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Omaha Event: College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference, 12 June

The College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning.

Speakers included:
Jack Diesing, President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships & Alliances at NCAA
Mayor Jean Stothert, City of Omaha
Marcus Blossom, McCormick Endowed Athletic Director
Roger Dixon, President/CEO MECA

Topics included:
App is available for the CWS.
Cashless Concessions- No cash will be accepted at concessions.
Reverse ATMS- For people needing to turn cash into a card, reverse ATMS will be available.
Clear Bag Policy- Still in effect.
Paperless Tickets- Tickets will be digital. If you do not have a cell phone or computer, you will still be able to attend. Admissions will be open and you can buy your ticket there.
Food- Favorites will be returning from years past.
75 year anniversary_ It is next year not this year.

Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com

Jack Diesing: So good morning, everybody. Thank you all for coming. Welcome to the greatest show on dirt. I wanted to first of all recognize some of the College World Series…my board members that are here: Herb Hames, Tarci Slaybaugh, George Wachtler, Lisa Diesing. Thank you all for coming. As president of the College World Series Omaha, Inc. I’m excited to be here leading off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, NE. Today is the…really, the culmination of the Road to Omaha Journey. Omaha has become synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, much like Louisville is synonymous with the Kentucky Derby and Augusta, GA, is synonymous with the Masters, and Indianapolis is synonymous with the Indianapolis 500.

We really are proud and privileged to be able to be integral partners with the NCAA in both the past and the successive wonderful championships that this event ends up with. So we’re really looking forward to it. And as one head baseball coach said, “There are no bad days in Omaha.”

So up here with me today are Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships at the NCAA; Mayor of the City of Omaha, the Honorable Jean Stothert; Marcus Blossom, the McCormick Endowed Athletic Director at Creighton University, the host institution; and Roger Dixon, the CEO of Metropolitan Entertainment, Convention Authority. And all of them will make a couple of comments here in a few minutes.

Just a few other things. We really, as I said, are at the Mecca of college baseball. To be clear, it all started on a much smaller stage: typically, local community fields across the nation, and that’s why every year CWS and the NCAA provide grant money to baseball and softball programs throughout the city. The “Restore the Diamond” program is what we call it. It’s a grant program that’s been supporting the community organizations’ baseball and softball programs since 1972, and this year is no different. This year, we supported eight different fields and facilities across the Metro, surrounding areas, and over the course of time from 1972 we’ve contributed about $5.3 million to these organizations to give something back to baseball and softball in the community, and that’s not to mention some of the larger contributions we’ve been involved with… with the UNO baseball field and soon to be Creighton baseball field, both of which are serving as practice fields for this wonderful event.

Finally, I do want to say—and I hate to use the word announce, but I’ll use it and know I’ll get in trouble for doing that, but we’re going to be celebrating the … College World Series 75th anniversary here in Omaha, but not this year. We missed a year. So this is the 74th of like, old Tom should tell…. He’s a hard guy to get rid of. And I kept telling this was the deal, and he said, “No, they want to do a story anyway,” so… but as part of this process, the planning is going to almost be a year-long process, and you all will be getting more information about this what will be taking place in the coming weeks following this year’s College World Series. So our partners will share a little bit more about what else is happening this year. And now it’s my pleasure to introduce Anthony Holman, the Vice President of Championships at the NCAA…Anthony.

Anthony Holman: Okay, I’ve got a few notes here, and I’ve got to change my glasses because I’m getting older and I couldn’t hit the slider before. They didn’t know that I needed glasses. I’d tell my parents I’d be in the big leagues if only they’d got me glasses earlier.

Jack was so kind to talk about the 75th anniversary that’s coming up and what the College World Series is synonymous with. I get so many calls, emails, text messages from folks that this is a bucket list type of event for them, just like Jack was saying for the Derby and the Masters and other events like that. And part of the reason why that is… it’s not just the location, it’s the people, it’s the community, that’s embraced and taken ownership in those events. And that’s certainly what we have here in Omaha. We’re so thankful for that. So we really appreciate all the support that we continue to get.

So a couple of things that are coming up with the championship. I think everybody… hopefully you’ve seen that the teams that are going to be here, we’ve got a number of institutions that are back for returners, some who were here more recently. We’ve got one that’s making their first appearance, but we’re excited to have Tennessee here for their seventh time; Kentucky is here for their first time. The Aggies of Texas A&M, making their eighth appearance. North Carolina, in for their twelfth appearance. They’re so excited they came yesterday, so we’re excited to have them. Florida State, making their 24th appearance, and the last time they were here was in 2019. And then both Virginia and Florida were both here in 2023, so we’re excited to have them back, and then NC State, excited to have them back, and I’m sure we’ll get questions about the last time that they were here.

But we’re just excited that… how resilient all of the teams are, and the opportunities that they come. There’s been so much talk, and I’m sure you guys are paying attention to it. So we’re not going to ignore the elephant in the room about what’s going on with name, image, and likeness and student athletes as employees and all those types of things. I’ll guarantee you nobody will be talking about that on the field here this weekend, right? Those…the excitement you’ll see from these young men in competing will mirror what you’ll see in August at the Little League World Series, where they’re playing for the enjoyment and the love of the game. And that’s what we want to celebrate over the next two weeks, so we’re excited about that.

A couple of announcements about our fan fest. We’re excited that our fan fest will continue to be available and open at 11:00 tomorrow and then it will be open on each of the days of competition. There’s a number of additional activities that that we would encourage folks to take part in. Thanks to our friends at MECA for helping us secure additional space to add some additional items and activities for our fans to take part in out there, so we’re really excited about that. Our partners, Capital One, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Buick, Great Clips, Rawlings are all returning with baseball activities, photo ops, giveaways, prizes, tons of activities. So we encourage everyone, even if you don’t have tickets, come on down and check that out for sure.

And we’re never sold out. There are always tickets. We don’t say that “sold out” word. Come on down; there’s something for everybody. And one of the other… last things that I’ve wanted to talk about was that we’ll also be inducting our fourth ever College World Series All Star, recognizing outstanding contributions to this wonderful event. And I’m so thrilled and excited that this year we’ll be recognizing one of my mentors and good friend Dennis Pope. And many of you know Denny, who was so integral in the development and the growth of this championship for a number of years for… both in attendance and exposure, and even bracket expansion. We were… folks won’t remember, not everybody remembers, but this was 48 teams for a long time and it went to 64 and Denny helped to usher that in. So we’re excited to have him and Donna and his family here to recognize them during the series, so please come out and help us thank him for his support.

And then the last thing is that if you if you want to stay up to date and in the know on all of the Men’s College World Series games, news, and happenings at the stadium, we encourage fans to download our Men’s College World Series app. My social media and communication team was all over me to make sure I got a plug in for that. So download the app. Plenty of information and activities to follow through that app. So we really appreciate that.

Thank you again, Omaha, for all the continued support and excitement that that we have. Folks come here in droves for a number of reasons. We’ve got tons of people who make this an annual trip and others that it’s a bucket list item for them and they can’t wait to get here. So thank you for your continued support. And we look forward to another great Series. So now I’ll ask our Honorable Mayor Jean Stothert to come up and provide a few remarks.

Mayor Jean Stothert: Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Anthony. I’ll take my sunglasses off. I don’t need reading glasses like you do, and I believe I’m a little bit older than you. But you know, just a few months. But it’s so good to be back at Charles Schwab Stadium, and we are very, very proud to be the host once again of this of the Men’s College World Series. And just thank goodness you don’t ask me to do the first pitch. I did that once at a Storm Chaser game, and I’ll never do that again. That was quite embarrassing. But again, thank you to all of our partners, the NCAA College World Series, Omaha and Creighton University, and of course… back up, the College World Series again brings great athletic competition to Omaha and thousands and thousands of visitors. It also brings Omaha together to make the next two weeks a great success that grows even bigger and better every single year, and we are ready for another record-breaking series.

This year, fans, families, and teams can visit the Heartland of America Park at Lewis and Clark Landing for the first time. It just opened last year, August 18th, and they will have a real treat walking through our new parks. The riverfront parks have exceeded all of our expectations. More than two million people have visited the parks for family movie nights, concerts, live theater, fireworks festival, walking their dogs, and special events. And so it will be a real treat for our fans this year too.

And next year. our fans can use the Baby Bob pedestrian bridge to walk from 10th Street to the Bob Kerrey Bridge and then cross over to Iowa. So those people in Council Bluffs can walk from Council Bluffs all the way to the ballpark, and that should be done later this year, this fall, and it’s another way that we are improving connections to all of our downtown events and venues, and it’s great to be downtown right now.

I would also like to thank the Men’s College World Series for supporting our community. One example of this is their continued support of the Readers Become Leaders program, which I love. Each year the College World Series of Omaha, Inc, and the NCAA partner with our schools to encourage enthusiasm for academics. This year, they partnered with 65 Omaha public schools, 3,700 third-graders, to help increase their reading proficiency. Students received incentives to read and complete reports on books. They earned prizes for their participation, including the opportunity to attend, of course, a College World Series game. Young readers completed more than 30,000 book reports, and that’s really great. Next Monday night, we will recognize Saddlebrook Elementary as the winning school. Thank you for supporting programs that teach young people about leadership and the importance of academics. I look forward to welcoming the student athletes tomorrow night at the opening ceremony and the opening games then on Friday. It’s going to be a good week. I wish I could guarantee good weather, but I can’t. But hopefully we’ll have good enough weather during the whole season this year. So now I am very, very pleased to introduce Creighton University Athletic Director Marcus Blossom. Marcus.

Marcus Blossom: Anthony talked about expansion. You get 88 in there… I think we earn that in there this year. We could talk about that a little bit later, but I do want to start by thanking Anthony and Randy and the rest of the NCAA staff. They do a great job. I happened to work with these two guys when I was at the national office, and it is a lot of work. They work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure we put on a very, very special event. Like the great game of baseball, Creighton University is full of cherished traditions and one of our most favorite traditions is having the honor and privilege of being the host institution for this special event, the Men’s College World Series. I speak for all Bluejays when I say how proud Creighton is to be partners with CWS of Omaha and the NCAA. On behalf of our vibrant community, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our President, the Reverend Daniel S. Hendrickson of the Society of Jesus; the entire Creighton Community; baseball head coach Ed Servais; and our dedicated athletic department, who spends tireless amounts of hours helping CWS Omaha and the NCAA put on this great event. Their efforts behind the scenes for the Men’s College World Series are definitely immeasurable. I do want to also acknowledge…I know she’s on the board of MECA, but she’s also our new chair of the board at Creighton, Miss Diane Duran. She helps a lot to bring this event to Omaha and she’s a big partner of Creighton University as well.

And now I have the pleasure of introducing one of the real big partners of Creighton and the one and only President of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, Roger Dixon.

Roger Dixon: Well, Diane, he introduced you, so welcome and thank you for your support. And on behalf of MECA, our extensive team of events staff, baseball management, we are proud to welcome everyone back to Charles Schwab Field. We are thrilled to be entering our 13th year as the home of the Men’s College World Series. Above all else, we are focused on creating an atmosphere here that gives fan baseball fans from far and wide a seamless experience, and that starts with hard-working staff months before the first pitch is even thrown. We are also dedicated to making the guest experience feel new and exciting every year. With the help of our talented and creative concessionaire at Levy, we are once again featuring a menu that caters and customs to the Men’s College World Series. These signature creations will be available to taste following today’s news conference, so make sure you stick around for a preview of this year’s menu.

Aside from the fun food, we want to make sure all our guests are prepared for what our venue has to offer. As a reminder, Charles Schwab Field is a cash-free environment. Only digital or card payments will be accepted throughout the building, including in our concession stands. We have multiple cash machines on site that function as a reverse ATM which will disburse a VISA gift card equal to the amount of cash deposited. Also, the stadium is digital enter only, meaning tickets must be downloaded in advance and then scanned right from the phone. Our box office staff is standing by to help anyone who needs assistance with this process.

Like every year, safety is a top priority for MECA during the Men’s College World Series. Our clear bag policy remains in place. Additionally, each visitor who walks through our doors must undergo a screening process, which will again include walk-through metal detectors at each of our gates to both enhance and expedite the entry.

We also want to remind the public that our guest service desk is available via text message for any issues or concerns that arise during the game. Simply text Omaha space your issue and location to 69050, and we will dispatch the appropriate assistance. However, it is important if you see something that requires immediate attention, never hesitate to alert a nearby MECA staff member or on-site law enforcement. We are thankful to have a productive partnership with Omaha police to ensure this event goes without a hitch. We are looking forward to another fun, exciting, and safe Men’s College World Series and our confident everyone’s visit to Charles Schwab Field will be the best one. Thank you.

Jack Diesing: Well, thank you to Anthony. Thank you to the mayor. Thank you, Marcus, and thank you, Roger, and also thank all of you in the press and everyone else for being here to help lead off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, Nebraska. Feel free after this is over to ask questions of anybody that you want to, or if you prefer to just go have food, feel free to go do that. And as we said, Omaha is synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, so it’s about time to… let’s go play some baseball, okay? Thank you all for coming.

2024

Please check out our posts on the College World Series and share!

Omaha Interview: Alec Woockman, the Executive Sous Chef at Levy Restaurants
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-alec-woockman/

Omaha Event: College World Series Food Tasting, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting-12-june/

Omaha Event: College World Series- Food Tasting-The Fan Food
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting/

Omaha Event: College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-pre-game-press-conference-12-june/

Omaha Interview with Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-with-amy-hornocker-executive-director-college-world-series-of-omaha-inc/

Omaha Interview with Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

Amy Hornocker, Executive Director of CWS Omaha, Inc. at her office

What are the family activities that will be going on?

We have Thursday, June 13 as our open practice day. All eight teams will be here at some point during the day, starting at nine o’clock and they will have some time on the field and be around. Fan Fest will be open and there’s some new exciting stuff that will be in Fan Fest.

That’ll be good, and then we have team days.

Obviously, Sunday is Father’s Day, so that’s usually a big day at the park.

Monday, game eight, is Kid’s Day, a lot of kids’ activities, mascots. The kids will hit or run the bases at the end, 12 and under because it gets a little crazy with the big kids get involved.

And then Tuesday, June 18 is our Hero’s Night that we do usually annually. There will be different recognitions for police, fire military, you know, medical folks. That’s one that’s pretty popular.

Wednesday, June 19th is Teacher Appreciation. We do gift cards for the first 250 teachers. We had an honorary captain submission where you could submit you or someone else could submit a teacher and say “why”. We randomly picked from those submissions, so four of them will be captains and they’ll get to be in the dugout and just those kinds of things.

Wednesday, June 19 is Country Night. It’s just really, there’s not a concert or anything, but it’s just wear your cowboy hat, country music, just something to just kind of change it up a little bit.

I think I came to that one year, and I had my cowboy boots on.

Yeah, that’s what we want.

…but I always have my cowboy boots on. I got lucky.

(laughter) Then we have two planned fly overs planes, so that the first one will be actually Game Three which is Saturday. It’s kind of weird. Usually, we do Game One and Finals One. But we had some aircraft availability issues and, of course, when you’re doing the military and million-trillion dollar aircraft, it’s, “We’ll take whenever you can do it …

Game Three will be two EA-18 Growlers from US Navy’s attack squadron from Whidbey Island Washington. Finals One will be F-16s from the Colorado Air National Guard out of Buckley Space Force Base in Denver. Our staff member that does all of our military stuff, she puts paperwork in through the Pentagon and then people volunteer. Anyway, that’s what’s going on that’s a little different [or] special: otherwise, just games as usual. And yeah, like I said, some potentially different teams for people to set their eyes on. It’s kind of fun.

Are there any changes to things like one year we had the clear bag policy and then we had no cash …?

No, those all remain, but there should not be any new security things.

We’ll still have the walk-through metal detectors at the gates which have increased the availability of getting people in you do not need to take things out of your pockets. Their technology allows people to just pass through.

Those are nothing nLLSU and their fan base, setting attendance records. We continue just to have a demand for this. It’s a good problem to have.

We increased season ticket prices a little bit this year and still saw 98% renewal. That’s pretty unheard of. The traditions, people wanting to come to this, is still there, if not greater and definitely rebounded from COVID and I think we see you know, it took off. It took us a couple of years to get the corporate base back. People still weren’t gathering or doing employee-client outings and now they’re back.

It was a hard time for a lot of companies and a lot of other organizations not knowing how things were going to go and what to do.

Yeah, and we have two fairly large youth tournaments that pop up around this. The kids play during the day and come at night to a CWS game. Without the GA (general admission) ticket, it became a little more challenging to fulfill some of those needs, but we did that. We increased our group ticket allotment last year. We wanted to make it a really concentrated effort to get priority to those kids to get them in here. Because that’s, I mean, those are our future fans. So, the outfield will be full of little league teams most likely.

It’s great when you’re around town and you see them and you’re seeing them have fun and the love for the sport.

Yes, I think there’s over 700 teams that are enrolled. They come in different waves, so that’s a lot of room nights and a lot of people in restaurants, so it’s pretty exciting.

We did work with Visit Omaha on a new economic impact number. They have a calculator that we worked with them on and inputted numbers. The last time we had done an official study was 2019. We were at $88.3 million in economic impact then and then this year, the 2023 Study yielded $115 million. So again, jobs, taxes, all that stuff.

That’s the next question I was going to ask. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

… because it’s a huge impact to the area.

It is. It definitely is, and I think what we have to be thankful for is all the support that we get from the city to support all of these folks visiting.

So yeah, we’ve had three really great years with the teams that we’ve had here. It’s not like people’s disposable income was unlimited, so we’ll see what happens with some of these different teams here.

How many people came last year?

I’d have to [check the] official number. It’s at my desk, but I think it’s uh, it was upwards of 390, some 1000 which was a record. We sold out most sessions and then a lot of them, once we sell out, we do offer about 1000 standing room only tickets, and we’ll do the same. Those are usually determined that day though. And we figured out that we can get about 1000 more in without it just being too much. I think it was an average of 22,000/game. Again, if you average it out, but the other numbers are on my desk.

What’s capacity?

We’re 24,500, just depends on who you talk to.

…And whether they’re standing or not standing.

Yeah.

How many seats are there?

Technically 24,500.

So, any new technology? I remember some time ago there was a change in the bats.

Nothing new that I can think of… ESPN continues to change how they cover this. In fact, the NCAA entered into a new agreement with them starting next year, but what actually was really exciting for us is game two of the finals, which could potentially be the championship game will be on ABC. Being able to be off the cable network and probably get into more homes is pretty cool for us. [It’s the] first time that we’ve been able to do that. ESPN continues to expand our coverage of baseball.

They used a drone the last few years and then so looking at the at the game from different lenses. That’s been kind of cool for the audience.

The technology with the drones…

Yes. The funniest story of all is we have this resident hawk over here. It lives on the light standard over here in right field. She not a big fan of drones. You’ll see her kind of causing some problems sometimes out there.

So..she feels the drone is threatening.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So she’s pretty harmless, but she does show herself well.

..You know, your babies and your home. A drone must be a pretty strange animal [to her] and it flies.

Yes. It’s been pretty funny. Some people have names for her, but . . .

I was going to ask what do they call her

They call her “Falconia” or something. I don’t know. But there’s some funny stories that come around throughout the two weeks while they’re here.

I remember one of the years, there were this couple of birds that just kept flying around, a pair.

When you have an outside venue, you’re going to get some of that stuff.

Anything else you can think of? We want to get the fans all ready and know what are they supposed to be doing.

This year is pretty similar to most, so nothing new that we need a lot of people know about other than just some of those special days and we do still have Monday, Tuesday afternoon game tickets for sale, pretty reasonably in the outfield.

We have the ticket exchange where people will go out if they can’t make it. They’ll resell their tickets. We’ll just be a normal year, but were interested in to see how the Super Regionals shake out, and see who’s coming here. And hopefully we’ll know everybody by Monday night.

There’s just a lot of surprises [which teams are coming] this year.

Yes, definitely, which isn’t all bad.

Our opening event, we used to do the parade and everything. Last year we did it at the Steel House. It’s just a more private for the teams because they are here with one goal, and so we’re doing that again where they get to see a different part. So it’s a shorter than kind of per their request, but so…

So no big parade …

No big parade, fireworks or anything. Not this year.

We just we kind of struck out a lot. We had half the time ended up with weather that ruined all of our plans. We’re like, maybe we need to look at this differen

Once those are wired, they do have to go off. It’s sad to put those off for no one really.

They’ve oftentimes gone up just for us. That’s why we need to look at this differently. You know, continue to make sure that we have the student athletes’ best interest in their time.

You don’t want to wear them out either.

Right. That’s a really long day with their media obligations and practices and stuff. We’re trying to be cognizant of that while still giving them something special here.

Something that’s interesting, and something I learned this year that I didn’t know, is Saving Grace Food [Rescue]. They work with Levy, so any food that does not come out of the kitchens here that’s made, goes directly to them so that they can provide it to different parts of the community. And we’ve been working with them to try and also get that out to some of our private people that have hospitality, so that this food isn’t just being thrown away.

Some of the other events like . . .

Baseball Village, the Hilton does a lot of catering for hospitality. That’s a really cool community piece that I did not know about until this year.

Oh, that’s great.

I’ve been wanting to do a story on them. But they had different troubles different years when I was trying to do it. So this would be really great lead in to that story, too….

Yeah.

…Because we try to promote the nonprofits and people doing good in Omaha. I told you before we don’t do bad news,

If we find, bad news, we might connect people behind the scenes. But we want OmahaNebraska.com to be that place to go to find out cool good things.

Just another…We have a renewed partnership with the zoo. We’ve had our national championship trophy out there and got a win with the penguins, and interacted with some of the animals because it’s obviously our number one tourism destination. It makes sense for us. We have obviously a lot of our visitors will also visit there. It makes sense that we collaborate, so it’s been fun. They do nights at the zoo, adult nights at the zoo, so we’re going to have the trophy there Thursday. It’s going to be a baseball themed night.

There are probably some really good puns for social media.

We’re just trying to still get out [the word], still talk about it with our community partners and all that.

Thank you.

More on Fan Fest:
https://www.ncaa.com/fan-fest-present

2024

Please check out our posts on the College World Series and share!

Omaha Interview: Alec Woockman, the Executive Sous Chef at Levy Restaurants
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-alec-woockman/

Omaha Event: College World Series Food Tasting, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting-12-june/

Omaha Event: College World Series- Food Tasting-The Fan Food
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting/

Omaha Event: College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-pre-game-press-conference-12-june/

Omaha Interview: Mogens Bay

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Mogens Bay

Mogens Bay with Heartland of America Park in the background and Omaha skyline

A special thank you to Mogens Bay for the interview. Pubic Private Partnerships have been a great interest area of mine for some time. It was wonderful to hear his speech earlier and to do the interview.

Please tell me more about the public private partnership.

Well, often, when you need to get stuff done, people have to get together. As you know, the city owned all this land. We didn’t have to acquire any lands. We knew there was a fantastic philanthropic community in Omaha. So public is the city, private is philanthropy and when we get together, good things happen.

You said that it was very special to work with Omaha in this capacity and enumerated some of that in your speech. Can you tell us a little more please?

We worked with the mayor’s office. We worked with the City Council and we worked with MECA, which became our partner from the very beginning. They were going to manage the Park and they were very much involved in getting the Park built and overseeing that. Then, of course, we had lots of contractors and subcontractors. I would say that the City is the public part of the partnership and philanthropy, whether it is foundations or companies or individuals, is the private part.

Coming here to Omaha…what helped you along the journey to work on this project?

Bob Daugherty, who was the founder of Valmont, he’s the one that brought me to Omaha. He was my mentor when it came to getting involved in community stuff – nonprofits – making sure that we make a difference.

He established a very significant foundation on his death and that foundation was investing about $40 million dollars in our community. So, people that have benefited from living here are committed to giving back – Daugherty is a good example of that. That’s how we learn. We learn from Peter Kiewit. We learn from Walter Scott and there are more examples.

This is not just something that happens now, but it happens so that we have more money available now because these foundations are becoming very, very big. The spirit [of] getting together to make things happen in Omaha, no, it’s not new.

What do you recommend for people or companies that want to become more involved?

Get their employees involved with nonprofits with anything that they have a passion for. Don’t just go out and place a board member. No. Some may have a have a passion for economic development. Some have a passion for social services. It doesn’t matter. Just commit some of your time. As a matter of fact, when I look at the current situation and the future of Omaha, our problem is not going to be money. It’s going to be leadership. People stepping up to do things.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Omaha Concert: The City Of Omaha Celebrates America Concert, 30 June

The City Of Omaha Celebrates America Concert is 39 June from 6:30 PM to 10:15 PM.

Come early to find parking. This Omaha event is very well attended!

6:30 PM
National Anthem and Welcome

6:45 – 8 PM
Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone

8:30 – 10 PM
Melissa Etheridge

10 PM
Fireworks

Memorial Park
6005 Underwood Avenue
Omaha, NE 68132

Omaha Farmers Market: Aksarben on Sunday, 25 June

Enjoy fresh vegetables and other offerings at the Omaha Farmers Market in Aksarben Village on Sundays.

Omaha Farmers Market Sign in Aksarben stating 30 seasons,7 May to 15 October, Sundays, 9AM to 1PM

It runs every Sunday from 7 May to 15 October from 9 AM to 1 PM.

Location:
Aksarben Village at 67th Street & Mercy Road

Omaha Farmers Market: Old Market on Saturday, 17 June

Enjoy fresh vegetables and other offerings at the Omaha Farmers Market in the Old Market on Saturdays.

It runs every Saturday from 6 May to 14 October from 8 AM to 12:30 PM.

Omaha Farmers Market Sign in Old Market stating 30 seasons, 6 May to 14 October, Sundays, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM

Location:
Old Market at 11th & Jackson Streets

Omaha Media Event: College World Series Food Tasting 2023-Images and Description, 14 June

It’s another home run for the College World Series with tasty offerings by Chef Alec Woockman of Levy Foods!

Chef Alec Woockman with his CWS Food Creations

Here’s the College World Series Food Tasting 2023 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha line up:

The Home Plate-Meatball Slider was a favorite of many in the room. It comes with four sliders, with fried ravioli, marinara, mozzarella, pesto, garlic fries with a generous dusting of Parmesan cheese. Each slider has one ridiculously large fluffy meatball, somehow momentarily contained by a bun. If you are not careful, you will … drop the…ball.

The Bada Bing Burger has the burger, of course it’s from Omaha Steaks, and is topped with fried mozzarella sticks, lettuce, pesto aioli, banana peppers and marinara sauce on a brioche bun. Bada Bing Bada Boom Bada Yum.

Just as the pun in the name says, these Out of the Pork Fries were out-of-the-park good. This was one of my favorites. Fries with queso blanco, cowboy-candied jalapenos, amazing smoked barbecue pork with a perfect condiment complement of sweet barbecue sauce.

The Grilled Reuben Sausages were another of my favorite samples to try. A tasty sausage from local store, Stoysich, a Swiss cheese melted into thousand island dressing for the Reuben and some sauerkraut that doesn’t over power the sausage in a marbled bun makes this one another hit.

The Home Plate- BBQ Platter has a “triple” meaty offering including rib tips packed with flavor beyond its size, smoked chicken and sliced brisket with a special barbecue sauce. Accompanying them are sweet cornbread, baked beans, coleslaw and tater tots.

The Midwest Taco Salad has the usual favorites with meat, black beans, pepper and finally shredded cheese. The twist, maybe just for me, was the colorful-crispy ribbons of tortillas on top of the salad.

The Chicken Tepanyaki Noodle Salad was a surprise dish with its succulent chicken, snow peas, julienne carrots and noodles dusted with a liberal amount of sesame seeds.

Next up something special from a shop in Bellevue,Nebraska. It was Chef Alec’s favorite and also mine.

Scorcher Sticks are fried mozarrella sticks with a kick. The kick comes from Nebraska’s own Volcanic Peppers store in Bellevue. While, I did not find them hot, many people will. I did find then super tasty and will be sure to grab some at the game.

When you get to the game, let us know which were your favorites and why!

Omaha Interview: Amy Hornocker, Executive Director at College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Amy Hornocker at the College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

Thank you to Amy for the interview for this Omaha event.

Amy Hornocker, CWS Inc, Executive Director

Please tell me how you came to be here.

I grew up over in Des Moines. I went to school at Iowa State in Ames. I played sports in high school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had an advisor that was kind of like we have a sports management program. So I worked in the football office there, and then, I actually came over here in 2005 and did my internship under Katherine and Carol here and then, stayed in touch when I graduated. And then, Katherine’s husband, Dan, started the Omaha Sports Commission. So, I came over and worked for him and was with the Sports Commission for 10 years. Had the chance to do three Swim Trials and about 30 other really cool sporting events, so and then, in 2017, they had a staff vacancy here, and they called me and I was just like at a point where I was ready to try basically what we always say “coming back home.” I came you back here and did the Marketing Committee outreach and then, had the opportunity to interview for this, the executive director position when Kathryn announced she was retiring.

What are some of your favorite things about the College World Series and about Omaha?

Okay, so basically, Omaha feels like home to me now, even though it was you know, it’s not where I’m from. It’s so similar, but everybody’s just .. the amount of support that we get for this event and the amount of people that come out and it’s kind of like what it means to the city and what the city aims to. It’s like it’s so cool to see and so some of my favorite parts about what I get to do here is like less about baseball and more about our what we do in the community with our grant program. We’ve given over $5 million to local baseball and softball fields and projects in the Greater Omaha community.

And then we have this Readers Become Leaders initiative with the NCAA that we work with Omaha Public Schools for third grade reading, once you can’t read a third grade, by the time you’re in fourth grade, you’re behind.

Is that a pivotal age group then?

Yeah, so that’s what the studies show is that if they are lacking by fourth grade, then they never catch up again. And so we do kick offs in the schools. We contribute a bunch of books to each kid and then incentives to read … and then they submit book reports. We had one girl I think she I think I’d have to the look 55 reports she did. She’s the winner. She’s the winner. So 15 of them with their parents will come to the one of the games. We have like five teachers that are from the winning classrooms. So that one’s fun. It’s so fun to go to the kickoffs and see them get excited about like their books and reading and it’s just a little way we can help there.

That’s something with a really great ripple effect.

Yeah, because you know, this one, we want to leave a legacy here. It’s great because the community pours their heart into it.

We put a donation program together this year for the first time with tickets that we’re we’re kind of testing this year. So when you go in to your mobile ticket account, you can transfer, sell, or donate. Like, if you can’t use your tickets or if you just want to donate, and we’re working with three organizations this year to see how it goes.

Vet Tix [https://www.vettix.org], which is a nationwide organization, so you can sign up. I think it’s first responders and military members and then you can sign up for access to these tickets. Then they go into the communities these events and find these people and it’s really turnkey. So we don’t really have to do much with that. And then we’re working with Boys Town and Boys and Girls Club of the Midlands. So because I feel like everybody from every corner of the city should get to enjoy it. So we’re going to try and build on that donation as we move forward. So that is really cool.

I think we already have seen some come through for Vet Tix and with Boys Town. It’s hard to find groups that can take a large quantity that like the last minute and be able to provide transportation, that kind of stuff. Those are some things we’ve got to kind of figure out but those are like some of my favorite things about the events and event and then obviously this time here when I look at the teams here.

We have our intern starting there’s some of my favorites because they change the dynamic of the office and we will have eight more getting here Monday. That will just work the two weeks and they come from all over the country. And so they apply and go through interviews and they they all become friends kind of it’s kind of fun to see them and help navigate this career path.

Did you ever think you’d be executive director..

No. [laughter] No, I’ve always been a behind the scenes person, like operations, and so I never thought that I would be here back here. Because I, you know, my first series, it was 1998 when I came with my high school baseball team. I was a manager.

I did not know that.

I was the manager of my high school team. In Iowa, we play summer baseball. So we were playing in a tournament in Sioux City. We came down here, well to Rosenblatt and did that the GA [General Admission] sat in the grass waiting to get in, and then, it just stuck with me. So, then, I did the internship so I never thought.. no…[laughter] .. I would be here.

Our leadership was and is phenomenal that the our board of directors that had the vision to bring this where it is today. There’s not another national championship that … They have some semi-permanent sites Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma, FCS football in Frisco, but nobody has an organization like this. The NCAA still runs those. They just have like kind of a semi-permanent city.

So they’ve really been smart and how they put this forward and then and how they’ve… during the COVID year, were able to keep us on staff, and then to see the vision of you know of moving it forward and letting me run with a creative and marketing person that we badly needed. There’s a hole that we didn’t have here. So, he’s got two social media interns that are doing cool things.

Is that something different or new you’ve been working on?

Yes, so we did not. So I was in a marketing role. And then we had another staff member and that wasn’t really our background and so we really were intentional about when Kathryn left to kind of restructured that that’s really the hole that was missing-was to promote this event year round and do it in these cool ways. I’m amazed all like, watch over these guys shoulders, because watching them put videos together and the hard work. They are crawling all over. They had the [National Champion] trophy at the zoo. So it’s really fun to watch it.
They took it to the zoo and it got to go in with the penguins and giraffes. Then they took it to the Gene Leahy Mall. And like Ryan was crawling around and so yeah, they took that roll. They’ve been taking around the city. Taking pictures everywhere. I think they went to Blackstone yesterday.

Thank you.

CWS Omaha, Inc., Building Exterior with Signage

College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
808 N 13th St.
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 554-4422
https://cwsomaha.com

You can find the schedule here for #CWS2023 :
2023 Baseball Schedule – College World Series (cwsomaha.com)

Omaha Farmers Market: Old Market on Saturday, 10 June

Enjoy fresh vegetables and other offerings at the Omaha Farmers Market in the Old Market on Saturdays

It runs every Saturday from 6 May to 14 October from 8 AM to 12:30 PM.

Location:
Old Market at 11th & Jackson Streets

Omaha Farmers Market: Old Market on Saturday, 3 June

Enjoy fresh vegetables and other offerings at the Omaha Farmers Market in the Old Market on Saturdays.

It runs every Saturday from 6 May to 14 October from 8 AM to 12:30 PM.

Location:
Old Market at 11th & Jackson Streets