list of iconic developers. Holy Name Housing Corporation, the organization she led for decades before her recent retirement, began as a venture by two young parish priests at Holy Name Church (The Revs. Don Nereuther and Jerry Mullin) who had a social mission and believed the deterioration of the surrounding neighborhood threatened the viability of the church. They acquired abandoned houses on individual blocks, formed a small construction company to rehabilitate them and sold them to new homeowners. When they left Omaha, Sister Marilyn became Sister Marilyn HNHC’s executive director and took the nonprofit development corporation to new Ross heights, building new single-family homes on vacant sites mostly in north Omaha but also in other areas, developing new projects and subdivisions on vacant sites (the intergenerational center on the St. Richard site, new ownership subdivisions on the old Immanuel Hospital and Fontenelle Home sites), and many other projects that have stabilized large areas of inner-city Omaha.

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

FAMILIAR FACADES

Greater Omaha’s past is preserved in a number of stately, turn-of-the-19th-century buildings that live on as homes to modern-day pioneers. Here are five examples. community, which made up 23 percent of the total population in the latter part of the 19th century. The west building was constructed in 1889, and included Skinner Macaroni and a tent-making company. A printing company erected the middle building in 1909. J.P. Cooke Co. is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year.

BAIN WAGON COMPANY BUILDING

Built at 13th and Leavenworth Streets in 1886 by the Kenosha, Wisconsin-based Bain Wagon Company, this is where workers assembled horse-drawn wagons. By 1890, Bain was selling about 15,000 wagons a year. The five-story warehouse was recently renovated by Tony Regier’s Natural Ventures business collective for a climate-controlled storage space, deli and coffee shop, and natural therapy and yoga studio.

THE BEER DEPOT

THE OMAHA BUILDING

Originally the New York Life Insurance Building, this Italianate Renaissance-style structure at 1650 Farnam St. was Omaha’s tallest when completed in 1888. Later the home of Omaha National Bank, it was slated for demolition at one time. Currently occupied by the law firm Kutak Rock LLP, the building was 10 stories high when built. An 11th floor was added in 1920. The building’s twin is in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

J.P. COOKE CO.

Located at 1311 Howard St., J.P. Cooke Co. — a maker of rubber stamps, other marking products, signs and related items — is in not one but three buildings, all of which form a massive façade. The 1865 building on the east end housed the Omaha Tribune, a German-language newspaper popular with Omaha’s German

Currently housing ad agency The New BLK, this brick structure at 1213 Jones St. was built in 1889 as one of several buildings that made up Krug Brewery, Omaha’s largest beer maker at the time. Anheuser-Busch later took over Krug’s buildings including this one, which held a stable, beer vault and ice house.

THE LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING

This 1926 brick structure at 4920 S. 30th St. was built as the headquarters for the Omaha livestock market. At 11 stories, it stood tall above the 260 acres of cattle yards that surrounded it. The building was nearly a city unto itself, as it included a café, bakery, sleeping rooms, soda fountain, telephone and telegraph offices, apartments, clothing and cigar stores, and a ballroom atop each wing. In 2005 it was altered to its present configuration, which includes more than 100 apartments, event space and OneWorld Community Health Center. — Mike Whye

OMA’s Deli.

PROUD DESIGN PARTNERS OF ONE OF THE TOP ZOOS IN THE WORLD!

The Natural Therapy’s traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture room.

General manager, Josh Adams, walks through the second floor of The Storage Loft.

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Grateful to be part of and serve the GROWING COMMUNITY of Omaha for 20 YEARS. 13478 Chandler Road / Omaha, Nebraska / 402.556.2171 www.thielegeotech.com

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

M AT T M I L L E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Nathan Preheim, co-founder of The Startup Collaborative, goes over a plan on his laptop in a common area.

Prized commodity: Tech talent THE AIM INSTITUTE IS PRIME CONNECTOR IN THE IT MARKETPLACE By Mike Whye WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Once a major U.S. center for the buying and selling of corn, wheat, rye, oats and other grains, the Omaha Grain Exchange Building at 19th and Harney Streets is now a hub for developing new and innovative Omaha-area businesses. Renamed The AIM Exchange Building, the century-old, eightstory structure counts among its tenants the building owner, the AIM Institute. The not-for-profit AIM came into existence about the time Enron was leaving Omaha — a move that took many jobs from the metro area. Not wanting to see such an event happen again, those involved in government, business and education banded together to create what ultimately became AIM, with a goal of starting businesses here and encouraging those companies to draw their employees from the Omaha area.

FOUR INITIATIVES AIM has four major initiatives, said Victoria Novak, the organization’s vice president of strategic partnerships. First, it looks to the future by working with youngsters in area high schools and middle schools to prepare them for college. This happens in many ways, such as having younger students participate in AIM’s Brain Exchange, a fun-forall, hands-on learning environment. Other programs help students set up college visits, prepare for the

M AT T M I L L E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

THE WORLD-HERALD

The Omaha Grain Exchange building in 1916, left, and as the AIM Exchange Building today. The structure is at the heart of business and innovation. ACT, apply for scholarships and encourage girls to think about careers in technology. Second, AIM has events designed for those already working in technology, developing software or becoming entrepreneurs. “These events are to reach the professionals who are out there in those fields now,” Novak said. “We have ongoing training for those in tech fields to become leaders and managers in their fields.” Third, AIM informs people and companies about what’s going on with technology in this area through its online efforts, which were bolstered when it acquired Silicon Prairie News, a digital supporter of Omaha-area entrepreneurial persuits. “Most people know of AIM

through Careerlink.com,” said Novak about the employment website, which is AIM’s fourth initiative.

THE ARCHITECTURE AIM officials knew the original floor plans of the building would suit some potential tenants. But it also knew that entrepreneurial, tech-minded types might want something else — open spaces. AIM hired DeOld Andersen Architecture LLC of Omaha to rework interior spaces in some parts of the building. Walls were knocked out, creating open areas that were more conducive to impromptu small-group meetings. To further delineate the new meeting spaces, they were given wooden floors to contrast

with the marble flooring in other parts of the building. On one floor, walls between what had been three small offices were removed, creating a large office suite with a downtown view. In another area, a couple of offices were opened up to become an extension of a hallway, forming a snack lounge with a barnwoodaccented wall. In some areas, solid walls were replaced by ornamental glass, creating a brighter, more open feeling for conference rooms. “Innovators love open spaces, collaborative spaces,” said Novak of those working on fledgling businesses in the building. One firm, Drive Spotter, began here less than two years ago as a service that offers trucking firms the ability to track their vehicles. The company

also has offices in Iowa, Michigan, California and Texas. Another tenant, Borrow for Your Bump, rents maternity clothing — from everyday basics to designer party dresses. “With some attorneys in the building, we still have that corporate feeling in some areas,” said Novak of spaces left as designed but handsomely restored. On a wall near the main-floor lobby is an old mailbox, painted black and trimmed in gold. The original trading floor is much as it was. Empty of traders, the seventh floor looks like a ballroom. The nearby balcony still holds a chalkboard with long-ago prices of grain in Kansas City, Winnipeg and Chicago.

STARTUPS TO WATCH The original Omaha Grain Exchange Building at 19th and Harney Streets is a hot property for entrepreneurs. In what now is called The AIM Exchange Building, here are three companies to watch.

Drive Spotter

Early last year, Chris Augeri’s vehicle analytics startup Drive Spotter announced the close of a $750,000 seed round. The company has positioned itself to be a major player in the self-driving vehicle revolution, with offices in Omaha, Austin, Des Moines and Detroit.

Avert

Avert, led by Preston Badeer, emerged this year out of a partnership between UNeMed and the Straight Shot accelerator at The Exchange. The company’s device, which can notify athletes that they

might have a concussion, has the potential to save lives.

platform throughout Nebraska and the region.

Travefy

OUT WEST

Some of Omaha’s most promising startups are west of midtown. Hidden in malls and business parks, these companies are on the verge of making big splashes in 2017.

Travefy, founded in 2012 by David Chait and Chris Davis, is a platform that helps large groups such as sports fan clubs to plan and organize trips. In 2015, Travefy raised $1.8 million in a Series A round of investment.

Places VR

ALONG STARTUP ROW

East on Harney Street, within walking distance of The Exchange, other startups are establishing roots. Available office space and accessible amenities make Harney Street downtown an attractive place for what some are calling “Startup Row.”

Flywheel

Startup veteran Dusty

M AT T M I L L E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Cameron Helkuik works for Travefy, one of many startups in The AIM Exchange Building.

Davidson is making waves in the design world with Flywheel, a web-hosting platform specifically for designers. Last year the company raised $4 million in investment to make an aggressive play in the hosting market.

Crumb Danny and Luis Lopez’s startup, Crumb, is looking to save lives by solving data problems for hospitals. They are building relationships with hospitals to offer their

Battlebears founder Ben Vu is back with another startup, Places VR, officing in Crossroads Mall. The mobile platform will allow people to meet up in real time in virtual reality.

ScoreVision

Founded by successful serial entrepreneur Gordon Whitten, ScoreVision brings big-league scoreboards to high schools and small colleges.

With screens already up at Westside High School, Brownell-Talbot and Hastings College, the company is poised for major growth this year. ScoreVision is in the Hayneedle building near 90th Street and West Dodge Road.

Lifeloop Last fall, Amy Johnson’s Lifeloop was the winner of a $100,000 investment from AOL co-founder Steve Case during his “Rise of the Rest” tour. The Lifeloop platform helps retirement community residents stay connected with staff and family. Lifeloop is based out of Aviture, a defense technology company and startup incubator in west Omaha. — Ryan Pendell, managing editor of Silicon Prairie News

• 17Y

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

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SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OUTLOOK: ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

ZOO REACHES MILESTONE By Eileen Wirth // WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT As a record 2 million visitors flocked to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in 2016 to see the $73 million African Grasslands exhibit, they could feel they were taking a mini-safari.

•

In addition to feeding gi-

raffes, they could watch elephants, impalas and rhinos sharing a waterhole as they would in the wild, try to spot cheetahs hiding in trees and hike up a hill to observe lions sunning themselves on massive boulders. • Meanwhile, children splashed around in the new $14 million Alaskan Adventure featuring more than 75 water-spouting bronze sculptures including an 18-foot-high humpback whale. • The zoo ended the monumental year with a monumental celebration, “50 Days of Doc,” honoring longtime executive director and current Zoo Foundation Chairman Dr. Lee Simmons for his role in creating this world-class attraction.

•

See Zoo: Page 21

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20Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

— Excerpts from “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties,” a World-Herald book by staff writer David Hendee

BORED? DIG INTO SOME HISTORY

THE WORLD-HERALD

NOW PLAYING ... NELIGH’S TK-STARLIGHT DRIVE-IN IS A TRIP BACK IN TIME, BUT NOW WITH A DIGITAL PROJECTOR.

THE WORLD-HERALD

‘KOOL’ IDEA Edwin Perkins of Hastings created Kool-Aid in 1927 after bottles of his liquid drink, “Fruit Smack,’’ leaked. The powdered version was a hit.

TRAVELING CULTURE

Summer circuit Chautauquas brought culture and entertainment to communities across the nation from the early 1900s to the mid-1920s. The Hastings Chautauqua Association’s 1907 pavilion, designed to resemble a large meeting tent, seated 3,500 and was the state’s largest pavilion. Notable speakers have included William Jennings Bryan and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

MODERN DESIGN FOR HISTORY The crown jewel of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island is the distinctively geometric Stuhr Building. The museum’s landmark gallery building was designed in 1963 by architect Edward Durell Stone, who also designed the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art and Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Construction started in 1964, and the building opened in 1967. The museum preserves and portrays the era of the town builders who created Nebraska’s early pioneer communities. Its collection of buildings and artifacts tells the story of settlers’ lifestyles from 1880 to 1920.

WHATEVER IT TAKES NORMAN ROCKWELL CALLED JOHN FALTER (OF FALLS CITY, NEBRASKA) “AMERICA’S

MOST GIFTED ILLUSTRATOR.’’

AMEN!

More than 50 percent of Arthur County residents were Baptists in 2010, making it the northernmost majority-Baptist county in the United States.

NATIVE SON

Dick Cavett, TV host, was born in Gibbon.

St. Edward was two short of the required 200 population to incorporate soon after the Union Pacific Railroad built a line northwest of Columbus in 1883. Boone County residents created two more residents from sand and limestone. They were known thereafter as St. Edward’s “Stone Men.’’

MONOWI, IN BOYD COUNTY, IS THE STATE’S SMALLEST

INCORPORATED TOWN. THE LONE

RESIDENT, ELSIE EILER, OWNS AND OPERATES THE VILLAGE’S ONLY BUSINESS, THE MONOWI TAVERN. MONOWI’S PEAK POPULATION WAS 123 IN 1930.

STATE TREASURES The Museum of Nebraska Art, located in Kearney’s old post office, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2016. The permanent collection contains more than 5,000 pieces of artwork. Among the artists are George Catlin, who during his travels in the 1830s painted images of Indians, including the Omaha, Ponca and Pawnee tribes. The museum’s collection also features Thomas Hart Benton’s depictions of travelers on the Oregon Trail and wildlife artwork by John James Audubon.

ONE-TIME RESORT

Yellow Banks Park, a recreation resort along the Elkhorn River northeast of Meadow Grove, in Madison County, opened in 1928. An estimated 15,000 people attended the opening celebration for the cottages, dance hall and restaurant. The resort claimed the world’s longest billboard, spanning threefourths of a mile. The park closed in 1937 during the Depression.

FLYING HIGH

One of the finest trotting tracks in the country — the Kite Track — opened in 1891 near Lyons, in Burt County. Famous horses broke world records and won large purses on a kite-shaped racetrack before hard times ended racing after 1893.

JAIL PRANK

The Harvard jail, in Clay County, was inadvertently sold to 16-year-old Robert Pinckney in a delinquent tax sale in 1943. When the city refused to buy back the jail, Pinckney put it up for auction at a war bond drive. The prank sparked a legal battle that played out nationally. Charlie McCarthy, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s puppet, “bought’’ the jail for $10,000 in war bonds and deeded it back to Harvard. The jail, estimated to be more than 130 years old, was refurbished in 2008-10.

NEBRASKA’S FIRST PERMANENT WOMEN’S

SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION WAS

FORMED IN THAYER COUNTY IN 1879.

EVENT POPPED UP

Nebraska’s longest-continuously running celebration is Popcorn Days in North Loup. The event started in 1901, soon after irrigation permitted farmers to grow popcorn as a cash crop. About 20,000 bags of free popcorn are distributed during the three-day event.

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• 21Y

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SARAH HOFFMAN/THE WORLD-HERALD

Dr. Lee “Doc� Simmons has been selling exciting ideas to major donors since his arrival at the zoo in 1966.

Zoo: From menagerie to top Omaha tourist attraction

EXHIBIT ON DISPLAY FEBRUARY 18– APRIL 30, 2017

Continued from Page 19 However, in a sense the zoo was also celebrating the work of all who have contributed to its status, including Executive Director Dennis Pate, top Omaha leaders and countless large and small donors. In 50 years, the zoo has gone from being little more than a menagerie to Omaha’s top tourist attraction and a beloved civic institution that is noted worldwide for its animal conservation and research work. Looking over the spotless grounds and spectacular buildings, it’s hard to envision the old Riverview Park Zoo with its handful of cages, pens and motley collection of animals. Only the old Caretaker’s House near the Desert Dome stands as a reminder of just how far the zoo has come since 1963, when Margaret “Peggy� Doorly, the widow of former Omaha World-Herald publisher Henry Doorly, donated $750,000 to create a real zoo. When Simmons joined the zoo in 1966 as assistant director and veterinarian, the transformation had begun with the construction of bear grottos, gorilla and orangutan buildings and the Ak-Sar-Ben petting zoo. However, progress accelerated after he was named director in 1970 because of his skill in selling exciting ideas to major philanthropists. Step by step, the modern zoo came into being. When he was still assistant director, Simmons sold Peter Kiewit, Omaha’s top civic leader at the time, on the need to build sturdier housing for elephants because they regularly wrecked their existing quarters. Kiewit and fellow Ak-Sar-Ben governors persuaded Eugene Eppley to fund Pachyderm Hill. More recently, Simmons raised funds for the Elephant Family Quarters, the largest elephant building in North America, that is part of the African Grasslands. Union Pacific Railroad and its chief engineer at the time, zoo board member Robert Brown, played key roles in building and maintaining the Omaha Zoo Railroad and solving many engineering and construction problems. Simmons developed wish lists of projects he could sell to donors, sometimes delaying his own priorities to accommodate their wishes. For example, he wanted an animal hospital because sometimes he was forced to treat animals in restrooms. When a donor chose to fund an aviary instead of the hospital, he built the aviary. The animal hospital is included in Pate’s 10-year master plan. Simmons also converted existing facilities into new exhibits. He wanted to create a sea lion pool but money was tight. Then a Riverview Park employee told him about an old swimming pool that had been covered over. Zoo workers found the old pool, and Simmons persuaded zoo board member Edward F. Owen to fund the complicated project. Not only did the pool have to be dug out and reconstructed, but the lagoon that fed the pool had to be cleaned out and renovated. In 1972, the zoo opened the Owen Sea Lion Pavilion. Now it, too, is scheduled for replacement in the zoo’s master plan. The zoo opened new exhibits every year or so, many of which had been on Simmons’ wish list long before they were constructed. Simmons spent years cultivating the Lied Foundation before obtaining funding for the Lied Jungle that opened in 1992 and put the Henry Doorly Zoo on the national map. In 1994, Family Life Magazine cited the jungle as the single best zoo exhibit in the country. “My idea was that very few people from Omaha will ever get to a jungle or a tropical rainforest,� Simmons said. “We wanted

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Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project is an exhibition created by the National Archives and Records Administration and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

THE WORLD-HERALD

The Owen Sea Lion Pavilion opened in 1972.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT BEYOND COMPARE

ED LOUIS

Ed Louis changes GPS collars and performs physicals on two aye-ayes in Madagascar in November 2012. Louis has studied and tracked aye-ayes and other lemurs for more than half of each year since 1999. to give them a total-immersion experience.� Similarly Simmons, who had grown up in Arizona, believed that many Midwesterners had little idea about the variety of animals and plants in deserts, so he built the Desert Dome that opened in 2002 to immerse them in this ecosystem. Simmons was always open to ideas from donors, such as Suzanne Scott’s request for penguins in the Walter and Suzanne Scott Kingdoms of the Sea Aquarium. When the Scott Aquarium opened in 1995, it was so popular that zoo-goers had to schedule appointments to tour it, just as they did when the Lied Jungle opened. In 2012, the zoo showed off major renovations to the aquarium, another of the major projects funded under Pate’s master plan. In addition to its major exhibits and displays, the zoo has won world recognition for its Center for Conservation Research, which includes a 20-member staff of veterinarians and scientists and has trained 2,284 students. Simmons helped initiate national work to preserve endangered species during the 1970s. At the beginning, Omaha was ground zero for such work. Simmons hosted visiting scientists from the Smithsonian and other major institutions at his home and invited them to collect blood and other specimens from the zoo’s big cats. After analyzing the data in their labs, the scientists repeatedly returned to Omaha to collect more specimens. Today’s research work includes studying plants (including orchids), animal reproduction and health problems, nutrition, identification of new species of lemurs in Madagascar, preservation of coral and many other subjects such as programs in Africa to combat game poaching. Such work was a key reason

Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium has pioneered in many fields, including building massive community support. In the 1970s, it created its annual membership drive modeled on the old workplace-based Aksarben membership drives. The zoo’s drive began when board member Ben Morris of Northwestern Bell suggested that the thousands of Omahans who bought memberships to attend Aksarben concerts would be willing to buy memberships for unlimited entry to the zoo. Colorful slogans such as “Support Your Local Cat House� and stunts such as hanging a massive inflated gorilla from the W. Dale Clark Library downtown helped turn the drives into civic events. Today the zoo has the nation’s largest per capita zoo membership. About the same time, it created Zoofari, its major fundraising event, which raises more than $2 million from its auction. At the zoo, names of contributors appear everywhere. In addition to the names of top donors on buildings, there are names on colorful displays of butterflies, fish and other animals. Pate credited public generosity and pride in the zoo with helping give Omaha the nation’s most active zoo construction program in recent years.

that Pate accepted the job as executive director when Simmons retired in 2009. He had previously directed the zoo in Jacksonville, Florida. “I was attracted to Omaha because it was heavily involved in wildlife conservation. Here we have made a significant commitment to build on,� he said. “In addition to the work done by our own scientists, the zoo contributes to projects that help conserve animals in the wild. The zoo has increased its support annually to field conservation projects and has provided funds for over 50 projects in the last few years. It also has provided emergency funding for Okapi and Orang projects that were decimated by civil war or catastrophic fires.� The zoo’s master plan calls for continued overall growth. The $27.5 million Children’s Adventure Trails exhibit that will open in 2017 will educate children about nature by letting them play in it. Exhibit components include a children’s play area, an amphitheater for bird shows and added classrooms that will allow Zoo Academy high school enrollment to grow

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by nearly one-third. The next major exhibit to be built is the Asian Highlands exhibit, which will focus on animals that live in the foothills of the Himalayas and other forested areas in the Far East, including Siberian tigers, Amur leopards, red pandas, sloth bears and deer. Eventually the zoo will build a South American exhibit, but not until it has replaced the cat complex and built a new sea lion pool, Pate said. Also planned is an Equatorial African exhibit featuring Central African forest dwellers such as okapi and red river hogs. Pate said he is especially driven by his passion for educating zoo-goers about animals and conservation issues. “We want to use the zoo to compel people to care about the plight of animals in the wild,� he said. Eileen Wirth, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of journalism at Creighton University. She currently does research and writing for Legacy Preservation and is the author of a book on the history of Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium that will be published this spring.

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

M AT T D I X O N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Fitness instructor Charlie Brown leads a pilates class at Common Ground Recreation Center in Elkhorn.

Fitness, friends and fun By Todd von Kampen

WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

A seemingly insatiable desire to come together, get in shape, compete and have fun is widening its footprint in the Omaha metropolitan area. Over the past two decades, Fremont, Bellevue, Council Bluffs and Elkhorn have all responded to that impetus with multipurpose facilities geared for active lifestyles. Now, Papillion and La Vista are following suit with community center-recreation complexes of their own. “Everyone wants to be more active and have a more well-rounded lifestyle where they’re happier and healthier,” said Tracy Stratman, who oversees Common Ground Community Center in Elkhorn as recreation manager for the City of Omaha Parks, Recreation and Public Property Department. Any broad-based activity center can be a strong tool for attracting and keeping new residents, said Jerry Rinne, president/CEO of the Fremont Family YMCA. “When (people) look for a community to live in, they look at quality of life.” In the 1970s and ’80s, Omaha and its neighbors provided exercise and recreation activities through neighborhood community centers, said Larry Foster, Council Bluffs’ parks and recreation director since 2009 after 21 years with Omaha’s parks department. Foster said there was an interest in such those facilities serving a wider base, with more extensive exercise and athletic facilities. Proponents of today’s activity centers envision attracting amateur tournaments that would generate funds from outside the area and build the economic status of the community, he said. Since it opened in 1998, the Bluffs’ outdoor recreation complex has hosted what Foster described as “people from almost every state in the nation” in local and regional baseball, softball and soccer tournaments. Last year, total visitors in 2016 fell just shy of 400,000. Foster said future success of such facilities isn’t guaranteed, as other Midwest cities compete with those in Omaha-Council Bluffs for amateur tournaments.

KENT SIEVERS/THE WORLD-HERALD

M AT T D I X O N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Physical therapist Michelle Mahler, right, works with Deby Green of Plattsmouth and James Kimber Lawrence of Bellevue at the Bellevue Lied Activity Center.

Common Ground Recreation Center in Elkhorn boasts basketball courts and a jogging track.

“Omaha has seen that these facilities can bring economic activity,” he said. “So has everyone else.” Foster and the leaders of the Fremont, Bellevue and Elkhorn facilities each attribute their ongoing success to strong buy-in by local users and operating partnerships with public entities and-or nonprofits. Fremont’s YMCA has been a driver of athletic activities since its building opened in 1969 in Fremont’s Memorial Park. Outdoor fields are run by the city and the school district. The facility has been expanded four times, adding an Olympic-size ice rink, wellness and fitness centers, a child care center and The Underground, which features physically interactive computer-generated games for youth. Upon the 2018 opening of the Dillon Family Aquatic Center — which will feature an Olympic-size pool and arena for high school, Midland University and regional swim meets — Fremont will have the world’s single-largest Y at 245,000 square feet, Rinne said. “We’ll be able to serve people across the Midwest region with that type of facility,” he said, noting that the Sidner Indoor Ice Arena already hosts regional hockey tournaments. By contrast, the bustling Y in Papillion contented itself with being

able to find in the community has kept our numbers strong.” The partnership ran in the opposite direction when the former City of Elkhorn opened Common Ground in 2005 in cooperation with Elkhorn Public Schools. Omaha has run it since the annexation of Elkhorn in 2007, but the partnership otherwise has been undisturbed, said Stratman, the Omaha city recreation manager. “What we have is a typical community center that tries to keep things affordable,” she said. Common Ground and Lied are oriented toward indoor athletic and exercise activities, as is Fremont’s Y, but residents can access outdoor fields and facilities at or next to all three facilities. The nonprofit Iowa West Foundation took the lead in developing the 90,000-square-foot Iowa West Field House, which opened Jan. 13 next door to the Mid-America Center indoor arena. It includes eight basketball courts or 12 volleyball courts. It’s being operated by the Omaha Sports Academy, which runs youth leagues throughout the metro area, said Pete Tulipana, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer. The Field House, like its older outdoor counterpart, also will have its eye on luring regional and national youth and adult amateur tournaments.

on the steering committee for the Sarpy County seat’s community center, which voters endorsed with a half-cent sales tax increase last May. The community center’s 200,000-square-foot indoor facility should relieve pressure on the Y, said city spokesman Trenton Albers. It will be built on a 75-acre former driving range near 96th Street and Nebraska Highway 370, with outdoor baseball, softball and soccer fields to follow after the indoor facility opens in 2019. Papillion’s facility will include indoor basketball-volleyball courts, weight facilities, an indoor turf field and an indoor pool, he said. But it also reflects the older model of community centers with meeting rooms, a youth center, a branch library and a new home for the Papillion Senior Center. “We have various (city) activities open from spring to early fall,” Albers said. “But when the cold weather hits, we really shut down.” Bellevue’s Lied Activity Center, built by the school district in 2002, offers adult volleyball and basketball leagues on the City of Bellevue’s behalf through an in-kind arrangement. “What we’ve developed is a friendly atmosphere with reasonably priced and equal facilities,” said Bill Richards, the school district’s director of activities and grounds. “The niche we’ve been

UPCOMING SHOWS

american made tour - 3/2/2017 7:00 pm with lee brice & justin moore panic! at the disco - 3/15/2017 7:00 pm

“We’re located on the most traveled Interstates in the region,” Tulipana said. The nonprofit Nebraska Multisport Complex, which broke ground near I-80’s Exit 442 last fall, will be the most specialized of the facilities discussed here. It has a community partner in the City of La Vista, which offers some indoor and outdoor athletic and recreation activities at existing city facilities. Project manager Trish Hoffman-Ahrens said the complex will offer plentiful top-notch facilities for swimming, tennis, soccer, lacrosse, rugby and field hockey — sports in which the metro area previously was under-equipped to lure regional and national tournaments. The La Vista complex also will “allow our young people to develop their athletic abilities at home instead of going out of state,” said Hoffman-Ahrens. The 184-acre site will include an indoor 10-lane pool and a 3,000-seat arena that meet FINA (International Swimming Federation) standards. La Vista residents, she said, will be able to sign up for city-sponsored activities — including swimming lessons for all ages — when the complex opens in 2018. Nebraska Multisport Complex’s outdoor pool will be the former warmup pool from the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials at CenturyLink Center Omaha.

NOW–FEB. 12

FEB. 10–MARCH 12

MARCH 3–APRIL 2

APRIL 14–MAY 7

MAY 5–JUNE 4

MAY 26–JUNE 25

chris tomlin - 4/7/2017 7:00 pm the beach boys - 4/26/2017 7:00 pm & the temptations

tickets baxter arena box office ticketmaster.com 800.745.3000

6915 CASS STREET | (402) 553-0800 | OMAHAPLAYHOUSE.COM

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

THE WORLD-HERALD

Billy McGuigan and the Omaha Big Band play a packed Jazz on the Green concert in Turner Park at Midtown Crossing in July 2016.

TURNER PARK: ‘A GREAT URBAN SPACE’

The pulse of Midtown Crossing By Christine Laue

Yoga Rocks the Park is a summertime mecca against the backdrop of Midtown Crossing.

WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Some call it Omaha’s Central Park. In the seven years since Turner Park was revitalized as part of the Midtown Crossing development, the green space has grown into a premier people magnet, drawing 300,000 annually with events ranging from concerts and movie nights to group yoga classes and canine fashion shows. The comparison to New York City’s famous park is not for its size, but its feel. A green oasis plopped in the middle of a bustling urban center, the park is both an escape from the city at one moment and the heart of it at another — a cosmopolitan community like nowhere else in the metro area. No single factor creates this type of magnetism. Ask regulars or surrounding merchants what the draw is, and they’ll rattle off a host of reasons — location, the park’s oval shape and gentle slope, its meticulous maintenance, a schedule of varied events, and the energy from nearby residences, restaurants and retailers. Bruce Paitz, a banking professional who owns a condo overlooking Farnam Street, said he enjoys evening walks through the park and attending concerts, where people dine and sip wine in lawn chairs and on blankets they bring there. “There are lots of conversations going on, and the air is full of laughter. It’s nice to attend an event when everyone is just enjoying being outdoors and relaxing,” Paitz said. “All of the events held in the park are first-rate and well-run. There is such a sense of belonging to a community when you attend an event.” That’s music to the ears of Molly Skold, Midtown Crossing’s vice president of marketing and communications. The park is more than a venue — it’s the hub of a community, she said. There are picnics, family reunions, friends who see each other and hug and date nights. “That says community. That’s the most important thing,” Skold said. The significance of the park is not the number of people who visit it, she said, but the revitalization of midtown. A free, open-to-thepublic park and events make that possible. “If it’s opera, if it’s the symphony, if it’s jazz, zydeco, come on over. You are invited to the party,” Skold said. “That’s what I think is very special about this piece of land. People come here, and it levels the playing field. You’re not the CEO, the janitor, the accountant. You’re a member of the Omaha community enjoying a fabulous night out. That’s what I’ve seen over and over again. That’s why I think the park works.” East Campus Realty LLC, a Mutual of Omaha subsidiary, always intended for the entire urban renewal project to become a community destination, but the events that have fed Turner Park’s popularity were more of an evolution, Skold said.

THE WORLDHERALD

Jazz on the Green moved to Turner Park in 2010 when officials at Joslyn Art Museum, the series’ home for 25 years, decided the event had outgrown the museum grounds, with crowds encroaching on a new sculpture garden. Omaha Performing Arts took over organizing the series and had planned to move it downtown to a grassy space east of the Holland Performing Arts Center. But a few months after that announcement, the group decided to move it to Turner Park after speaking with Midtown Crossing officials. The arts group’s officials found the park’s bowl shape appealing — the grass slopes down to the pavilion stage, allowing spectators to sit or lie down and still see the musicians without looking into the setting sun, as was the case at the museum. Adding to the appeal of Turner Park were amenities including restaurants, a hotel where musicians could stay and parking garages to accommodate large crowds. The six jazz concerts that first year at Turner Park attracted an estimated 50,000 people, which gave the community and Midtown Crossing’s developers a taste of what the park could offer. “We saw that there were wonderful opportunities to bring people together in a green space and enjoying nature,” Skold said. “Then one thing led to another.” The event count in the park has grown from 50 that first year to 150 today. Midtown Crossing, which organizes park events, has a maintenance agreement with the City of Omaha for the city-owned park, and can’t fit much more in, she said. A Monday Night at the Movies series has seen one of the biggest leaps in popularity, increasing attendance tenfold in just a few years. Dozens of teams that make up the Big O Bocce league play the Italian game on Tuesday nights in summer, with Midtown Crossing businesses sponsoring teams and hosting after-parties. Jazz on the

Green and other concerts, such as zydeco and the Playing With Fire series, fill up the warm-weather calendar, each routinely averaging 8,000 attendees. Attendance at Yoga Rocks the Park, a mass yoga class held Sundays, easily has doubled attendance since its first year in 2011, Skold said. And in just its third year, the winter Holiday Lights Spectacular drew 20,000 people over six weeks. The diversity of events continues to expand, with additions like hutchFEST, a marketplace for modern makers of handmade goods, and Omaha FURshion Week, which included a dog fashion show at the park in 2016. Midtown Crossing business Three Dog Bakery also uses the park for its annual Easter Begg Hunt and Growl-o-ween events. Kendra Blessie, the store’s manager, said the number of dogs attending each event has tripled in the past three years. That’s about 300 dogs, so she estimates 600 to 800 human attendees. Easy parking, the midtown location and the park’s shape make the events easy to access, she said. “Everybody can be in a big circle, and everybody hangs out in the middle,” Blessie said. “There’s always people in that park. I think it’s perfect for people who live above the businesses to bring their dogs outside and get a taste of a backyard.” With about 25 percent of Midtown Crossing residents paying a pet fee, Skold estimates that about 100 dogs are park regulars. The park also hosts scores of fundraising walks and runs, such as the Turkey Trot, and car shows twice a year. Those events, along with the new Horses of Honor public art exhibition through May, play a big role in fostering the sense of community, Skold and others said. The Omaha Police Foundation partnered with Midtown Crossing for the art project, which features eight painted horse statues to honor fallen Omaha police officers. Vic Gutman, whose Vic Gutman & Associates co-manages the Omaha Police Foundation, said

that while the theme of the police officer tribute resonated with people, the park’s shape and beauty enhanced the experience. “It’s a very attractive walk,” Gutman said. “It was just the perfect environment for that type of exhibit.” Gutman credits much of Midtown Crossing’s success to the move of Jazz of the Green to Turner Park. “I think what is exciting about Turner Park, of course, is that it’s the focal point of a fairly dense new urban development, but also it’s right in the mix of a number of historical neighborhoods that are now going through a revival in large part because of the renewal of Turner Park,” Gutman said. “It’s just the perfect space to bring people together ... The whole area is a great urban space.” Midtown Crossing is a $365 million retail and housing campus on 15 acres next to insurance giant Mutual of Omaha’s corporate offices. Developed and owned by East Campus Realty LLC, it broke ground in September 2007, opened in 2010 and is credited for sparking a midtown renaissance not only on the once-barren tract east of the Mutual campus but also in the surrounding 3.6 square miles. More than $160 million has flooded the surrounding area in projects with the help of a city-approved subsidy. Real estate values in the area have soared, and redevelopment has spread to formerly crime-ridden stretches nearby. Midtown Crossing’s high-rise apartments and condos along with restaurants and retailers hug the curved west border of Turner Park, and busy Farnam and Dodge Streets and Turner Boulevard frame the park to the south, north and east. The development covers about 15.5 acres, with 1 million square feet of building space, 40 businesses, 3,000 parking stalls, and about 480 people in apartments and another 310 in condominiums. The growth continues. Mutual of Omaha has been buying and clearing property east of Turner Park for a mixed-use development.

Called Turner Park East, the development will include a six-story hotel, 118 apartments and an office building. Construction is expected to begin late this year. Kellie Bottrell witnessed the area’s transformation from her apartment of nine years at 37th and Harney Streets. Turner Park played a key role in that transformation, she said. “Every Thursday evening in July, I could sit and watch from my living room window all kinds of people walking with their lawn chairs and picnic backpacks for Jazz on the Green,” she said. “But it wasn’t just that night that people would head that way. It was anytime the park had something going on.” The revitalization influenced her decision to invest in midtown. She bought a home a year ago. “Seeing the trends of new businesses moving in and old forgotten neighborhoods being revitalized in the area was definitely something I watched as I was looking at different neighborhoods to buy in,” Bottrell said. With 475 trees and 12,000 plants and shrubs, the meticulously groomed, seven-acre Turner Park is one of several emerging green spaces in the metro area. About 30 blocks to the west is another mixed-use development, Aksarben Village, which features Stinson Park. Across the Missouri River to the east is Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park in Council Bluffs. “Both of them are really excellent, and both of them fit their own environment,” Gutman said. Gutman and Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh said each park fills a niche for the surrounding communities and that there’s room for both along with Turner Park. Construction that includes a community building and a mixeduse development continues this year as part of an expansion at River’s Edge Park, Walsh said. The community building, which features a grand staircase and an outdoor rooftop observation deck, is scheduled to open late this summer or early this fall. He said construction won’t interfere with the annual Loessfest celebration over Memorial Day weekend or various outdoor sporting events. “We believe interest will grow significantly in 2018 as construction nears completion,” Walsh said. Whether at the riverfront or in urban centers, each park plays a role in the shared vision for a bustling, cosmopolitan area, he said. “The success of Stinson Park and Turner Park demonstrates the importance of a planned schedule of outdoor entertainment opportunities,” Walsh said. “These events help gather a critical mass of individuals who then support area businesses and/or rent and buy adjacent housing because of its proximity to the local park amenity.” Midtown Crossing’s Skold agreed that Turner Park is part of a greater vision. “We are focused on the end game — what Midtown can be and will be,” she said.

• 23Y

24Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN’T

Re-imagining districts, communities and hubs By Martin Shukert SPECIAL TO THE WORLD-HERALD

The Old Market created the model for what I call “experience districts.” We also have them in South Omaha, Aksarben Village and Vinton Street. From a physical perspective, these districts tend to emerge when there is a compact, walkable environment that allows businesses to interact, a distinctive urban fabric, relatively cheap space for startups, and management of parking. Big, highly visible parking lots are not friendly to such districts. As in the Old Market, Benson and the Blackstone District, they tend to emerge from existing, street-oriented development. It is much harder to build them new. Aksarben Village is an exception, but it benefits from a good surrounding environment, inclusion of an excellent public space, the Keystone Trail, UNO and large-scale employment centers. North Downtown is not quite there yet. The Old Market is a testimony to the Mercers. They appreciated the value of incremental development: letting the place evolve over time rather than building it all at once and in the same way. They curated the district, defining businesses they thought were important and making it possible financially for them to be there (and in some cases, starting them themselves). They emphasized local businesses, and they enforced a certain design quality that was urban but also informal and somewhat improvised. It was a special recipe that other places could follow. Alexander Garvin, a renowned planner who was my teacher and mentor in college and who managed the redevelopment process for the World Trade Center site in New York, worked with us on the Greater Omaha Chamber-sponsored North Omaha Project plan. Alex had just sent the revised edition of his great book on practical planning, “The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t,” to the publisher, and I took him to the Old Market for lunch. He said to me that if he had been to the Old Market before finishing the book, he would have put it on the cover. It is the nature of districts like the Old Market that they, like people, get settled in middle age and are not as attractive to new entrepreneurs. So other areas like Benson become “the place to be.” Though there is no “developer” of Benson, the area includes businesses that are grassroots advocates and organizers. These areas are popping up around Omaha because of a generation that, at least at this time in their lives, are starting enterprises, looking for atmosphere, patronizing local instead of chain businesses, and enjoying cities more than cars.

CREATING BUZZ

The Blackstone District — and the Old Market, in a way — has a dominant although not exclusive developer who is steering the boat. Properties were underused, the developer had a vision and acquired and developed properties, and then marketed them to potential tenants. The Benson phenomenon was grassroots, with individual advocate businesses such as

Powerful Music & Spectacular Entertainment!

KENT SIEVERS/THE WORLD-HERALD

Aksarben Village hosts the Omaha Farmers Market on Sundays. Pizza Shoppe starting an organic process that brought a traditional district back to life in a very short time. Sometimes these grassroots efforts do evolve de facto management groups that are then able to recruit businesses and manage the public environment. South Omaha is much more market-based, populated by businesses that serve a specific population that then — with city infrastructure support — begin to attract a secondary market from the broader region.

WALKABLE AREAS

These areas ideally have a quality that’s hard to describe. Intimacy, scale and continuity are very important. For example, a very wide street or long distances between building facades or places of activity (such as park edges) work against the principle of intimacy. Street scale established by storefronts, building rhythms, outdoor furniture and landscape, graphics and signs, awnings, and articulation of windows and building facades all contribute to this. Broad, unbroken expanses of the same thing work against street scale. Walkable areas should avoid interruptions of elements that attract people’s attention, such as activity and windows. That’s why breaking up a block with parking lots or requiring people to walk along areas without much interest defeats walkability. Traffic with some congestion in the street can be a good thing — look at South 24th Street. Clarity, but not too much, can be important. People don’t want to feel lost or disoriented in an environment, but also don’t want to see everything laid out before them. A good mix of tenants and uses is also critical. The greatest, most intimate environment is a failure if there’s nothing to experience within it. Ultimately, an experience environment must be seen as a collective destination, whether it’s old, new or in the middle. Many of my small-city downtown development clients ask why customers will walk 400 feet from a parking space to the front door of a Walmart, but complain if they can’t park at the front door of a specific downtown business. The answer has to do with what I call “perception of destination.” At Walmart, the store is the destination, and people consider that they’ve arrived when they park their car. In a mainstreet district, if the destination is the individual store, they complain if they have to park on another block. Similarly, if you are headed to one storefront in the Old Market and park two blocks away, you’re likely to be frustrated and stressed. But if the Old Mar-

ket is your destination, you’ve arrived if you’re parked in that same place. The trick is to make the district the destination. It is a challenge to build these kinds of environments out of whole cloth, because the places with greatest appeal have some history and layers of styles. But it can be done.

EMERGING

Old Towne Elkhorn has many of the qualities mentioned above and contrasts quite dramatically with its suburban environment. I am excited about the possibilities of a creative district north of Cuming Street in north downtown. Hot Shops Art Center and Mastercraft are good beginnings and adding connectedness and amenities in the street environment, doing buildings that tie the area together and create new space, and creating this kind of workshop/studio/commercial/residential mix can be very cool if the required density is achieved. I think north downtown south of Cuming Street may still emerge, and features like Film Streams and Slowdown are very important, but it still feels very new and lacks public space. The “Little Bob” connection to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge and regional trail system will help a lot. I would like to see Florence continue to emerge as a destination, and it is beginning to attract interesting new places. From a physical perspective, though, it fights the street width. Regarding the 144th Street project (West Farm), it has not been easy to develop new experience districts in west Omaha. I think the cost of new development to occupants, demands for surface parking and the lack of trail or park connections have been impediments. Village Pointe has succeeded in some ways, but it does not have the feel of Benson or Old Towne Elkhorn. I think the 144th Street project might consider an “entrepreneurial” main street or square that provides some of the creative revenue arrangements that helped get the Old Market going. I’ve always thought that a re-envisioning of the 119th and Pacific area could create such a West Omaha experience center. One of the strongest ideas in our North Omaha Plan of a few years ago was a pedestrian-oriented retail and mixeduse center on the south part of the Metro parking lot at 24th and Cuming. This kind of project could take advantage of adjacent neighborhoods, the Creighton market, people passing the intersection on the way to downtown events, and now users, visitors and staff of the CHI Health clinic and Creighton University Dental School.

WILD SPACES, OPEN SEASONS Hunting and Fishing in American Art

MAY 6

MAR. 17 & 18 MAY 13 & 14

MAR. 4 MAR. 25 & 26

APR. 1

JUNE 2 & 3

APR. 29

Opens February 12 Wild Spaces, Open Seasons is the first major exhibition to explore American artists’ fascination with hunters, fishermen, and the sporting life in paintings and sculptures from the 1820s through the 1940s. Illuminating changing ideas about place, national identity, community, wildlife, and the environment, the exhibition offers compelling new insights into these meaningful pastimes. See it first and see it free. Become a member today! Joslyn members get a private preview day on February 11 and free admission to all ticketed exhibitions. General Museum admission is free. Wild Spaces, Open Seasons is a ticketed exhibition. Tickets are FREE for Joslyn members. $10 for general public adults; youth ages 17 and younger and college students with ID are free. Special Thursday pricing (4-8 pm): $5 for general public adults. IMAGE: William Sidney Mount (American, 1807-1868), Catching Rabbits, 1839, oil on panel, The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages, Stony Brook, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville, 1954. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Presenting Sponsors:

The Hawks Foundation

Major Sponsor:

Contributing Sponsor:

Supporting Sponsors: Robert H. Storz Foundation

FEB. 25 & 26

Additional support provided by: Fran and Rich Juro

Great seats still available – order now! 2200 Dodge St. | Omaha, NE | (402) 342-3300 | www.joslyn.org

402.345.0606 | OMAHASYMPHONY.ORG

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

•

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OUTLOOK: HEALTH & MEDICINE

HOPE AND HEALING By Dan McCann // WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

The drive is undeniable, and not confined to any one of Omaha’s hospitals or medical centers. It’s a communitywide, perpetual push to be that much better; to grow programs, services and positive outcomes; to harness technical innovation and human curiosity to redefine the bounds of what is possible — so that more and more lives can be nurtured, improved or saved. • Over the decades, this unrelenting quest for excellence has generated a health care community with a world-class reputation for research, treatment, and facilities, including two internationally recognized medical schools. •

At the

heart of it all are people: visionary leaders, generous benefactors, and skilled caregivers, researchers and educators. Their individual accomplishments create legacies of hope and healing. Their collective impact elevates our entire region and helps secure a stronger tomorrow. • Meet them, Page 28.

.

FREE SCREENING HEALTHY LEGS LAST A LIFETIME

Join us February 14th for a FREE VEIN SCREENING and free yourself from leg pain. RSVP required. Treat yourself right this Valentine’s Day and attend our FREE VEIN SCREENING and EDUCATIONAL CONSULTATION. Enjoy life more this Spring without tired, achy or painful legs! Heartland Vein & Vascular Institute will help custom tailor a treatment plan that’s right for you.

Heartland Vein & Vascular Institute Call (402) 951-9203 Omaha HeartlandVein.com

Let’s Connect!

26Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

— Excerpts from “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties,” a World-Herald book by staff writer David Hendee

UNDER THE BEAUTIFUL NEBRASKA SKY THE COMBINATION

OF SPECTACULAR SCENERY AND AN EASY FLOAT TRIP HAVE MADE THE NIOBRARA RIVER DOWNSTREAM FROM VALENTINE ONE OF THE TOP CANOEING RIVERS IN THE COUNTRY. ROCK BEDS FORM SHORT STRETCHES OF FAST WATER AND RIFFLES IN SOME SPOTS, BUT MOSTLY THE RIVER FLOWS LAZILY ALONG AT 2 TO 3 MPH. OUTFITTERS IN VALENTINE RENT CANOES, KAYAKS AND TUBES.

CHASE COUNTY MAINTAINS CHAMPION LAKE, WHICH SINCE THE 1920s HAS BEEN A FAVORITE SPOT OF LOCAL FISHERMEN. THE ORIGINAL OWNERS BUILT A DIVING

FIRST LIFE FLIGHT?

BOARD, A 20-FOOT TOWER

AND A BATHHOUSE, WHERE SWIMMERS COULD RENT A SUIT FOR A DIME. CANOES AND ROWBOATS COULD ALSO BE RENTED AT THE LAKE, AND MOTORBOAT RIDES WERE OFFERED FOR 25 CENTS.

KEEP THE LIGHT ON Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first American Indian woman to become a physician, graduating first in her class in 1899. She returned to the Omaha Reservation and was known for keeping a lighted lamp in the window of her home to welcome patients in the night. In 1913 she opened a hospital with a full-length screened porch overlooking Walthill. The hospital served patients until the 1940s.

On May 23, 1919, Dr. Frank A. Brewster of Beaver City and pilot Wade Stevens took off in a Curtiss “Jenny’’ on a flight to Herndon, Kansas, where Brewster performed emergency surgery to save the life of an injured man. The flight attracted worldwide attention. Brewster, who had purchased the airplane a few weeks earlier, was thought to be the first physician to use an aircraft for professional purposes. Brewster’s airstrip and hangar were among the state’s first private airports. One of the few surgeons serving a large area of Nebraska and Kansas, Brewster was quick to adopt timesaving innovations. In 1906, he purchased the first automobile in Furnas County. Bad roads, however, were a constant problem, which led to his use of the airplane. After moving to Holdrege, Nebraska, Brewster regularly was flown to visit the several hospitals he helped start in the two-state region. He later received his private pilot’s license, at age 71, and was an active flier until his death at 89 in 1961.

DUCKPIN BOWLING Potter touts the only duckpin bowling alley west of the Mississippi River. The variant of 10-pin bowling came to Potter, in Cheyenne County, in the 1920s. The alley has three lanes, squatty pins and balls (lacking finger holes) slightly larger than softballs.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

• 27Y

Crisses, Skutts ensured their impact on Omaha By Anne Walsh WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

The best at what we do because it is all we do. Becker’s Hospital Review

1998256-01

“Mutual of Omaha is people you can count on when the going’s rough.” That melodic 1960s jingle defined a company and described its early leaders — Dr. C.C. and Mabel Criss, and V.J. and Thomas Skutt. The husband-wife and father-son duos created and grew the insurance and financial services giant while generously supporting the city for which it’s V.J. named. Skutt For nearly 90 years, the Criss and Skutt families led Mutual of Omaha with a customer-service attitude grounded in concern for America’s hardworking Thomas families. Skutt That philosophy is reflected in their many charitable contributions centered around health and education. C.C. and Mabel’s destinies, and the company’s, were shaped by the loss of their only child, Harry. Born on Christmas Eve 1902, he died in March 1907 from a blood disorder. Just two years later, while selling insurance part time to help finance his medical studies at Creighton University, C.C. saw a need for more comprehensive health and accident coverage than what the limited policies of the time provided. In 1910, the couple became associated with the Mutual Benefit Health and Accident Association. Serving first as treasurer and then as president and chairman of the company that became Mutual of Omaha, Dr. Criss pioneered the concept of offering simplified, liberal policies to minimize liability from accident or illness. He received his degree in 1912 but never practiced medicine, instead directing his talents toward his company and community. Described as kind, capable, patient and conscientious, he was Mutual Benefit’s president from 1933-49 and then its chairman until his death in 1952. Mabel Criss’s organizational and management skills helped the fledgling company grow. Beginning as stenographer and office manager, she became Mutual Benefit’s first woman officer and company director, and its head of personnel and planning. She received the Fellowship Award from the National Office Management Association in 1951, becoming the first woman so honored. Mabel is credited with establishing the company’s family-oriented culture and its reputation for superior customer service and community support. Withstanding wars and the Great Depression, Mutual Benefit became the leading U.S. insurer in premium income by the mid-1940s. Construction of the company’s campus at 33rd and Farnam Streets began in early September 1939. The company also had a new name, new insignia and a rising leader in Vestor Joseph “V.J.” Skutt. After completing a law degree at Creighton Univer-

100 Hospitals & Health Systems with Great Neurosurgery and Spine Programs 2016 NebraskaSpineHospital.com/Beckers

402.572.3000

CareChex ranked it in the top 50 nationally for spine surgery in its most recent ratings, and the hospital received the 2016 America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Spine Surgery Award from Healthgrades.

NSH in a joint venture with physician ownership.

MUTUAL OF OMAHA

Dr. C.C. and Mabel Criss at Mutual of Omaha in 1949. The couple built what became Mutual starting in 1910, while Dr. Criss was still in medical school. sity in 1923, Skutt joined the company the following year and stayed for 62 more, the final 33 as chairman and chief executive. A consummate salesman and promoter, he transformed Mutual of Omaha’s name and Native American chief logo into national icons. In January 1963, the company debuted “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” on NBC. The weekly Sunday night program, watched by millions, featured zoologists Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler. The Emmy-winning wildlife show made Mutual of Omaha a household name, helped open doors for sales agents and put its namesake city on the map. “Wild Kingdom” ran for nine years on the network before entering syndication. Skutt broadened Mutual’s operations to include affiliate companies ranging from insurance and fund management to travel insurance. When he died in 1993, the New York Times quoted then company president Jack Weekly as saying Skutt was a “visionary pioneer” who “changed the landscape of insurance, transforming it from an industry based on paper to one based on people.” Thomas Skutt closely followed in his father’s footsteps, earning a law degree from Creighton University in 1957. He worked in a number of law firms before joining the company in 1969 as a tax counsel and secretary, then succeeded his father as CEO from 1984-96 and as chairman from 1986-98. His tenure coincided with the acceleration of U.S. health care costs. Thomas Skutt and Weekly led the company through a reorganization designed to improve efficiency and cut costs while continuing to diversify product offerings. Mutual eventually withdrew from individual and group health insurance, which at one time accounted for 60 percent of premium income. Focusing on other forms of insurance, financial services and banking, Mutual survived the change in its business, retaining its Fortune 500 status and importance as a major employer and Omaha institution. The Criss and Skutt families are associated not only with the company they created and grew, but with many civic endeavors that define Omaha’s landscape. The Criss name — memori-

alized on the Health Sciences Building at Creighton University and the library at the University of Nebraska at Omaha — also appears on the Science Lab at the College of St. Mary and on the Creighton Prep auditorium. The Dr. C.C. and Mabel Criss Memorial Foundation, founded in 1978, has donated millions to Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, including a grant that helped fund the recent redesign and expansion of the hospital’s cardiology examination and diagnostic space. The donation also provides for research conducted by the hospital’s cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery team, and a fellowship program to train young physicians going into pediatric cardiology. The foundation helped fund Nebraska Medicine’s Durham Research Center and Michael F. Sorrell Center for Health Science Education, and contributed to a matching-gifts pledge that expanded the Methodist Hospital surgery department. It also makes annual grants supporting the operation of health, educational and civic organizations including OneWorld Community Health Centers, the Women’s Center for Advancement and Omaha-area YMCAs. In west Omaha, the V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School opened its doors in 1993 and now serves about 700 students. The school name honors the Skutts’ volunteer efforts for Catholic education and other services for Omaha youth. Thomas Skutt helped arrange funding for Creighton University’s student center, which is named for his father. Thomas also backed University of Nebraska at Omaha endeavors, writing a personal check for the school’s aviation program. He and his wife, Jeanne, continued their support for Skutt High School and many other civic projects. He became personally involved in fund drives and boards, including United Way of the Midlands, Boy Scouts of America, Clarkson Hospital, Girls Club of Omaha, Henry Doorly Zoo, Strategic Air Command Consultation Committee, Joslyn Art Museum, YMCA, Brownell-Talbot School, the Salvation Army and Boys Town. Anne Walsh is a public relations specialist and writer with Legacy Preservation in Omaha.

Boys Town

Ear, Nose & Throat Institute A leader in hearing healthcare

Boys Town Ear, Nose & Throat Institute provides leading comprehensive hearing healthcare to children and adults, backed by more than 40 years of internationally-recognized hearing and hearing technology research at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Our findings are applied directly to our clinical care and shared around the world, helping more children and adults receive the gift of hearing.

For information on hearing examinations and hearing aids, call 402-498-6520 or visit BoysTownENT.org

Our tradition

Expertise. Innovation. Compassion. After 125 years of caring for the Omaha area, these are the symbols of care at Methodist and why generations of families put their trust in us. It’s a tradition that’s made an impact on the health of Omaha today, and what drives us to advance our care and create a healthier tomorrow. bestcare.org/beyond ©2017 Methodist Health System

28Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

Medical difference-makers

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

Cancer’s relentless foe

Dr. Henry Lynch

Creighton University Medical Center

Dr. Henry Lynch has spent his entire life fighting seemingly insurmountable foes: abject poverty growing up in New York City, the Nazis during World War II and, throughout his extensive medical career, the scourge that is cancer. His relentless offensive against the latter has earned him global renown and a title worthy of a medical pioneer: “The Father of Hereditary Cancer.” “It took me between 20 and 30 years to convince the world that there was something there,” Lynch said. Despite an avalanche of skepticism in the 1960s, Lynch was adamant that certain types of cancer had genetic — versus environmental — origins. His early research focused on clusters of cancer in Nebraska-based extended families. “I said, ‘Why are people dying unnecessarily due to colon cancer, breast cancer and several others that I’ve described — and can anything be done about it?’ Lo and behold, I started looking at the literature, and there was practically nothing about hereditary cancer as a novel area to pursue. That got me started.” Today, doctors worldwide

Status quo? No, thanks

Dr. Richard Azizkhan

Children’s Hospital & Medical Center

Dr. Richard Azizkhan, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, reveres the institution’s history — a nearly 70-year evolution from community hospital to regional and national academic medical center. He just wants more for its future: more capacity to serve children, more funding for research and more impact on Richard a global scale. Azizkhan “I wouldn’t have come here if I was just going to be a steward of the status quo,” he said. The shovel and hardhat displayed in his office speak to the dramatic progress ahead. In December, Children’s broke ground on the Hubbard Center for Children, a 10-story, 500,000-square-foot expansion that will add more than 100 beds and include a pediatric intensive care unit, an emergency department, a cardiac center, a dedicated hematology/oncology unit, and Nebraska’s only Level IV neonatal intensive care unit and complementary fetal care center. “We know that, percentage-wise, we have to deliver more critical care today compared to years past. The Hubbard Center for Children will give us the capacity,” Azizkhan said. Scheduled to open in 2021, the center will offer a broader menu of programs and services, incorporate state-of-the-art technology, add medical fellowships and support the advanced research needed to take pediatric care to the next level. “We aspire to become a $100 million-a-year funded research enterprise over the next 10 years. We’re currently at about $10 million in funding,” Azizkhan said. Azizkhan came to Children’s in October 2015 after 17 years at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, where he was surgeon-inchief and senior vice president of surgical services. Prior to that, he helped rebuild an entire health system in postwar Bosnia. “Everywhere I’ve gone in my 40-year career, I’ve built sustainable systems and sustainable programs. I like to see things reach a potential that people had otherwise not even thought of. That’s why I was so attracted here. I saw an unmet potential and opportunity for this region to be one of the great epicenters for pediatric health care.” Inspired by Albert Sabin, the researcher who helped eradicate polio, Azizkhan is a devotee of Yoda from “Star Wars,” embracing that character’s philosophy of “Do or do not. There is no try.” Said Azizkhan: “We have to take advantage of opportunities to make the most of what we can accomplish.” He is energized to do his part. “I want to be a driver of new knowledge creation through research and innovation that will change the paradigm of how we care for children and set a standard that others will be following going forward, establishing Children’s as a global leader in children’s health.”

Dr. Henry Lynch, “Father of Hereditary Cancer” refer to the most common form of hereditary colorectal cancer as Lynch syndrome. “Also, I was able to work out a relationship

between carcinoma of the breast and ovary, which has evolved into what we know as the hereditary breast ovarian cancer syndrome,”

said Lynch, the namesake of cancer centers at Bergan Mercy and Immanuel medical centers. The medical community credits

Seeing practical solutions Judith Burnfield, Ph.D., PT

Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals

Judith Burnfield thrives in that space where rehabilitation and innovation intersect. As director of Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering, her office is on the cutting edge. “My role involves setting the strategic vision for the Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering and then working with an incredibly gifted team of researchers, engineers and clinicians to execute that vision. Every day is different — and I love that.” Burnfield also loves knowing that she and the Institute team are having a life-changing impact not only on the patients Madonna serves in Omaha and Lincoln, but on patients around the world. “I think our biggest impact has been on creating novel yet practical innovations that help individuals with physical disabilities and chronic conditions get back to doing what they love, whether that’s going to a football game, communicating with loved ones or being able to get dressed in the morning without needing someone to help,” she said. The Institute’s most recent advances include new approaches to eye tracking that enable patients

Alex McKiernan uses an ICARE during his recovery from a spinal cord injury. to communicate via computer, and state-of-the-art prototyping technologies that allow for quick and affordable customization of assistive devices. Burnfield said one of her proudest achievements has been inventing the Madonna ICARE (Intelligently Controlled Assistive Rehabilitation Elliptical) by Sports Art with her colleagues. ICARE helps improve walking ability and endurance. “We took on a practical challenge that many patients undergoing

rehabilitation were facing across the country, and we generated a solution,” she said. The robotic ICARE device is being used internationally in rehabilitation, medical fitness and home settings to address walking and fitness goals of adults impacted by injuries and illness. Burnfield and her team are working to broaden that patient population. “We have just completed a research and development study, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, to expand the ICARE’s capacity so that children as young as 3 years of age and their clinicians also have access to this affordable, therapeutic technology,” she said. Burnfield has been with Madonna since 2004 — a transplant from Pasadena, California. “Even though a Nebraska winter was approaching, I just knew I wanted to be a part of Madonna’s world-class organization and on the forefront of rehabilitation care.” She finds her inspiration to innovate in the patients the organization serves. “I love physical rehabilitation,” she said. “I’m inspired on a daily basis by those who take on major life challenges.”

A legacy of giving The Harper Family Foundation Methodist Hospital

To ensure they remain on the leading edge, able to meet an ever-evolving need for new programs and services, area hospitals and medical centers rely in large part on the generosity of community donors. Methodist Hospital found a steady champion in the late Charles “Mike” Harper, a devoted husband and the former chairman and CEO of Conagra Foods. “Mike Harper was a visionary, and his support of Methodist was far-reaching,” said Cynthia Peacock, CEO of the Methodist Hospital Foundation. Harper, who died last May, launched The Harper Family Foundation with his wife, the late Joan “Josie” Harper, to create a legacy of giving with their four grown children, all foundation trustees. After Josie’s death from cancer, the philanthropic powerhouse became an avenue for lasting and impactful tributes. “My dad felt strongly about health care and treatment of people,” said daughter Betsy Harper Murphy. “My mother — a nurse — passed away in 1999. Our first big project with Methodist was helping with the expansion of their nursing school.” Said Peacock: “Mike transformed Nebraska Methodist College and put it on the map. His support helped create the Josie Harper Campus and the student residences.” The college now has enrollment of nearly 1,000 stu-

dents and offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. The Harper Family Foundation is also instrumental in supporting Harper’s Hope, a comprehensive cancer survivorship program that offers a range of services, including nutrition, counseling, physical wellness and a specialty salon. Services are available to all cancer survivors, regardless of where they seek treatment. “It was really important to my father that the program be available to anyone dealing with a cancer diagnosis,” Murphy said. Most recently, The Harper Family Foundation became a lead donor for the Methodist Mobile Mammography unit, making mammograms more accessible and more convenient in the community. “Early detection is so important,” said Murphy, who serves on the Methodist Hospital Foundation board. In addition to Murphy and husband Chris Murphy, The Harper Family Foundation trustees include Carolyn Harper, Dr. Charles Harper Jr., Dr. Halbert Wenngatz and Kathleen Harper Wenngatz. Murphy said the foundation is taking steps to ensure that it will continue to have an impact — on Methodist and a host of other beneficiaries — for years to come. “As we are aging, we’re inviting the next generation to join our meetings and learn about the foundation. Many of them are becoming actively involved in bringing projects to us and will become the foundation’s future trustees.”

40 years of helping kids hear Hearing-Aid Technology Research Boys Town National Research Hospital

Boys Town National Research Hospital marks a milestone this year — 40 years of groundbreaking research into childhood hearing loss. The list of profound implications includes a change in the way hearing aids are made for children. “There’s been a relatively long history here of hearing-aid research related to kids. That started with my predecessor, Pat Stelmachowicz (Ph.D.),” said Ryan McCreery, Ph.D., director of Boys Town National Research Hospital’s Center for Audiology since 2011. A portion of Stelmachowicz’s research was inspired by the advent nearly two decades ago of hearing screenings for newborns. “Pat’s research was designed to figure out how we can optimize hearing aids for children because, for the most part, they were developed for adults.” McCreery said Stelmachowicz’s research was influential in showing that children need access to more high frequency sounds to develop speech and language and to listen effectively in noisy or complex listening environments.

“Nearly all hearing-aid manufacturers have taken the work she has done and developed signal-processing strategies in hearing aids that give children and adults better access to those high frequency sounds,” McCreery said. As Boys Town National Research Hospital helps revolutionize hearing-aid technology, it also underscores the importance of optimal hearing-aid fit, the goal of which is to ensure access to all acoustic information a user needs to develop speech and language. Between 2008 and 2012, the hospital conducted a study with the University of Iowa and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill of about 300 children who wore hearing aids. “The children who had the best fittings had language growth that was closing the gap with their peers with normal hearing,” McCreery said. The work at Boys Town National Research Hospital is not limited to children with hearing difficulties. “We try to use some of the same principles to help improve outcomes for adults,” McCreery said. “It’s clear the work we’re doing here and in other laboratories around the world for children and adults is being taken into account, which is exciting.”

his work with an increase in colonoscopies, mammograms and other cancer-screening tests across the globe — and hundreds of thousands of lives saved. “I just got a referral from Israel. We’re trying to help a patient there who may have Lynch syndrome,” he said. “I’ve visited and lectured in most of the countries in the world, helping my physician colleagues develop programs remarkably similar to what we have here at Creighton.” Lynch, who saw patients and tested families at Creighton University Medical Center, serves as chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine and president of the Hereditary Cancer Institute at Creighton University. Nicknamed “Hammering Hank” during a brief boxing career, the 89-year-old Lynch – who still works 12-hour days – shows no sign of backing down. He is currently striving to find better ways to diagnose hereditary forms of cancer. “I will never retire,” he said. “There would be no reason in the world to retire, given the fervor I have developed and the loyalty to my department and to so many of my colleagues throughout the world.”

Scientist Laureate

Tammy Kielian, Ph.D. University of Nebraska Medical Center

Olivia Burtwistle, a 13-year-old battling a rare and devastating neurodegenerative disorder, has a powerful ally in the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s 2016 Scientist Laureate, an accomplished professor of pathology and microbiology the teenager Tammy knows as Kielian Aunt Tammy. “Prior to Olivia’s diagnosis, I had been looking at bacterial infection in the brain — so I knew a lot about the brain,” said Tammy Kielian, Ph.D. “I realized I could make a switch and enter this new field, maybe come at juvenile Batten disease from a fresh perspective to develop new therapeutics.” At present, there is no cure for juvenile Batten disease, but thanks to Kielian and her team of investigators, there is progress. Biopharmaceutical company Abeona Therapeutics has licensed a gene therapy developed in Kielian’s lab that has the potential to halt the disorder. “A lot of people in the field thought the disease wouldn’t be amenable to gene therapy, but I had seen some results that led me to believe otherwise. So we moved forward, and it looks like we were correct.” Kielian said the therapy could move to clinical trials later this year, but a final product might be years away. Juvenile Batten disease, unfortunately, does not wait. Olivia continues to experience the progressive ravages. “She’s blind. She has seizures. She sometimes has trouble walking now . . . She has decreased cognitive ability. So it has progressed,” Kielian said. While some might think it difficult to separate the role of aunt from that of researcher, Kielian said it’s not. “When I’m here in the lab, I’m able to focus on being very objective . . . This is the way it has to be. We are very rigorous in our studies and experiments to make sure we don’t have any type of bias.” Kielian also is making strides in studying MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)-related orthopedic infections, particularly after hip and knee replacements. Kielian’s research led to her being named UNMC’s 2016 Scientist Laureate, the highest honor given to one UNMC researcher a year. She is quick to share the credit. “I’m very grateful for the people in my laboratory who work tirelessly to address the kinds of medical questions that we study and hope to find treatments for,” Kielian said.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

CHI Health on the move

This rendering shows the new facility coming to the Bergan Mercy Hospital campus.

‘LASER-FOCUSED’ ON TEAM-BASED CARE WITH NEW TRAUMA CENTER, TEACHING HOSPITAL By Maggie O’Brien WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Creighton University Medical Center’s trauma center and teaching hospital moves this summer to the Bergan Mercy Medical Center campus in central Omaha. Dr. Cliff Robertson, chief executive officer of CHI Health, talks about the new Level I trauma center, intensive care unit, multistory clinic and academic Cliff A. tower that will Robertson help serve north Omaha upon the closing of the current Creighton hospital at 30th and California Streets.

Q. Is the project still on track to open this year? A. The project is on track, with full completion anticipated in June. The family practice, OB-GYN and internal medicine clinics at University Campus opened in January; the emergency department there opens in June at the same time other services at the existing Creighton University Medical Center move to 75th and Mercy Road. Q. What innovative features and services are generating buzz among CHI health professionals, first responders and patients? A. Technology and team-based care are generating a lot of excitement. We are building a foundation toward an e-hospital and are venturing even deeper into telemedicine, where clinical health care is provided from a distance. For example, there’s a shortage of behavioral health practitioners. As the area’s largest behavioral health provider, we now provide telepsychiatry to Schuyler and Plainview (in Nebraska). Patients will be able to have similar virtual consultations at the new University Campus at 24th and Cuming Streets. We continue to use the high-tech eICU, which provides continuous realtime remote monitoring to help ICU nurses and physicians proactively monitor a patient’s condition. Q. What’s the forecast for services of this type in the metro area? A. There are dozens of ways telemedicine can be used to better serve our patients. We’ve only started tapping into the possibilities. Q. What about services regionally? A. The same holds true for our regional focus. As a health care system of 15 hospitals, two standalone behavioral health facilities and more than 150

employed physician practice locations in Nebraska and southwestern Iowa, we feel uniquely able to serve the patient in a consistent and highquality manner. Q. Describe CHI Health’s need for a new trauma center and teaching center. A. From a community perspective, health care is rapidly moving to services being provided in settings other than a hospital. This means that Omaha will need fewer hospital beds. Other than women giving birth and people requiring hospitalization, beds will be limited to those who are very ill or severely injured. Knowing that hospitals and training of the health care team must change, CHI Health and Creighton University are preparing for the future. This starts with the creation of two primary teaching sites: the new Creighton University Medical Center, Bergan Mercy and University Campus. The campus on Mercy Road will provide care for patients needing inpatient, emergency and outpatient services. University Campus will focus on outpatient and emergency care. Trauma services have long been a service provided at CUMC. When CHI Health and Creighton University decided to relocate the CUMC hospital, there was never a question that trauma services wouldn’t also move to the new location. As we studied the opportunity to relocate CUMC, we quickly realized that the Bergan hospital location was actually better positioned to serve the majority of the Omaha population. This new location will provide faster access

to trauma care for those injured or wounded east or west of 72nd Street. Our community will benefit from having a centrally located Level I trauma center that provides enhanced access for all of the metro area. The new trauma center will be larger, providing needed space for the trauma team to care for criticallyinjured patients. The trauma center’s location provides adjacent and efficient access to surgery and the trauma ICU, where many patients go following resuscitation in the trauma center. Q. How will the new facility be different? A. We are creating one academic medical center on two campuses where students can learn how to care for patients in the hospital, in the clinic and in the patient home – all through a team-based approach to care. The University Campus will be a learning laboratory for students to run a successful outpatient practice in the new world of health care. Physicians-in-training and students will work with experienced faculty and other members of the care team to provide coordinated interprofessional care. People selecting this campus for care will benefit from this new model, which is focused on supporting people’s health and wellness. The flagship for the academic medical center will be Creighton University Medical Center, Bergan Mercy. Patients will see services more typically provided in a hospital, along with services one would expect from a university medical center. Q. What were the limitations, if any,

of the old facility? A. The hospital at 30th and California Streets was designed for a different way of caring for patients, when many more people were hospitalized. The biggest limitations were in design — patient rooms were small by modern hospital standards. The configuration of rooms also made it difficult and financially not feasible to expand rooms through renovation. We also needed the ability to expand the outpatient clinic and outpatient services. The intangible things patients love about the hospital at 30th Street will be found at 75th and Mercy Road. The commitment to faith-based care and education will flavor the care and compassion with which we treat patients and one another. The team-based approach will ensure that patients get the right care at the right time in the right place. Q. Describe the classes in the tower and their benefit. A. In some ways, class time will be no different. High-tech collaboration rooms will allow learners to work with faculty to discuss and plan patient care. Other rooms are provided for lecturing and didactic learning. In other ways, the learning will be much different. While rounding will still happen in small groups, other students will be able to view (with patient permission) the encounters in real time through virtual technology. At the heart of the patient and student experience is a team-based approach that brings the care team to the patient, which will avoid the need for patients to visit various specialists individually.

Q. Will the location change have any impact on the community? A. When we announced the move to 75th Street and Mercy Road, there was concern from the north Omaha community regarding convenient access to excellent health care. We formed a partnership with community leaders and asked what health services the community needed. We heard the need for clinic services that focused on the whole person — care that could be provided on a continuous basis where the person has a primary care team to help him or her maintain health and wellness. We also heard the need for convenient emergency care. To meet these needs, we are building a campus that will provide an emergency department that one would expect in a hospital, plus family practice, OB/GYN, internal medicine, behavioral health, radiology, pediatrics and therapy services. A key to health and wellness is jobs. To support the community, nearly half of the construction contracts were awarded to small, minority and disadvantaged businesses located within 15 miles of the campus. The new location of the Creighton University Medical Center, Bergan Mercy campus also will bring trauma care closer to people in the western part of the metro area. Q. How is the project funded? A. CHI is funding both projects through reserves, donations and debt financing, which together result in a $180 million investment in our community.

PROJECTS AT A GLANCE: BUILDING BETTER HEALTH CARE Health care in greater Omaha gets an injection of growth hormone in 2017. Here’s a quick look at medicine’s robust vital signs.

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL & MEDICAL CENTER

» Children’s Hospital & Medical Center last month took its most visible step so far toward achieving plans for a major expansion in size and offerings. Officials broke ground for a 10-story, approximately $450 million clinical facility. The facility includes renovation of 100,000 square feet of the existing building, which will begin after the new center is completed in early 2021. The new Hubbard Center for Children, named in recognition of the lead gift from the Theodore F. and Claire M. Hubbard Family Foundation, will be constructed on the West Dodge-facing front lawn of the existing hospital at 82nd Street and West Dodge Road and will add about 500,000 square feet. The current hospital measures 225,000 square feet, not counting the attached specialty clinics. The center will include more than 70 inpatient beds, with space for more as needed. » Children’s Hospital has closed a $33.5 million deal with the Durham family trust that will about double the hospital headquarters’ footprint. Administrative and other non-clinical activities are expected to move to existing structures at the HDR site in 2020. The Children’s property acquisition further roots a longtime resident of the area and secures the future of a seven-acre tract in a high-demand business area of the city. As planned, the two HDR-occupied buildings and the neighboring Durham Plaza would remain largely offices. In addition to the nearly 225,000 square feet of office space, the area contains about 700 parking spaces, some indoors.

CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

» The Creighton University Medical Center at 601 N. 30th St. will end its 40-year run as a teaching hospital and close in 2017. The inpatient hospital beds, trauma center and academic medical center housed at the hospital will move to Creighton University Medical Center, Bergan Mercy at 75th Street and Mercy Road. The transition is to be

complete in June. » A new community health center has opened in advance of Creighton University’s Medical Center — the old St. Joseph Hospital — closing its doors. Clinics and a retail pharmacy opened in January on the second floor of the 86,000-square-foot, $36.5 million Creighton University Medical Center University Campus at 2412 Cuming St. A fourth set of exam rooms for occupational and physical therapy will open Feb. 6 on the first floor, along with a Children’s Physicians clinic. And a new first-floor emergency department will begin accepting patients June 9.

MADONNA REHABILITATION HOSPITALS

» Spine- and brain-injured patients need special care, and Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ Omaha Campus has uncommon features to provide it. Construction concluded this fall on the 110-bed campus, which has made its name for close to four decades with its Lincoln facility. The Omaha hospital at 175th Plaza and Burke Street, just west of Village Pointe Shopping Center, began admitting patients in early October. Construction cost was $70 million, plus $13 million in equipment and furniture and $10 million more in architectural fees and land acquisition. Among the special features: a sport utility vehicle inside the hospital so patients can practice entering and exiting a vehicle; a mock grocery where patients can practice shopping; a workbench to practice dexterity; walking paths and walking bridges for work on coordination and balance; a warm-water swimming pool for water therapy; three therapy gyms with equipment and devices for coordination, strength, conditioning and to help patients regain physical skills. One gym is for pediatric patients.

METHODIST HEALTH SYSTEM

» A midtown Omaha church launched a $5 million project that will include a low-cost health clinic administered by Methodist Health System. Members of Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church are building a 17,546-square-foot addition on the former KETV building site at 26th and Douglas Streets. The 2,000-member, 110-year-old church

paid $2.2 million for the property through its endowment fund, with the rest of the money raised through donations. The plans call for two buildings: a single-story health clinic and a two-story Kountze Commons, which will include space for a food pantry. The new buildings will be connected to the church, at 2650 Farnam St., by an enclosed walkway. » In 2015, Methodist Women’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was beyond capacity nearly 93 percent of the year. The demand and the desire to offer high-quality neonatal care to more families in the region ignited an effort to expand the NICU from 28 to 51 private beds and also provide a private family lounge for parents to relax during their baby’s stay. At a cost of $19.3 million, the room expansion will include 13 single rooms and five rooms for twins or triplets. The NICU expansion is expected to be completed in the fall.

NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER

» The $323 million Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center will open this spring on the western edge of the UNMC campus. It is the largest single endeavor in med center history. The facility bears the Buffett name in recognition of Pamela’s gift to the NU Foundation. Her late husband, Fred, was a first cousin to Warren Buffett. The cancer center — a private-public endeavor — combines $50 million in state money, $35 million from the City of Omaha, $5 million from Douglas County, plus money from private foundations. The cancer center’s eight-story, 108-bed inpatient treatment center will be called the C.L. Werner Cancer Hospital because of a gift from the C.L. Werner Foundation. The 10-story, 98-lab research tower will be named the Suzanne and Walter Scott Cancer Research Tower, following a gift made by the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation. UNMC and its clinical partner, Nebraska Medicine, will share the project. The institutions intend to add 100 physicians and 50 researchers for work related to the cancer center. » An expansion began this month of the Nebraska Medical Center’s emergency department. The expansion is intended to accommodate an anticipated increase in patient volume. The current emergency department, which opened in late 2005, was built to handle about 60,000 patients a year.

The department expected to surpass that number by the end of 2016, and an analysis projects it can expect an additional 4,000 to 10,000 annual patient visits in the future. The expansion will allow staff to manage an additional 10,000 patients a year. The medical center will add seven private exam rooms and extra workstations for physicians and complete minor upgrades to eight existing critical-care emergency department rooms. Existing office areas, the emergency staff lounge and a conference room will be removed to make room for the expansion. The work is expected to wrap up by early June. » A new training, simulation and quarantine center — the National Center for Health Security and Biopreparedness — will help federal health care workers train to treat Ebola and other infectious diseases. University of Nebraska Medical Center officials said the project will include a 20-bed quarantine unit for observing people exposed to infectious diseases. UNMC was awarded $19.8 million in federal funds over the next four years to develop the new center, which will occupy the ground floor of UNMC’s planned $102 million Global Center for Advanced Interprofessional Learning. Construction is scheduled to begin this winter at the southeast corner of 42nd and Emile Streets.

VA MEDICAL CENTER

» Last month, President Barack Obama signed into law a measure that will allow for a public-private partnership to build a $136 million veterans medical facility in Omaha. The facility, expected to sit next to the existing hospital at 4101 Woolworth Ave., will be the first of its kind. A trio of local businessmen who signed on to provide the private donations for the facility are already in talks with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The hope is to have the design phase underway this year, with the facility completed next year. The plan is to replace the hospital with a $136 million ambulatory clinic that would serve most Omaha-area veterans’ medical needs more safely and efficiently than the hospital. Private donations would help build the clinic.

• 29Y

30Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

“EVERY DAY IS LIKE ‘GROUNDHOG DAY.’ IT NEVER ENDS.’’ — Susan Drager, daughter of Dorlyn Ball who has dementia

Dementia: A war without weapons WORLD WAR II VET, 47.5 MILLION OTHERS IN MEMORY-LOSS LIMBO

the condition more time to plan for the future,” she said. “It allows individuals to get the most from treatments that may address symptoms and help maintain independence longer. They may be able to participate in clinical trials that help advance treatments.” After years of pressure from patient advocates, Medicare this month will begin reimbursing doctors to test patients with cognitive impairment at any stage — and offer information to families about caregiving. “This is some of the best news in dementia care,” said Dr. Stephen Bonasera, a memory and aging care specialist with the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Department of Neurology. “Doctors are going to be a lot more motivated to talk about a caregiving situation and what is working best for everyone while improving care. For the first time, the system is more aligned,” Bonasera said.

By Maggie O’Brien WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Dorlyn Ball could fix anything. The former World War II fighter pilot spent his career building aircraft for McDonnell Douglas, the aerospace manufacturer that later merged with Boeing. When he wasn’t tinkering around his garden, he was reading any and every genre of book. But about 10 years ago, when he was 85, Ball began to forget some of the things he was reading. He couldn’t put anything back together, no matter how hard he tried. “We knew he was in trouble,” said Ball’s daughter, Susan Drager of Omaha. Ball, now 95, has dementia and has been living in memory care at Hillcrest Shadow Lake since the death of his wife in late 2015. She had been his caregiver. “His short-term memory is nonexistent,” Drager said, adding that every day is like ‘Groundhog Day.’ It never ends.” *** An estimated 47.5 million people worldwide are living with dementia as some 7.7 million new cases are diagnosed each year, according to the World Health Organization. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia (attributed to at least 60 percent of new cases), although stroke, injury and Parkinson’s disease also are culprits, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Dementia clinically is characterized by a decline in memory, language, problem-solving and other cognitive skills that affect a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. This decline occurs because nerve cells in parts of the brain involved in cognitive function have been damaged or destroyed. Someone in the early stages of dementia might seem absent-minded — unable to keep track of a purse, wallet or cellphone. They might get lost in familiar neighborhoods,

Dorlyn Ball was a former World War II fighter pilot who spent his career building aircraft for McDonnell Douglas. He began showing signs of dementia in his mid-80s. He’s 95 and living in memory care today. forget recent conversations, names and events, miss appointments and mishandles their finances. As dementia progresses, the person might forget how to dress or bathe — or even when to eat and sleep. With no known cure, researchers continue to study whether treatment might be possible through gene therapy, stem cells or vaccines. Also under study are psychological treatments involving exercises to improve memory or activities that offer positive reinforcement. A few drugs have been found to slow the progression of dementia, but only if the condition is caught in the earliest stages. “Early diagnosis is increasingly important,” said Sharon Jensen, executive director of the Nebraska chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. “Early diagnosis allows people living with

*** Six years ago, Carol Harrison moved from Mason City, Iowa, to Omaha to live with her son and daughter-in-law. Her family had become concerned after a series of “odd things,” including going to a local Hardee’s restaurant at 3 a.m. to look for family members who weren’t there. Doctors diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s — at 62. Her daughter-in-law, Kristi Martin of Omaha, said she and her husband, Arthur, initially arranged for Harrison to live with them, but her care needs proved more than the couple felt equipped to handle. “It became pretty clear right away that we needed to do something different,” Martin said. “We had trouble getting her Social Security set up, because she couldn’t even tell them her last name.” The family moved Harrison to House of Hope Alzheimer’s Care. A drug to slow her dementia worked for a time but became ineffective and was discontinued. “All we can do at this point is make sure she’s happy and having a good time,’’ Martin said. Mornings are best, especially if Harrison has slept well, her daughter-in-law has observed. “She’s good for about two hours. Then, after that, it gets spotty.”

Dementia can take a toll on loved ones. That’s why Jensen and Bonasera continue to push for increased support for families and caregivers, something they believe is essential to everyone involved. The Alzheimer’s Association routinely offers recommendations for caregivers, as well as training that can impact care at residential facilities. Jensen is hopeful that new treatments will help people remain in their homes longer. “It is important that people live in an environment that is best for them,” Jensen said. “Many communities are becoming more dementia-friendly, better supporting individuals with dementia and their families.” The cost of caring for a loved one at home is a growing concern. A 2016 Alzheimer’s Association report found that care contributors spent an average of $5,155 of their own money (out of pocket) per year to take care of a relative or friend with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. Nearly half surveyed said they had to cut back on their own food, transportation, medical care and other expenses to meet that need. Others borrowed from their savings or retirement funds. Drager — Dorlyn Ball’s daughter — said she is grateful her father is still around, especially since the death of her mother not long ago. His condition, however, is worsening. “He knows I am someone … important. I’ll say, ‘Hi Dad, it’s your daughter, Susan.’ I remind him. He may or may not know, but he seems very happy to see me,” Drager said. “Five minutes after I leave, he doesn’t remember I have been there.” Some days it’s difficult to cope. “People who meet him now have no idea what a wonderful, caring and smart man he was,” she said. “Makes me sad for him. Such a full life, and now this.” Despite all the hardship and heartache, Bonasera is encouraged by the Medicare changes beginning this month. He, too, is optimistic that new resources will come down the pike “so they (caregivers) can feel less stressed and can look at this process and say, ‘This is the last phase I am going to have with my parents, but I am getting a chance to be with them.”

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

•

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OUTLOOK: EDUCATION & OUTREACH

WORKING TOGETHER By Maggie O’Brien // world-herald correspondent Shay Valentine is a 24-year-old civil engineer who volunteers at the Open Door Mission. In college, she designed a park, picked up trash on school grounds and started a club for elementary school girls interested in science and engineering. • She’s eager to do more. • “Community service helped me understand the impact a person can have,” said Valentine, who graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha last May. “It just totally opened my eyes.” • As a student, Valentine participated in UNO’s Service Learning Academy. The academy, housed in the privately-funded Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center on campus, opened in 2014 and is home base for 37 nonprofit organizations, programs and partners. A number of those tenant-partners, such as Hunger-Free Heartland and Partnership 4 Kids, are focused on economic opportunity and education

•

See Service: Page 33

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

— Excerpts from “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties,” a World-Herald book by staff writer David Hendee

STARRY NIGHTS, VINEYARD TOASTS

IT’S IN THE STARS: AN EXCEPTIONALLY DARK SKY IN A REMOTE AND SPARSELYPOPULATED REGION ATTRACTS AMATEUR AND VETERAN ASTRONOMERS TO THE NEBRASKA SKY PARTY AT MERRITT RESERVOIR EACH SUMMER. SOLAR ECLIPSE

Nebraska’s milestone 150th birthday could be overshadowed by a celestial event 4.5 billion years in the making. For the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, experts have said Nebraska is expected to be one of the top viewing locations in the United States because of its open skies.“More than 200 Nebraska communities and nearly 30,000 square miles, or nearly 40 percent of Nebraska, lie within the path of totality of the solar eclipse,’’ said Lora Young, executive director of the Beatrice Chamber of Commerce. WHERE AND WHEN TO WATCH Place, totality start*, duration Scottsbluff, 11:48 a.m. MDT, 1 minute, 42 seconds Crawford, 11:49 a.m. MDT, 45 seconds Alliance, 11:49 a.m. MDT, 2 minutes, 30 seconds North Platte, 12:54 p.m. CDT, 1 minute, 40 seconds Kearney, 12:59 p.m. CDT, 1 minute, 54 seconds Minden, 12:59 p.m. CDT, 31 seconds Hastings, 12:59 p.m. CDT, 2 minutes, 14 seconds Grand Island, 12:59 p.m. CDT, 2 minutes, 34 seconds York, 1 p.m. CDT, 2 minutes, 19 seconds Beatrice, 1:02 p.m. CDT, 2 minutes, 35 seconds Lincoln, 1:03 p.m. CDT, 1 minute, 24 seconds Falls City, 1:05 p.m. CDT, 2 minutes, 37 seconds * = Times rounded to nearest minute

THE START OF A NEBRASKA INDUSTRY Nebraska’s first winery — Cuthills Vineyards — was started by Ed Swanson, above. It opened west of Pierce on the north side of Willow Creek State Recreation Area in 1994. Nebraska had more than 100 vineyards and more than 30 wineries in 2016. Wine grapes grown in Nebraska are primarily French-American hybrids. They are cold-hardy cultivars. Edelweiss is the most widely grown grape in Nebraska and the No. 1-selling Nebraska wine.

BANNER COUNTY BECAME THE FIRST IN THE STATE TO CREATE A COUNTYWIDE

CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT WHEN IT MERGED 23 DISTRICTS IN 1956.

LIGHTS OUT

In Dixon County, Jimmy Olson operated the Village of Concord’s light plant for many years in the early part of the 20th century. Just before 10 p.m., he would blink the lights twice, warning people the power would go off soon.

LANDMARK RULING

In 1920, Zion Parochial School instructor Robert T. Meyer in Hampton was charged with violating a post-World War I state law prohibiting teaching in any language other than English. He was convicted of teaching reading in German to a 10-year-old student. In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the state law restricting foreign-language education violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

HIT AND MISS POWER

The first electric lights flickered on in Arlington shortly before noon on Dec. 8, 1904. After that, electricity came on at 6 p.m., blinked a warning at 11:45 p.m. and went off at midnight. Soon there were requests for electricity before noon Mondays and Tuesdays by women who had electric appliances to wash and iron clothing. Power was not available 24 hours a day until 1929.

SWINE PRODUCTION INNOVATOR Lindsay native Chuck Sand pioneered the innovation, design, construction and operation of swine production facilities around the world. His company was among the first in the United States to do business with China after U.S.-Chinese relations normalized in the 1970s. He started a small, part-time construction company in the 1960s — pouring concrete for sidewalks and driveways and building grain bins — that evolved into Columbus-based Sand Livestock Systems.

VERSATILE WINDMILL

The windmill at the Rock County Historical Museum complex in Bassett was built by Elmer Baldwin on his farm in 1930. It was used not only to pump water, but also to power a grinding wheel to sharpen sickles and to power a hammer mill to grind feed. Its original head was made from parts of a Model T Ford. The windmill wheel was mounted on the drive shaft, and the Model T brake was used to stop the wheel.

PIONEER CHILDREN WALKING TO THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE ON LOUIS KOVAR’S FARM EAST OF HOWELLS CROSSED MAPLE CREEK ON A SWINGING

ROPE.

SECOND-LARGEST EARTHEN DAM

The completion of the Tri-County Project — creation of Lake McConaughy behind Kingsley Dam on the North Platte River in western Nebraska — brought irrigation and greater opportunities for the agricultural economy in Phelps and other south-central counties in 1941. Corn yields jumped from an average of 28 bushels per acre in the 1920s to more than 100 bushels per acre in irrigated ground in the 1940s.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

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UNO senior Daisy Sanchez joins members of the Intercultural Senior Center in an exercise class. Sanchez is participating in UNO’s Service Learning Academy, which takes students into the community for research and engagement. UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT O M A H A

Service: City is UNO’s campus Continued from Page 31 for children — special interests of Valentine. The academy combines typical college coursework with community service as a degree requirement. In the program, a researcher might gather statistics about the prevalence of obesity and then go into the community to learn about food availability, lifestyles and habits, employment, wages and other factors that might contribute to weight problems. Students are part of that fact-finding effort. More than 2,000 students currently participate in the Service Learning Academy’s 214 course offerings. (The average number of courses in a typical college-degree program is about 45, UNO officials said.) The curriculum stretches across departments, including those considered atypical for service learning, such as biology, geography, physics, chemistry, information science and engineering. “There are limitless ways to incorporate service learning at the university level,” said Loretta Wolf, a UNO graduate student in social gerontology who, along with Omaha Central High School students studying Mandarin, completed a service learning project at the Nebraska Chinese Center. “This real work collaborative experience gave me insight into genuine community issues,” Wolf said. Studies have indicated that college students who are engaged and invested in their communities are more likely to stay in school and finish their degrees, said Sara Woods, executive associate to the senior vice chancellor for community engagement and director of the Barbara Weitz Center. Such students are also more likely to find jobs and be involved in civic activities after college. The key to doing that is community outreach, she said. Not just in neighborhoods around campus, but across the city, state and region. The idea of academic types collaborating with community groups and students is a unique and innovative method of community outreach, Woods said. “It might be a bit of a stretch to say we’re the only one in the world, but we haven’t found any other place like this,” she said. Nonprofits and students alike say they’ve benefited. Carolyn Owen Anderson ran her Omaha nonprofit, WhyArts, from her dining room table before moving into the Community Engagement Center in 2014. The home setup for her community arts organization that offers artist-led workshops and activities for under-served individuals worked well for a long time, she said. But something was missing. “All meetings with artists, partners, etc., were held at random locations,” said Heike Lang-

don, WhyArts’ former board president. “We were looking for a home base for these meetings, as well as a place to store art supplies, share creative ideas and have a public presence.” Once Anderson and WhyArts partnered with the Service Learning Academy, things began to change. WhyArts gained visibility, Anderson said. Today, UNO students help out as part of their degree curriculum. And, Anderson said, thousands more Omahans have been able to benefit from WhyArts’ services. “Every day, there are people and students coming by with ideas and creating partnerships,” Anderson said. “It’s amazing.” In 2014, UNO was one of four colleges and universities nationwide receiving top honors from the Corporation for National and Community Service for commitment to volunteering, service learning and civic engagement. More than 800 colleges and universities were considered for the distinction from the federal agency that oversees national programs to promote community service, including AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and former President Obama’s United We Serve initiative. Julie Dierberger, a coordinator for the Service Learning Academy, said UNO officials hope to shape — in a reciprocal and thoughtful way — how students learn and communities do their work. “Our next steps include learning how to best assess, ‘How are we different as a result of service learning in Omaha?’ Our thesis has been that we will increase student achievement, community engagement and attendance,” she said. The Service Learning Academy’s efforts to educate go beyond the college level. Paul Sather, director of the academy, said the focus also is on P-16 students through the Nebraska P-16 initiative, a coalition of 31 organizations in fields such

as education, government and business committed to improving student success rates from preschool through college graduation. A recent Service Learning Academy program connected students in a “Family Center Partnerships” class with young children and their families. The professor, Ashley Vaughns, partnered with Love’s Jazz & Arts Center in north Omaha and the Learning Community Center of South Omaha to put together a two-night event last year. Young families listened to jazz, UNO students created books about jazz with the children and their families, and children’s author Gregory Christie read his book, “Jazz Baby” to program participants. “Our approach is to empower students to be full partners in the experience rather than passive recipients of service,” Sather said. For the future, UNO is determined to let the Service Learning Academy and the Community Engagement Center grow and change as community needs grow and change. “Our approach is very decentralized,” said Woods. “We work together to identify what the priorities are and go from there. It’s really about us continuing to let it grow organically.” Valentine, the civil engineer, said service learning changed her college experience for the better. She became more focused on the world around her and could see far beyond the classroom. “I wouldn’t have realized how great it is to connect what you’re studying, what you’re passionate about, with helping people,” said Valentine, who is employed by The Underground District, a Kiewit subsidiary. “The Service Learning Academy is doing such a good job forming new partnerships and showing that some really awesome things can happen just by working together.”

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

M E G A N FA R M E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Mark Dowling teaches fifth-grade students how to create an algorithm for an ice cream sundae at Do Space. From left: Braylon Cummings, Carter Muller, Benjamin Smith and Creeden Muller.

FROM HARDBACKS TO E-RESOURCES

Digital media is changing the face of libraries By Todd von Kampen WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

It’s a fair bet that librarians a century ago couldn’t imagine their field’s technological journey from Carnegie to Do Space. Ditto Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate who donated $12,500 in 1915 to build a public library in Plattsmouth. When that library opened on Nov. 5, 1916, it became one of 2,509 “Carnegie libraries” worldwide — including 1,679 in the United States, 69 in Nebraska and 101 in Iowa — built between 1883 and 1929 with help from Carnegie’s massive fortune. Plattsmouth’s Carnegie Library is still in operation, but its information services encompass digital as well as hard-copy documents. The same is true for libraries in the Omaha Public Library system, Ralston’s Baright Public Library and others in the Midlands and nationwide. Library directors in Omaha, Plattsmouth and Ralston say they not only help patrons find information, but also help them use their electronic devices to reap the fruits of the Information Age — a mission vividly displayed at Omaha’s 14-monthold Do Space at 72nd and Dodge Streets. The library directors echo Carnegie’s statement in his posthumous 1920 autobiography that he found “no use to which money could be applied so productive of good … as the founding of a public library.” “When I went to library school many years ago, we learned (about) hundreds of reference books and different questions they could answer,” said Karen Mier, Plattsmouth’s library director. Now, “you learn a few essential (hard-copy) research items, but research has turned largely to the Internet as well.” “I would say a library is a collection of information and tools to help you use that information,” added Do Space Executive Director Rebecca Stavick, who earned a master’s degree in library science from California’s San Jose State University in 2012. Libraries are slowly shrinking the computer labs that began taking shape in the 1980s, Mier said. Besides offering computer classes, librarians often help patrons troubleshoot their own wireless laptops, smart phones and tablets to access online resources. “What’s changed most is that everybody is using a computer at some point, so everyone is entering technology from a different place,” said Francine Canfield, Ralston library director. Improving Wi-Fi systems is a pressing need in the Omaha Public Library system, which provides Internet access via cable modems, said Laura Marlane, the system’s director since September 2015. “We’re about a decade behind other public libraries with our technology.” She said Omaha’s system is

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

The Plattsmouth Public Library, which opened in 1916, was one of 1,679 Carnegie libraries in the United States.

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

R E B E C C A S . G R AT Z / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Richard Michaels works in the computer lab at the Plattsmouth Public Library.

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Audrey Keruzis plays with her daughter Maylin Thorson, 3, in the children’s area at the Plattsmouth Public Library.

The Plattsmouth Public Library’s obituary catalog, above, is in an old card catalog. At left, Do Space, a digital library and work space, opened at 72nd and Dodge Streets in November 2015.

R E B E C C A S . G R AT Z / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Keegan Esker checks out the computers at Do Space with his mother, Betsy Reis.

R E B E C C A S . G R AT Z / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Kids play video games in a hangout room at Do Space.

looking to follow Lincoln’s library system in joining the Network Nebraska-Education fiber-optic network that links the state’s public schools, colleges and universities. The move, Marlane said, could cut her libraries’ data cost from $10 to 25 cents per megabit. Meanwhile, patrons’ interest in audiobooks and e-books has grown as checkouts of hard-copy books have declined — though Marlane and her peers say they don’t see the latter disappearing from libraries any time soon, if ever. E-books’ share of Ralston’s annual circulation has grown from 4 percent to 10 percent since 2014, Canfield said, while hard-copy checkouts have fallen from 86 percent to 81 percent of the total. Her library offers access to many Omaha Public Library resources through a cooperative agreement. In Plattsmouth, digital media checkouts grew by 8.8 percent between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 fiscal years, while hard-copy checkouts declined by 6.9 percent, according to a report from Mier to the City Council. Digital downloads from Omaha’s libraries rose 22.7 percent from 2014 to 2015, while total items borrowed edged downward by 0.2 percent, according to the system’s annual reports for both years. Figures for 2016 were not available for this story. Traditional libraries continue to broaden their patrons’ access to e-resources for research, said Marlane and her Ralston and Plattsmouth counterparts. These include digitized books, public records and fee-based historic newspaper and magazine archives. Omaha’s library system will debut an updated website next month that will “look very different” and offer easier access to the system’s e-resources and online hard-copy card catalog, Marlane said. Do Space, located in a former Borders bookstore, lacks stacks of hard-copy books and offers relatively few e-books. But it abounds in up-to-date technologies, notably 3-D printers that transform product designs into plastic-based models or working devices. “The idea of an innovation lab, however you describe it, has been in development in the library world for several years now,” Stavick said. “But for what Do Space does in this location, there’s nothing like it in the country.” She acknowledged that Do Space’s status as a nonprofit organization gives it an advantage over traditional libraries. Local governments’ budgetary processes can slow modernization, Stavick’s peers say, though libraries in smaller cities often can move more quickly. But Marlane is encouraged that Omaha library patrons will support innovations. “People here just love the library,” she said.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

26 YEAR ACT TREND* 26 YEAR ACT TREND*

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*Source: National ACT Results *Source: National ACT Results

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• 35Y

36Y

• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

MIKE WHYE

Portions of walls in the Metro Community College Construction Education Center will remain exposed, allowing students to examine infrastructure as part of their studies.

MCC’S CONSTRUCTION EDUCATION CENTER

‘Project site’ coming together COLLEGE NOTES

UNFINISHED WALLS, EXPOSED PIPES MAKE WORKING CLASSROOM

NEBRASKA

Southeast Community College Therapy dogs hung out on the Lincoln campus last fall to help students unwind during finals week. On the Beatrice campus, students were using a new procedure to identify feeder cattle and monitor how they are fed. SCC opened learning centers in York, Nebraska City and Plattsmouth in 2016; Wahoo, Hebron and Falls City reportedly are next.

By Mike Whye WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

When most college students take exams, they generally sit at desks in classrooms. That won’t necessarily be the case when Metropolitan Community College’s new Construction Education Center opens this fall. Some test-takers will be in the halls, measuring dimensions of steel columns and beams exposed in building construction. Others will peer into ceilings to see electrical wiring conduits similarly exposed. Plumbing students may be tested in a four-foot-deep sandbox where they will join underground water pipes. It’s all as the college, designers and contractors involved intended for the real-world benefit of students in the construction trades program that opens this fall. “The CEC is going to allow us to really change the way we train and educate the new-generation workforce,” explained Nathan Barry, dean of MCC’s construction education program. Covering nearly 100,000 square feet, the center is part of a $90 million expansion on the Fort Omaha campus that includes a new Center for Advanced and Emerging Technology and Academic Skills Center with funding from public and private sources. When the CEC opens, all of the college’s construction trades courses — civil engineering, construction technology, electrical technology, electrical apprenticeship, plumbing apprenticeship, industrial and commercial trades, architectural drafting and design, welding, sustainability, and heating, refrigeration and air conditioning — will be in one building. Previously, they were divided between MCC’s South Omaha and Elkhorn campuses. Classrooms and labs are designed to give students ample space to work on welding and other projects. In another area, construction technology students will attend lectures in classrooms, then practice what they learn in labs across the hall. In the labs, angled sections of walls permit the study of steel

Northeast Community College Increased demand for wind generators has prompted the college to increase its courses related to that industry. The school has campuses in Norfolk, O’Neill, South Sioux City and West Point.

HOLLAND BASHAM ARCHITECTS AND BCDM ARCHITECTS

This artist rendering shows how the Capstone Lab in Metro Community College’s Construction Education Center will provide space for students to build structures. The CEC will open for classes this fall.

HOLLAND BASHAM ARCHITECTS AND BCDM ARCHITECTS

An artist’s concept of the student lounge includes plenty of natural light in an atrium-like setting. columns typically covered by drywall while other sections of walls and ceilings have exposed air ducts and electrical pathways for student examination. On a recent tour, Stan Horrell, MCC’s director of campus planning and sustainability, pointed to a large mesh grid in the ceiling. “We designed it so students, or anyone, can see what’s going on up there,” he said. “You could walk down a hallway and never see a thing in those rooms at our South Omaha campus.” The goal here: “To change the image of construction management, which some think is dirty,

rough and tough,” said Bob Campos, general superintendent for Kiewit Corp., general contractor. “You will walk in here and see students using advanced technology and advanced equipment. High school visitors can see what’s going on and start thinking, ‘Hey, I can do that.’ You don’t have to lift 100 pounds. You push a button and a machine does it for you.” Instead of climbing atop buildings to learn how to work on large heating and cooling units, students will get hands-on training in a spacious room. Others will learn about carpentry, plumbing, electrical

wiring and more in large areas around the building, each with classrooms, offices and labs. In all spaces, classrooms and teachers’ offices are separated from labs by glass walls. That way, faculty is never out of sight of what’s happening in a lab, Horrell said. The largest room in the building, the two-story Capstone Lab, occupies half of the center’s midsection. This is where students of all disciplines will assemble to learn to work together on building projects. “When students show up here, they’re coming to an active project site,” Campos said. The building also has huddle spaces for student construction teams, much like those found on actual construction sites. The center also boasts student lounges, common spaces, lockers and administrative offices. Large glass walls, LED lighting and solar pipes — essentially tubular skylights — eliminate the need for incandescent and fluorescent light fixtures. Adjustable blinds control the heat from sunlight hitting the windows. College students will use the building in the mornings; high schoolers in construction trades academies take over in the afternoons. Individuals already in the construction industry will train in the building evenings and weekends.

Central Community College With campuses in Grand Island, Columbus and Hastings, the college offers courses in business, management, marketing and related support services, mechanics and repair technologies, and health professions and related programs. CCC also has centers in Holdrege, Kearney and Lexington.

IOWA

Northwest Iowa Community College Ranked No. 1 among Iowa’s 19 community colleges, this Sheldonbased college offers courses in 43 technical and arts and sciences programs. NCC claims to have a 98 percent overall placement rate, with several of its programs having 100 percent placement rates. Southwest Iowa Community College Ranked No. 3 among Iowa’s community colleges, SCC has its main campus in Creston and centers in Red Oak and Osceola. SCC offers studies in liberal arts and sciences, general studies and humanities, health professions and related programs, and mechanic and repair technologies. Iowa Western Community College Located in Council Bluffs, Harlan, Atlantic and Clarinda, IWCC covers 84 programs in the liberal arts plus technical and vocational areas. Among its programs are those involved with aviation technology and maintenance that utilize parts of the Council Bluffs Municipal Airport. — Mike Whye

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

M I K E WAT K I N S

Ben Ries and his Little Brother mentee, John, play pool.

Mentoring: a bet on the future By Mike Watkins

BECOME A MENTOR

WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Omaha engineer Ben Ries fell smack dab in the middle of the family. Having an older brother and a younger brother brought a fair share of noogies and wedgies and other good-natured pranks growing up. It also gave him someone to look to for advice and someone to whom he could be an adviser, but that wasn’t enough. As he grew older, he felt compelled to give back to the community. One evening, he attended a Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands informational meeting about mentoring. By the end of the session, he was a Big. “I honestly felt like it was something I wanted and needed to do, because I had such a great experience with my brothers,” Ries said. “I’m really just a big kid at heart, so to be able to give a young man a similar experience to mine was really important to me.” Ries and his Little Brother mentee John were introduced six years ago. The shy sixth-grader had recently lost his father. John and Ries had an instant connection, bonding over a shared love of video games. “He’s been more than a Big Brother to me. He’s been one of my best friends,” said John, who will graduate from South High School this spring and plans to join the Navy. “I couldn’t have asked for a better Big Brother. I know we’ll always be connected. Ben is family.” The match process often makes the difference. “It’s the key to having success between Bigs and Littles in our program,” said Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands CEO Nichole Turgeon. “Both Bigs and Littles fill out questionnaires, and then we take painstaking measures to match compatible pairs who have shared backgrounds and common interests.” The process, which takes several weeks, involves in-home interviews and input from parents and guardians. “Because we want our relationships to be successful, we ease both Bigs and Littles into the process by having them meet each other along with family and staff and get comfortable with one another,” Turgeon said. At Girls Inc., Jasmine, 13, and her mentor, Leah, were paired largely because of a mutual interest in cooking. Last year, they bonded over recipes, local theater productions and a visit to the Hot Shops Art Center. “She’s just a lot of fun to hang out with,” Jasmine said of Leah. “I liked her right away, but because I had a past mentor who didn’t work out, it took some time for us to really connect. Now we do a lot together.” Leah, a sales rep with a local

Greater Omaha has dozens of youth mentoring programs and projects. An inquiry is the first step to changing a young life and strengthening our community. Here’s a sampling to start the conversation. 100 Black Men of Omaha www.100blackmenomaha.org Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands www.bbbsomaha.org The Bike Union Mentoring Project www.thebikeunion.org Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands www.bgcomaha.org

Earl Redrick, second from right, is a field office director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Omaha. He mentors six young men through Partnership 4 Kids. From left, on a miniature golf outing, are Alberto, Angel, Leo, Christopher and William. Not pictured is Francisco. advertising agency, sees that continuing, too. “The next four years are going to be huge years for Jasmine, and I know that our relationship is strong enough that we’ll stay connected no matter what,” Leah said. “When I was her age, I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do career-wise, but she already knows she wants to be a chef, and I’ll do everything I can to help her get there.” Now a mentor for Partnership 4 Kids, Earl Redrick grew up in an impoverished community in Texas. But as a young man, he was positively engaged and motivated by mentors — some he didn’t even realize were filling that role. As an adult, it became his personal mission to pass along to other young men what he had learned from his mentor-mentee experience. “Growing up in Waco, I was involved with the local YMCA and Boys & Girls Club, and the people there helped shape my world,” said Redrick, who regularly mentors six young men through Partnership 4 Kids. “I’ve been mentoring most of my adult life, and it’s something I intend to do as long as I can.” Redrick said he immediately established some parameters with the young men — such as calling him Mr. Earl (instead of just Earl) and requiring them to maintain a “C” average in school to continue meeting as a member of the group. Just as he did as a young man, he creates relationships with the youths, knowing his influence will be lasting as they move forward as men, fathers and potentially mentors. “The vast majority of the youth who need mentors come from lowto moderate-income, single-parent family households, and with

this group, trust and relationship building don’t necessarily come together,” said Redrick, who is director of the Omaha field office of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Some of these kids are never told they can do it — achieve something — but when you hold them accountable, they know someone cares about them and believes in them,” Redrick said. “The key is consistency. They want to know you will show up and that they can depend upon you.” One of the young men he mentors, Alberto, came to the group after repeated outbursts in program meetings. Redrick asked to work with him because he saw something in Alberto that needed channeling, and he worked hard to gain his trust. Since joining the group two years ago, Alberto has become more engaged in the program, has taken part in Partnership 4 Kids University summer programming and is interested in attending college. Redrick said he loves Alberto’s willingness to change. “I also like that he is an excellent listener. He is one of the quieter young men in my group, and just when you think he is not listening, he surprises you with a very unique and informed opinion. He is poised to do amazing things and to become a major player in the next generation of leaders in our community.” Having the opportunity to do something positive for others is the top reason mentors give for getting involved with programs like TeamMates, Partnership for Kids, Girls Inc., Completely Kids, and Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands, among others. Though most programs match outside mentors with program

mentees, Completely Kids has taken its mentorship program to a different level. Transition coordinator Jan Benitez said the organization started a program last year where it employs youth to work with younger boys and girls in its elementary and middle school programs. In the process, the youth — who often were involved with Completely Kids when they were younger — teach the kids skills and help them set goals. At the same time, they learn leadership skills and gain job experience. “They not only learn something about themselves, but they learn what it means to be part of the larger community and that they can make an impact on the lives of other kids,” Benitez said. “The program is just a year old, but we have 16 students involved who are becoming better young people by helping others become better.” For Terrence Mackey, a gang specialist in north Omaha who works for Boys and Girls Club and has been a mentor in the African-American community for more than 35 years, the opportunity to pay it forward is what motivates him to spend time with young people. “It’s always been my experience that mentoring is just doing your part — helping people find their way through the struggle,” said Mackey, who also has mentored youth at the Hope Center for Kids and is a volunteer football coach at King Science and Technology Magnet Center. “I’ve been doing this for so many years now that the biggest reward for me is seeing youth I mentored who are now mentoring kids and giving back. It’s the circle, and it’s incredibly rewarding.”

Boys Scouts of America, MidAmerica Council www.mac-bsa.org Boys Town www.boystown.org Collective for Youth www.collectiveforyouth.org Completely Kids www.completelykids.org Girls Inc. www.girlsincomaha.org Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska www.GirlScoutsNebraska.org Hope Center for Kids www.hopecenterforkids.com Kent Bellows Mentoring Program www.joslyn.org Kids Can Community Center www.kidscanomaha.org Ollie Webb Center www.olliewebbinc.org Omaha Home for Boys www.omahahomeforboys.org Omaha Outward Bound School www.Northstar360.org Omaha Police Department police.cityofomaha.org Partnership 4 Kids www.p4k.org Reach and Risk YMCA www.metroymca.org Release Ministries www.releaseministries.org Special Olympics Nebraska www.sone.org Youth Emergency Services www.yesomaha.org TeamMates Mentoring www.teammates.org

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

• 38Y

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OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

RYA N S O D E R L I N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Hospital teacher Lisa Gulseth, left, works with Anahla Richardson, 8, on a shapes puzzle at the Durham Outpatient Center school.

Schoolwork in small doses HOSPITAL TEACHERS KEEP SICK KIDS IN LEARNING MODE

IN-HOSPITAL SCHOOLS These Omaha-area hospitals offer young patients the chance to keep up with their schoolwork as they recover. » Children’s Hospital & Medical Center » Nebraska Medical Center » Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals » Immanuel Medical Center (Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility)

By Josie Loza WORLD-HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Lisa Gulseth scrubbed her hands, entered the hospital room and found Aiden Solon, an 8-yearold diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. His parents — Sage and Tammy Solon of North Platte, Nebraska — were at his bedside. Gulseth introduced herself as “Mrs. Lisa,” a special visiting hospital teacher ready to help Aiden with his schoolwork. For kids hospitalized for days, weeks or months, staying on top of schoolwork can be daunting. Academic professionals like Gulseth are trained to reduce anxiety and aid in recovery. Gulseth is a certified teacher and education liaison at Nebraska Medical Center. She begins her day by familiarizing herself with newly admitted patients and personalizing lesson plans. She hosts an open classroom — in her office — for three or four students each day. At times, the space feels much like a one-room schoolhouse, with kindergartners through high school seniors learning together. For those who miss class, Gulseth makes the rounds of the hospital and its outpatient clinics. She contacts home schools by email to see if students can continue their lessons, and sends a stuffed animal to each regular classroom to hold the child’s seat until he or she is able to return. “Building rapport with patients quickly is important,” she said. “Once a new patient realizes a hospital teacher will work with them where they are academically, the transition from classroom or homebound teacher to a hospital teacher goes well. Patients soon realize their hospital teacher is ready to help them keep learning. Making learning fun and keeping them involved with activities and their classmates back home makes a difference, too.” Last January, Aiden was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of cancerous tumor that grows in bones, nerves and in soft tissue around bones such as cartilage. It affects about 200 children and young adults every year in the United States and shows up slightly more often in males. Initially, Aiden visited the Omaha hospital twice a month for chemotherapy as long as his white blood cell count stayed up, his mother said. The youth’s treatment period stretched into months after rotationplasty surgery on his right leg. Doctors removed a portion of his leg and rotated it, so his

NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER

Aiden Solon holds up a “Dear Cancer. You Lose!” sign on his final day of treatments at Nebraska Medical Center. ankle and foot could serve as his knee joint. He received his first prosthesis in July. Gulseth stayed close, to create a sense of normalcy during a time of healing. “It’s a very intense relationship with a student for a short period of time. We get students anywhere from a few months to a couple of years,” she said. Depending on the reason for hospitalization, some students have limited mobility or cannot speak right away. Things have changed suddenly for them. “They had a traumatic incident, but everything is about moving forward. It’s all about the healing,” she said. Getting families on board is half the battle in convincing a student that school is a good idea. “We definitely use humor, and we make the class a happy place,” she said. With Aiden, the student-teacher relationship got off to a rocky start. “The first month was just horrible,” Tammy Solon recalled. Aiden hated being there and wouldn’t talk. “He wouldn’t come out of his shell,” she said. One day, Gulseth encouraged Tammy Solon to leave the room

and get some fresh air. Gulseth soon was able to distract Aiden with math and spelling. Every Friday, Aiden’s second-grade classroom had a spelling test, and Gulseth wanted to stay consistent. “There were days that Aiden wouldn’t feel good,” Tammy said. “Unless he had a fever or was in pain, Mrs. Lisa stayed. She was so positive.” Tammy recalled sitting with a bucket on her lap when Aiden was sick after chemo. When Gulseth walked through the door, her son perked up. “You’re sitting there after chemo,” Tammy said. “(You’ve) just had your leg amputated and are tired from hopping around. As a parent, you’re like ‘No, you don’t have to do schoolwork.’ You feel sorry for your child.” But through all the pain, Gulseth was there. She helped the family understand the importance of staying on top of Aiden’s studies. “You don’t want to let your brain turn to mush,” she would say. Gulseth also helped Aiden recover emotionally. “You could tell they had a good bond,” his mother said. “She

always knew what he needed.” Because Gulseth sought to meet his needs and help him prepare for the future, Aiden decided he could push past the pain to get stronger. Teachers are a beacon of light and encouragement at other medical facilities, too. At Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ campuses in Omaha and Lincoln, patients in kindergarten through college can keep up with their schoolwork, practice any physical adaptations necessary for their return to school, and learn strategies for memory and learning in the Therapeutic Learning Classroom, or TLC. The classroom’s educational specialist — a certified teacher with rehabilitation training and experience — also works with patients’ schools to assure a smooth transition back to the regular classroom. A teacher’s aide or therapist may also provide patients with individualized instruction and assistance. At Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, teacher Peggy Smith’s experience helped mold her career choice. Smith’s daughter, Sophie, was born with tracheoesophageal fistula, an abnormal connection

between the esophagus and the trachea. As an infant, Sophie had corrective surgery and a monthlong stay in Children’s neonatal intensive care unit. “I remember standing by her bedside, just being so emotionally overwhelmed … not knowing what the future held. The physician looked at me and said, ‘Peggy, she’s going to go to kindergarten.’ I was so focused on here and now. He helped me visualize the future.” Though it was a scary time for her family, she said the doctors and nurses “didn’t just take care of my daughter … they took care of me. They made a huge difference in my life.” Smith later earned a special education teaching degree and applied for a hospital teacher position at Children’s. She was hired in 2013. Sophie will graduate from Millard North High School this year. “There have been several families I’ve gotten to know really well and have helped with their child’s recovery,” she said. “Sometimes, though, the recovery is heartbreaking. It’s walking through the heartbreak part with them that is very meaningful.” Ultimately, Smith said, giving parents time to focus on their children is quite an honor. “I can step in and take the burden of school and stress and worry from the family,” she said. Back at the Nebraska Medical Center, Aiden Solon received his final radiation treatment and was able to celebrate Christmas at home with his family. “I can’t wait to live a normal life and head home and go back to school and see all of my friends,” he said in a Nebraska Medical Center video post celebrating his accomplishment. “Sometimes you have to just brace and just go through it,” he said of his treatment. The hardest part was the leg surgery. “I didn’t know what it would look like … how it would feel and what would happen,” he shared. In the video, he kicked up his right leg, nearly tapping the prosthesis against his shoulder. “Dear cancer,” he said, “You lose!”

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• SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

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