New Horizona Newspaper

A publication of the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging

February 2013VOL. 38 • NO. 2

ENOA4223 Center StreetOmaha, NE 68105-2431

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New Horizons

Laura Jean O’Connor directs the Papillion Senior Singers. These Sarpy County

performers are booked through March.See page 3.

ARTIST

Sherie Garner, with her dog, Tango, has created an art medium known as classical realism.

Learn more about her career. See page 16.

SINGERS

Leo Adam Biga profiles Bob Hoig, founder of the Midlands Business Journal (1975) and the

Lincoln Business Journal (1996). Hoig has lived a colorful life as a newspaper man and

as the pilot of his Cessna aircraft.The story begins on page 10.

(Journal)ist

• New Horizons • February 2013

Heartland Family Service Senior Center February 2013 events calendar9

Women Who Rock:

Vision, Passion, PowerThrough May 5

Durham Museum$5 & $8

402-444-5071

19The Chieftains

with Paddy MahoneyHolland Performing

Arts Center7:30 p.m.$25 to $60

402-345-0606

22Donny McCaslin Group

1200 CLUB Live at the Holland

Holland Performing Arts Center

8 p.m.$25

(subject to change)402-345-0606

The Magic FluteOpera Omaha409 S. 16th St.Also Feb. 24

Friday @ 7:30 p.m.

Sunday @ 2 p.m.

$19 to $79402-345-0606

23We Want the Vote:

Women’s Suffrage on the Great Plains

Through May 26Durham Museum

$4 & $8402-444-5071

25UNO Art Majors’ Juried ExhibitionThrough March 28

Weber Fine Arts Building

@ UNOFREE

402-554-2796

28Spring Dance

Through March 3Lied Education Center

for the Arts@ Creighton UniversityWednesday – Saturday

@ 7:30 p.m.Sunday @ 2 p.m.

$15 & $18402-280-1447

2Omaha Symphony

James Bond & Beyond8 p.m.

Holland Performing Arts Center$20 to $65

402-342-3560

6Blues at the Crossroads 2

Muddy and the Wolf7:30 p.m.

Holland Performing Arts Center$25 to $55

402-345-0606

Dames at SeaThrough Feb. 10

Lied Education Center@ Creighton UniversityWednesday – Saturday

@ 7:30 p.m.Sunday @ 2 p.m.

$15 & $18402-280-2636

748th Annual Omaha

Home & Garden Expo15th Annual Lawn,

Flower, & Patio ShowThrough Feb. 10

Century Link Center Omaha402-341-1500

Drumline LiveOrpheum Theater

7:30 p.m.$15 to $55

402-345-0606

Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry ExperienceThrough Feb. 10

Holland Performing Arts Center

Thursday & Friday @ 7 & 9:30 p.m.

Saturday & Sunday @ 2 & 7 p.m.$48 to $55

402-345-0606

8Evil Dead the Musical

Through March 17Omaha Community Playhouse

402-553-0800

9Omaha Symphony

John PizzarelliAlso Feb. 10

Holland Performing Arts CenterSaturday @ 8 p.m.Sunday @ 2 p.m.

$15 to $75402-342-3560

Make It Great, Be Extraordinary at Saint Joseph Tower! Life Is What You Make It...

• Quality living at an affordable price

• Licensed nurse staff and certified staff on duty 24 hours a day

• Outstanding activities program

• Locally owned & operated

You’re invited to visit the Heartland Family Service Se-nior Center, 2101 S. 42nd St. for the following:

• Feb. 7, 14, & 21: WhyArts class with Jacqueline @ 10 a.m. (2/14) and 10:30 a.m. (2/7 & 2/21).

• Feb. 14: Valentine’s Day party sponsored by the Heart-land Family Service Guild.

• Feb 20: Birthday party with entertainment by Johnny Ray Gomez @ 10:45 a.m.

• Feb. 22: Blood sugar checks by a nurse @ 10 a.m.• Feb. 22: Trip to the Shrine Circus @ 1 p.m. • Feb. 28: Movie (TBA).A nurse visits Mondays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Call Karen

@ 402-453-8487 for an appointment.The center will be closed on Feb. 18 for the Presidents’

Day celebration.The Heartland Family Service Senior Center is open

weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Lunch is normally served at noon. A $3 donation is suggested for the meal. Reserva-tions are due by noon the business day prior to the lunch you wish to attend.

Transportation is available within specific boundaries for 50 cents each way.

Regular activities include Tai Chi classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday @ 10:15 a.m.

For meal reservations or more information, please call Karen at 402-552-7480 of the front desk at 402-553-5300.

With Lifeline by Immanuel, you can enjoy an independent lifestyle in your own home — knowing that you can call for help if you ever need it. One push of your Lifeline button connects you to someone with access to your medical history, someone who can evaluate your situation and immediately send help. To learn more about the security and peace of mind provided by Lifeline, call (402) 829-3277 or toll-free at (800) 676-9449.

Someday this button might save your life.For now, it sets you free.

www.immanuellifeline.com

Advertisements appearing in New Horizons do not imply endorsement of the advertiser by the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging. However, complaints about advertisers will be reviewed and, if warranted, their advertising discon-tinued. Display and insert advertising rates available on request. Open rates are commissionable, with discounts for extended runs. Circulation is 20,000 through direct mail and freehand distribution.

New Horizons is the official publication of the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging. The paper is distributed free to people over age 60 in Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, Washington, and Cass counties. Those living outside the 5-county region may subscribe for $5 annually. Address all correspondence to: Jeff Reinhardt, Editor, 4223 Center Street, Omaha, NE 68105-2431. Phone 402-444-6654. FAX 402-444-3076. E-mail: [email protected]

The New Horizons and the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging provide services without regard

to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, disability, or age.

Editor..............................................Jeff Reinhardt Ad Mgr................Mitch Laudenback, 402-444-4148Contributing Writers......Nick Schinker, Leo Biga, Barc Wade, & Lois FriedmanFremont Delivery.........................Dick Longstein

ENOA Board of Governors: Mary Ann Borge-son, Douglas County, chairperson; Jim Warren, Sarpy County, vice-chairperson; Jerry Kruse, Washington County, secretary; Gary Osborn, Dodge County, & Jim Peterson, Cass County.

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Papio singers combine fun, music

Members of the Papillion Senior Singers on hand for a recent rehearsal were (front row, from left): Elaine Biggie, Joanne Dahir, Rosie Bartling, and

Rajaena Appleby. Back row, from left: Dean Schechinger, Duane Schechinger, Floyd Hermanson, Herbert Cooley, and Laura Jean O’Connor. Members

not present were Carolyn Schoepf, Edith Fisher, Frances Anderson, Pat Cooley, Norma Dineen, Mel Hewett, and John Fry.

Laura Jean O’Connor believes older people and music go together like ice cream and pie, so in 2004 she and some other folks at the Papil-

lion Senior Center started the Papillion Senior Singers with five female and three male vocalists.

Today, the musical ensemble performs most Tuesday afternoons at area retirement communities, nursing facilities, and for church groups, said O’Connor who doubles as the Papillion Senior Center’s manager and the singing group’s director.

“We’ve also performed at funerals and weddings,” she added.

No matter the venue, fun is the prevailing attitude among the vocalists, their accom-panist, and the director. During a recent rehearsal, the women wore poodle skirts while the men were dressed as Elvis Pres-ley.

O’Connor said the Papillion Senior Sing-ers’ members – who range in age from 64

to 90 – entertain audiences with a variety of different shows with themes including the Roaring ‘20s, Comedy Hour, the Nifty ‘50s, Hawaiian, Elvis Presley, Old Time Gospel, Rootin’ Tootin’ Western, Irish, Vaudeville, Winter/Christmas, Gay ‘90s, and USA Road Trip.

Each 45-minute show features the sing-ers’ rendition of This Land is Your Land, Old Glory, Red Skelton’s Pledge of Alle-giance, and the crowd-pleasing God Bless America.

O’Connor said the patriotic shows are dedicated to the military veterans in the audience and their families who are in-troduced and recognized by their service branch.

She said the singers enjoy performing in part because they’re so appreciated by their peers in the audience. After every perfor-mance the ensemble filters through the crowd and speak with their “fans.”


Ophthalmologists at the Oregon Health & Science University’s Casey Eye Institute caution the use of multiple common medi-cations could cause dry eye disease (DED). An article recently published in the Journal of Ophthalmology looks at the similarities between dry eye and dry mouth and attri-butes these conditions in part to the effects caused by using five or more prescription or over the counter drugs, otherwise known as polypharmacy.

“Dry Eye Disease has not been widely studied, but for people who have the condi-tion, it really affects their quality of life,” said Frederick Fraunfelder, M.D., an oph-thalmologist at the Casey Eye Institute and senior author of the article. “There is the potential that medications are affecting or aggravating the occurrence of dry eye in many people.”

According to the Physician’s Desk Refer-ence, out of the top 100 best selling drugs in the United States in 2009, it’s possible that 22 drugs could cause dry eye and dry mouth and another 34 could cause only dry mouth. Therefore, 56 percent of these drugs could possibly cause dry eye because both the eyes and mouth are hydrated by nearly identical nervous systems.

However, patients with dry mouth gen-erally have straightforward complaints, said Fraunfelder; their mouth feels dry and they need increased fluids when they eat. But DED may actually start with increased tearing and can also include burning, itch-ing, foreign body (or sandy) feeling, mucus discharge, or blurred vision, which makes it harder to diagnose and treat.

The medications that likely cause or ag-gravate DED range from antipsychotics, antihistamines, antidepressants, and antivi-ral treatments to common over-the-counter painkillers and multivitamins. Additionally, topical medications such as agents used to

treat glaucoma, eye drops meant to treat allergies or viruses or any optical solutions containing preservatives can greatly in-crease the occurrence of DED.

William Mathers, M.D., an ophthalmolo-gist at the Casey Eye Institute has been studying dry eye for 27 years. He explained when medications are used together poten-tial side affects are compounded.

“Dry eye doesn’t happen in isolation; it’s a reflection of a complicated system,” said Mathers. “Everyone who gets older has less tear, but if you alter your nervous system significantly through polypharmacy, you could set yourself up for inflammation, which is the ultimate cause of dry eye.”

Polypharmacy poses problems because many medications can interact with each other in ways that are difficult to predict and this trend becomes increasingly com-plex as additional medications are added.

Mathers explained dry eye usually af-fects people between the ages of 40 to 60. But people outside of that age range can be affected as well. He recommends patients talk with their doctors about diet and behav-ior changes that can replace discretionary medications and naturally lower inflamma-tion in the body.

Fraunfelder, who started the National Registry of Drug-Induced Ocular Side Ef-fects (NRDIOSE), an online registry that records medications’ side affects on the eyes, recommends patients let their doctors know if any of their medications are caus-ing dry mouth, as this may indicated that the medication could be causing or aggra-vating their dry eye.

He also recommends that patients expe-riencing dry eye ask their doctors to look up their medications on the NRDIOSE. The aggravating drug might then be substituted by another or given at a time when its peak drying effect occurs during sleep.

Multiple meds can cause dry eyes Read it & eatBy Lois Friedman

[email protected]

Recipes for Valentine’s love, loversLove is in the air, a time for love & lovers! You’ll love

these cookbooks filled with all that is sweet and delicious.

Cake Love In the Morning By Warren Brown (Abrams, $24.95)

Recipes for muffins, scones, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and everything breakfast from this Washington D. C. bak-ery owner who traded tortes for tarts.

We Love Madeleines By Miss Madeleine (Chronicle, $17.95)

This shell-shaped French classic cookie is the basis of 40 sweet and savory recipes from bakers around the world.

So Sweet! Edited By Sur La Table (Andrews McMeel, $15)

Fifty fabulously sweet, salty, chocolaty, fruity, or nutty recipes from the award-winning Sur La Table.

Blissful Bites By Peter Veldsman (H&R, $33.95)

Three-hundred nibbles and more recipes for anytime of the night or day with menus, lovely photographs, and step-by-step instructions from this South African food guru.

Cakes to Celebrate Love & Life By C. Maritz & M. Guy ( Struik, $23.95)

Grab your apron and enjoy these recipes from this Cape Town brother and sister duo. Luscious photos!

The Apple Lover’s Cookbook By Amy Traverso (W.W. Norton, $29.95)

History, stories, a variety guide, and apple magic. These sweet and savory recipes in this encyclopedia of apples have step-by-step directions and photographs.

The Sugar Cube By Kir Jensen (Chronicle, $24.95)

Fifty sweet and savory recipes from this tiny pink Port-land food truck. Whip up this super easy indulgence.

Chocolate Panini

Makes 1 serving

Two ½-inch-thick slices Brioche bread or other white breadHigh-quality, fruity, extra-virgin olive oil for drizzlingOne ounce chopped bittersweet chocolate or two to three tablespoons NutellaFleur de Sel for sprinkling

Brush one side of each bread slice liberally with olive oil. Arrange the chocolate (or spread the Nutella) evenly on the non-oiled side of one of the slices. Top with the other slice, oiled-side up. If you have a Panini press, grill the sandwich until golden brown on both sides and the chocolate has melted (a minute or two.) If you don’t have a Panini press, heat a small sauté pan over medi-um-high heat.

When hot, add two teaspoons of oil and the sandwich. Weight the sandwich with a heavy cast-iron skillet or a heat-safe plate topped with canned goods or a kettle full of water. Go ahead and get creative; the goal is to flatten the sucker! Cook until golden brown and the chocolate has begun to melt (about one min-ute.) Turn and repeat on the other side, adding a little more oil if the pan seems dry.

Remove the sandwich from the heat and let cool a minute. Then drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with fleu de sel, and cut cross-wise into triangles.

The National Association of Retired Federal Em-ployees’ Chapter 144 meets the first Wednesday of each month at 11:30 a.m. at the Amazing Pizza Machine, 13955 S Plz.

For more information, please call 402-333-6460.The National Association of Retired Federal Employ-

ees’ Aksarben Chapter 1370 meets the second Wednes-day of each month at 11:30 a.m. at the Amazing Pizza Machine, 13955 S Plz.

For more information, please call 402-392-0624.

Retired fed employees meet at Omaha eatery

Hearing loss can cost you more than a hearing aid…

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Knee replacement surgery has come a long way since

it was first performed in 1968. More than 600,000 knee replacements are performed each year in the United States, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a division of the U.S. Depart-ment of Health and Human Services.

Improvements in materi-als and advances in surgical techniques have led to better outcomes for patients: faster recovery, improved func-tion, and greater longevity.

The majority of knee replacements are performed on people over age 60 but improved surgical results have induced many younger people to have the proce-dure sooner rather than later to reduce discomfort and enable active lives as they age.

“As new surgical pro-cedures have been devel-oped and refined, one that is sometimes offered as an alternative to total knee replacement is partial knee replacement,” says Dr. Joel Buchalter of Somers Ortho-paedic Surgery and Sports Medicine Group.

“Partial knee replacement may be possible when dam-age is limited to just one part of the knee but it isn’t the best option in most cases and it’s important to under-stand the limitations, espe-cially for younger patients.” The knee, the largest joint in the body, acts as a hinge to provide motion where the thigh meets the lower leg. The thigh bone (femur) meets the large bone of the lower leg (tibia) at the knee joint, protected in the front by the kneecap (patella). The joint surfaces where these three bones touch are covered with cartilage, a smooth substance that cush-ions the bones and enables them to move easily.

As a result of injury or the wear and tear of aging, the cartilage can soften and wear away, allowing the bones to rub against each other and causing osteoar-thritis, the most common cause of chronic knee pain and disability.

A study published by the Centers for Dis-ease Control (CDC)

reports that nearly half (46 percent) of American adults and 2/3 of obese adults will develop painful knee os-teoarthritis at some point. When the surface of the

joint is worn away, walking and daily activities become difficult. Conservative mea-sures such as weight loss, anti-inflammatory medica-tion, braces, orthotics, ste-roid injections, and physical therapy are generally tried and may be effective. In many cases, however, non-surgical treatment fails to correct functional limita-tions and relieve progres-sive pain, leading people to consider knee replace-ment. “In knee replacement sur-gery, we remove damaged cartilage and bone from the surface of the knee joint and replace it with a man-made surface of metal and plas-tic,” says Dr. Buchalter. “Resurfacing the dam-aged and worn surfaces of the knee can relieve pain and help the patient resume normal activities.

“Some patients whose knee damage is confined to just one part of the knee may be candidates for a par-tial knee replacement. But there are very few patients for whom a partial replace-ment will produce a better long-term outcome than a total knee replacement.”

The knee joint can be thought of as having three parts, or compartments: the front, the inside, and the outside. Most patients’ arthritis involves more than one compartment and their only option is total knee replacement. But if all the damage is to a single com-partment, a partial or “uni-compartmental” replace-ment may be feasible.

Improvements in materials, techniques are leadingto better outcomes for knee replacement patients

A partial replacement removes only the damaged area of cartilage, requiring a smaller incision and en-abling a faster recovery than with a total knee replace-ment. The disadvantages of partial knee replacement are that pain relief is less predictable and, most im-portantly, that the replace-ment may be less durable and further surgery may be needed.

The most frequent cause of additional surgery is the development or progression of arthritis in the remain-ing parts of the knee, which necessitates conversion to a total knee replacement, a surgical procedure that is more complex than an initial total replacement.

In addition to having damage limited to only one part of the knee, candidates for partial knee replacement are generally elderly, slen-der, and relatively seden-tary. Further, patients with significant knee stiffness or ligament damage are not good candidates.

“There are few patients that match the optimal pro-file for partial knee replace-ment,” says Dr. Buchalter. “And even in those that are eligible, the possibility of arthritis progressing in other parts of the knee raises the potential for future addi-tional surgery. Most patients will have higher probability of a long-term successful outcome with total knee re-placement, a proven proce-dure that has brought long-lasting relief to millions of people.”

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Millard Senior Center events calendar

Corrigan Senior Center events calendar

You’re invited to visit the Millard Senior Center at Montclair, 2304 S. 135th Ave., for the following:

• Wednesday, Feb. 13: Sewing dresses for little girls in Africa and making shorts for little boys in Africa from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Stick around for lunch @ 11:30 a.m.

• Wednesday, March 6: Easter basket weaving from 9 to 11:30 a.m. There is a 10-person limit for this program. Participants will need to pay $5 for the materials. Call Su-san Sunderman at 402-546-1270 to sign up.

The Millard Senior Center is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Lunch is served at 11:30. A $3 donation is sug-gested for the meal. Reservations are due by noon the busi-ness day prior to the lunch you wish to enjoy.

Center activities include Tai Chi (Mondays and Fridays from 10 to 10:45 a.m. for $1), chair volleyball, card games, quilting class (Thursdays @ 9 a.m.), and bingo.

Walking club participants – who will receive a free t-shirt when joining – are encouraged to set goals for them-selves. Those meeting their goals will receive another free t-shirt and homemade cookies. Participants are encouraged to walk in the Montclair Community Center gym weekdays beginning at 8 a.m.

A knitting class for beginners will be offered Fridays at 11 a.m. The materials and knitting needles will be pro-vided.

For meal reservations and more information, please call Susan Sunderman at 402-546-1270.

You’re invited to visit the Corrigan Senior Center, 3819 X St. this month for:

• Feb. 4: Groundhog Day celebration, lunch, and bingo. Lunch includes country fried steak or a turkey and cheese sandwich. Creighton U. pharmacy students will present a program on medication adherence @ 11:30 a.m.

• Feb. 11: Mardi Gras and February birthdays’ celebration. Vocalist Joyce Torchia from the Merrymakers performs @ 11 a.m. The lunch menu is a chicken pot pie, a biscuit, and fruit, or a chef’s salad. Bingo and door prizes will be available. Wear your Mardi Gras apparel and we’ll hand out the beads.

• Feb. 14: Valentine’s Day party including bingo, games, prizes, and a lunch featuring roast beef or a crab salad.

• Feb. 21: Sweetheart Dinner Dance with music by Red Raven and the coronation of our king and queen. The lunch menu is pork roast, red skinned potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, a tossed salad, and a wheat roll.

The reservation deadline is Feb. 15.• Feb. 25: Presentation by Jana of Does & Divas Dairy

of Iowa on operating a goat and sheep farm @ 11 a.m. The center will be closed Feb. 18 for Presidents’ Day.The Corrigan Senior Center is open weekdays from 8

a.m. to 4 p.m. Lunch is served at noon. A $3 donation is normally suggested for the meal. Reservations are normally due by noon the business day prior to the meal you wish to enjoy.

We offer chair volleyball, card games, bingo, ceramics, exercise, woodcarving, and loads of fun!

For meal reservations or more information, please call Lynnette at 402-731-7210.


By Carol McNulty

Most people lose about two liters of their body’s water weight every day, but this doesn’t mean every-one has to drink two liters of water every day to replace it.

The standard guideline of eight to 10 glasses of water a day puts the amount of water people need into perspective, but individuals may actually require more or less. The common sense way to determine how much water is actually needed is to simply attention to thirst and drink water whenever thirsty.

Drinking glasses of water is not the only way that water can be consumed. According to nutrition educator Cindy Brison, water is ob-tained from a variety of sources. For example, lettuce is 98 percent water and other vegetables and fruits contain sizable amounts of water. Foods heavy in fat and oils contain the least amount of water.

Some good sources of water for children are fruit juice or popsicles. These products also are high in sugar and should not be overused. However, do not rely on only one source of water, such as drinking

only soda or milk. Include some glasses of water in the diet.

The consequence of not obtain-ing an adequate amount of water is dehydration. Brison says dehydra-tion often occurs when people are exposed to extreme temperatures or are not paying attention to the body’s need. In the hot weather months, high temperatures lead to frequent perspiration that requires one cup to three cups of water every hour. To have a source of water available at all times, carry a water bottle during hot weather activities.

The first sign of dehydration is increased thirst. Symptoms of a two percent to five percent loss of the body’s water weight are dry mouth, flushed skin, fatigue, headache, and decreased physical performance. At a six percent loss, body tempera-ture increases, breathing becomes labored during physical activity, and the pulse rate increases. At an eight percent loss, dizziness is experi-enced. At a 10 percent to 11 percent loss, muscle spasms occur and men-tal alertness is decreased. Brison says drinking fluids usu-ally is sufficient for treating mod-erate dehydration. Have frequent,

small amounts of fluids to replace lost fluids. If the condition does not improve, a doctor’s care may be needed.

The mechanism that signals thirst is not as reliable in children and older adults due to immaturity or aging. If they are flushed or seem tired, ask them if they drank any water. To help determine if children are dehydrated, look for symptoms of mild to moderate dehydration that include dry mouth, few or no tears when crying, or no urination for six to eight hours.

In an infant, dehydration can be signaled by fewer than six wet dia-

pers per day and a sunken soft spot on the head. For severe dehydration, look for dry, wrinkled, or doughy skin, inactivity or decreased alert-ness, sunken eyes, no urination for several hours, muscle cramps, and deep, rapid breathing.

Another way to determine severe dehydration is to test for decreased skin turgor. Pull skin up for a few seconds and let it go. If skin doesn’t return to its original state quickly, there could be severe dehydration.

(McNulty is an educator with the University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension Office in Douglas and Sarpy counties.)

Persons of all ages should drink plenty of water to fight off dehydration

Persons caring for a loved one with special needs who sometimes feel overwhelmed or stressed by their caregiving duties are invited to attend the Nebraska Respite Network 2013 Caregiver Retreat.

The retreat will be held Wednesday, April 24 and Thursday, April 25 at the Mahoney State Park Lodge near Ashland, Neb.

Activities will include motivational speakers, massage therapy, art and music therapy, and opportunities for caregiver support and collaboration.

The cost is $90 dollars. Lodging costs are also the responsibility of the registrants.

For more information and to learn more about a limited number of schol-arships available for family caregivers, please contact Elizabeth Chentland at (402) 996-8444 or [email protected].

Caregiver retreat scheduled for April 24, 25

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease allows for the best opportunities for treatment,

support, and planning for the future.


?• Bath aides• Care management• Chore services• Community education• Durable medical equipment• Emergency food pantry• Emergency response systems• ENOA facts and figures• ENOA Library• ENOA senior centers• Grandparent Resource Center

Log on to enoa.org

Do you have questions about aging services

in Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, Cass, or Washington counties?

• Homemakers• Information &

assistance telephone lines

• Intergeneration Orchestra of Omaha

• Legal services• Meals on Wheels• Medicaid Waiver• New Horizons• Nutrition counseling

• Ombudsman advocates• Respite care• Respite Resource Center• Rural transportation• Senior Care Options• Senior employment• Support of adult day facilities• Volunteer opportunities

The Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging’s Web site includes information about:

24 hours a day,

7 days a week!

The Nebraska Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing offers a variety of programs and services including:

• Specialized telecommunications equipment such as a free amplified telephone and ring signaling devices.

• An assistive devices loan program.• Presentations about the concerns of the deaf and hard

of hearing.• Sign language classes.For more information, please call Beth Ellsworth at

402-595-2774 or (toll free) 800-545-6244, or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Help for the deaf, hard of hearing

49th & Q Street • 402-731-2118www.southviewheightsomaha.com

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Independent & Assisted

Living

By Jen Vogt

As our loved ones age, we might notice some changes in their

personalities or the way they behave. They may forget the day of the week, repeat a story, or need help with a routine task such as balanc-ing a checkbook. Are these just signs of getting older? Or could they be indicators of a more serious concern such as Alzheimer’s dis-ease?

There are some typical changes that occur with aging that can be confused with the signs of early Al-zheimer’s disease. Some of these might include forget-ting the day of the week but remembering it later, making a minor error while balancing a checkbook or following a recipe, needing help to understand new or unfamiliar tasks, misplacing things from time to time, or becoming irritable when a normal routine is disrupted.

Knowing what is typi-cal of aging and what’s not a sign of Alzheimer’s can ease your fears as your loved one gets older.

There are also several ear-ly indicators that a person is developing Alzheimer’s disease. Looking carefully for these signs can help you encourage your loved one to visit a physician and seek

early treatment. • Daily life is interrupted

by memory loss. Forgetting recently learned information is one of the most common signs of early Alzheimer’s disease. Other signs may include forgetting important dates, having to be remind-ed of information over and over, or relying on someone to help them remember information they were once able to remember on their own.

• Planning or problem solving becomes difficult.

It may take your loved one more time to make a de-cision than it used to. Tasks such as following a recipe or working with numbers may cause trouble.

• Time or place is con-fused. Individuals may have a difficult time remember-ing how they got to a place. They may also be confused about the time of year, or even lose track of the pas-sage of time.

• Speaking or formulat-ing words becomes dif-ficult. Following or joining a conversation may present a problem for individuals with Alzheimer’s. They may forget how to continue a conversation once it has started. They may also have issues with vocabulary and use the wrong word for a common item.

• Interest is lost in work or social activities. Because

Be aware of the early signs of Alzheimer’s diseaseof the changes they are experiencing, a person with Alzheimer’s may distance themselves from social situations, work, or favorite hobbies.

• Items are lost and steps cannot be retraced. Common items are often put away in strange places. Individuals may not be able to remember where they put them, or retrace their stepsto find a lost item. They may accuse others of steaing these items.• Mood and personality may change. With all the changes happening to an in-dividual facing Alzheimer’s disease, it’s easy to under-stand why they may become confused, anxious, irritable, fearful, or suspicious.

One, several, or all of these signs could indicate your loved one may be suf-fering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The best course of action is to visit a physician as soon as possible. Keep specific notes of the types of behav-ior you’re observing in your loved one and talk with a physician about them.

Early diagnosis of Al-zheimer’s disease allows for the best opportunities for treatment, support, and planning for the future.

(Vogt is with Midwest Ge-riatrics, Inc. of Omaha.)


To help families understand what hospice is and how it can improve the quality of life, the Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Association created the Hospice lets me be… awareness campaign.

“Hospice is the process of helping pa-tients live well during the final phase of life,” Dr. Lisa Mansur explains within the campaign video. “They are not so much afraid of dying. They are afraid of suffering and they want a plan of care,” she adds.

“Our studies show many people have a misconception of what hospice is and they don’t know how to find or access hospice services,” says NHPCA Executive Director Heath Boddy. “This multi-media awareness campaign uses a variety of elements that can be found online at www.hospicelets-mebe.org to help people begin the conversa-tion about end-of-life care.

Additionally, Boddy said the awareness campaign was created to encourage patients and their families to tell their stories about hospice care and how it benefits or has benefited their lives. These stories of real Nebraskans sharing their hospice experi-ences are at the core of the campaign.

In the campaign video, a hospice patient named Helen shares her story about turning to hospice care after frequent trips to the hospital. While at first, she thought hospice was a “death sentence,” she now feels it has increased her quality of life. Hospice allows her to stay home to do the things she loves.

The video also shares the story of Fred, whose estranged father received hospice care. Thanks to hospice, Fred was able to reconnect with his father months before he died.

Additional tools and resources including other stories from hospice patients, hospice provider information, and tools to help you start the conversation, can be found at www.hospiceletsmebe.org.

(The Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Association provided this informa-tion.)

Persons with disabilities and their families often need to work with a variety of community and state agencies in order to

get the services and support they need. In Nebraska, there’s a program to help answer questions that are encountered along the way and to help find the appropriate resources.

The Hotline for Disability Services provides information and referral services to Nebraskans who have questions or concerns related to a disability. This includes information about services available in a certain area, transportation, special parking permits, and legal rights.

Questions may be answered by telephone or e-mail and other information may be obtained by accessing the Hotline’s website.

The Hotline for Disability Services website provides general agency and program information regarding services

for persons with disabilities. The site may be searched by entering an agency name or by selecting a category, service, county, city, age, or disability.

Examples of categories to choose from include: accessibility, advocacy and support, employment, financial, housing/residential, etc. Information regarding each agency includes a description of their services, as well as information on how to contact them.

Interested individuals may call the Hotline toll-free at 800-742-7594. Questions for the Hotline may also be sent by e-mail to [email protected].

The website for the Hotline can be accessed at: www.cap.ne.gov. Click on “Search the Hotline for Disability Services.”

Campaign designed to educatethe public about hospice care

Hotline for Disability Services cananswer questions, make referrals

Older adults may notice gradual changes in their

hearing, memory, vision, and mobility that could create the need for assis-tive technology. Some of these older men and women may need a cane, a scooter, a listening device,

or a lighted magnifier.One way to learn more

about obtaining assistive technology equipment is by logging on to at4all.com, a free online service that lists and can help you find these devices in Nebraska.

The service can help consumers:

• Borrow and try the equipment before buying.

• Buy used and/or free equipment.

• List items they want to share or sell.

For more information, please call Assistive Tech-nology Partnerships at (toll free) 1-888-806-6287.

Assistive technology information is available

Law Offices of Charles E. Dorwart

31 years of legal experience• Wills • Living Trusts • Probate

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available

Fontenelle Tours Omaha/Council Bluffs: 712-366-9596

Quoted prices are per person, double occupancy. For more information about our tours, please call Ward or Kathy Kinney at Fontenelle Tours at the number listed above.

2013 MotorcoachBuddy Holly at the New Theater. July 6. TBD. Take a Saturday trip to Kansas City and rock in your seat to the Golden Oldies in the “Buddy Holly Story” while you enjoy a wonderful lunch buffet at the New Theater.

Nebraska Junk Jaunt. September 27-28. TBD. Come along on our fifth annual “Junk Jaunt” covering more than 220 miles in central Nebraska. Participating towns have city-wide garage, yard, and bake sales. Two full days of treasure hunting!

Daniel O’Donnell in Branson. November 4-7. TBD. Save the dates! Check back soon for the full line-up (including the Daniel O’Donnell Show) and another great Christmas get-away to Branson.

In partnership with Collette Vacations

(Let us help you find a Collette Vacation to your special destination when YOU want to go.

Collette offers trips to numerous destinations both within the United States and throughout the world.

Each trip is offered on many different dates throughout the year.

Call us for further information.) Discover Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria. September 11 – 20, 2013. Fly to the beautiful countryside of Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria with four-night stays in two cities: Bern, Switzerland and Innsbruck, Austria. With your Collette Vacations tour guide, you’ll explore the city of Bern, travel the shores of Lake Geneva to the medieval Chateau de Chillon. Enjoy a panoramic train ride through the Swiss Alps to an Alpine ski resort. Visit Lucerne, the “Swiss Paradise on the Lake.” In Salzburg see the Mirabell Gardens (from the “Sound of Music”) and Mozart’s birthplace, visit Oberammergau, see a Tyrolean folklore show, and dine in a 1,200-year-old restaurant owned by Monks. Early booking saves $250 per person. Call for more information.)

Laughlin

Laughlin in March (by air). March 28 - 31. $300. Includes non-stop, round-trip airfare to Laughlin, Nevada, three

nights lodging at the Riverside Resort and Casino on the banks of the Colorado River, and shuttle transportation to

and from the airport. Register early…these winter trips fill up fast!

Watch New Horizons and our website www.fontenelletours.comfor our 2013 trip schedule.

Our new address is: 2008 W. Broadway #329,

Council Bluffs, Iowa 51501


The New Horizons is brought to you each month by theEastern Nebraska Office on Aging.

RSVPRetired and

SeniorVolunteer Program

The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program is re-cruiting persons age 55 and older for a variety of oppor-tunities. For more informa-tion in Douglas, Sarpy, and Cass counties, please call 402-444-6536, ext. 229. In Dodge and Washington counties, please call 402-721-7780.

The following have volunteer opportunities in Douglas, Sarpy, and Cass counties:

• Mount View Elemen-tary School wants a Team-Mates mentor.

• Alegent Health Ber-gan Mercy Hospital needs volunteers for its informa-tion desks and as patient and family escorts.

• Boys Town wants vol-unteer mentors and a volun-teer office assistant.

• The Disabled Ameri-can Veterans need volun-teer drivers.

• The Ronald McDonald House Charities needs vol-unteers for general duties.

• The Heartland Coun-cil New Outlook Pioneers wants volunteers to help with its Hug a Bear Project.

• The Omaha Chil-dren’s Museum wants a volunteer member check-in assistant.

• The Douglas County Historical Society is look-ing for volunteer to greet visitors and to serve refresh-ments.

• The Douglas County Health Center wants volunteers for a variety of assignments.

• The Omaha Police De-partment needs volunteers for general duties.

• Together Inc. is look-ing for an intake assistant.

The following have volunteer opportunities in Dodge and Washington counties:

• The Blair and Fre-mont Car-Go Programs needs volunteer drivers.

• The Fremont Friend-ship Center needs help with its Tuesday Supper Club.

• The Fremont Area Medical Center is looking for volunteers for its infor-mation desk on weekends and to help out evenings at the A.J. Merrick Manor.

• The Danish American Archive and Library in Blair needs volunteers for a variety of assignments.

The 211 telephone net-work has been established in parts of Nebraska to give consumers a single source for information about com-munity and human services.

By dialing 211, consum-ers can access information about:

• Human needs resources like food banks, shelters, rent and utility assistance, etc.

• Physical and mental health resources.

• Employment support.• Support for older Amer-

icans and persons with a disability.

• Volunteer opportunities and donations.

The 211 network is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The information is also available online at (www.ne211.org).

Resource information

WHITMORE LAW OFFICEWills • Trusts • Probate

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Ask A Lawyer:

Q — In addition to avoiding probate, what are some benefits of a trust?

A — Gifts to minors can be held in the trust until they are ready to inherit, without court supervision. A trust provides you with more privacy than a will, and is difficult to chal-lenge. A trust can prevent unintentionally disinheriting a child, which can happen in a blended family, even with a will. You can make provision for beneficiaries with special needs, or choose for professional management of your trust if you become disabled. The benefits of a trust are for everyone, not just for “rich people.”

Have a question about estate planning? Give us a call!

The Midlands Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Disease As-sociation offers a variety of free support groups in eastern Nebraska.

To view a complete list of these support groups, log on the Internet to www.alz.org/midlands.

The chapter is also recruiting volunteers to serve as support group facilitators. For more information on these opportunities, please call Betty K. Chin at 402-502-4301.

Alzheimer’s disease support groups

To advertise in New Horizons, please call Mitch at 402-444-4148 or Jeff at 402-444-6654.


By Leo Adam BigaContributing Writer

Bob Hoig – publisher of the Midlands Business Jour-nal (MBJ) in Omaha – has often wondered how his

life might have turned out had his curiosity not gotten the better of him one fateful day in 1957.

Hoig was a young man then who had recently arrived in New York City after years pining to go to the “Big Apple.” He was born in ru-ral Kansas and grew up in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, Colo. but he sensed he was meant for bigger things.

“I just had wanted to be there. It was a city that always intrigued me. It had a mystique. I fancied myself a poet at the time. My read-ing preferences in literature have always tended toward writers who had a lot to say about New York City. That would include F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O’Hara – who was a real favorite of mine – and Ernest Hemingway.”

Hoig actually met the iconic Hemingway in an old German bar in New York.

Rich in words but poor in dollars, Hoig’s Gotham City sojourn was beginning to seem more folly than destiny at that time. Then something happened that changed the course of his life.

“I was out of work, I didn't have a lot of money, and I was walk-ing down 42nd Street, just past 3rd Avenue, towards 2nd (Avenue), (the) East River, and the United Na-tions Building, when my peripheral vision caught the lobby of a build-ing. Inside the lobby was a giant

globe of the Earth, roughly eight or 10 feet high, revolving around. I was just interested, so I walked in. I didn't know what was going on there.

“There were a lot of brass gauges like you might think of as nautical or aeronautical. There was a guard by the elevator and I said, ‘What building is this?’ He said, ‘Why, it’s the New York Daily News.’ Well, I needed a job and so I just asked, ‘Are they hiring?’ He said, ‘It beats me, why don’t you go up and talk to personnel?’ So I did that and the next thing I knew I’d been hired, with no particular qualifications, as a copy boy.”

That mere chance encounter turned into a career 56 years old and counting. Hoig was a reporter for the Miami News, United Press In-ternational, and the Omaha World-Herald, and the managing editor of the Omaha Sun Newspapers and the Douglas County Gazette before founding the MBJ. He still can’t get over how his life in the Fourth Estate began in such an off-handed way.

“I had very little college, one year at the University of Colorado before I dropped out, and I had no particu-lar reference to journalism at all.”

Bob briefly worked in accounting and sold shoes in the basement of a department store. But he was rest-less for something more adventur-ous, so he struck out for New York. He was nearly flat broke when he got on with the big city newspaper despite a lack of experience.

Hoig was 24, clueless about the world he was about to enter, but soon found himself in a “rich stew” of people and places that spurred

him on.All these years later he recalls the

job of Daily News copy boy as be-ing “a supreme experience,” adding, “The main thing that made it a great experience is that it offered many avenues toward advancing in the trade of journalism.”

Being in the newspaper game in New York City put one right in the mix of things in the most excit-

ing metropolis in the world. And if one showed a spark of initiative and promise, as Hoig did, opportunities availed themselves.

“That set me up for everything that came after. I was ambitious and ambitious people in New York are always rewarded. I was just ready to do anything. I guess I displayed a little bit of panache in the way I approached things and I was soon made assistant head copy boy. I know that's not much of a title, but it opened doors. It meant I handed out the other copy boys’ assign-ments, which gave me the pick of the best for myself.

That included going to Yankee Stadium and sitting in the press box just above the dugout when legends like Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle were trouping out to the plate and back.

“It was not totally glorious be-cause after two innings I had to take the photographer’s film and get out of the stadium, race to the subway, and rush the photos back to the Daily News office in time to make the Bulldog edition,” Hoig says.

Bob’s entree into the Who’s Who of New York sports figures didn't end there.

“That experience had parallels in every sport,” he says. “I was on the sidelines for the New York Giants’ games on Sunday when Kyle Rote, Roosevelt Grier, Frank Gifford, and other legends of Giants football were playing. I got to charge up and down the sidelines with the pho-tographer (until the end of the first quarter when Hoig had to high-tail it back to the office with the film).

“I got to go to the races at Bel-mont. Once again, that same drill – after the Daily Double I had to rush the film back to the office.”

It was a fertile training ground, especially for anyone with aspira-tions.

“That was a great way to get into it and build up a little bit of knowl-edge and sophistication to life in Manhattan,” Hoig says.

“The main way it helped (me) breaking into the newspaper busi-ness as a writer was that I got to work on Sunday features. What it amounted to was working with some of the legends of New York City journalism and having the ben-efit of them critiquing my work and being a little bit patient with me.

“They weren’t totally patient with the copy boys if they showed no spunk, but if you did they would work with you. And I got to have bylines in the paper as a result.”

For a journalist, getting a byline is like having their name appear-ing on a theater marquee. It’s their chance to puff out their chest and bask in the spotlight. Hoig took full advantage of the opportunity.

“There was a lot of glory in that kind of byline, for this reason: the stories appeared in the zoned edi-

--Please turn to page 11.

Curiosity led Bob Hoig to a long career in journalism

Hoig with his Cessna SkyLane aircraft at Eppley Airfield. Bob got his pilot’s license in 2000 and bought the plane in 2003.

Before starting the MBJ, Hoig’s resume included the New York Daily News, the Miami News, and the Omaha World-Herald.



--Continued from page 10.tions of the Sunday edition and for instance my work would appear in the Manhattan-Bronx section. There was also a (section for) Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, (and) so forth.

“The good thing about that was those sections wrapped around the whole newspaper, so on Sunday if you were lucky enough to get a front page byline in the Manhattan-Bronx section, your name was staring up from every New York newsstand. So you can bet that any girlfriend I was wining and dining at the time I made sure we walked past that Sunday stand and I'd say, 'Oh look…'"

The ethos of the times found Hoig following the news-paper pack to the bars, where drinking and swap-

ping stories through the night was routine.

He positively subscribes to the sentiment that if you can make it in New York City you can make it anywhere. “Yeah, it’s true because it tees you up. For one thing you’re used to some of the more dire cir-cumstances. A lot of them required you to have your wits about you and to sort of be as much as actor as a reporter.”

Working at the Daily News of-fered other advantages, too.

“The News was a totally Irish dominated newspaper. It was quite a place to be in my day by the way, because some of the absolute leg-ends of the New York scene were actually there then. For instance, Ed Sullivan still had a desk. He was just breaking into television. He’d been a columnist for years. If I had a tip I would try to feed it to his column.

“Paul Gallico was not only a top

sports editor he was famous around the desk for getting knocked out by Jack Dempsey (as part of a story). He was also a great short story writ-er who won the O’Henry Award. Harry Nichols was a big-time city editor. A tough, no-nonsense kind of guy. He was a legend.”

Hoig also got his feet wet in live TV.

“The News not long before had started a television station, WPIX, which was also in the building, and I got the chance to write the most basic kind of copy for the news scripts – death, weather, anything very routine. That opened the door to some other sophistications that the average kid working in Grand Island or Kearney wouldn't find at the introductory level.”

Bob was only in New York about two years when he left for Nebraska where he had family. He’d spent time visiting relatives in the state as a youth.

“The Hoigs got out here about 1895 around Beatrice and Wymore. My dad had deep roots with the old Cooper Foundation theaters,” Hoig says. “I returned to Lincoln, on the advice of one of the ‘lobster’ city editors of the New York Daily News. That’s the editor who comes on at midnight and works until 8 in the morning. He became a friend of mine.”

Bob was itching to do crime reporting but as a copy boy it would have taken him longer than he cared to wait before he got his opportunity to cover that beat.

“My friend felt I had enough tal-ent that I needed to get out and get right into the mainstream of what I was interested in, which was crime writing. Now you could go that route with the Daily News but they rarely if ever hired from the outside and you had to work up from a copy

boy through junior assistant and that kind of thing. The waiting period could be fantastic. For instance, Jimmy Cannon, who’s a legend in sportswriting, was a copy boy for seven years on the Daily News. The man who at the time was the travel editor had been a copy boy for 13 years.

“There were all kinds of names in New York City who had followed that route. This editor thought I would benefit by getting out and getting a job. It worked out that I did get a chance to work in Lincoln covering police and fire in the pe-riod when Charles Starkweather had been brought to trial and was being executed. At the time it was the Lincoln Journal-Star, but I worked for the Journal, which was the after-noon paper.”

Hoig wound up in Omaha, first on the United Press International desk and then as an Omaha World-Herald newsroom staffer, but not by way of Lincoln as you might expect, rather by way of Miami and Chi-cago of all places. His wanderlust called again.

“That was kind of a circuitous route,” he notes. “After I cut my teeth on police reporting, doing a lot of it in Lincoln, I felt the same lure to Miami that I did to New York. I went to Miami and after being rejected at the Miami Her-ald by the then-assistant managing editor, Harold “Al” Neuharth, who went on found USA Today, I wound up working for in my opinion the greatest newspaper in all of Florida and the South at the time as a young crime reporter, the old Miami News. It was a real blood and guts paper. It was edited again by a legend in newspapering down there.

“It was a great place to be, and right off the bat they assigned me to the sheriff's office. So many good stories would come out of there.”

Organized crime was well en-trenched in the city as was rampant police corruption, and one assign-ment required him to go up to a known Mafia family head and ask, “How do you feel about your son being shotgunned to death?” Bob recalls.

“When you’re in a crazy situation like that you got to just quick think and get out.”

Hoig enjoyed being in the thick of the action of a cosmopolitan city built on tourism and graft. It

was a vital place and time where the news never quit.

“I had a chance to really move along there,” he says. “I cultivated a friend who was probably my closest colleague on the Miami News. He was an old-timer who had worked on the war desk during World War II in New York for United Press. I loved the job at the Miami News but I didn't like Florida and neither did my then-wife. At that time she was my new wife. We didn’t like the heat, so we decided to go north.

“When Bill Tucker, this friend of mine, heard we were going north he said, ‘Well, I hate to see you leave but as long as you’re going I’ll give you a reference to the man who's the division news manager for United Press International in Chicago.’ I in-terviewed with him, I was hired and I had (incidentally) some Nebraska roots. They just happened to send me to Omaha.”

UPI was still a player among wire services in the 1960s.

“We were totally rivals with the Associated Press,” Bob says. “We had more radio and TV clients in Nebraska than AP did. AP was ahead of us in newspapers. But we shared all the biggies, like we were both in the World-Herald (and) the Lincoln Journal-Star. Their editors played that very cleverly because they would pit us against each other in a competitive way.”

Hoig’s highlight with UPI came with a bit of newspaper bravado.

“I was sitting in the United Press Bureau one night in the mid-‘60s when a report came in about a shooting in Big Springs, (Neb.). An armed robber had come in the bank, lined up four people on the floor, and shot them. Three of them died and one of them survived. So this gunman was on the loose and nobody knows who it was.

Hoig has logged 1,700 hours behind the controls of his airplane.

A rural Kansas native, Bob Hoig spent only one year in college before embarking on a life with the Fourth Estate.

Future publisher got start as a newsroom copy boy


--Continued from page 11.“We got a tip authorities were

searching for a Kansas farm boy, Duane Earl Pope. We found out his father had been cruel to him. Duane had recently graduated from McPherson College where he was a football star. I thought, who could issue an appeal I could write that would lead Duane to surrender. His father? No. His coach? Maybe. His college president? Yeah,” Bob says.

“When Pope finally was captured they learned he’d heard that appeal in a hotel room in Las Vegas. He made arrangements to fly back and surrender to the FBI in Kansas City. That was the biggest coup I ever staged and I think there is a classic role in journalism for that sort of thing.”

Hoig left the Omaha Bu-reau of UPI after roughly seven years to join the World-Herald. “I had

what seemed like a much better offer at that time from the World-Herald to become a crime and cor-ruption reporter. That was 1969.

“The biggest story I covered up to that point was a banking scandal in Sheldon, Iowa. A spinster named Bernice Geiger was the trusted bookkeeper for the local bank owned by her aging parents and she had embezzled $2 million. So I went up there and every day just as I was getting ready to leave, some-thing major developed in the story. All of a sudden reporters from Time, Newsweek, the New York papers, and all over the country came flood-ing in to cover this story.

“It had so many angles that you could write a book about it. It had such human interest, including a possible love angle. A young con man came in and there was suspi-cion that he helped her spend the money. It turned out she blew the money on the Chicago Commodi-ties Exchange, which is a weird place for a spinster to blow money.”

In 1971, Bob was the World-Herald’s nominee for a Pulitzer Prize for a series he did about serial sexualpaths that led to a state law being changed to tighten lax secu-rity procedures at the then-Nebraska State Hospital. To get the story Hoig says he went down to Lincoln and asked a lot of questions.

“That story was precipitated by a particularly bad actor who was an inmate down there. Staff just let inmates like him wander the grounds. There was no particular supervision and this guy every now and then would just wander off and do his thing. What got him caught is he wandered off to Omaha, where he raped a couple of women, and so that set in motion the Herald’s interest in it.”

Hoig remained with the Omaha World-Herald until 1972.

His path to launching the Mid-lands Business Journal actually be-gan at the end of a brief turn he took as editor of the Douglas County Gazette.

“By that time I’d had my fill of crime and corruption and looking under every rock to expose some-thing sinister or wrong or some crime,” he says. “I didn’t want to do that anymore.”

An item in a World-Herald col-umn mentioned Hoig was leaving the Gazette.

“That morning my phone was ringing at a quarter to eight and it was the owner of Rapid Printing, the late Zane Randall, saying, ‘If you’re out of work, come and talk to me.’

“So I did and he hired me as general manager of a bunch of suburban shoppers he either owned or printed. I talked Zane into letting me take a shot at founding a busi-ness newspaper with somewhat of a unique concept.”

Few people thought a business journal could work, Hoig says.

“This came in the face of many prophecies of doom from people like Jim Ivey at the World-Herald, so it wasn’t an assured thing. But what I wanted to do was produce a product that would localize and bring close to the community stories of businesses and with a particular angle of success stories.

“I’ve always been a good sales-man and I think I’m a good enough writer and editor that I had the two components you need to start a successful paper, and that’s why I thought it would be successful.

“It was something nobody was doing at the time and that’s what I staked my guess it could be suc-cessful. Zane was backing me in a sense. He didn’t put any money into it but he printed the paper for us and he let us use his composing room, typesetting, and so forth. So it was a relatively painless way to try some-thing that worked.”

Hoig and Randall drew up a con-tract to be half-and-half partners of

the MBJ at the start but as time went on the enigmatic Randall wanted out.

“Zane was the kind of guy who would just take a chance on any-thing and he backed newspapers andmailing operations that failed. He had a lot of failures out there with little probes into different aspects of journalism. Of course, he (eventu-ally) sold (Rapid Printing) to the Omaha World-Herald for a reputed seven or eight million bucks, so when he scored, he scored big. His inclination to back anything is what

helped me out in the long run.“But we were about a year into

the MBJ when several relatives he had working for him told him to get out of it,” Hoig says. “I tried to point out to him that we were in the process of being successful and for our humble niche in the community we were being very successful. The ad sales were almost good enough to meet the goals and the subscrip-tion sales were renewing at a fan-tastic 90 percent rate. That usually doesn’t happen.

“Based on all that I said to him, ‘Look ahead one more year and this thing is going to be doing really well.’ I couldn’t talk him out of it, and he said, ‘No, we’re closing it down. I said, ‘Well, how about you name a figure and if I can possibly meet it I’ll sign a note and pay it off? That’s the way that one went.” Thirty-eight years later the MBJ is still going strong. Hoig attributes its enduring success to his nose for news, his business sense, and his numbers crunching ability.

“I can spot stories or I can cook them up,” Bob says.

“I know accounting and I keep the books, and so every day I know what my cash position is to the penny. Every month I reconcile the bank statements and I do my general ledger entries. I’ve never graduated

from that routine and that’s one way to keep your hands on your business and know what’s going on.”

Meeting unforgettable characters and public figures has also come with the territory. A

bigger-than-life politico Hoig had occasion to know was the late South Omaha kingpin Gene Mahoney. Hoig recalls a memorable encoun-ter.

“I was walking on South 13th Street when Mahoney in this old beater of a car pulls up and says, ‘Hop in.’ So I got in and asked, ‘Where we going?’ He said, ‘We’re going on the Polish sausage run.’

“He had his car loaded with Pol-ish sausage and other things and good old politician Mahoney was swinging by everybody in South Omaha that he’d found out was either sick, laid off, or injured. He was just a master politician that way,” Hoig continues.

“He was such a powerbroker. I think I’m the last guy to know how great he was.”

Once, when Omaha Federation of Labor AFL-CIO president Terry Moore launched into a favorite theme about Mahoney being “all washed up” Hoig set the record straight.

“I said, Terry, think about it, where is Mahoney right now? His best friend has just been elected to the U.S. Senate (Ed Zorinsky). His handpicked apparatchik is in the legislature, Bernice Labedz. She's keeping him totally informed about everything. He’s got a job that has more perks and power than any job in the state as (Nebraska State) Games and Parks commissioner. He can airplane people out to any lodge, so as a position to collect IOUs you can’t beat that. Plus, he’s got a say in a certain amount of projects that get built.”

Hoig, who closely follows politics and doesn’t exactly pull punches when critiquing politicians, admired Mahoney’s savvy when it came to patronage and influence.

“As a former legislator and someone who’d been across politi-cal parties – he switched back and forth from Democrat to Republican to Democrat again – he could talk to anyone. He was a master at doling out favors. He’d get together with Peter Kiewit and Walter Scott on what were their desires and what needed to be done and all of a sud-den things got built.”

Hoig has anecdotes about many of the big names he’s met, including corporate tycoons like construction magnate Peter Kiewit and Mutual of Omaha’s V.J. Skutt, then presiden-tial candidate Richard Nixon, then-vice president Lyndon Johnson, not to mention the Nebraska politicians whose wrath he’s earned.

Bob’s life is as full as any of theirs. He toiled for others the first third of his career before striking out on his own and becoming a


Hoig combined sales, writing, editing skills to start ‘MBJ’

During 2012, Hoig and his daughter, Andrea, were honored as Faces on the Barroom Floor at the Omaha Press Club.

Andrea is the publisher of Metro Magazine.


--Continued from page 12.successful entrepreneur. Besides the MBJ, he publishes the Lincoln Business Journal and the Omaha Book of Lists. MBJ was the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce’s 2002 Golden Spike Award honoree. He’s been recognized by the Omaha Chamber (2004) and the Omaha Ki-wanis Club (2006) as Entrepreneur of the Year.

“As a unit success our biggest success is our 40 Under 40 program with the Chamber. That, of course, isn’t a paper but it’s a yearly pro-gram we started in 2002 during the depths of another bubble recession, and it made its way through. It’s forged on identifying and honoring 40 professional businessmen and women under age 40.”

Hoig’s is the father of three adult children. Long divorced, he’s well into a marriage with an old

friend, Martha, who’s every bit as bit as active as he is. Bob’s a vet-eran tennis player and swimmer. He used to ski. Since taking up skiing late in life, Martha’s become quite the devotee and continues to enjoy the sport despite some mishaps on the slopes. She’s also an artist with her own downtown studio.

Bob says Martha’s streaks of “daring-do” and whimsy have led her to stand on her head atop the Olympic Tower in New York City and to ride a motorcycle with him. She’s also his faithful flying com-panion in Hoig’s Cessna.

Bob took up flying a decade ago and it’s his main hobby today.

He’s not conceding anything to age as he continues coming to the office every day and living it up away from the office.

“I like the idea of having the bal-ance. The work, the great relation-ship with my wife, the flying, and the writing. I’m really starting to ramp up my own fiction writing.”

At 80, he still works out a few days a week at the gym.

Hoig’s boundless curiosity invari-ably leads him to some new passion he takes up with vigor. Once he hit upon flying it’s become his main fascination and outlet.

“Almost every decade of my life I’ve turned a corner into something that fascinates me,” he says. “When I was 68, my son and I were in my den playing flight simulator and I was like, ‘This is really interesting and fun, I think I’ll take a (flying) lesson.’

“So I went out to get a lesson and just from the first landing of feel-ing like a big bird, sailing slowly, slowly, now a little faster, and then, whoosh. It just captivated me and that’s all I could think about for a year other than my work.”

He got his private pilot’s license in 2000 and purchased his own Cessna SkyLane in 2003. Bob earned his instrument rating in 2005. He’s logged 1,700 hours in the air behind the controls.

He’s proud of his blue and white

peer entrepreneur and publisher, Hoig says, gives him great satisfac-tion. “She’s done a terrific job with the magazine that I told her in the beginning, ‘Just forget it, it won't go,’ so she proved me wrong on that.”

It’s sometimes hard for him to reconcile the rebellious girl who worked for him with the mature woman who is a colleague today.

“When she was a teenager we just didn’t mix at all. We didn't get along. In the course of maybe working around me a little bit and getting into journalism, it turns out of my three children she’s more like the apple that fell closest to the tree. She seems to have an instinctive ability in journalism for some of the things I think are very important. She’s unusually good at detail. She gets along very well with people and unlike me she has a very kind heart. She just empathizes with everybody and for the niche that she’s in, that’s really the way to be anyway, but she is like that.”

Bob and Andrea Hoig are very different people though. “She is liberal where I’m conservative,” he says. “She doesn’t even read my editorials.” But his admiration for her is complete. “I’m very proud of what she’s accomplished, She’s come so far from where I thought.”

Last fall, father and daughter were honored as Faces on the Bar-room Floor at the Omaha Press Club.

Over time he’s learned some les-sons from her, too, such as giving up control.

“I was the typical entrepreneur in feeling that if I didn’t do it, it couldn’t be done right. Everything really important I felt I had to do myself. It’s hard enough to grow a really small business like ours

without giving it total attention, and I probably lost a lot of good people over the years by not turning enough over to them.

“But as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better at delegating responsi-bility. I’ve started to turn more over to our editor and to our advertising director and that’s been good.”

As Bob has taken more time out for himself, his wife, his family, and his passions, he’s found his later years to be the best of his life. He’s far from retired though.

“There’s a saying I heard long ago that work ennobles a person and I find this work very ennobling be-cause it keeps me alive, it keeps me involved, and it keeps me thinking. It also keeps people employed.”

(Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.wordpress.com.)

Hoig and his wife, Martha, enjoy flying their Cessna to vacation destinations like New York City and the Florida Keys.

He says flying keeps him thinking.

Octogenarian stays active flying, swimming, playing tennis

Cessna he personally selected from the plant. “It’s a beauty. It’s a good one for traveling, and my wife and I travel a lot. Any vacation, we fly. That has really kept my spirits and kept me thinking.”

He and Martha love seeing the sights.

“We do travel an awful lot. The most routine trip we make is every year we fly the plane to New York and go to the U.S. Open tennis tour-nament. That’s in late August (and) early September. Of late we’ve taken to flying into New England or to upstate New York.

“In 2011 I flew it up to a place called Plattsburgh, N.Y. just across the lake from Burlington, Vt. It’s way up there. That was good.

“A couple times a year we flew it up to a place called Rosemary Beach in the Florida Panhandle. Three years ago I flew it all the way down into the Florida Keys, beyond Key Largo. I’ve flown it a lot to my hometown of Colorado Springs.”

Hoig has the chops to fly into airports large and small.

“I really made it my business to learn GPS and that has helped us fly into big airports and feel comfort-able doing it in rain, in clouds, and so on.”

Between changeable weather sys-tems and heavy air traffic, he says, “You have to keep your wits about you.”

Sometimes he and Martha light out on a whim.

“We’ve gotten up on a Saturday morning with no idea of what we’re going to do that day and one of us will say, ‘Hey, it’s a nice day, why don’t we go to Kansas City? So you jump into the plane and you’re in Kansas City for lunch.”

The couple also travels to Europe with great regularity. They never do tours. Instead they simply “follow the wind,” Bob says.

Martha, who is a breast cancer survivor, has also been a key cog in Bob’s publishing empire as vice-president in charge of marketing. His sister, Cindy, is vice-president of advertising. And his daughter, Andrea, once worked for him as well before branching off on her own.

Much to Hoig’s surprise and delight Andrea’s followed his foot-steps. She began working for Bob as a photographer, and in 1996, she purchased a fledgling publication Hoig started, Metro Monthly. She’s since transformed it into Metro Magazine, whose niche is covering the area’s philanthropic scene.

Seeing Andrea blossom into a

“I was the typical entrepreneur in feeling that if I didn’t do it, it couldn’t

be done right. Everything really important I felt I had to do myself.”


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As many people resolve to shape up their bodies, there’s added incentive to follow through. Doing so can also boost mental fitness, potentially delaying

the onset of dementia. With the number of new cases of Alzheimer’s disease in

the U.S. projected to increase by 130 percent in 2030 com-pared to 2000, getting in shape should be an important mo-tivator to make your good intentions a reality, says Dr. Paul Nussbaum, director of brain health for Emeritus Senior Living and clinical neuropsychologist and adjunct profes-sor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Research cited in the NIH-supported journal Health and Social Work shows learning and other measures can foster new neurons and new neural connections even into one’s golden years. “Knowing that brain fitness practices have the potential to delay dementia’s onset, I encourage everyone to begin the New Year by making brain fitness part of their lives,” Nussbaum said.

Starting an exercise program is a key first step. “Walking daily, dancing, and other forms of aerobic ac-

tivity help blood flow to the brain,” Nussbaum said. Adopting a healthy diet is also important. Nussbaum

recommends cutting down on processed foods in favor of those that nourish the brain.

“Fruits and vegetables are beneficial for cognitive health,” he said. “So are foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, such as certain fish and nuts, and antioxidants, which are foods containing vitamins A, C or E.”

In addition to physical fitness, Nussbaum says three other practices can have a positive impact on your brain:

• Socialization: Make an effort to connect and spend time with other people, in person rather than virtually. Research shows that isolation and loneliness increase the risk of de-veloping dementia.

• Mental stimulation: The phrase “use it or lose it” ap-plies to the brain, which craves stimulation and challenges. Engage in mental activities that aren’t initially easy for you, whether it’s learning a new language, taking up Scrabble, or another pastime you haven’t tried before. Doing so will stimulate the cortex and build brain reserve.

• Spirituality: Research suggests stress, which has been shown to adversely affect animal brains, is also detrimental for those of humans. It’s important to slow down and take the time to engage in spirituality in the way that’s most comfortable for you, whether its through daily prayer and regular formal worship or by meditating and reflecting.

“The statistics about Alzheimer’s disease are alarming and they demonstrate how crucial it is to adopt a brain fitness program,” Nussbaum said. “As 2013 begins, please resolve to incorporate brain health into your daily life. Besides knowing you are engaging in an important practice with lifelong benefits, I think you will find you truly enjoy it.”

More information on brain health, including a survey and activities, are available at www.emeritis.com/new-years-brain-health.

As 2013 gets underway, vow to get into shape mentally, physically An article in AARP the

Magazine provided these six ways for caregivers to relieve their stress.

• Make the freezer your friend: Caregivers usually know what to eat; they just don’t have time to cook healthier meals. Try batch cooking, which lets you freeze individual portions you can eat during the week.

• Mix in meditation: Twelve minutes of daily meditation can dramatically improve the mental health of caregivers, report Uni-versity of California at Los Angeles researchers. In that study, 65 percent of family caregivers who practiced a chanting yogic meditation called Kirtan Kriya every day for eight weeks saw a 50 percent improvement on a depression-rating scale.

• Stockpile healthy snacks: Nutritious foods you can grab on the run help keep blood sugar levels on an even keel and energy levels from flagging. Don’t consume the typical granola bars that are high in sugar, and opt instead for “real food” with hunger-busting protein.

• Slow down: Whether it’s heating up food for dinner or helping someone in the bathroom, the advice is the same: Don’t rush. It sounds obvious, but when you’re stressed and dis-tracted, you’re more prone to having accidents.

• Volunteer: You’re al-ready doing so much to help your family member. But helping out in a different way in a different setting, can be gratifying and thera-peutic. Plus, volunteers live longer than non-volunteers, a University of Michigan study found last year.

• Improve your sleep habits: Disrupted sleep saps your energy. Adopt good sleep habits like a dark room or fewer distractions in the bedroom for more restful sleep.

Reducingcaregiver stress

Participants needed for aCOPD Research Study

IRB # 024-09-FBA multi-center, randomized, double-blind,

placebo-controlled pilot study to assess the pharmacodynamics, efficacy, and safety of 50mg Tetomilast administered as oral tablets in patients

with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with emphysema. (Protocol 197-08-250)

Do you have emphysema or think you may have emphysema? The University of Nebraska Medical

Center is conducting a clinical trial of an experimental medication for people with

emphysema. Participants must be 40 to 75 years of age and be a current or former smoker.

You will receive medical testing and medication at no cost to you, and will be

reimbursed for your time.

If you are interested in participating in this study for

people with emphysema, call Sandy at 402-559-6365 or

email her at [email protected].


By Katie Schoeneck & Nina Hull

Have you ever been told you have high blood pressure, or does

someone you know have high blood pressure? If so, you’re not alone. One in three adults in the United States has high blood pres-sure.

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is diagnosed when your blood pressure reading rises above a set goal rate. High blood pressure usually has no symptoms and you may feel normal.

With high blood pressure, however, you’re at risk for other health conditions in-cluding stroke, heart attack, and kidney disease. This is why it’s important to have your blood pressure checked routinely by your doctor or at a local pharmacy.

You can also moni-tor your blood pressure at home. Checking your blood pressure at home will allow you to be aware of your numbers. You can record your home blood pressure readings and then take them to your doctor’s office to discuss the results. When your blood pres-sure is higher than 120/80

The Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging’s Foster Grand-parent Program, Senior Companion Program, Ombudsman Advocate Program, and Senior Medicare Patrol Program are recruiting older adults to become volunteers.

Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions must be age 55 or older, meet income guidelines, have a government issued identification card or a driver’s license, able to vol-unteer at least 15 hours a week, and must complete several background and reference checks.

Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions receive a $2.65 an hour stipend, transportation and meal reimburse-ment, paid vacation, sick, and holiday leave, and supple-mental accident insurance.

Foster Grandparents work with children who have special needs while Senior Companions work to keep older adults living independently.

Ombudsman advocates work to ensure residents of nurs-ing homes and assisted living facilities enjoy the best pos-sible quality of life.

Ombudsman advocates, who must be age 18 or older, are enrolled through an application and screening process. These volunteers, who are not compensated monetarily for their time, must serve at least two hours a week.

The Senior Medicare Patrol program helps Medicaid beneficiaries avoid, detect, and prevent health care fraud. These volunteers, who are enrolled through an application and screening process, are not compensated monetarily for their time,


Volunteers needed

Kirk Estee believes laughter is the best medicine, and to that end the Omaha humorist is available to pro-vide 35 to 40-minute comedic presentations tailored

to a variety of audiences of all ages.

These audiences can include, but are not limited to independent and assisted living center residents, sup-port groups, parent and grandparent organiza-tions, employee groups, and educators.

Estee said his presentations are similar to those provided by Will Rogers and Mark Twain.

“The philosophy of live, love, laugh, and be happy, can continue to play an integral and supportive role as we jour-ney through life,” he added.

For more information, please contact Estee at 402-616-0460 or [email protected].

Humorist available for presentations

mmHg, you should consider changes in your lifestyle or medications to control your hypertension.

Lifestyle changes include exercising, eating a healthy diet, maintaining

a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, and avoiding to-bacco. Exercise can include any physical activity such as walking, gardening, danc-ing, swimming, and lifting light weights. It’s recom-mended you get at least 150 minutes of exercise during the week.

A healthy diet includes plenty of servings of fruits and vegetables. It’s also important to be aware of sodium (or salt) intake. High amounts of salt are found in prepackaged foods especially canned soups and cured meats (salami, bacon, and beef jerky). You also need to limit the amount of table salt you add to your food. A healthy weight can be maintained by exercise and a healthy diet.

‘Script Your Future’ campaign designed to create awareness of medication adherencefor chronic conditions such as hypertension

When lifestyle changes can no longer control your hypertension or your blood pressure reading is too high,

your doctor may prescribe a medication to lower your blood pressure. There are a variety of medications that treat the condition. The doctor will choose which medication is best for you. You may require two or more medications to ad-equately control your blood pressure. Once you begin taking your medication it becomes essential you take the medication as prescribed by your doctor.

Some ways to remember to take your medication each day are using a pill box, taking it at the same time every day, or keep-ing a checklist or calendar. Taking your medications as prescribed should positively affect your blood pressure. Once your blood pressure is at your goal rate, it’s still important to continue to take your medication and maintain your healthy lifestyle. You shouldn’t stop taking your medication without first speaking with your doctor.

If you have questions about hypertension, your medications, or ways to remember to

take your medication every day, speak to your doctor or pharmacist.

The Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions is par-ticipating in the Script Your Future campaign throughout February to raise awareness about the importance of medication adherence espe-cially for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure. Remember you’re an impor-tant part of the healthcare team. Take this month to fo-cus on your medication and see how your blood pressure is doing.

If you have questions or concerns about your medi-cations or medical condi-tions, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.

(Schoeneck and Hull are 2013 PharmD. candidates at Creighton University.)

Nina Hull (seated) and Katie Schoeneck check Wanda Henseler’s blood pressure.

Take this month to focus on your medication and see how your

blood pressure is doing.

Fremont Friendship Center events

You’re invited to visit the Fremont Friendship Center, 1730 W 16th St., this month for the following:

• Feb. 6: Presentation on Heart Health @ 10 a.m.• Feb. 7: Health talk by ENOA’s Kay Snelling.• Feb. 13: Music by Terri Orr @ 10:30 a.m.• Feb. 14: Valentine’s Day coronation followed by

singer Joe Taylor @ 10:30 a.m.• Feb. 20: Dance to the music of Wayne Miller.• Feb. 21: Free health screenings (blood sugar, blood

pressure, cholesterol, and vital signs) from 10 to 11 a.m. • Feb. 27: Music by the Link Duo @ 10:30 a.m.The center will be closed on Feb. 18 for Presidents’

Day.The Fremont Friendship Center is open Monday,

Wednesday, and Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Tuesdays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (according to schedule); and Friday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Lunch is served @ 11:30 a.m. There is a $3 suggested donation for the meal. Reservations are due by noon the business day prior to the meal you wish to enjoy.

A Tuesday supper club meal is served @ 5:30 p.m.The center also offers exercising, card games, billiards,

and a computer lab.For meal reservations or more information, please call

Laurie Harms @ 402-727-2815.


Immanuel Affordable Communities

Immanuel Communities offers beautiful affordable independent apartment homes for seniors who are on a fixed income.

Call today to schedule a personal visit.

Affilated with the Nebraska Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America www.immanuelcommunities.com

Immanuel Courtyard6757 Newport AvenueOmaha, NE 68152402-829-2912

Assisted Living at Immanuel Courtyard6759 Newport AvenueOmaha, NE 68152402-829-2990

Trinity Courtyard620 West Lincoln StreetPapillion, NE 68046402-614-1900

Income guidelines apply

Sherie works at a drawing table in her west Omaha apartment. --Please turn to page 17.

During an art career which has spanned more than 60 years, Sherie Garner has sold 20 of her beautiful paintings and sketchings.

Omaha artist has created her own style

When she was barely old enough to know the differ-ence between red, green, yel-low, and blue, Sherie Naviaux

(now Garner) received her first box of crayons from her parents. By the time she enrolled at Omaha’s St. Peter’s Elementary School, Garner knew she was blessed with artistic talent.

“I’ve always been able to see an image in my head and then put that image on paper or canvas accurately,” she said during a re-cent interview in her west Omaha apartment that doubles as an art studio.

Garner, who lists her age as somewhere

between 60 and 70, had her first art showing as a seventh-grader at St. Peter’s School.

Sherie attended Omaha Central High School where she honed her painting and sketching skills under the watchful eye of art teacher Zenaide Luhr.

“She (Luhr) encouraged me to submit my work to the University of Chicago’s Art Institute, but I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me there, so I never did (send the portfolio),” Garner recalled.

Following graduation from Central High, Sherie attended a technical school where she trained to become a secretary. “I wanted to make my own way,” she said.

After working “all over the planet” for more than 40 years in places like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit, Garner returned to Omaha where she continues to enjoy the city’s “higher quality of life.”

Even while working as a secretary, Garner continued to paint with watercolors and oils and sketch us-ing a wide variety of pencils, pens,

and inks.Now that she’s retired, Sherie is able to

focus her attention full time on art, showing and selling her work, and teaching the craft to aspiring artists.

Garner’s apartment – which she shares with her dog, Tango – is filled with an array of watercolor and oil landscape scenes and portraits of animals and humans. At various times, her work has been displayed at local coffeehouses, restaurants, and libraries.

Sherie’s been commissioned eight or nine times to create a painting or portrait of the buyer’s cat, dog, horse, or loved one.

The Diabetes Education Center of the Midlands is sponsoring a diabetes management class from Monday, Feb. 18 through Thursday, Feb. 21. Class times are 1 to 5 p.m. on the first day and 2

to 5 p.m. on the final three days.

This four-session class will be held at the DECM’s 2910 S. 84th St. location (the east end of the Fred-erick Square Shopping Center).

The Diabetes Education Center of the Midlands is a nationally recognized non-profit education and treatment center dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for diabetic individuals and their families.

Contact the Diabetes Education Center of the Mid-lands today at 402-399-0777 or www.diabetes-education.com to reserve your spot in this February class.

Call 402-399-0777 for details

Diabetes management class scheduled for Feb. 18 to 21

Dora Bingle Senior Center events

You’re invited to visit the Dora Bingel Senior Center, 923 N. 38th St., this month for the following:

• Feb. 4, 11, 18, & 25: Al-Anon meeting @ 7 p.m. • Feb. 5, 12, 19, & 26: Grief Support Group meeting @

10 a.m.• Feb. 20: Regeneration lunch with music by Pam Tor-

chia @ noon. The cost is $3.• Feb. 21: Red Hat Club meeting @ noon.• Feb. 22: Hard of Hearing Support Group meeting @

10:30 a.m. • Feb. 27: Birthday party luncheon @ noon. Eat free if

you have a February birthday! The center will be closed Feb. 21 for Presidents Day. A nutritious lunch is served on Tuesday and Friday. A

fancier lunch is offered on Wednesday. A $1 donation is suggested for the meals, other than $3 for Regeneration.

Round-trip transportation is available for $3.Reservations are required 24 hours in advance for all

meals.Other activities offered at the facility include: • Tuesday: Free matinee movie @ 12:30 p.m.• Wednesdays: Devotions @ 10:30 a.m. Tai Chi class @

11:15 a.m., and Bible study @ 1 p.m.For more information, please call 402-898-5854.


$30 = 7 meals or 1.75 hours of in-home homemaker services or 1 bath aide service for frail older adults.

$75 = 17 meals or 4.75 hours of in-home homemaker services or 4 bath aide services for frail older adults.



Other amount (please designate)__________________________

Please contact me. I would like to learn more about how to include the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging in my estate planning.

ENOA

I would like to become a partner with the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging, and help fulfill your mission with older adults.

Please mail your tax deductible donation with this form to:Eastern Nebraska Office on AgingAttention: Jeff Reinhardt4223 Center StreetOmaha, NE 68105-2431(402) 444-6654

support!We need your Traditional funding sources are making it more difficult

for ENOA to fulfill its mission. Partnership

opportunities are available to businesses and individuals

wanting to help us. These opportunities include

volunteering, memorials, honorariums, gift annuities,

and other tax deductible contributions.

Name:_____________________________________

Address:___________________________________

City:______________State:_____ Zip: __________

Phone:____________________________________

You’re invited to attend a series of free En-gAge Wellness

presentations to be held the third Tuesday of each month during 2013 at the Home Instead Center for Successful Aging, 38th Avenue and Leavenworth Street.

The programs – which will feature a speaker every month – run from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Topics will include downsizing (February and March), the Affordable Care Act (April), com-munity resources (May), finances (June), legal documents (July), long-term care (August), home care and Medicare (Sep-tember), Medicare (Octo-ber), funeral pre-planning (November), and a holi-day wrap (December).


Wellness programs set for each month

To learn more,please call

402-552-7210.

The Fontenelle Nature Asso-ciation’s SUN (Seniors Under-

standing Nature) program offers activities for older adults the second Tues-day of each month at the Fontenelle Nature Cen-ter, 1111 Bellevue Blvd North.

The programs, held from 9:45 to 11 a.m., fea-ture an indoor program, an optional nature walk, and refreshments.

The cost is $6 per per-son each month.

For more informa-tion, call Cath-erine at 402-731-3140, ext. 1019.

Here are February through May programs:

• Feb. 12: Exploring Nature with the Corps of Discovery.

• March 12: Cranes on the Move.

• April 9: Native Plants for Wildlife.

• May 14: Flooding Impacts on Riverside & Community Forests.

Programs aimed atolder nature lovers

The Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging’s SeniorHelp Program has a variety of volunteer opportunities available for persons of all ages that provide services to help older adults in ways that support dignity and independence in their daily lives.

For more information, please call Karen Kelly at 402-561-2238 or send an e-mail to [email protected].

• Companionship: Volunteers are needed to visit clients in the Omaha and Bellevue areas.

• Transportation: Drivers are being asked to take older adults grocery shopping, to medical appointments as needed, etc. in Douglas, Sarpy, and Cass counties.

• Handyman/Home maintenance: Volunteers are needed to provide home repairs in Omaha and the surrounding areas.

• Household assistance: Volunteers are being recruited to provide housekeeping, sorting and/or organizing, do laundry, and to help carry groceries from the car into the home for older adults in the Omaha and Bellevue areas.

• Meals delivery: Drivers are needed to deliver midday meals in zip codes 68114 and 68144.

• Snow removal: Volunteers are needed to remove snow in the Omaha and Bellevue areas.

• Yard work: Volunteers are being recruited to rake leaves, clean gutters, and clean flowerbeds in several areas.

ENOA’s SeniorHelp

Artist Sherie Garner...

Two examples of Garner’s artistic skills.

Garner will teach an art class in late February

or early March.Call 402-592-6622 for

more information.

--Continued from page 16.Finished product reac-

tions have ranged from “wide-eyed smiles to tears of joy,” she said.

While creating a piece of art for a buyer fills Garner with joy, she also enjoys the challenges involved.

If the client doesn’t pro-vide a high-quality refer-ence photo Sherie can use to make the image “pop,” Garner said she’ll refuse the commission.

“I have a reputation to hold up,” she added.

To be as accurate as pos-sible, all of Garner’s paint-ings and sketches – 20 of which she’s sold – are cre-ated copying photos she’s found or had provided by the buyer. A typical piece takes five to 15 hours to pro-duce. A beautiful oil land-scape of a mountain scene that hangs in her home called Meltdown, however, took Garner three months to complete.

In late February or early March, Garner will teach a five-week long (Sundays from 2:30 to

5 p.m.) class for students ages 12 and older titled, Explore This! Mixed Me-dia in her classical realism style. This method combines pencil drawings with ink and paint to create a classi-cal look.

“The work is done with high attention to detail.” Sherie said.

For more information on Explore This! Mixed Media, contact Garner at 402-592-6622 or [email protected].

Martin Mc-Donagh’s A Behanding in

Spokane will be on stage Feb. 21 through March 16 at the Blue Barn The-atre, 614 S. 11th St.

Backwoods American sociopath Carmichael has been hunting for his severed left hand for 27 years. He encounters dimwits, Toby and Mary-lin, in this darkly comical work. Their relationship exposes the graphic, gritty details of American life.

Show times for A Behanding in Spokane are at 7:30

p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 6 p.m. on Sundays, March 3 and 10.

Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for se-niors and groups of 10 or more.

For tickets or more information, please call 402-345-1576.

Dark comedy atBlue Barn Theatre

Feb. 21 to March 16


The Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging has two programs available that remove snow from the driveways and sidewalks of older adults in Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, Cass, and Washington

counties.The agency’s SeniorHelp Volunteer Program pro-

vides this service for persons age 60 and older that are physically unable to remove snow and have no other options available for snow removal.

Volunteers are pre-screened before being matched with cli-ents.

ENOA’s Chore Program uses paid providers to remove snow for persons age 60 and older that are physically unable to perform these duties. Individuals using this service will be sent a contribution request based on their income.

For more information, please call the SeniorHelp program at 402-444-6536.

ENOA’s SeniorHelp, Chore Programare available to provide snow removal

The public ice skating rink on the University of

Nebraska Medical Center campus remains open through March 1.

The rink is located east of 42nd Street between Emile Street and Dewey Avenue on the north side of the Sorrell Center.

Hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and noon to 8 p.m. on Sun-days.

The rink is closed on Mondays.

Admission is $7 with skate rental and $5 with-out skate rental (cash or credit cards only).


Ice skating

The Metro Omaha Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) Support Group will meet on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 1 p.m. at the Millard branch of the Omaha Public Library, 13214 Westwood Ln. Elizabeth Chentland from the Nebraska Respite Net-work will be the featured guest speaker.

LBD is a group of pro-gressive brain diseases that are the second leading cause of degenerative dementia among older adults, affect-ing more than 1.3 million American families.

For more information on LBD, log on to www.lbda.org/go/awareness.

For more on the sup-port group, please log on to [email protected] or call Ann Taylor at 402-452-3952.

Lewy Body Dementiasupport group meetingscheduled for Feb. 19

One of the Papillion Senior Singers’ shows includes some Elvis Presley hits.

Accompanist Rajaena Appleby taught music to junior and senior high school students in Cambridge, Crete, and Broken Bow, Neb. for seven years.

For singers, Tuesday means rehearsal, performance...

--Continued from page 3.“We’re not professional singers, we’re

professional entertainers,” she said.O’Connor said the Papillion Senior Sing-

ers need two more male vocalists to join in the fun. Call Laura Jean at 402-597-2059 for more information.

“The only requirement is that they have to like to sing,” she said.

In addition to the weekly shows, the en-semble rehearses for an hour Tuesday morn-ings at the senior center, 1001 Limerick Rd.

Anyone wishing to book the group for a performance can call O’Connor or Rajaena

Appleby at 402-597-2059. A minimal charge is requested to cover “gas money” for the group’s bus.

“We worked at youth soccer games in Papillion for five years to pay for the bus,” O’Connor said.

The Papillion Senior Singers are: Rosie Bartling, Carolyn Schoepf, Edith Fisher, Elaine Biggie, Joanne Dahir, Frances An-derson, Pat Cooley, Norma Dineen, Floyd Hermanson, Herbert Cooley, Mel Hewett, Dean Schechinger, Duane Schechinger, John Fry, accompanist Rajaena Appleby, and director Laura Jean O’Connor.

Participants needed for a COPD Research Study

IRB # 397-11

A clinical outcomes study to compare the effect of Fluticasone Furoate/Vilanterol Inhalation Powder 100/25-mcg

with placebo on survival in subjects with moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and a history of or an

increased risk for cardiovascular disease. (Protocol HZC113782)

Do you have COPD and a history of cardiovascular disease? The University of Nebraska Medical Center is conducting a clinical trial of an investigational medication for people with emphysema. The study drug is a new drug that combines a

long-acting beta-agonist with corticosteroid in a single inhaler.

Individuals may qualify if they:• Have a diagnosis of moderate COPD.• Have a history or risk of heart disease.• Are between 40 and 80 years of age.

• Are a current or former smoker.

Study participants may receive an investigational study drug, study-related medical and study procedures at no charge.

Please call Sandy Talbott at 402-559-6365 or email her at

[email protected] if you are interested in participating

in this study.


CLASSIFIEDS Please call 402-444-4148 or 402- 444-6654to place your ad

LEND A HANDNon-Medical Home Care ServicesProvide chore, light housekeeping,

& respite care services. CNA Certified & Medication Aide. Please call for more information. 402-686-6200

Moving, refelting, assemble, repair,tear down. Used slate tables.

We pay CASH for slate pool tables.

Big Red Billiards402-598-5225

POOL TABLES

PAID THROUGH March 2013

Laughter is the best medicineEnjoy a genuine “down home

humorist” style of comedy tailored for a variety of audiences. For more information, call

402-616-0460

New Horizons Newspaper

Enoa Aging

REPUTABLE SERVICES, INC.

402-4 5 5-7 0 0 0

• Remodeling & Home Improvement

• Safety Equipment Handrails

Smoke and Fire Alarms

• Painting Interior & Exterior

• Handyman Services

• Senior Discounts

• Free Estimates

• References • Fully Insured

Quality Professional Service

Better Business Bureau Member

Senior Citizens (62+)

Accepting applications for HUD-subsidized apartments in

Papillion & Bellevue. Rent determined by income and medical expenses.

Monarch Villa West201 Cedar Dale Road

Papillion (402) 331-6882

Bellewood Courts1002 Bellewood Court

Bellevue (402) 292-3300

Managed by Kimball Management., Inc.

We do business in accordance with

the Fair Housing Law.

deFreeseManor

2669 DodgeOmaha, NE

402-345-0622

Subsidized housing for those age 62 and over

with incomesunder $25,050

(1 person)or $28,600

(two persons)

TOP CASH PAIDBest & honest prices

paid for: Old jewelry, furniture, glassware, Hummels,

knick-knacks, old hats & purses, dolls, old toys, quilts, linens, buttons, pottery, etc.

Also buying estates & partial estates.

Call Bev at 402-339-2856

Tree TrimmingBeat the

falling flakes!

402-894-9206

Chipping & removal. Your prunings chipped. Experienced & insured.

Senior discount.

Lamplighter IISome of the nicest, newer 1 bedroom apartments. Elevator, w & d, heated

parking garage. Small complex. By bus & shopping. No pets or smoking.

93rd & Maple • 402-397-6921

OLD STUFF WANTED(before 1975)

Postcards, photos, drapes, lamps, 1950s and before fabrics,

clothes, lady’s hats, & men’s ties, pictures, pottery, glass, jewelry, toys, fountain

pens, furniture, etc.Call anytime

402-397-0254 or 402-250-9389

Integrity Builders

BBB Honor Roll member

Free estimates & inspections

• Roofs • Windows • Siding • Gutters

Storm damage specialist

Call Colin @ 402-510-7360

Please supportNew Horizons advertisers!

Nails 2GoMobile Nail Care & Non-Medical Home Health Services

Licensed Nail Tech/AVON-Rep

For more information Call Cindy at 402-850-1649

[email protected] • www.youravon.com/cindyrupp

ENOA menuFebruary 2012 The Omaha Fire De-

partment’s Public Edu-cation and Affairs De-partment is available to install free smoke and/or carbon monoxide detec-tors inside the residences of area homeowners.

To have a free smoke and/or carbon monoxide detector installed inside your home, send your name, address, and tele-phone number to:

Omaha Fire Department

Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Requests10245 Weisman Dr.Omaha, NE 68134


OFD can install freesmoke, carbon

monoxide detectors

Friday, Feb. 1Liver & Onions

Monday, Feb. 4Country Fried Steak

Tuesday, Feb. 5Garlic Rosemary Chicken Quarter

Wednesday, Feb. 6Chili Dog

Thursday, Feb. 7Italian Pork Loin

Friday Feb. 8Western Baked Beef

Monday, Feb. 11Chicken Pot Pie

Tuesday, Feb. 12Pepper Beef Patty

Wednesday, Feb. 13(Ash Wednesday)

Tuna Macaroni & Cheese

Thursday, Feb. 14Roast Beef

Friday, Feb. 15Crunchy Pollock

Monday, Feb 18CLOSED FOR

THE HOLIDAYS

Tuesday, Feb. 19Open Face Hot

Turkey Sandwich

Wednesday, Feb. 20Soft Shell Beef Taco

Thursday, Feb. 21Pork Dijon

Friday, Feb. 22Tuna &

Noodle Casserole

Monday, Feb. 25Beef Italiano

Tuesday, Feb. 26Cheeseburger

Wednesday, Feb. 27Apple Glazed Pork

Thursday, Feb 28Beef Stew

NH2/13

One in four Americans will develop foot complications due to diabetes. Properly fitted shoes are essential

for reducing these risks.Wear Diabetic Shoes

To Prevent Foot Complications!

Medicare may reimburse for 1 pair of diabetic shoes and 3 pairs of shoe inserts per calendar year if qualifying

conditions are met.Diabetes Supply Center accepts

assignment – we’ll bill Medicare and supplemental insurance for you!

Many styles available!

Diabetes-Supply.com

Omaha World Adventur-ers begins the second half of its 2012-13 travel, ad-venture, and documentary series when world guide and filmmaker Stan Walsh presents Escape Rome to Oberammergau. The film will be presented Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 2 and 7 p.m. at the 20 Grand Cin-ema, 14304 W. Maple Rd. The German village of Oberammergau is the destination of thousands of pilgrims who visit to view The Passion Play. The show, which depicts the final days of Jesus, has been performed in Oberammer-gau each decade since 1633. Armchair travelers will

also enjoy this journey through Assisi, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Lucerne, and Munich. Tickets, which are $12, are available at the door. For more information, please call RJ Enterprises at (toll free) 866-385-3824.

Film series continues Feb. 12

Filmmaker Stan Walsh


ENOA, its clients overwhelmed by theoutpouring of gifts

from the communityThe Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging wishes to thank the

businesses, churches, schools, organizations, and individuals listed below for their generosity during the 2012 Christmas season.

These community partners adopted hundreds of ENOA clients, participants in the agency’s Grandparent Resource Center, and dozens of other older adults in the area and purchased a variety of gifts for them.

• Elizabeth Alicea• Sandra Bernhagen/Sarpy County TIPS #1• Blue Barn Theatre• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints• Covenant Presbyterian Church

• Derek, Brenda, & Brooke• ENOA staff members

• Abby Garreans• Nicole Gillespie/Creighton University

• Lincoln Financial Group • Lindsay Gortemaker

• Heidi• Home Instead Senior Care

• Home Instead Senior Care (corporate office)• Hy-Vee

• Immanuel Heritage Center• Cindy Kirstine

• Kathy Kirstine• Lorey Kirstine

• Laurie Massa/Creighton University• Mutual of Omaha’s Direct to Consumers Division

• Nebraska Heartland Coaches• University of Notre Dame

Alumni Club of Omaha• Omaha State Bank

• Outdoors Unlimited• Karen Paschal/Creighton University

• PhysMed, Inc. Home Health Care• Chris & Kelly Richardson and family

• St. Gerald’s Catholic Church• St. Gerald’s Women’s Community Project Group

• St. Philip Neri Catholic Church• Scheels

• Willowdale Elementary School• Xerox

Thank you!

New Horizona Newspaper

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