Hey everyone, I'm Sheila Jenkinson and you are listening to the Growing Small Town Nebraska podcast where my co-host, Marcie Sextro, and I ask community leaders and business owners about their efforts in revitalizing the Cornhusker State. If you love your small town and you're looking for ways to make it even better, or maybe you're interested in what this revitalization movement may mean for you and your family. Join us as we talk with small town Nebraskans making our state the definition of "The Good Life."
Hello, everyone. I'm Marcie Sextro. We are coming to you from the Intersect Co-working and Incubator podcast booth here in downtown Norfolk. Intersect is a co-working community that gives workers the spaces and tools they need to succeed. Join a like minded community of founders, remote workers, startups and freelancers, with 24/7 access to a dedicated office or private desk. They have extremely fast internet and as much coffee as your heart desires! Intersect is your place to collaborate with others and get things done. Find out more on their website intersectcoworking.com Or follow them on Facebook or Instagram. GROW Nebraska helps Nebraska entrepreneurs have access to the global marketplace. Started in 1998, GROW Nebraska is an educational nonprofit that strives to help Nebraska entrepreneurs increase online visibility through social media and other platforms. They help these businesses get connections to move their business forward. They also provide free training to the public every third and fourth Thursday and Google training on the first Wednesday of the month. Find out more at grownebraska.org
So spring is officially here and we are looking forward to the upcoming Mother's Day/graduation season. One of our sponsors is GROW Nebraska and they have a Buy Nebraska store that has a ton of Nebraska-made products. If you're looking for an idea for a gift!
So many fun things; and Marcie, before we were members of GROW Nebraska, which has the Buy Nebraska store. I was actually sending those boxes. We have a navy girl in San Diego and she loves Dorothy Lynch. Well guess what? They can't get their Dorothy Lynch.
Yeah, for sure.
But besides just sending her Dorothy Lynch, when you make these boxes, you can pick out a variety of items. And they come in the cute Nebraska box. It's fantastic!
Yeah, when we were visiting with them, they actually have a whole room that is just full of Dorothy Lynch. (laughing) So, they have just so many different items. They have a website. You just go to buynebraska.com and you can pick whatever you would like to to put in your gift box to have just a little bit of Nebraska, no matter where you're living.
t's great for college students...care packages...perfect for that Mother's Day gift...Father's Day gift... because there's food items, there is a variety of things. You can find all kinds of products, including Growing Small Town Nebraska products.
Yes, we have a few products in their store as well. So we're excited about that opportunity. And we just encourage you to shop at buynebraska.com
Good morning, everyone. We are at the intersect co working space in Norfolk. And today we are talking with someone who has traveled across the state. Julie, can you count how many towns in the state you've visited?
Towns within this state?
Yes
A lot.
While our guests Seth Varner can tell us how many towns he's visited because he has traveled throughout the state of Nebraska to 531 towns.
Oh, he wins.
Yes. Welcome to the show, Seth.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you guys about small town tourism and some of the things I saw along my journey.
Yeah, well, the pandemic was the catalyst for your venture. Tell us how you got started, and where was the first place you visited?
So it's kind of funny, the whole thing started more or less out of boredom because of COVID. At the time, I was a college freshman in March of 2020. So I was going to school in Omaha. And then we all got sent back home to our little hometowns. And so I'm from Wahoo, about 45 minutes west of Omaha. And so I was just working at the local Dairy Queen where I'd worked all throughout high school, and there was nothing open throughout town. So, the only things my friends and I were doing, were basically playing video games or basketball outside or really just very limited activities, since every indoor business, restaurant, etcerta, was closed. So, after about a month of that, or so, I got to thinking like what's something special that we can do with the summer like something fun that a friend and I can do. And so, I kind of was going through my brain index of things. And I was like, you know, I remember these trips I took as a kid. So, my dad had this genealogy project he was working on back in about 2010 or so, and he would travel to small towns that were affiliated with my family and take pictures of the cemeteries and gravestones and churches and those kinds of things. And, me, being a second grader, a third grader at the time, obviously, I wasn't very interested in like the whole cemetery things, but I had my own little disposable Walmart camera and I would take pictures of things that interested me, like murals or population signs or water towers. And we went to like maybe ten towns or so. And I remember asking my dad at the time like,"Hey, can we go visit every town in Nebraska?" And obviously, you know, my dad's not going to take his 10 year old son every town in the state, but that idea kind of stuck with me that someday I wanted to do that. And so, long story short, by the time COVID rolled around, I went to my friend one day and I was like, "Hey, you want to go visit every town in the state?" And he said, "Sure, let's do it.!" And so we started on April 22, 2020, finished by July 12th, 2020. And the first few towns were just kind of surrounding communities and Wahoo. And Ithink Ithaca, Nebraska, was number one, and then it's Memphis, Ashland. And then kind of circled back and hit some more. Saunders county towns, and then every few days, we'd go out and visit more.
Wow, what a fun backstory behind that, that is really neat. Is it always the same people that travel with you; you bring other tagalongs with you?
So it kind of alternates...just depends who's available. So like the original trip in 2020, I had a friend, Austin, he went with me to every single incorporated town because him and I, we were best friends at the time. And I still say we're pretty much best friends. He went to all the towns and then we had some other co-workers would go with us like Brooklyn, she went to like 50 towns or so, our friend Jack from college joined us on our western Nebraska trips. And he's been to every town west of Grand Island. And I think he's been to about 400 out of the 531 in the state at this point. And so he's actually working on his own too, kind of slowly return to towns and check off all them on his list. But nowadays, it's pretty much whoever wants to come with me. I've taken my parents to small bars and restaurants in towns. I've taken my girlfriend to go check out unique shops and restaurants...somethings. I kind of just travel with whoever wants to go with me at this point.
Well, I've been following you on Facebook for quite a while and as we were doing this podcast, and Marcy and I were talking about guest ideas. I was like, "You've seen these, right? With these pictures?" And it looks like such a great time.
I've seen and done a lot of crazy things. I don't even know what my count is at this point. I think I've eaten in over 100 different bars and restaurants across the state now, which that aren't like say a Dairy Queen or a Pizza Hut or something like that, but all local. It's kind of cool when people come up to me and they're like, "Have you tried this bar in Malmo, Nebraska." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, R 'n K's!"
When you are going to the town's What was your focus? Like? Were you just planning on going in, taking a few snapshots? Which I'm sure kind of evolved as you went along.
Yeah. So that's honestly exactly how it started. Kind of like I said earlier, it kind of started out of boredom. And so the whole point is, we just wanted to say that we had been to every town. There had been no Facebook page for a while. And so actually, my mother told me after about 100 towns or so, she's like, you should make a page and see if people want to follow along. And sure enough, they did. But it kind of evolved from that just being bored. So now, when I go back to a town, I'll photograph every business, school, church, pretty much anything of note, except private residences. I photograph everything. And then, I also do kind of restaurant spotlights, I'll do business spotlights like, just yesterday, for example, I went to Sugar Shack Home Decor store in Edgar and I did a little spotlight for them. I kind of encompass all aspects of tourism. Like I say, there's like eight different aspects, and I try to do what I can to cover all of those.
Do you get a lot of suggestions from your followers?
Oh, tons of 'em. If I, if I put out a post, like asking, "Hey, I want to visit 20 restaurants this year. Can you guys give me some ideas?" I did that last year and I think I got like 300 comments of different restaurants.
Wow. (laughing)
And so (I) I of course, I write all of them down and make my notes and I know I can't go to all of them. But when I'm traveling around if I see a restaurant where I recognize that someone's mentioned it before, I'm more apt to stop into that one, because I know someone's eventually expecting me to make a Facebook post about it. I constantly get messages about people saying, "Hey, I own the property of an old ghost town, would you like to come tour it? I own this restaurant in this city would you like to check this out? I have this business in this small town, feel free to stop by anytime." And even Chamber directors, so I didn't meet in 2020, they still want to have me come back and kind of give me the full thorough tour of town as far as like indoor of different buildings, and kind of the history of each individual building on Main Street and those kinds of things.
That's wonderful. As you were traveling, was there any like unique things that you saw or surprises in your travels?
So define define "surprises." There are things that happened or I can talk about some of the cool sites that I saw too.
Go with either way. I don't care.
People kind of enjoy this: So this is this like the weirdest, kind of most random thing, but this was pretty early on the trip. We were in Elmwood, Nebraska. We were taking pictures in the city park we are right by the Bess Streeter Aldrich House. She's a famous author from there.
Yeah.
So I was taking pictures at that historical marker and checking out the home, and we just walked over to the park. And I don't know, we were talking and then out of nowhere (that's) a lemur ran from behind the house across the city park and then disappeared into the neighborhood in the background. And to this day, we are fully convinced that it has to have been a lemur.
Oh my! (laughing)
A lemur?! Okay.
A lemur.
There a little lost. I think.
The only reason I say it was a lemur is because you can't mistake that big, bushy, long tail like the ones you see at Henry Doorly Zoo.
Oh, fun. Was there any kind of like obstacles or things that you had during your traveling?
Yeah, so the obstacles definitely come with traveling. Though, that kind of goes for anybody who's trying to plan a road trip. So obviously, weather was a factor. When we were out by Ogallala, you know, you're kind of getting out there by the Panhandle. The day before we are there, there'd actually been several tornadoes in the area. And so we narrowly dodge those by a day. There's been times where I'm driving, and then you know, it's Nebraska, so it's, it's April in one second, 60 degrees and sunny, and 10 minutes later, it's blizzarding, and it's 30 degrees. So I think between all my travels, I've had like six flat tires, you know. There's like, there's like the basic like the road trip hassles, but then also, just the struggle of trying to now find everything in a town. So I've kind of taken on the documentation mindset where I tried to photograph everything in town. You just don't know how long those buildings are going to be there.
Oh sure.
It can be hard to find everything in town. And I find on Facebook that if I share, say 80 photos of Stratton, for example, if I miss like the one church on the outside of town, like people, let me know, I'd say that's probably the biggest struggle is finding everything in a town.
Yeah, and because you're not from there, you don't know what it is that is like "the thing" or the, you know, it could be something random that the whole town knows about, but because you're not from there, it's not gonna be on your radar.
Right. And that's why I try to learn ahead of time kind of what makes the town so unique. Like, this is kind of fresh in my mind. Like in the Deweese, for example, I was talking to one of the ladies from Sugar Shack who was from there. And she was talking about how Deweese had this dog named Dodger, the basset hound. And he was just the stray dog that went through town. She said, no matter what was going on, whether it was like a church dinner, or the town celebration, or anything that was going on in the community, Dodger was there. If you went to the post office, Dodger would probably find you there. If you went to church, he'd be waiting outside, waiting for all the people. That story, someone shared it with the Associated Press, and it went completely, nationally viral. And it got to the point where people started donating towards the town, just because they had the story about this dog and how the entire town took care of him. And they raised enough money that they were even able to build their own community center. I mean, a stray dog led to probably a multi-million dollar facility being constructed.
You know, that's kind of, Seth, what we're finding as we do this podcast, and we talk to people in different towns, are these random ideas. Sometimes they're an idea. Sometimes it is an accident, kind of like that, where it's just a surprise that, you know, all of a sudden, there's this attention, and that helps to build up their town. And nobody really ever saw it coming.
Right?
So after traveling 9000 miles, what would you say is the state's biggest strength?
I would say the hospitality. Everyone always talks about Nebraska's nice Midwest hospitality. And if you're from a bigger city, like Omaha, or Lincoln, or even like kind of Grand Island, Hastings,some of those towns, you don't see as much, because there's a pretty big line between, I feel like, the city folk of Nebraska who've lived there all their life and kind of transplants, who have moved from small towns to the city or vice versa. And then the small towns, you'll find in the small towns that everybody is willing to help you in any way they possibly can. That's something I really experienced on my original trip around the state was the hospitality was just amazing. And people wanted to donate to our trip. Hotel owners and people who owned homes or cabins and different things all offered those places for my friends and I to stay for free. Maybe partially because we were so young, but also largely because they knew what we were doing was important...going around and spotlighting all the small towns, but they just showed such enormous hospitality that I don't think that can be matched in any other part of the country.
What would you say? We're going to do the flip side of that a little bit, what would you say would be the state's biggest weakness?
So unfortunately, once you get out there, western Nebraska, some of those towns, just get to be so isolated as far as their geographic location. Like, I think of like the town of Cody, Nebraska, for example. You know, they're kind of up there. They're between Chadron and Valentine. Like, that's their two big cities, you know. (They) they had to drive I think it was 30 to 40 miles to Valentine for groceries before the local high school started, I think it's called Circle C or Circle K store. I'm sorry, I don't know the exact name. This little grocery store was founded by the high school. So, people no longer had to do that. But that's a very real thing still for many communities out west is, if you want to find somewhere to work, or you know, to send your kids to school or something, you might live in a town of 50 people that does not offer any employment opportunities other than maybe the grain elevator, and so you're kind of forced to send your children to a slightly bigger town; you're forced to have to commute maybe upwards of 20-30 miles just for work, and that kind of rural to urban shift is, it's happening at a fast pace. I definitely have some concerns about the small communities. And, towns need to find unique ways to stay, I guess relevant, and be able to keep the residents they have now to stay, but also bring in new people, whether that's through tourism, or opening like one small new business or something along those lines.
Yeah, that's what we're trying to help small towns in the state do, is to know what kind of things are available for them; and different ideas on what other towns have done to be able to revitalize their towns, because we don't want to lose any more small towns in Nebraska. So it's really important to us as well. As you were going through some of the towns, did you see revitalization projects that you thought were really successful?
I think in my hometown of Wahoo,, just because I'm here a lot. And even in just the past ten years, (is) there's been drastic improvements toward downtown. I mean, we used to have a lot of kind of empty storefronts. And with the help of our really amazing chamber team and some other people around the community, we've been able to fill pretty much every building in downtown. Now I think at this point, we just got a new steakhouse this past week, a bunch of boutiques moved in just a couple of years ago. And we're getting a lot of kind of smaller attractions that helped bring in people from Omaha and Lincoln and those kinds of areas. Because, when you offer multiple shopping options, multiple dining options, you give people pretty much the excuse to keep coming back. For example, a boutique hop. Like, we host those in Wahoo now pretty periodically. All kind of area towns team up and they'll do these kinds of tours where it's like, okay, you visit, say, five, five of the 15 boutiques, you'll get a voucher or a gift card to this business, and then the 10 of the 15, you'll get multiple vouchers, get 15 out of 15 we'll give you a t-shirt, you know, enter you into a drawing for say, I don't know, like a television or something like that.
Yeah, those are great ideas. I love it. The thing with building up the small towns and having things to do things to see, maybe stores that are closer...we do have people who can wor, you know a lot of people work remotely. Marcy and I both work remotely.
Yeah.
It makes it so they can live in those wonderful small towns and work and then also have things to do, people to connect with, things to see. So you know, you have traveled of course throughout the state, Marcy and I are hoping to travel more, meet more people, but what would you say would be Nebraska's best hidden secret?
Oh, man, you know, it's funny, everyone asks me this, and you know what my default respons is? There's something to do in every town, but you've just got to go out and find it for yourself. You can get pointers from locals and things, but every town has its own unique opportunity and...
That's a great answer.
Yeah.
I will point out a few different things kind of around the state. There's three big shops come to mind, if you want to shop small town Nebraska, or just kind of have a different shopping experience. Master's Hand, they've got the world's best cinnamon rolls and they tout themselves as "Every Woman's Dream Shop" because (it is a) it's an Airbnb, a confectionery, a home decor store, a restaurant, and a coffee shop all in one. You have Baker's Candies in Greenwood, which anyone who's from Nebraska, oh, if you haven't had a baker's meltaway, you are truly missing out. They are amazing. Even long, long before I traveled and made a relationship with the Baker's Candies folks, my family had those for every single holiday.
I have to take them every time I go out of state to my family that was one of the thing.s I have to grab bags of Baker's candies to haul all over the place, because they miss them from Nebraska.
They are so unbelievably popular.
Well I've eaten a lot of chocolate in my day, and I will say, (I mean from Europe and from everywhere) and tthey are as fine a chocolate as the ones you get from Europe. They're just really good chocolate.
Very high quality, and they take a lot of pride in making them pretty much perfect. And then Sugar Shack, which I mentioned before, it's probably Nebraska's best home decor store. They hand pour all of their wax candles, which is they're really amazing. They have like 50 different scents. And I know in central Nebraska, that's a huge draw, because they've established themselves as a destination location. And this town of Edgar, which only has about 450 people, if I recall correctly. And so, despite being such a small community, they draw in tens of thousands of people over the years, just because of how unique their store is.
Isn't it interesting how just one business in a small town, you know one business owner, one small business in a in a small town like that can make such a difference for their economy, for their tourism, and for growth in their small town.
Right? And it's amazing to see, like, of the three examples I gave, Tekamah is the biggest town obviously, it's the county seat in Burt County...2000 people. Greenwood's got about 500. And, there's only got about 450. It kind of goes to show where all you need is one individual to take that first step. And if you have that one thriving business in town, and you have all those visitors, that's going to encourage other potential business owners to perhaps set up their shops nearby, because they know that traffic's already coming through. And so, you have every excuse in the world to say, hey, if I want to start an arcade in this very small town, you know, arcades are long a thing of the past. I'm sure in the 80's they were (they're) probably all over the place in small town Nebraska. Say you want to go start that in say Shipley, they're close enough to Edgar where say...maybe it's a family. So, the wife wants to go check out Sugar Shack, does kind of the home decor shopping; the dad wants to check out some local bar or restaurant, something like that; and the kids, maybe when you're headed back east towards Omaha, or Lincoln, you stop in Shipley and you have an arcade there. (That does not exist. This is purely, purely made up.)
It's a good idea, though.
Right? Exactly, like it could happen. But then you know, you have another stop for the kids to do. What I found is, the more small towns that band together in the area, that's how you can get large numbers of visitors is: you all band together, and you work pretty much as a team of communities to drive as much traffic as you can to all of your local businesses and whatnot. Becaus, once people visit once, they're likely to come back again and again, if they have a good experience that first time around.
Love it. That is great advice and something that you've seen working and so yeah, great ideas out there. Just so you know, I'm over 50, and I'm kind of an arcade nut. So kids or no kids, I'm probably gonna go if anybody wants to open up arcade.
We have one more question for you, Seth. What do you love about living in a small town?
I'm kind of unique and that I've experienced what I call all three stages of town. So I grew up on an acreage outside of Malmo, Colon, and Prague, Nebraska...all extremely small towns, you know. I was (I was) a little country boy until I was about 10 years old and so I love just the open range, being able to run around and not have to worry about, we didn't have neighbors, we just got to play with our pets. Life was simple. It was just kind of us on the farm, and we kind of did our own thing. It was nice kind of being solitary. And then when I was 10, I moved to Wahoo where I lived until I was 19 and went to college. I love Wahoo just because we are so close. If we want to go the big city, we do have the option of going to Omaha, Lincoln, those kinds of things. And then obviously moving to the city and Omaha. I do like Omaha, having lived there now for four or five years. And it's nice having all like the different, you know, it's the restaurant options, the entertainment options, like don't get me wrong, like, you got the zoo and Beercade, the arcade. Amazing place in the state and all these different parks and Gene Leahy mall, things you can do there. But there's just something different about living in the big cities where life is so fast paced in the city where it's just kind of go go go all the time. And then I come back to Wahoo. And just life is slow here, like you don't hear semis roaring by and people honking at each other and all this kind of chit chattering around the neighborhood. It's just, it's just quiet here. It's just it's peaceful.
Oh, that's great. We know that you have a book that you have put all different kinds of things about the state in Nebraska, which will add to our social media posts. (And) but we just thank you once again for being on with us today.
Yeah, and thank you for having me. And thank you for all you guys do to help grow small towns. It's really important, I think to a lot of people in the state that we keep fighting to keep our small towns alive. You know, with time I think people will come up with new ideas and businesses and stuff to kind of revitalize their communities and I will say in most of the communities, (they seem to be) almost every single one of them has an ongoing project where they're working to bring in more tourism, bring in more residents; and Nebraska is growing. People may think that, you know, or they'll say there's not much to do here. But there truly is something to do and appreciate every town, and you just got to take the time out to go and explore and find it.
Perfect. Well, thank you again, we just love talking to you. We'll keep looking at your posts.
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me again, guys. I really appreciate it.
Marcy, it was really fun to talk to Seth. What a lot of adventures he's had.
Yes he has.
So we have some adventures coming up of our own.
Yes, we do! On May 10th, we want to invite everyone who is our listener, if you're in the area, we will be having our open house that day, at the Intersect Co-working Space in Norfolk,
Even if you're not from the area, we invite you to travel; go see some of the great things going on as you take that trip throughout Nebraska from wherever you're coming from. We're going to start things off on May 10th at 9am. Marcy and I are going to be very honored to present for 1 Million Cups Norfolk. So that is also live streamed. If you can't make it quite that early. Go ahead and watch that or watch it later. But we're super excited with that. And then we move on to the Chamber.
Yes, we'll be having a ribbon cutting ceremony here for the podcast. So we're super excited to be part of the Norfolk Area Chamber of Commerce. And so we will be having that ribbon cutting and lots of people will be joining us for that as well.
All of that is taking place downtown Norfolk at Intersect. Then, we move on to our open house. And we're just excited to visit with everyone, tell you some of the great things going on in the podcast, get some of your ideas as well. And Marcy, we're gonna have some giveaways and all of that good stuff.
Yes, we're going to be having some giveaway baskets along with some yummy foods. So please join us.
Yeah, make sure you stop by! We're going to do some sponsorship specials, we're going to have some of our merchandise for you to look at. But mostly we just want to get to know you. We want to say thank you to those who've been our guests so far, to those who've been our sponsors so far, and then get your ideas for upcoming guests.
So please join us on May 10. At the Intersect Co-working Space for our open house.
...and we'll see you there!
Stanton State Bank has been growing small town Nebraska through big and small business and personal loans for over 140 years. At Stanton State Bank you'll find old fashioned, friendly service, plus the technology to bring you the latest in banking. They have two convenient locations at 924 Ivy Street in Stanton, and 1021 Riverside Boulevard in Norfolk. Visit Stanton state bank today for all your banking needs. Member FDIC
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The Growing Small Town Nebraska podcast can be found on Apple, Spotify, and Google podcasts. New episodes come out every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Join us again next time as we talk with business and community leaders who are working to revitalize the Cornhusker State. Thanks for listening
