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ral music)
NARRATOR: Coming up on Nebraska Stories,
don't call this bullfighter a rodeo clown.
2,000 kids from 49 states compete in the Science Olympics.
We go behind the scenes as Antiques Roadshow
comes treasure hunting in Nebraska.
An artist's wife comes into her own.
And, a mysterious photo leads a young woman
on a journey to trace her roots.
(bright rock music)
(country music)
ROWDY MOON: My job is to keep riders safe.
I gotta keep moving or else I'm gonna get stuck.
I'm Rowdy Moon, I'm from Sargent, Nebraska.
I'm 18.
Don't call me a clown, call me bullfighter.
Everybody that goes to a rodeo thinks
the bullfighters are clowns.
We're not rodeo clowns, we're not to
make the crowd get all wild or anything.
We're just to do our jobs and
keep fighting bulls and keep everyone safe.
82 now be ready to hustle.
(announcer talking)
People think we're kind of crazy or whatever, but
you know, as long as you're smooth on your feet
we all stay pretty safe.
ANNOUNCER: See the way our bullfighter
moved in there to keep the bull away from the cowboy?
That's what he's all about.
Way to be, Rowdy. Nice job.
MOON: Whenever a bull rider gets bucked off or something
you know, laying there sometimes,
you never know if they're concussed or
you know, it can be anything.
But I always have to go to the bull's head first,
pick them up and take them away.
That way the bull rider's always out of danger.
You know, if someone gets hung up
I sure try my hardest to get them out of there.
I kind of think, what about the next one?
If I'm getting hurt,
how am I going to make it? How am I going to recover?
MUSIC
ANNOUNCER: Well, I'll tell you what, friends,
our bulls are kind of winning out on this deal.
MOON: If I have to take a hook, and I have to take a hook,
and it's what the job is.
ANNOUNCER: See the way Rowdy moved in there
to keep the bull's attention?
That's what he's all about.
(mellow electric guitar music)
KIDS: Science Rules!
(festive percussion music)
(cheering)
JON PEDERSEN: Well, Science Olympiad is very much like
the sport's olympiad,
in that teams compete for honors and medals,
golden, silver bronze, actually to six places.
We also compete for a national title,
and it's all about building a team to compete
in different, specific events,
that are all related to science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics.
It is large.
2000 participants, almost, from again 49 states.
- Nebraska!
- California!
- Texas!
- Kentucky!
- Japan!
PEDERSEN: You know, to me, this is how science, technology,
engineering, mathematics ought to be taught,
and getting our kids engaged in.
SAAN PATEL: It's just helped me love science more
throughout the years,
and I just can't live without it now.
THOMAS DRAPER: It's been awesome.
CAM PIKAART: It's been really awesome.
NANDAN DAVE: I mean, we've had a great time.
I think it was pretty dramatic,
so I'd call it a win.
STARTER: Three, two, one, zero.
(bright rock music)
JAKE WINEMILLER: They're trying to make a rocket
stay in the air as long as possible
without any parachute.
It's a great engineering problem.
They could solve it fairly easy with a parachute,
but no, they have to just fence centers of mass,
center of gravity.
It really drives them to start thinking about physics,
and the real world.
It's your rocket, keep hanging on,
I'm going to rotate it up, it's your rocket.
It's my rocket.
Okay, any last adjustments?
Three, two, one, zero.
I'll tell you what I love about this,
because I am a teacher,
this motivates kids to get into pure and applied science
and technology, and that's what I'm all about.
I love it.
Three, two, one, zero.
Zero.
Zero.
Zero.
Zero.
MANLEY MIDGET: This is mission impossible.
It's an event where students take a lot of junk,
and then make something out of it.
So, this year they're dropping
a golf ball into the device,
but the device has to lift golf balls,
and put them in a scoring container.
But along the way five forms of energy,
and the trick is,
you have to do it in a certain amount of time,
which they did not know until they got here today.
GRIFFIN KARR: We have a whole bunch of these little things
we call me-me's set up,
and they're chains of mechanical to electrical changes,
where each motor flips a switch,
which causes the next motor to turn on,
so it's very efficient.
All right, battery dead?
STUDENT: Problem.
KARR: We've been doing a lot of tests with this,
so the batteries are probably dead.
We're going to change the batteries out.
That's why we do test runs,
to make sure that things like that don't happen.
In three, two, one.
(electrical buzzing)
KARR: Much better.
TEACHER: I like this event so much because
it takes students through problem solving.
They go through the engineering process to solve problems.
They really like it, it's hands on,
they can be creative, they really get engaged.
You almost have to make the students stop.
They love this, they want to do this event all the time.
(bright piano music)
LIN WOZNIEWSKI: This is forensics.
That's what they're supposed to do is determine:
who did it?
And the neat thing about this that
is that it's all logic.
They have to put all of the evidence together
to determine who really did it.
It's a very devious crime.
DEJA KIRK: Somebody has stolen money,
and put something on fire.
We're trying to figure out what these substances are,
and we just have different chemicals to help us out:
acid, bases, etcetera.
It's pretty cool.
And we have blood samples too.
WOZNIEWSKI: If they get it, it's a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, if they decide to just go with the
surface evidence, they're not going to get it right.
They have to think about it very deeply.
BRUCE WIEGAND: This is an air trajectory event,
where students are to design and construct a device
that's capable of launching a ball
to a distance of eight meters.
And what they want to do is be able
to shoot far and close, with a great deal of accuracy.
So, they're trying to get within millimeters of a target.
STUDENT 1: Short target.
STUDENT 2: Three, two...
(cheering)
We had a bellow system,
so when it pushes down, it comes back up,
and we had a hammer that falls on it.
WIEGAND: There's a lot of education in this.
They learn how to graph,
they learn how to predict,
they have to learn about experimentation
and calibration of a device.
They try something, it may not work at first,
so they have to try something else.
It develops critical thinking skills.
It develops engineering skills,
and they learn how to do ballistic curves.
TEACHER: We are up.
OFFICIAL: Oh, nice shot.
THOMAS DRAPER: We have to use the Pythagorean Theorem
to figure out where the distances should be,
and the angle which it should be at.
CAM PIKAART: Yeah, we had to use it for the bucket shot.
We had to use the Pythagorean Theorem
to figure out what the distance between us
and the bucket was.
And it worked.
Three, two...
(cheering)
TEACHER: Beautiful.
(bright piano music)
KRYSTAL JAMISON: We have a partner,
and we build a bridge together,
and we test it on the hoppers that are back there,
and then you put a block on top,
and a chain that goes down in bucket,
and then you're testing how much weight it can hold.
So, once it breaks, then you stop testing.
OFFICIAL: Okay, let me check it first before you go.
That looks good.
JAMISON: And then, to calculate your score,
it's in efficiency,
so you take how much it weighed in grams.
So, a max of 15,000 grams,
divided by the mass of your bridge,
and then you get efficiency.
Hopefully a good one.
TAMMAYA SHRIVASTAVA: It's been stressful but fun at the same time.
A lot of long hours put into building
a small balsa structure, just to have it break in a minute,
but it's rewarding to have...
JUSTIN ***: It's all worth it at the end.
SHRIVASTAVA: Yeah, it's all worth it.
TEACHER: Great job.
(applause)
GERALD PUTZ: Everybody loves to be best at something,
that's a natural human trait.
There's always a component,
for all 46 of the events, of problem solving.
Some hands on component,
where students have to demonstrate
their knowledge and skill.
A lot of kids don't figure they're capable
of doing this, until they get engaged
in a real activity, and they find out,
I can do this.
And they end up going on to higher levels of aspiration.
So, this is incredibly motivational
for just millions of students over 30 years.
We've seen the passion that develops.
ANNOUNCER: In first place, our national champion,
from the state of California, Troy High School.
(applause)
(mellow electric guitar music)
(fun brass music)
- Holy moly!
- I value them, they're cherished items,
and they remind of a person I loved very much.
- You look like you're awfully excited.
NARRATOR: Entering its second decade on television,
Antiques Roadshow is the most watched,
long running series on the PBS network.
This summer, Antiques Roadshow made Omaha
a stop on its annual national tour.
JILL GILES: Of course, we're all going to go get a steak.
NARRATOR: A production of WGBH,
the Boston PBS station,
the Roadshow's schedule runs like clockwork.
Arrive in town on Thursday,
set up on Friday,
and tape the show on Saturday.
MARSHA BEMKO: We produce two things,
an event and a television show,
but in order to be able to greet everybody
and set up what's going on behind us,
we need that kind of space.
And that, for the most part,
is the convention center.
NARRATOR: The Roadshow will produce enough content
to create three, one-hour programs
from a single day's taping.
To get that accomplished,
they need a large number of hands on the job.
- Okay, everybody ready?
- One, two, three...
(upbeat pop music)
- Get under that.
(upbeat pop music)
* Don't stop movin'
- We love our boss.
BEMKO: I the boss, but they still like me anyway.
Can you believe it?
- Here, hold the cables.
BEMKO: I don't touch dirty.
(laughter)
I don't do dirty.
BEMKO: We will travel with 55 crew members,
most of them are from Boston,
either from WGBH or freelancers that we work with.
- I just want to double check the placement
of the backlights in this area.
The stand lights.
GILES: Fortunately, most of the crew that we work with
has been with the Roadshow since its inception,
so it's really like a big family reunion every summer
that we get to see people that we don't work with typically
throughout the year.
NARRATOR: About 80 percent of the crew have been with
the show since it first went into production.
Included among those numbers,
are many of the Roadshow appraisers.
APPRAISER: Excuse me for one second,
I just want to go look something up.
When did you buy it again?
- 1986.
APPRAISER: And, how much did you pay for it?
- 500.
BRIAN WITHERELL: I think truthfully, at the time that we were selected,
it was season two, and they were slammed.
Had no idea what sort of success it was going to be,
and they'd shown up at cities and there was people--
there were lines wrapped around buildings.
(fun plucky orchestral music)
- Chicken feet.
- This is Schmo.
It belonged to my great aunt.
- Her name is Mavis.
She came all the way from Wisconsin.
- You've got orange, and banana,
lemon, wintergreen.
(laughter)
APPRAISER: What were hoping to find out today?
- I'd like to know more.
Who the maker was. Was it a New York cabinet maker?
NARRATOR: Brian Witherell lives in California
where he works in the antique business
started by his father.
His expertise is Western material.
WITHERELL: I know you were asking
is there a famous maker on it?
Can we say it's Herter Brothers,
or Pottier and Stymus?
It's definitely not Herter Brothers.
There's a chance it's Pottier and Stymus.
BEMKO: We work with a pool of about 150 experts.
They pay their own way.
They pay their own expenses.
We give them lunch,
and breakfast on Saturday,
plus, about nine and a half million viewers a week.
SEBASTIAN CLARK: It's a lot of fun, the crew...
I mean, we couldn't do it without the crew,
and everything that they do,
so it's just a lot of fun,
and it's a long day, it's tiring,
but we love what we do.
SCHUYLER WHITE: The whole crew is like a big family,
so I think people would be surprised
it's not just work.
We really enjoy doing it.
NARRATOR: And much like the crew,
the summer tour may be the only chance
appraisers have to see each other.
CLARK: Yes!
CLARK: See the only time I'll see Matt
is five times a year, on the road.
MATTHEW QUINN:: Probably.
CLARK: Maybe we'll run into each other at another event,
the only time I'll see Peter.
PETER: We're on opposite ends of the world, so--
CLARK: Right, exactly and opposite ends of the--
QUINN: We talk on the phone,
we consult all year long,
but the only time we see each other is here.
CLARK: Yeah, I think one of my colleagues
refers to this as camp for appraisers.
QUINN: Appraiser camp.
CLARK: Yeah, so we have a good time.
NARRATOR: The adage,
"find a job you love,
and you'll never work a day in your life"
seems to resonate among the Roadshow family.
(mellow electric guitar music)
FRANZ BROWN: This is my mother as Errol Flynn,
and this is my mother as Maureen O'Hara.
My goodness,
I didn't realize how racy that shot was.
- Yeah.
(laughter)
FRANZ BROWN: You're open in front, down to the navel.
And if you look here, you can see the position
that Errol Flynn is standing in here.
And the other shot is the Maureen O'Hara position.
NARRATOR: Such is the life
for the wife of renowned movie poster illustrator,
Reynold Brown.
FRANZ BROWN: And there's a number of different pictures.
(classy violin music)
NARRATOR: In the 50's and 60's,
Reynold Brown created movie posters
for some of the biggest films in Hollywood,
and his wife, Mary Louise Tejeda Brown,
was the model who posed for his paintings.
- You want to be remembered like that?
MARY LOUISE TEJEDA BROWN: I can't even see the darn thing.
I can't... oh!
(laughter)
INTERVIEWER: Show us that.
MARY BROWN: I did whatever he needed.
Saved us paying a model and all that.
NARRATOR: Mary was an artist in her own right.
She had a promising career as an illustrator as well,
but as the family grew, and her husband's career took off,
Mary willingly put her own artistic pursuits aside.
She became "the artist's wife."
FRANZ BROWN: The art career came to an end in 1946,
when the children started arriving,
and this is what happens to almost all women artists
is there faced with the fact that their professional career
comes to an end when the first kid arrives.
And if you got eight kids, it's really at an end.
NARRATOR: As the couple approached retirement,
they moved from the Los Angeles area
to the hilly pine-ridged landscape near Chadron.
MARY BROWN: We drove out here several times,
and so when we came,
we could see how beautiful it was around here.
So, we kind of fell in love with it.
NARRATOR: The new surroundings
inspired her to paint again.
(soft piano music)
MARY BROWN: When I came here, then I just went out
and just, whatever I saw that interested me,
I would stop the car and get out, set up my easel,
and start painting.
But now that I can't just so easily jump in the car and go,
I have to think of things I can do while I'm in the room.
NARRATOR: In 1991, Reynold Brown passed away.
Even before his death,
Mary began to lose her eyesight due to macular degeneration.
Now, even her brightly colored pastels
appear to her in shadow.
MARY BROWN: On this eye, it's... I see things on the edge
of the eye.
I don't see the center.
See if close the other, the center...
I still see but it's fuzzy.
Now, this eye, I can see the center,
but I can't see the edge.
So, thank God, it sort of balances out.
NARRATOR: Since her view of the world
is now seen through the slit of a crescent moon,
her memories are the visuals that drive her now.
MARY BROWN: The more I'm trying to do things,
the less I'm seeing.
I know it's there
because my mental hill tells me it's there.
So, and with my knowledge of color,
I can put a stroke there
and make it into a leaf, because I know that,
not necessarily because I see it.
But I see it in my mind.
NARRATOR: Mary's paintings have grown
increasingly impressionistic
with her deteriorating eyesight,
but you can still recognize the distinctive landscape
of this part of the northern pandhandle.
And she wants others to really see the beauty of the area.
MARY BROWN: I was trying to make the people aware of what they had.
They're surrounded with beauty,
but they do not see it.
It's just like now they're driving the car
and they're busy on their cell phone,
or whatever else they've got.
They've got this thing here, and another thing here.
They don't see a bloomin' thing.
NARRATOR: Mary Louise Tejeda Brown
has created more than twelve hundred paintings
and sketches with her colorful pastels.
But at the age of 92, she is slowing down.
A shoulder injury now makes it difficult
for her to paint or draw at all,
but she won't give up.
(regal orchestral music)
MARY BROWN: All I can say is,
I've done it since I was a little girl,
and I'll keep probably doing it till I die,
but it doesn't mean it's going to be a great painting,
or anything, I don't care really, at this point,
as long as I can try.
And I'll just keep drawing.
(mellow electric guitar music)
(bright guitar music)
KATIE FARRITOR: I grew up in a small town
in Custer County, Nebraska,
but I never thought to ask about my family's history,
until now.
It all started with a photograph
that someone once ripped, right down the middle.
I'm Katie Farritor.
I'm back in my hometown, Broken Bow,
researching my family history.
There was a photo taken by Solomon Butcher
that has a really interesting story behind it
of the homesteading days of my family,
and I'm here to see what I can find.
But first, I'm going to go see my dad.
My family has owned Farritor Auto Parts since 1952.
JIM FARRITOR: That's my dad, and...
three uncles.
The others are my cousins.
I have a journal that my dad kept.
KATIE FARRITOR: Cool.
JIM FARRITOR: And it was mostly-- it just gave things they did.
I mean, day to day stuff. Went to the grocery store...
KATIE FARRITOR: To find out the whole story of my family,
I realized I needed to go back farther than the 1960's.
CAROL CHRISTEN: Let me get the Farritor files first.
And here,
we have the Bob Farritor writings,
and he must've loved to write
because he just has all kinds of stories.
KATIE FARRITOR: My great grandfather, Robert J. Farritor,
was an avid Custer County historian.
His nephew, Chuck, wrote a book about our family history
that tells the story behind the photo that was taken
at our family homestead.
In the late 1800's, photographer Solomon Butcher,
took thousands of portraits like this,
of the settlers of Custer County.
CARL CHRISTEN: That's where the old dugout was.
We've got a picture of it somewhere,
but I can't tell you where it is.
KATIE FARRITOR: It turns out, a family friend
owns the land my ancestors homesteaded.
CARL CHRISTEN: But that was the original dugout for the Farritor place.
KATIE FARRITOR: Awesome.
CARL CHRISTEN: Then, they went from there
to the Todd house down there on the corner.
KATIE FARRITOR: I'm standing on the land that my family homesteaded,
and this is exactly where Solomon Butcher took the photo.
Behind me is where the windmill,
featured in the photo, stood.
MUSIC
KATIE FARRITOR: I've been told
there's quite a story behind this photo,
but first, I wanted to understand
what homesteading was all about.
(mellow guitar music)
The homestead national monument in Beatrice
is digitizing homestead records
to allow the public to access them.
BLAKE BELL: You can start just by typing in a last name here,
and we will see what comes up.
I see that we have zero matches
for the name that we searched for,
and there are cases where not all homestead records
did make it to the national archives.
KATIE FARRITOR: 1.6 million people homesteaded,
and it's estimated that 93 million Americans
may be descended from homesteaders.
Since we didn't find my great-great-grandfather,
we decided to check
the Bureau of Land Management website.
BELL: There is Robert G. Farritor.
KATIE FARRITOR: Great.
BELL: There is a reason
that he did not show up on our homestead record,
and that's because he actually received his land
under another authority,
which was called the Timber Culture Act.
KATIE FARRITOR: Cool.
I learned that the Timber Culture Act
allowed homesteaders to claim 160 additional acres
if they planted trees on one fourth of their land.
And Robert G. Farritor did just that.
He was the 91st person to prove up on his claim.
Now, I was ready to find out more
about my family's photo from historian John Carter
of the Nebraska State Historical Society.
JOHN CARTER: So, let's go take a look at it.
KATIE: Okay, great.
KATIE FARRITOR: John learned of my family's unique story
from my distant cousin, Chuck Farritor.
Chuck kept the story within the family for many years,
but John convinced him it was worth sharing.
CARTER: Butcher came out and made this photograph,
and then for years it was lost, damaged,
and the family had it put back together again,
and it's been a family heirloom ever since.
KATIE FARRITOR: As my distant cousin Chuck told the story,
Solomon Butcher stayed with my family for a week.
Just before he left,
Butcher set up his camera and took the photo.
Then, he presented my great-great-grandfather with a bill.
My great-great-grandfather demanded a discount
for all the food he had supplied to Mr. Butcher
and his horses.
Butcher was furious.
He tore up the photograph, and left.
CARTER: When Butcher stomped off, he also said,
I'm going to break the negative,
relegate you to the dustbin of history.
Now, what we learned years later,
was that he clearly did not break the negative.
ASSISTANT: Okay, so this is the original negative
that Solomon Butcher would've taken of your family.
When you hold it, hold it by the long edge,
not by the corners.
There you go.
KATIE FARRITOR: Wow.
Why do you think he didn't break it?
CARTER: Bottom line is, Butcher was driven by his project.
He was making photographs
that he was going to use
to tell the narrative of settlement on the Great Pains.
Clearly didn't break it.
It exists to this day,
and you've got it in your hands right now.
KATIE FARRITOR: Yeah.
It's just really interesting, I mean,
growing up in Broken Bow and not knowing any of it,
and then now, you know, being here,
and having a chance to look at everything,
and find out way more than I ever had
because I never asked.
(upbeat guitar music)
(mellow electric guitar music)
Watch out stories online
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Join the Nebraska Stories conversation.
Nebraska Stories is funded by the
Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation,
the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety,
Humanities Nebraska,
the Nebraska Tourism Commission,
and First Nebraska Bank.
Sustained funding for arts coverage is provided
by the H. Lee and Carol Gendler Charitable Fund,
the Nebraska Arts Council,
and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
(rock music)