Seeing the Community in His Eyes

By: Andrea

Mr. Chip Maupin has taken part in our community by actually seeing the problems in people and helping them find solutions to their problems. If you know what I am talking about, then I’m sure you are thinking about a counselor because that is what Mr. Maupin has done for 22 years. He has worked in the Ogallala area and in Sydney, Grant, and the Oshkosh area for 16 years. Mr. Maupin has the passion to help relationships and anything that deals with the minds of people.

I asked him “Who has inspired you to help out?” Mr. Maupin answered, “Milton Erickson influenced me, and he was a Psychologist.” He also said that an old friend and high school buddy inspired him because he was a very good Psychologist as well. When asked what inspired him, he said, “I would like to make a difference in human relationships.”

He said the positive things that make him feel good about working with other people are helping to make relationships better and making people feel better.

When asked, “What is your definition of Social Activism?” he answered without hesitation, “One who tries to improve the lives in their community.”

Travis Haggard

By: Jordan K. 

Travis Haggard, the economic developer for Ogallala and Keith County, took time out of his day to interview with me. Travis has been doing this job for a little over year now. His job is to coordinate with organizations and people to help local businesses grow and to help bring new businesses to Ogallala. He said “I like to see Ogallala grow in hopes that the entire area will make more money, create new jobs and establish a community for the youth.” Mr. Haggard does this job with the support and encouragement from his family, friends, and the business owners. Travis gets up every morning and does this job because he wants to make a difference in the community.

The state government helps Travis with resources while the community helps him when looking for answers. Mr. Haggard said “God helps me the most.”

He retained Tri State Generation and Transmission to save jobs while changing the attitude of Ogallala in a positive way. Travis plans on growing and expanding current businesses in Keith county and Ogallala while bringing new businesses in. When he talks and communicates with the business in the community, he involves the community.  Mr. Haggard likes to get input from the community, after all he works for the community. Working with the Keith County Chamber of Commerce, and clubs like the Optimists, Kiwanis, Rotary, KCAD, CRA and REDI Boards, he has a constant stream of information that gives him his direction.

His take on social action is just being involved in the community and being in the public’s eye. Mr. Haggard has done a lot in a year to help the community and plans to do a lot more.

Tracy Eveland and the Sandhills District Health Department

By: Kylee 

Tracy Eveland is a registered nurse in the Sandhills District Health Department. She is the Vaccine Coordinator giving all the vaccines for children and adults. She assists the director and helps in the medical clinic and the nurse practitioner. She also serves as the nurse for the Keith County Jail.  Mrs. Eveland is also the Emergency Response Coordinator for the five counties that SDHD serves. As the Emergency Response Coordinator, she is responsible in coordinating all the medicines and supplies needed to treat everybody in the counties who would be affected by the specific type of emergency.

Mrs. Eveland is originally from Grand Island, and after meeting her husband, they lived in Hastings where they raised their four boys. They moved to Ogallala because her husband wanted to move closer to his folks. She says she likes life in a small community because everyone knows her and her kids and “it’s more of a community project to raise my family.”

SDHD is one of twenty-one health departments across the state of Nebraska that monitor public health by tracking diseases, seeing who is sick, gathering statistics, interviewing, and then providing the vaccine. They also provide and distribute home radon kits and educate the public on health issues.

SDHD has been in our community for over thirty years. In its earlier stage, it was known as the Nebraska Visiting Nurses Association much like Home Health visits are today. And as it moved forward in developing public health, it became the Sandhills District Health Department. SDHD is a very important service in our community because it provides medical care, immunizations, preventions, and screenings. It serves the very young and old with or without insurance. They monitor health data and statistics, educate the community, and provide treatment. Also they provide CPR classes and the Sandhills Safe Kids program in educating child passenger safety. If it impacts your health as a person or community; usually there’s a health department initiative behind it to help educate, diagnose or treat, or to do research and statistics.

Deb Cleveland and the Youth Wrestling Program

By: Austin

The most important part of our community is the youth, and we are lucky to have many programs for our youth to participate in.  One of the largest athletic clubs that Ogallala currently has began in 1997.   Bart Voycheske, with the help of Deb Cleveland and Dom Larocca, thought of a great way to get the youth in and around the community involved in exercise while making it fun.  And that is how the youth wrestling program got its start.

Bart Voycheske wanted to break away from freestyle wrestling and start a folkstyle club, Deb had a son that wrestled at the time and decided to help him out. Dom Larocca was a volunteer coach.  Deb says, “When I first became involved in wrestling, I noticed it developed character, confidence, endurance, and prepares kids for life.”   Bart also wanted to see some consistency between the youth program and the high school team, so a folkstyle club was a great way to achieve that.    

Starting a new club is not as easy as it sounds.  Some of the problems that they encountered were:

• What rules they had to follow  
• A place to hold practices
• What association to join
• Getting volunteers to coach
• The conflicts that they met trying to break away from the existing club

The youth wrestling program has evolved since 1997.  It is now the only youth wrestling club in town.  Internet has been a major change in communication with parents making it easier to contact them regarding practices and competitions.  “We have to compete with the youth basketball program, which is stronger than it used to be.  We started with around 18 kids the first year and the program has grown to around 60 members” says Deb.  Along with the positive points, with the evolving club there are difficulties that they have to deal with, such as insurance expenses, space to hold practices and scheduling conflicts.  It is more expensive and there is way more paperwork than they had in the beginning.   Deb said, “Drawing kids to come compete in our local tournament (which is our only fundraiser) gets harder and harder every year because it is so far to travel from eastern to western Nebraska.  It is also hard to find a date for the tournament that does not conflict with other activities.”

The Ogallala youth wrestling club is just a goo program and involves the whole family.  It is a sport that a child as young as five can start and can continue through their high school years.  Wrestling is great exercise and helps to develop coordination, balance flexibility, mental toughness and cardio endurance.  But one of the most important aspects is the ability to meet other kids from all over the country.

When asked if she could make any changes to the program she said that she wishes more people would get involved.  It is hard to get enough volunteers to coach and because it is a one on one sport it takes more coaches.  “I love to see the big smiles on the faces of the little kids and even the big kids when they win the big trophy,” says Deb.

Deb Cleveland has been a big part of the youth programs in our community, along with the wrestling club she helped start the youth football program, she helps coach volleyball, and she has also helped with youth rodeo. 

Randy Fair

By: Will 

Some people might think of Randy Fair as just the County Attorney. But if you get to know him, you will see that he spends a great deal of his time trying to find out ways to better the community.  

Randy is apart of the Rotary club, and the Ogallala Recreation Expansion Committee. The Rotary club helps foster a better business community and does a number of community projects such as contributing to polio cures; they also help with area blood drives and the food pantry. They also assist the Interact club. 

Improvement to the community is important to Randy because an overall better community will enhance the lives of each individual regardless of their involvement in the community. The efforts of some will hopefully benefit everyone. When asked what motivated him to keep helping his community he stated, “I am motivated by my desire for my family and I to have the same opportunities as might be available in a large city but for everyone to enjoy the benefits of living in a small town.” I hope that you are inspired by this story and Randy to help make a difference in the community.
   
   

   

Candy Denouden

By: Ashlen and Aleshia

Candy works at the Keith County News as a reporter, helps at Wired, the New Hope youth group, and is involved in 4-H. She was born in South Dakota, is the youngest of four siblings, and grew up on a farm. She was raised in a strong Christian family, was very involved in her church in South Dakota, and loves working with kids. She moved to Ogallala in November of 2010 at the age of 23.

“I have been doing community service for as long as I can remember” says Candy. Her mom worked in a nursing home and Candy and her siblings have been playing the piano, taking in baby animals, and visiting with the residents for as long as she can remember.

Candy is very involved in Wired and is one of the high school girls small groups leaders. She says she always had really amazing youth leaders before that she is still looks up to and is close with. She says that being involved is a way to give back and to try to be that reliable person for someone.  She says “ I’m the youngest so I haven’t always worked with kids, but I love working with you guys, even if you don’t listen to me all of the time.”  She says that sometimes she feels like she makes an impact, but even on the days she isn’t so sure she still cares for all the kids.

Candy also helped create a 4-H group called the Arrows in Pause, it’s a general club that helps teach the members how to run a meeting and to do good things for others. They have recently adopted a highway and have held a fundraiser for the Red Cross to help with hurricane relief. The group raised $136 and sent $109 to the Red Cross and used the rest for various expenses in the club.

Candy says that if she could fix anything in our community she would fix all of the family problems. She says “A big thing I have learned from working with you kids is how many of you have to deal with so much crap so early in your lives.” She wants it to be possible for everyone to have a shot at their dreams and have all the necessities to live a happy life.

When asked about her passions Candy answered “I am a people person so being around family and close friends would be one thing, I also love to laugh.” She says that she doesn’t consider herself a Local Anonymous Extraordinaire. “I am still young enough that I’m still trying to figure out myself; there is a lot of people in our community that have been around longer, so they have had more impact, but maybe someday I will get there.” Candy says her definition of social activism is not just standing on a platform and talking, although that may work; she thinks it is more about getting out and actually helping.

What's a "Local Anonymous Extraordinary?"

A few weeks ago we began our study of Social Action in English 9. This is the third time I've been blessed enough to do this unit with students, and each time I've added a new component to tighten the unit making it more relevant to kids. This year I wanted to connect the unit more with the community. If kids are going to be working to try and make the community a better or place, I figured they need to know the good work already being done by locals. After doing some of my own reading and research, I stumbled across this amazing TED Talks lecture.



Speaker Natalie Warne shares about her journey of actvisim and touches on the concept of Anonymous Extraordinaries--"people who work selflessly and vigorously for what they believe in; people who are motivated by conviction and not recognition" (Warne). This automatically made me think of all the good people right here in Keith County who are working hard to make a difference. Using this video, I created an assignment for my students: think of a Local Anonymous Extraordinary you know, interview this person, and then write a short blog post featuring this person.

Last week students watched and discussed the video above in class. We celebrated Martin Luther King Jr day (yesterday) by hearing from various community members* who were gracious enough to visit our class to share about the importance of serving our community. Currently, students are collecting stories from Local Anonymous Extraordinaries and will be sharing them on this blog to enlighten others. My hope is that students will use this unit to become more connected with the community and to become inspired to make activism a regular part of their life. I'm excited about the collection of stories we will be featuring on this blog. Stories are due January 31st, so check back soon!

*Thanks to Karl Elmshaeuser, Bob Josjor, Jonnie Peterson, Shelby Jones-Schellpeper, Kathleen Bauer, Drew Krab, Gail Knott, Stara Chandler-Smith, Mary Lou Crofutt-O'Brien, Mary Dickinson, Carl Dietz, Brenda Ketcham, Stephanie Most, and April Thraen for speaking to students. Thanks also to Mary Pierce from the Keith County News for teaching students about the basics of interviewing and news reporting! 

What's this all about?

The third quarter of English 9 is devoted to our Social Action unit. Here's a simplified rundown of our unit:

Students will...

1. explore the concept of activism by studying popular music for either social issues or themes of positive change

2. examine our community to find activists working hard to make our community a better place

3. study activism in history by reading Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's Letter From a Birmingham Jail and investigating the Civil Rights Movement

4. choose an issue that aligns with their passions, then take action in whatever way possible.

Here's a Prezi that breaks the unit down as well:

English 9 Social Action Unit Overview on Prezi