Nebraska Archives - StoryHook

Carly Woythaler-Runestad

By Asha Timperley

She wasn’t sure she wanted to share her story. Actually, she felt like she didn’t really have one. She says the people she works with, they have the “real” story.

As the executive director of the Mourning Hope Grief Center, Carly Woythaler-Runestad has seen and heard a lot of stories. She’s not a grief group facilitator and she doesn’t lead any of the sessions, but she is the one who’s responsible for keeping the lights on and the programs running at Mourning Hope.

It’s a job that she ‘fell’ into in many senses, but it’s become her greatest passion and something that’s helped her define her own story.

Carly grew up in a rural town in central Iowa. It was a small, community-focused place where she was surrounded by strong parents, impactful mentors and experienced a nurturing upbringing. This environment seemed to set the tone for Carly’s life.

She attended the University of Iowa and received her undergraduate degree before going on to work as a music therapist and then the director of a long-term care facility. Carly decided to return to school to earn her Master’s degree in health care administration and then put her degree to work as a lobbyist for the Nebraska Hospital Association.

Carly had several jobs after she graduated that she liked and was good at, but each one seemed more like stepping stones rather than a place to settle down and dig in. She felt like she was constantly searching for the right fit, and started to think maybe it didn’t exist.

She and her husband moved to Nebraska in 2004 and a few years later Carly’s life was shifted by major changes and transitions. Her mother was battling cancer, her grandparents died and she experienced a miscarriage – all of which happened in a relatively short period of time.

The sudden losses and change caused Carly to re-evaluate her story, to start thinking about who she was, what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be. She realized she wanted a job that she was excited to go to every day, a place where she could see the impact of her work and was more than just a way to utilize her skills and take home a paycheck.

It was during this period of transition that Carly came across the Mourning Hope Grief Center.

She started out as a part time employee who was interested in the center’s mission of helping kids and their caregivers navigate seasons of loss. Carly watched broken, unsure and scared kids and caregivers walk through the front door of Mourning Hope, only to see them leave with hope and excitement.

It’s work that’s nearly addictive because of the noticeable impact it has on families, and Carly said it didn’t take long before she stopped seeing Mourning Hope as a stepping stone to something bigger… it became her landing place.

The work got under her skin in the best way possible and opened her eyes to a population of the city and state that she hadn’t seen before. Mourning Hope’s mission became her mission as she dug in and found her place.

It’s heavy work, but Carly wouldn’t have it any other way. The stories of the kids and families from Mourning Hope seem to play on a continuous loop in her mind, motivating her to work harder, do more and send emails at nearly all hours of the day.

They are the reason she loves waking up and going to work.

They are the reason she’s worked to join local and national organizations to advocate for grieving children and families.

And they are the reason she’s an engaged wife and mother who values every minute with her family.

People often ask Carly if she experienced a significant loss that kick-started her passion, but that’s not why she joined the team at Mourning Hope. She joined because she discovered a deep desire to help others.

As she looks back on her educational and career path, Carly can see that caring well for others has been a theme in her jobs and her story. It’s part of who she is, and something she’s always valued, but working at Mourning Hope brought that to the surface.

Carly said that for so long it felt like she was searching for her story, for what was next and where she wanted to invest her energy and time. Now, ‘what’s next’ looks like staying put, raising her family and being diligent in her work.

She referenced the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that says: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

That’s what she wants in life, to live her story well by helping shoulder the burdens of others. For the first time in a long time Carly isn’t looking for what’s next, it’s right in front of her, and her story has never seemed so clear.

August 23, 2017

Love3

DeWayne Taylor

By Asha Timperley

If DeWayne Taylor has it his way, he’ll be the next Ryan Seacrest.

Sure, maybe that’s asking a lot, but DeWayne is pretty convinced he can get there. He’s an optimist and a go-getter. He’s not one to back down from a challenge, and seems to approach nearly every situation with a smile.

That’s just who DeWayne is, but how he became that way… well, that’s a story.

DeWayne grew up in St. Louis, where he was surrounded by a family of entrepreneurs and small business owners. He saw his mom, aunts and uncles work hard at jobs they were passionate about and they encouraged him to find his own passion in life.

At an early age, DeWayne discovered his love of being in front of a crowd. He felt at ease around large groups of people and found ways to connect with others even when he was an outsider.

During high school, his mom’s job uprooted his family from St. Louis and moved them to Lincoln. It was a big transition, but one that he says helped his story come to life.

He jumped into all kinds of activities in high school to get involved and make new friends. Lincoln felt so much safer than St. Louis, and DeWayne said he loved how he could walk to school and be outside whenever he wanted without having to worry about his safety. It was freeing, and just what he needed to be himself.

DeWayne quickly found that speech became a fun extracurricular that sparked his passion. He loved working with others, presenting on a topic that interested him and performing in front of the judges. He didn’t just like it, he was good at it too. He competed locally and nationally with his high school team and was recruited to join the speech team at UNL.

But speech wasn’t the only passion of DeWayne’s in high school, there was also beatboxing.

Toward the end of his freshman year, DeWayne got bored during track and started transferring the rhythms running through his head to his mouth. A few of his friends started to notice what he was doing and really liked it, but DeWayne just brushed it off.

In his spare time he watched videos on how to beatbox and practiced in front of a small group of his friends. It wasn’t his main focus, just a side hobby that a few people knew about.

During his senior year a few of his friends made a deal with DeWayne, they said if he was crowned prom king he’d have to beatbox at the prom. DeWayne just laughed about the challenge because he thought there was no way he’d be prom king, but as luck would have it, he was crowned king and then handed the microphone.

DeWayne was super nervous. He was on the spot and started to question himself. What if they thought he was weird, what if they thought his beatboxing was dumb?

But the reaction he got was the opposite of everything he feared – they loved his beatboxing and couldn’t believe he’d been keeping his talent hidden.

Before long, DeWayne was performing at birthday parties, elementary schools and even dive bars. His typical event lineup included him talking about the origins of beatboxing, its multicultural history and then performing.

When he attended UNL he performed at Big Red Welcome to kick off the school year and has been performing around Lincoln ever since. He’s hosted events and performed for various companies including Ted X, RedBull, Blue Cross Blue Shield, The College World Series and Verizon Wireless. Each experience taught him something new about himself and the career path he was on. He started to see that being in front of a crowd was his way to connect with others, get people excited and be a part of the community. It connected his speech skills and beatboxing into a dream that just felt right.

It’s hard to describe, he said, but he just feels like himself when it’s his job to excite a crowd of people. It’s a challenge, but one that he loves and something that brings out a side of him that he’s proud to show off.

But it’s also a dream that a lot of people often make light of. ‘Being a TV, radio or event host? That’s not a career!’ they often say.

It’s definitely been a challenge. Juggling his college classes and his paying gigs sometimes means that he has to skip classes to perform. It’s money he needs to pay for school and experience that’s important for his future, but it also means it’ll take him longer than the average student to complete school.

This past spring DeWayne lived in LA for a few months while he participated in a hosting school. It was a big risk to take a semester off and an even bigger risk to put himself out there in front of industry professionals. He was challenged and pushed to understand his strengths and weaknesses, preparing him for whatever is next in his story.

DeWayne likes to challenge himself. To do more, dream bigger, learn more and try as hard as he can to make himself better. He doesn’t see his story as something extraordinary, he actually said he feels like a pretty boring guy. But he has drive and direction and he’s anxious to see where his story will take him next.

“I see my life and I know where I want to go,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what happens – it does, but it doesn’t – I know where I’m going and I’ll get there.”

August 16, 2017

Love6

Doug Durham

By Asha Timperley

A few years ago, Doug Durham was spending a lot of time at the Haymarket Scooters. It was close to his office and a convenient place to meet with his employees.

After one of his many meetings, a barista asked him what he did for a living. Apparently, she and her coworkers had been making guesses about Doug’s work based on his frequent visits to the shop.

Doug explained that he was a software engineer at a local startup and was meeting with interns and employees to teach/mentor them as they pursued similar career paths.

The barista laughed and said none of them would have guessed he was involved in something so technical, the general consensus was that Doug was a youth pastor.

Doug laughed at their guess, but said it seemed like an extremely logical guess based on their perspective. This exchange got him thinking about perspective, and how his own perspective has changed over time.

Perspective isn’t just something you get or stumble upon, he said, it’s something that’s gained through various experiences and life changes. It’s something that Doug has thought a lot about as he’s transitioned from a college student, to an air force officer, a software engineer, husband, father and mentor.

Doug’s story starts in Nebraska. It’s where he grew up, went to school and started to match his skills with his passions. He sort of fell into the engineering field because it seemed interesting to him – plus, it didn’t require foreign language classes.

Going to college wasn’t a family tradition, his parents didn’t have degrees and Doug worked hard to pay his way through school. That was, until he discovered an application for the Air National Guard. In joining, Doug could pay for school, gain career experience and travel, which seemed like the perfect combination for his curious young mind.

He graduated and figured out how to put his engineering skills to work by moving to St. Louis to work as a systems engineer.

For much of his early career, Doug said he operated with a strong feeling of inadequacy. He felt like he was in over his head and feared being ‘found out’ or viewed as a fraud if he made a mistake. This mindset emotionally handicapped Doug as he moved up in various companies and grew in his skills and knowledge of the industry.

While he was living in St. Louis, the opportunity presented itself for Doug to return to his home state. There’s just something about Nebraska that he missed and he knew it’s where he wanted to raise his family and put down roots.

He moved to Lincoln and started working with small software companies. Doug enjoyed the process of helping find efficient uses for software and maximizing the potential of software engineers. His skills and passions began to line up even more when he met Steve Kiene, a self-proclaimed software geek and local advocate, and they worked together to launch eSellerate in 1999, and more recently, Nebraska Global’s Don’t Panic Labs in 2010.

As Doug continued to carve out a space for himself in Lincoln, he started to take a closer look at himself in light of his work. He was gaining perspective and starting to put the pieces together.

He realized that the fear-mode he often operated out of was a bad case of the imposter syndrome – which was actually pointed out by one of his kids. Doug knew what it was, but had never put a label on the feelings he’d experienced. For such a long time, Doug had seen this as a weakness, a handicap to his job, but naming and accepting his self-doubt made him start to see things differently. He started to feel more confident in his skills, and even comfortable in his own skin.

Doug realized that while self-doubt was a hurdle in his path, it has also allowed him to openly accept criticism, recognize when he’s wrong, work hard to earn trust and collaborate well with others. It wasn’t just a barrier to his work, it was a part of who he was as a co-worker, friend and boss.

He also realized his desire to please others and work hard were two traits passed down from his father. Doug said his mom would often talk about how his dad didn’t make much money building houses. He spent too much time perfecting each detail and undercharging for his work. He was honest, full of integrity and modest about his character.

Doug said his dad didn’t go out of his way to teach him to value the same things he did, but his actions forever shaped the way Doug sees his work, loves his family and lives his life.

He said his dad always did the right thing, and he’s hoping to follow in his footsteps.

When Doug thinks about how his story has progressed so far, he said it feels more like an unknown journey than a well-planned trip. On his journey, Doug has learned how to live his life by standing by his convictions, acting with integrity, being himself and caring well for others.

He’s learned the value of perspective, of seeing himself and his story from different angles and understanding the beauty of change.

August 9, 2017

Love5

Rosina Paolini

By Asha Timperley

Rosina Paolini doesn’t always keep a weed whacker in her trunk, but she probably should. That, and bug spray.

On an average week, Rosina and her husband, Karl, spend upwards of 8-10 hours in Wilderness Park. Some of the time they’re hiking, but a lot of the time they’re clearing the trails to help the city keep up with the big task of maintaining the park.

She doesn’t spend this amount of time in the park because she’s paid or even asked to do it, she does it because she loves the park. It’s become who she is in a way that’s hard for her to describe but easy to understand because of the way she talks about the park… or rather, the way she can’t stop talking about the park.

Wilderness Park feels like home to Rosina for a lot of reasons, but it’s not where her story starts.

Rosina was born in Algeria, a country in northern Africa. She said her birth parents were most likely killed in The Algerian War, which plagued the area and left children to fend for themselves. As a baby, Rosina was placed in a foster home where she was adopted by American missionaries.

They hadn’t planned on adopting from Algeria, but once they saw how malnourished and small Rosina was they knew that they could either adopt her or leave her to die. After her adoption, she and her parents spent 6 years in Algeria before moving to Lincoln.

In many senses, her childhood was just as ‘typical’ as any other Nebraska-native. She went to school, rode her bike and played outside. She had a childhood friend who frequented Wilderness Park with her family and introduced Rosina to the trails, wildflowers and animals of the park. It quickly became the girls’ playground as they hiked, learned to spot rare birds and tell imaginative stories.

As Rosina grew up, the park served as the backdrop for her life. It’s where she could go when she needed a quiet space, a place to run, catch up with friends, bike, think and breathe.

When Rosina got to high school she quickly got bored of her classes. Her lack of direction, coupled with her rebellion and general teenage angst led her to drop out.

Eventually she earned her GED and realized that what she really wanted to do was be a physical therapist. She’d always loved learning about how the body worked and enjoyed people, so it seemed like a natural fit.

Rosina majored in psychology and biology and graduated as a physical therapy assistant. Now, she works at a skilled nursing facility in Lincoln where she spends a lot of her time interacting with the residents. She loves the way her work allows her to connect with others in a way that’s meaningful and genuine. It’s allowed her to use her skills in a way that’s helpful to others and rewarding in its own right.

This kind of connection is much of what she loves about Wilderness Park too. The connection between the runners, bikers and explorers, the connection to the land, animals and plant species and the connection to herself.

When budgets were cut and Rosina and many others started to notice a lack of maintenance in the park, she and her husband stepped up. Their philosophy was ‘If we don’t do it, who will?’ and what started out as a volunteer effort to enhance the park has become supplemental over the last 10 years.

It’s hard work — especially for someone who is almost 57, Rosina said with a laugh — but it’ also something she’s not planning on stopping anytime soon.

When Rosina walks along the trails, she’s confident in where she’s going because she’s been on the trail hundreds of times and because she feels like the park is hers. It’s a place where she’s invested. A place she feels responsible for maintaining, protecting, promoting and sharing with the community.

It’s a place she’d be lost without.

Rosina said she’s not quite sure how she grew to love the park so much. Maybe it’s because she grew up here. Her best days start with a 6a.m. run in the park and her most memorable weekends consist of meeting old and new families while she and her husband clear brush from the trails. It’s where she finds her sense of place and purpose in the chaos of a busy world.

Rosina said it’s hard to figure out where her story ends and the Wilderness Park story starts. There’s something about the park that makes her come to life in a way that few other things do. It’s a place she feels settled, free and at home.

She wears a bracelet that has a single phrase on it – ‘Live what you love.’ In many ways that’s what Rosina’s story has been about – finding what she loves and living it out every day. She’s motivated by more than goodwill or a sense of pride in her work, it’s about living out love… the best way she knows how.

June 28, 2017

Love7

Blaine Brown

By Asha Timperley

Blaine Brown grew up in a small town.

A town so small that his high school doesn’t even exist anymore, and Blaine said he has a few memories he wish didn’t exist either.

Blaine’s story is a mashup of challenging circumstances, tough choices and the redemptive power of hard work. It’s a story that Blaine said he wants to tell, because he said no one should ever let their past define their future.

As a kid, Blaine grew up living between homes. His parents divorced when he was in 4th grade and he and his siblings alternated between his mom, dad and various family members. His dad and brother were in and out of jail with drug and alcohol addictions and Blaine’s only constants in life were school and work.

At school, he was often made fun of for his hand-me-down clothes and messy family life. But work was where he could put his head down and get tasks done. In 6th grade he started working for his uncle’s cable company. He gave all of his earnings back to his mom to help with bills and groceries.

As Blaine got older he realized that there was one thing about school that really excited him – sports. He wasn’t always the most skilled and he rarely had all of the right gear, but he always outworked everyone on the team. Blaine excelled at basketball and football and was quickly noticed and encouraged by his coaches, teachers and the community.

During his freshman year in high school he made the varsity basketball team. It was a huge honor and Blaine could finally stick out for reasons beyond his socioeconomic status. But as he was gearing up for his first game, he realized that he wouldn’t be able to afford the pair of shoes that the rest of the team was wearing.

He was embarrassed, but tried to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. The next day he opened his locker and found a pair of the team shoes in his locker.

Blaine said he still doesn’t know who put those shoes there. He has a few guesses, but no one ever admitted to the generous act of kindness.

Even though he doesn’t know the name of the person who gave him the shoes, Blaine said that’s a person he thinks about nearly every day. To most people it was just a pair of shoes, but to Blaine it was affirmation that someone cared about and believed in him.

After high school, Blaine attended Peru State College where he played football and studied physical education and sports management.

In high school, he hadn’t been a very good student – he did just enough to play football on Friday night – but in college that changed. He zoned in on both sports and school, making the most of his four years in college.

Blaine said he worked extra hard in college because he was paying his own way, and he knew he needed to get a good job after he graduated. He also said that being away from the constant chaos of his home life was a relief and he realized he didn’t want to move forward with the same kind of lifestyle that he grew up witnessing.

After graduation, Blaine stayed on at Peru as a football coach and fell in love with the idea of making coaching his career. He was offered a coaching position at a Division 1 university. It was his dream job, the perfect career move… but he turned it down.

While the job would have been great for Blaine, it wasn’t a good fit for him and his daughter. It would have put thousands of miles between them and a strain on their relationship. As someone who grew up without a dad, Blaine knew this wouldn’t work.

He finished up his coaching stint at Peru and then decided to start a roofing company. Growing up in a farm town, there was always roof work to be done and Blaine had started his own company back in high school. He decided to pick up where he left off, confident in the fact that he could provide a good service to the community.

Over the past few years, Blaine has seen his business grow alongside his daughter. He said he wouldn’t trade watching her grow up for anything. He’s built a thriving business that he hopes to expand to a handful of midwest states, and he isn’t shy about his ambitions and expectations for himself and his business.

Blaine is a highly confident and driven person. He’s a fanatic about doing good work and helping others. That’s not how he was raised, but it’s how he wants to raise his daughter.

When Blaine thinks back on his story he’s not as ashamed as he used to be about the way he grew up. He knows that his experiences shaped who is, but he’s more than just a product of his circumstances.

Blaine made his own choices in life. He chose to step up, to get out and to lean in when he was needed. He made mistakes, but he learned to take responsibility for his actions.

His story is about more than just his past, it’s about his future, a future he’s writing and one he’s proud to call his own.

June 21, 2017

Love6

Barbara Ball

By Asha Timperley

While sifting through her grandparents’ handwritten letters sent during World War II, Barbara Ball discovered the name of her future jewelry business.

She repeatedly saw the phrase, “So Honey,” used endearingly by the two long-distance lovers as they kept in touch during her grandfather’s deployment.

The simple yet meaningful phrase stuck with Barbara, and when it came time to name her business, it clicked.

The phrase “So Honey” is more than just a name, she said, much in the same way that the jewelry she creates is more than just pretty combinations of stones.

Every gem and stone that Barbara picks for her designs has intention behind it, because every piece has its own meaning.

Barbara has studied crystals and gemstones since she was 16 years old and found herself wandering the aisles of Euphoria, a local imports store in Lincoln.

“I have no idea how I found that place, I just did,” she said.

Soon, she began learning from the workers at the shop. She started making her own jewelry out of the gems and stones, and her friends started asking her to make pieces for them.

That was three years ago. Now, Barbara spends much of her free time creating unique pieces that not only look beautiful, but also focus on a lifestyle of healing and chakra balancing. Chakra balancing refers to the seven chakras identified throughout the body, which are meant to be balanced at all times.

Every necklace, bracelet and mala that Barbara creates has a specific purpose and property that aims to create a balance among the chakras, and each stone means something different. Some stones are known for their healing properties, while some are meant for elevating vibrations in meditation, she said.

Most importantly, Barbara said she enjoys promoting wellness within the lives of her customers. Many people buy her jewelry because they see it as another part of a wellness trend, but others purchase it because they’re looking for purpose.

Creating jewelry that helps others get through life is Barbara’s way of turning a hobby into a product for good.

Through the ability to help others with gemstones and jewelry, Barbara found a passion that she didn’t even know was there.

“For the longest time, I’ve felt like I was missing something,” Barbara said. “I just could never find something that was ‘me’… And being able to do this, and being able to be super nerdy with it and connect with people is just the best part.”

She describes it as her “crazy passion.”

It’s a passion that’s exploded, to the point that it’s taken over a room in her home for jewelry making. Nestled in the corner of the room are books that sparked Barbara’s passion, the pages are full of information about the different stones, crystals and meanings. Every week she estimates she creates about 25 pieces, from necklaces and bracelets, to malas.

In the future, Barbara said she would like to become even more of a resource for those looking to gems and stones for healing.

Barbara occasionally hosts gemstone sessions where she can interact one-on-one with people who are interested in her jewelry and crystal healing. There, she can not only create a piece that is tailored specifically to clients, but she can explain the deeper meaning behind it.

So Honey has become much more than just a hobby for Barbara.

It’s a place for people who are looking for a new resource. It’s a place for change. Most importantly, it’s a place where she embodies the simple, caring nature of the phrase, “So, honey…” to those that are looking for help.

May 31, 2017

Love3

Albert Maxey

By Asha Timperley

Albert Maxey is thinking about writing a book about his life, a memoir of sorts.

In it he’d talk about his childhood, basketball career, moving to Lincoln, his education, raising his family and being an artist. There’s a lot to include in a book like that, he said with a laugh, so for now he’s content with telling bits and pieces of his story as it comes up.

Albert said that while he was raised in Indianapolis, he “grew up” when he came to Lincoln in 1957.

“It was a very big transition to come here,” he said. “It’s like having a bowl of milk in front of you and you’re the fly that landed in that bowl of milk.”

The analogy might sound a little strange, but Albert said mostly he just felt out of place. He’d attended an all-black high school in Indiana and there were very few white families in his neighborhood. But he decided to come to Nebraska because of their reputation of strong academics, plus they’d offered him a basketball scholarship.

In high school, Albert’s basketball team was the first all-black team to ever win a state basketball championship – and they did this two years in a row. This got him and his teammates noticed by colleges across the country, and Albert received dozens of athletic scholarship offers during his senior year.

One of his offers was from Nebraska. Despite his early confidence in his decision to leave Indiana, the transition was difficult. There was a definite culture shock, his classes were challenging and it was hard to make new friends.

However, where Albert really excelled was on the basketball court. He played with other talented athletes and soon earned a reputation at UNL and in Lincoln for being a standout player.

After he played his final year of basketball, Albert focused his gaze on his degree in art and education. He’d grown up watching his mother sketch and knew that his passion and talent came from her. Albert had put art on the back burner while he played basketball, but now he was ready to dig in to art… or so he thought.

Albert soon realized that he needed a job to sustain him during school, so after scoping out his options, he started working at the Lincoln Police Department – mostly because it was within walking distance of his school and home.

At first, the job was just to off-set his bills, but he quickly progressed from a part-time employee to a beat cop, sergeant, criminal investigator, lieutenant and commanding officer. Albert was even part of the security team that guarded Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he came to Lincoln. Although working in law enforcement was vastly different than art, Albert said he really enjoyed getting to know his community.

He spent 34 years working for the police department before retiring. Albert again set his sights on using his degree and began to help Lincoln Public Schools adopt better security in their schools. He did this job for 14 years before officially retiring in 2008.

During his working years Albert got married, raised four children and became an active member of his community. Lincoln was slowly but surely becoming his home and he was proud to be a part of the city.

But Albert said he wasn’t the only one who was finding his place in Lincoln, his wife, JoAnn was carving out a place for herself as well. She was an amazing mother, Albert said, but she was also very ambitious when it came to caring for others.

She was appointed as a Nebraska state senator, becoming the first African American female to hold such an office. JoAnn was also the first black woman to serve on the Lincoln Board of Education.

Albert was incredibly proud of his wife and the way she cared for both their family and the community. She suddenly passed away from cancer when she was just 54, leaving a void in both Albert’s life as well as the city she loved so dearly.

There’s a senior center and an elementary school named after his wife, reminders of the person she was and the woman he married.

Life began to settle down for Albert after he retired. He was done with basketball, his kids were grown, his career goals had been met… but there was still his art.

These days Albert spends most of his time in his Haymarket art studio. He likes to sketch his designs with pencil before he starts in with the paint. His favorite thing to paint are portraits, he just loves the way faces tell stories.

He said even though art and his work in law enforcement were so different, being such a visual person helped him identify people when he was a police officer. He recognized different facial features, clothing and even body language, all of which are part of his art now.

Albert said he’s grateful he gets to spend his retirement in an art studio, he’s happy that this season is part of his story. He wasn’t also so sure that he’d get back to art, but today he has.

His story has been about pushing forward, despite the difficulties. It’s been about drive, he said, a drive he saw in himself, his wife, his children and one he hopes to witness in his grandchildren.

Maybe someday he’ll get around to writing down all the exact details of his story, but for now, he’s starting on his next painting.

May 24, 2017

Love8

Alex Kolbo

By Asha Timperley

Alex Kolbo is one of those ‘cool’ teachers. He’s young, fun and he teaches high school art.

Most days there are a few students who hang out in his art room before or after school to work on projects or just to talk with Mr. Kolbo about whatever is on their mind.

Being an art teacher is a job that feels natural to Alex. It tracks well with this own love of all things artistic, plus, it’s relational, which is something he didn’t know would quickly become the best part of his job.

But Alex never saw himself as an art teacher. In fact, ever since first grade all he really wanted to be was an architect.

As a kid, Alex was always drawing. It was a hobby that was encouraged by his parents, teachers and nearly anyone who saw his work. He had talent, but he was a little shy to admit it. He remembers refusing to take compliments when people would look at his artwork. Then his dad sat him down and had a conversation about being grateful for his abilities and taught him how to accept encouragement from others.

But even though he was talented, Alex said he never thought about being an artist. He thought the more practical route would be architecture, because it combined his artistic skills with his math abilities… and he’d heard that architects earn a good living.

Architecture wasn’t just what Alex planned to do, it’s what he told everyone he would do – it was his identity. So when he went to college at UNL as an architecture major, nobody was surprised.

After two years of having a love-hate relationship with architecture – which Alex now fondly refers to as ‘archi-torture’ – he hit a major roadblock. While he enjoyed his classes, the math portion of his degree was proving extremely challenging, specifically his calculus class. He needed to pass calculus with a C or higher and after taking the class three times he was 1 percentage point away from passing the class.

He had two choices: take the class a fourth time and hopefully pass so that he could continue with his architecture degree, or change his major.

Alex went home for the weekend to think over his decision. He said it felt heavy and even a little sad to have his once certain future suddenly full of question marks. Alex met with friends and a handful of trusted mentors who listened to his dilemma and offered advice. He said the most common question everyone asked was, ‘Have you ever thought about teaching art?”

Teaching? Interesting, he thought.

But then came the list of questions and hesitations, the main one centering on if he could provide for his future family on a teacher’s salary. Plus, being a teacher didn’t seem nearly as glamorous as his architecture aspirations.

He was shocked by the fact that so many people had suggested the same career shift, but now the decision was up to him. Within a week Alex changed his major, ending his time at the architecture school and starting down the teaching path.

It’s been nearly seven years since Alex made the decision to become a teacher and he’s currently finishing up his fourth year at Lincoln East High School. He landed the job shortly after he graduated, and quickly found that teaching felt like such a natural use of his passions and skills.

“I love making art, it’s fun, but that alone hasn’t been the most meaningful part of my job,” he said. “It’s the building relationships, and I didn’t realize that would make me feel like this is where I’m meant to be.”

Whether he’s teaching pottery, photography, graphic design or even jewelry making, Alex said his goal is to connect with students and help them think creatively. He said creative thinking isn’t just for art, it’s for life, and art is the tool he’s using to teach his students these skills.

Alex knows that not every kid who walks into his classroom is thrilled about taking an art class. They don’t all have to love or even appreciate art, he said, but he wants them to know that he’s a teacher they can trust and learn from, whether it’s art or something from his own story.

Alex said teaching is something he can see himself doing for a long time. It gives him his own time and space to think creatively, plus it pairs well with his endeavors outside of the classroom. On weekends and during the summer he likes to take wedding and engagement photos, help his wife, Machelle, with her graphic design business, think up art-inspired Instagram posts, go on walks with their golden retriever and hang out with kids in his church’s youth group.

Nearly everything Alex does turns into some sort of exercise in creative thinking. It’s what he loves, what he’s passionate about and what naturally rises to the surface of both his work and hobbies.

It’s seems funny to think of Alex as being anything other than an art teacher at Lincoln East. It’s where he’s invested his skills and his time. And even though Alex is at the front of the classroom, it’s really his students who have shaped his story and encourage him to test his own creativity every day.

May 3, 2017

Love7

Stefanie Urbom

By Asha Timperley

When Stefanie Urbom meets with patients for the first time she oftentimes uses her own story as part of the introduction.

“My mom had cancer…” she says, honestly, explaining her mom’s surgery, recovery and the number of years she’s been cancer-free.

She does this because a lot of her patients are skeptical and nervous about opening up. They look at Stefanie and think, ‘What could this young, healthy girl know about helping someone like me…’

Their skepticism is valid, Stefanie said, but what her patients often don’t understand is that Stefanie has interacted with cancer in a way that shifted both her personal and professional life forever.

As a kid, Stefanie said she was always helping people. Whether it was kids at school who needed a little extra attention, or a friend with a problem, she liked to be an advocate for the underdog. Which is why it seemed like a no-brainer for her to pursue a career in the medical field.

She graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan and then attended physical therapy school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It was while she was going through school that her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I was devastated,” she said. “I was very scared of the big C word – you just think the worst.”

Stefanie felt paralyzed and limited by her options to help her mom. Sure, she could provide emotional support, but at times that didn’t seem like enough. She watched as her mom lost her hair after chemotherapy, as she struggled with short term memory loss, fatigue and the emotional and physical pain and that followed her mastectomy.

Her mom wasn’t herself, she didn’t feel like herself and that was the hardest part for Stefanie to watch. But the one thing Stefanie could do was research how to help her mom deal with the physical repercussions of treatment and surgery. She quickly realized that her mom could benefit from physical therapy during her recovery.

After graduating from physical therapy school, Stefanie continued to study the use of physical therapy for cancer recovery and also became a certified lymphedema therapist. She realized that while people are often unaware of the benefits physical therapy can have for a patient undergoing treatment for cancer, helping these patients regain their strength, maintain activity level and manage pain are crucial parts of their care.”

Currently about half of the patients she sees have cancer. Stefanie works with them to reduce pain and improve their quality of life.

It’s a heavy job, because not all of her patients make it through their therapy programs, but Stefanie said she doesn’t think about it that way. She goes in to each day thinking about what she can give her patients, independent of how many days they have left. She makes it her mission to help her patients laugh during therapy, to talk about something other than cancer and to help them feel like themselves again.

Stefanie said she tries not to let the sad stories distract her from the reason she does her work, but it’s still difficult. She has hard days and can get overwhelmed by sadness when she sees something that reminds her of a patient who has died.

In the same way that cancer has defined the story of so many of her patients, being a physical therapist who works closely with cancer patients has shaped Stefanie in ways she hadn’t anticipated.

It’s made her a professional who craves knowledge so that she can provide the best care possible and it’s made her a wife and mother who is grateful for her family’s health.

But she’s also realized cancer, even her mom’s battle with cancer, isn’t the only thing that defines her story.

Stefanie is a young mom and wife who tries to balance working full-time and being attentive to her young children and husband. She’s ambitious and outgoing, she loves to have fun but also enjoys the simple things in life.

Her story is about using her own experience to help others. It’s about learning how to lean in to moments that others often shy away from, and seeing people beyond their current circumstances.

It’s also been about stepping back and watching how other stories have impacted her own story, learning from those moments and choosing to keep moving forward.

Her story has been shaped by some hard circumstances, but it’s also a story that she’s still trying to understand herself. She’s trying to figure out what’s next, how to continue to grow personally and professionally and how to piece all of these elements together.

“It’s a process,” she said, one that builds over time, one patient at a time, one day at a time and one moment at a time.

April 26, 2017

Love2

Brian Lehmann

By Asha Timperley

Brian Lehmann fits the definition of a classic risk taker.

He’s the kind of guy who wakes up thinking about Indonesia, buys a ticket later that day and is driving a scooter around the country as soon as he lands.

(Yes, that really happened.)

But Brian doesn’t just take risks or hop on a plane for the fun of it. He does it because he’s afraid of what will happen if he stops taking these kinds of risks.

After graduating from college with a degree in photojournalism, Brian got a job at the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado. It was an enviable job to have scored so young, and Brian was doing well as a staff photographer. He was learning a lot, working hard and having a blast going out on assignment.

He was set… or so he thought.

A year and a half into his job, he and his 250 coworkers got the shocking news that the newspaper was shutting down. They were all let go with little warning and no safety net. It was scary, Brian said, but even scarier for the people who had families to take care of.

It was in that moment that Brian realized he couldn’t leave his future to chance, and now was his time to take risks, big risks.

He moved back to Lincoln and relaunched his landscaping and lawn care business. He’d mowed lawns ever since he was 14 and the business had paid his way through college, but now it was sustaining him while he sorted out his next steps.

Brian started thinking long and hard about why he was a photographer.

He remembered how he’d majored in business and dabbled in flying before changing his major to journalism.

He thought about the first time he met Joel Sartore, a Lincoln native and National Geographic photographer. How he traded manual labor jobs for photography critiques and life lessons with the famed photographer who eventually became his mentor.

And he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t do lawn care forever. Sure, he liked it and he was even pretty good at it, but there was no way he could let go of photojournalism or even let it slump into the category of ‘hobby.’

Brian decided that instead of working for a newspaper or even one single magazine, he’d do his own stories, set his own schedule and find stories both locally and internationally. He discovered that he could plant flowers, mow lawns and do landscape design as a way to fund his international trips, and so far it’s worked.

He’s worked in places like Nicaragua, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and India. He laughs about the time he peed his pants while on a horribly rocky boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with some angry turtle hunters, and the time he was arrested in India only to have the local police feed him dinner and Facebook friend him before releasing him.

These are the kinds of experiences that Brian craves when he’s back in Lincoln. His work varies from week to week. Some weeks he’s more focused on lawn care and others he’s gearing up for a trip and doing research about the next country he’s going to visit.

In May he’ll be in Uganda with a group of photojournalism students from UNL and in August he’s heading back to Nicaragua to finish shooting a story about endangered green sea turtles.

Last year his first photo story was published in National Geographic. It was about the death culture in Indonesia, a story he’d had a strong hunch about and following his hunch paid off. In the process he made friends with translators, had coffee with dozens of village leaders and was able to expose a traditional way of life for a small but beautiful group of people.

These are the stories Brian thinks about when he’s adding mulch to a client’s flower bed, walking his dog, Murphy, or sitting in his backyard. They are the stories of people and cultures that have woven themselves into Brian’s own story in ways he can’t quite describe.

Sure, he said, he’s taking a risk to fly around the world with little more than a camera and an idea, but the people he photographs are taking their own risk when they open their lives and share their stories with him. Brian has lived small parts of people’s lives with them through the lens of his camera. What he’s seen has changed the way he sees life, how he lives life and how he wants to spend his time.

But the thing Brian said he keeps coming back to is that he’s lucky.

Lucky that he can run a business that helps fund his passions. Lucky that he’s surrounded by mentors and fellow photographers who help him refine his skills. Lucky that he has the stability to hop on a plane when he needs to and lucky that at the age of 35 he’s doing something he loves.

He’s lucky that he gets to take risks, and he doesn’t want that to ever change.

April 12, 2017

Love4

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