Volleyball Day & More | Nebraska Stories | Nebraska Public Media

Intro (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska Stories, a defining moment in women's volleyball, (upbeat music) an outfit for every occasion, (upbeat music) duckpin bowling in Potter, (upbeat music) and the ancestral corn of the Pawnee takes root again in Nebraska. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Volleyball Day (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Every Nebraska volleyball season begins with a pursuit to clinch a national championship at season's end. (gentle music) Even though the 2023 season didn't conclude with a fairytale ending, the journey changed the conversation, as well as the landscape of women's sports. (gentle music) August 30th will always be etched in time as the most unforgettable event in volleyball history. (gentle music) (gentle music) - [Emily] The Memorial Stadium match put not only Nebraska volleyball on the map, but it put volleyball as a women's sport on the map. - It's still hard to put into words what that happened that night. I mean, it was almost mystical in a way. - People in other countries were watching volleyball in Nebraska Day saying that's the most amazing volleyball thing that has ever happened in the world. (gentle music) -[Lexi] Little kids that see volleyball being played on this level will really inspire them to keep wanting to stay in the sport and get to the next level to be in opportunities like that. - [Announcer] Riley picks out Murray on the back row. -[Harper] All the aspects of the media stuff and the people, everybody coming just to watch one volleyball match is so special for Nebraska and for the sport of volleyball, and I think it's gonna continue to help our sport grow. - It's awesome. That was so surreal for me to see as a former player. I credit certainly John Cook for building and growing the sport in Lincoln, his program is tremendous. And I credit that community, I was blown away by that support that those women received. That was tremendous. -[Ericka] That was such a great start to the season because it caught the attention of every fan base across America. (gentle music) -[John] I think it was a defining moment in the history of women's sports. It has elevated the sport of women's volleyball. It's created an interest and it's been not just in Nebraska, it's been across the country. It was a magical moment that people still have not forgotten about. (team talking) - [Narrator] With four freshmen starting and no seniors on the team, the Huskers rode a wave of momentum to win 27 consecutive matches. (crowd cheering) Winning the program's fourth Big 10 title and locking down the number one seed in the NCAA tournament. (team cheering) -[John] This group has really blossomed and played their best in the biggest moments. (crowd chanting) It's not anything we're doing different, it's just the belief in the relationships that they have and the trust that they have, and you know, it's a group of people all working together to try to get it done. And like Lexi told me the stadium night, you know, just try to soak it all in Coach. So I'm just trying to soak it all in. (crowd chatting) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] When the Huskers advanced to the Final Four in Tampa, Florida, Husker Nation answered the call and traveled by the thousands to the Sunshine State. (upbeat music) - I think it's crazy 'cause you never understand how many fans until you're all together. - I've never seen anything like it except for in Lincoln. So it's essentially like bringing Lincoln, Nebraska to Tampa, Florida, amazing. (pep band playing) -[Don] It's great, you just say hi to everybody, you know, whether you know 'em or not. Of course, most people you don't. (crowd cheering) -[Amy] The game of volleyball the way it's just becoming more popular. It's an up and coming sport and I just think it's great for girls sports in general. (crowd cheering) -[Parry] We have a huge fan base and I'm so excited for all the girls, but also growing up little girls and the volleyball players in Nebraska and across the nation because it's a sport that should be celebrated. (gentle music) - [Narrator] 1.7 million viewers tuned into ABC for the national championship between Texas and Nebraska, (upbeat music) marking the highest television audience for a college volleyball match in history. (upbeat music) -[Ericka] To be part of such a historical moment for this sport is incredible. And when we're all in it together and driving this positive momentum forward, it's good for the sport, it's good for all of our networks, but most importantly it pays tribute to, you know, the athletes and the people that are on the court every day working towards something so great. (upbeat music) - [John] Once you get people seeing it live, they fall in love with it. I think that stadium magic had major exposure to a lot of people and I think we're seeing the the fallout from that. -[Lexi] I just think that day in Memorial Stadium, it kind of showed that and showed the team we are and how much we love playing together and ever since then, I feel like it's just grown so much. (crowd cheering) - [Emily] The growth of the sport has been insurmountable. It's been exponential. We haven't seen something like this in a women's sport in a really long time. (upbeat music) -[Katie] It's well deserved. I feel like a lot of people have been late to the party because if you've been around the sport, you know how great it is and you know how incredible these women are. (stadium cheering) I think you'll look back to this 2023 season for Nebraska and of course starting the season with 92,000 fans in a football stadium to watch you play and then to march your way through the Big 10 and only lose one time, (upbeat music) and then make your set way to a national title is pretty tremendous. And speaks to I think the leadership of the team, the talent of the team. But definitely the staff has done right by these women. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) -[Narrator] Inside Nebraska Wesleyan's Elder Theater Center, actually, underneath is a whimsical wardrobe wonderland. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) -[Julie] There are about 1000 linear feet of rec space, 1500 linear feet of shoe space. We have items from as early as maybe the 1880s, all the way through to contemporary pieces. We have maybe over 70,000 pieces, we don't know for sure. We don't have them inventoried. (upbeat music) We specialize in vintage clothing, which allows our theatrical productions to be true to the time era, but it also allows students to learn about fashion and costuming based on real pieces. (upbeat music) -[Ellen] So in this aisle, we keep things that are like anything fantastical, including a traditional mermaid skirt, and then we also have a mermaid tail made of blonde wigs. (upbeat music) We have vintage Wesleyan, lots of vintage Wesleyan clothes, including Wesleyan Letterman jackets, and 1940s Wesleyan gymnastics uniforms. Almost any animal you could think of. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) We keep a very impressive hoop clown hoop pants, (upbeat music) lots of dance uniforms. We have a whole section for Christmas carol, traditional carolers costumes. (upbeat music) We have Elvis, we have Abba. (upbeat music) We have a firefighter, a true firefighter uniform. We also have an astronaut. We have modern military uniforms, as well as vintage. We have uniforms that go back as far as World War I, lots of fatigues, we also have a lot more nice uniforms, dress blues, things like that. We keep men and women's uniforms of all sizes. We've got Lincoln Police department uniforms, and then at the very end of the aisle, we've got marching band uniforms. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) -[Julie] We also have items that have been donated from member of the Press Corps for Eleanor Roosevelt, (upbeat music) from Miss Nebraska from the early 1950s. The story goes that when I met her, she had partied with Elvis. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Many of the items in the costume library were donated now used in Wesleyan performances or rented to the general public or other schools to use in productions. It's built as the largest costume library in the Great Plains, at least that's what they've heard from folks who've seen collections in other states. - According to them, we have probably ten times as much as any comparable institution in the area. - [Mike] Is it fun coming down here? - All the time, all the time. There's always activity down here. I think it's one of the best kept secrets of Nebraska Wesleyan. (upbeat music) Potter NARRATOR: The people in the village of Potter say they can tell the strength of America's economy by how often the trains roll by town. (Train passing by) Words is that trains are running every 15 minutes, which means things are clicking along pretty good. (train wheels click clacking) DALE DEDIC: Most of these little towns, they're falling apart. Potter has actually grown a little bit, and that's because of the people that we have in town. NARRATOR: People like Kirk Enevoldsen, a fourth generation banker whose great-grandfather opened the first bank in Potter in 1908. Kirk is also the chairman of the Potter Historical Foundation. KIRK ENEVOLDSEN: Our main goal of the Foundation is to preserve and enhance the central business district. Our goal is to not have one building that's boarded up. As of this minute we don't have one building that's boarded up. NARRATOR: The Foundation was founded in 2000 when a former resident bought, restored, and then donated the Potter Sundry back to the community. KIRK: He wanted to have every child in Potter have the same experience he had, be able to grow up and come down to the Sundry after school and have a tin roof sundae or a soda or whatever. MAN: We have two places to eat really (laughs) in this town. We have the bar or the Sundry, so if one place is closed, you kinda hope that another one is open. NARRATOR: The town proudly promotes the Sundry as the home of the tin roof sundae. DALE: That's our story and we're sticking to it, so... The first thing is vanilla ice cream, and then chocolate syrup, and then chocolate ice cream, and then real marshmallow on top, and peanuts on top of that. (lighthearted music) CUSTOMER: It's pretty tasty. NARRATOR: Dale may have earned the money to buy his ice cream by working as a pin setter at the Potter Duckpin Bowling Lanes. (bowling pins falling) Duckpin bowling is played with a six inch bowling ball that has no finger holes. There's nothing electronic about this game. Everything is done manually. DALE: I'd get a nickel a line, so that was pretty good money back then. (ball rolling down aisle and hitting pins) If four guys were bowling on that line, they would get 20 cents during the whole game, so... (ball rolling down aisle and hitting pins) DALE: I just remember some of the guys threw really hard and our guy that ran the place would holler at 'em to "Quit throwing so hard. "You're gonna kill my pin setters," so. (laughs) NARRATOR: The antique bowling lanes sit on the second floor of what used to be the old hardware store. Kirk's family bought the building in 2000 and renovated it with the help of city volunteers. KIRK: We wouldn't get half this stuff done without the great people in Potter and the Potter community. NARRATOR: It's said Potter has the only duckpin bowling alley west of the Mississippi River. DALE: I remember the league nights would, and they had one or two nights, I think Fridays and Saturdays, league play, and this place would be overflowed. It was pretty wild around here. You could hardly get up and down the stairs, so. NARRATOR: Frozen in time, the team roster board still lists the leagues that played in 1951 just before the bowling alley was closed. (ball strikes) Today, the bowling lanes are rented out for parties, $25 an hour, and it's pretty much run on the honor system. KIRK: We've asked that when you rent this that you leave it in the same condition that you found it, and so far we've had pretty good luck with that. (ball hitting pins) (train chugs) NARRATOR: As long as trains are rolling by, it appears the village of Potter will continue to thrive. Knife Chief Corn (birds chirping) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [Deb] My mom said there wasn't a straight spoon in the house when I was a little girl that I'd be outside digging all the time. I've been growing plants, it seems like all my life. The flowers that I use they're still the same flowers that I I was growing when I was a teenager. Everywhere I moved, I kept the seeds and kept growing 'em and kept collecting them. (upbeat music) My people, the Akiikatu the Pawnee, didn't always live in Oklahoma. Our homeland was in the land that later became Nebraska. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) My great-great grandparents couldn't take much but they took their sacred corn. (upbeat music) [Electa] We held onto that corn from that walk all the way from Nebraska down to Oklahoma. A really difficult challenging time where many of our people were lost but some of us still held those seeds. Then it's just a really beautiful thing to me that decades later we found a way for those seeds to still germinate, even if they were down to like a handful of seeds. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (door creaks open and close) [Deb] I like this one. We called it the knife chief corn because we thought Dennis knife chief had cross pollinated corn or something. But he came up with this striped corn this red white striped, and about six feet down they they found the buffalo skull. Well, a buffalo hadn't been there since 1863 and inside the buffalo skull was that seed. (gentle music) (gentle music) [Deb] The corn didn't reach its full potential in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma soil weakened the seed (gentle music) so our Pawnee put the seeds away. (gentle music) [Deb] One of the first questions I asked is, "Hey, where's our corn?" I mean, that's what we're known for. It took a long while to answer that question. Our culture committee, our chiefs asked families and they would produce what they had and some of it we couldn't get to grow 'cause it was stored so poorly, but some were kept in bundles and there'd only be 20 seeds in there. (gentle music) Pwy Corn (birds chirping) (birds chirping) One day I got an unexpected call from Nebraska that gave me hope that we could grow our corn again in our homeland. [Ronnie] I worked at the Archway in Kearney over I80 that teaches a lot of the history about the trails and transportation, and I had natives telling me "You really need to teach more about the thousand years before that." So that's how I met Deb Echo-Hawk, was I wanted to start a program about the Pawnee because we're in the homeland here in central Nebraska, so wanted to have gardening as part of that because I've always... I grew up on a corn farm and I've always gardened. (gentle music) She sent me just 25 seeds in 2004 the first year, and I planted them like we do. We plant corn in late April here in Nebraska. So I went out and did that and I was all excited and it all rotted in the ground. It was too early and too cold. So the next year she sent 25 kernels. She said, I have 25 left. This is it. I can't part with the last 25. We have to be able to show our children what it looked like once. [Deb] Ronnie O'Brien, she's my little corn sister. In fact, we gave her name in Pawnee. Yeah, I think she cried for days when that happened. (gentle music) We talk almost daily and sometimes several times a day. (gentle music) Other Nebraska farmers wanted to plant Pawnee corn too. One was Del Ficke, a man that I would later call friend. (gentle music) [Del] We wouldn't be here if it wouldn't have been for the Pawnee helping my family. When they homesteaded just a mile south of here in 1869 there was a Pawnee encampment, another mile south of them. It was the Pawnee and they ended up, trading food and things with them and it's evolved into a love affair and, like I say, in a very spiritual way. It's become the connection with the Pawnee people. They are truly family. This is a manicuring of a precious resource from a historical and spiritual base that is teaching us how we need to be in the future. It is teaching the next generations. (Native American Music) (Native American Music) [Pat] To see and to hear Del, when his great grandparent homesteaded this place and how the Pawnees helped them through that winter. They felt they owed something to them Pawnees. It's pretty awesome that he still feels that way. (gentle music) I mean that was a long, long time ago, and things die off but that's still in his heart in his family's heart to recognize that. That really tells me a lot about about him and his family, that they're really good people. (gentle music) [Deb] Yeah, so it really makes a nice drink and you know you don't have to heat it, just infuse it. Each fall we travel to Nebraska to pick and prepare corn for our ceremonies and to restore our traditional diet. (gentle music) [Anna] There's always a feeling for me when I am here with this land of being home. Which in a sense, maybe I feel a little bit silly to say because I've never lived here, but it's true. (gentle music) [Deb] I love to remind Nebraskans that we were the first corn huskers. (gentle music) [Electa] We're smiling more than we have in a long time. There's a little bit of teaching that goes into almost everything that we're doing. Yeah, it's been beautiful to see it all play out into a camp setting. So this year we're processing eagle corn. We've been working towards this moment for a long time to be able to serve eagle corn to the people at our dances at our spring ceremonies where everybody could try it. Everybody could know what it tastes like. [Deb] I like the eagle corn to taste 'cause when we shell it, we get the whole thing. We're careful about how we take the kernels off the cup but when you cook it, you know we'll blanche roast it and then take it off the cob. But then when you cook it, it turns like super round and it just kind of pops in your mouth. And to me it's got this really incredible nut like taste. That's definitely my favorite. And we like it when it looks like a eagle with this wings spread out. It's fun to find that design in there. And a lot of other designs it's just like a art show every day. You know, looking at all the different varieties. (birds chirping) Lots of prayers have gone into this corn in all faces of production. And anytime you pray to brings out the healing properties of plants, we've been putting wrong foods in our bodies. So if we get back to a food that our DNA, our bodies recognized, then hey, we're going to have healthier people. (gentle music) We use corn as most tribes do in every celebration there is. Pow wows, ceremonies, and there's just so much reverence to it. When we were on the verge of extinction it was just a miracle that we found some of our corn. I mean, what an adventure it has been. [Pat] Mother corn is very, very, very sacred. To have something that was passed down generation to generation, to generation, and we're still able to to consume it, (gentle music) to taste it, it touches the soul (gentle music) to realize our grandma's, (gentle music) great grandma's took care of this enough to supply us. (gentle music) (gentle music) (birds chirping) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American music) (Native American Music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Watch more Nebraska stories on our website, Facebook and YouTube. Nebraska Stories is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation, and the Bill Harris and Mary Sue Hormel Harris Fund for the presentation of cultural programming. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)