60 Plus Omaha - May

May 2022

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Omaha Magazine publishes stories about interesting people who live next door and fascinating former Omahans. It is the place to read stories about the arts, the food, the music, and the events that are making Omaha the cultural epicenter of the Midwest.

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60+ PROFILE

PUSHING FORWARD Couple’s Paths Lead to Ollie the Trolley

to find a building for eight “ Trying or nine trolleys is not easy. ” -George L. Davis Jr.

story by Kara Schweiss // photography By Bill Sitzmann // design by Derek Joy

n 2014, George L. Davis Jr. was working as a retail store manager following a unique career path that had branches in transportation and politics. His now-wife, Deb Skinner, was a development director for a health care foundation and had a background in marketing and tourism.

Davis was ready for a career change.

“I was dissatisfied. I didn’t see any opportunities for advancement and growth, and because I was already mature, I had graduate and postgraduate degrees,” he said. “I said, ‘I don’t have to stay here. I can do something different with my life that would give me satisfaction’…so we were talking and Deb said, ‘Why don’t we look at buying a business, and you tell the rest of the story?’”

The rest of the story began with their purchase (as Davis Entertainment) of Ollie the Trolley, which the couple have now co-owned for nearly eight years. They settled easily into their respective roles of Davis as general manager and Skinner as marketing director.

“It was a natural fit,” Skinner said. “Our backgrounds just came together with this.”

Margaret Dunn founded Ollie the Trolley in the mid-1980s as a single trolley, and, under a series of owners, the business grew over the years to multiple trolleys, which look like traditional streetcars and are outfitted with nostalgic details like wooden benches, but do not run on tracks or use a pole to draw power from an overhead wire. Davis and Skinner manage a fleet of nine trolleys today with names like Ollie (of course), and the rhyming Polly and Guacamollie—but also Porkchop, Buttercup, and Trolley Brown. Drivers must have a commercial driver’s license to operate the trolleys, which carry a maximum of 32 to 47 passengers, depending on the specific vehicle. The business consists of a variety of private charters and public tours and peaks in the summer with a staff of around 20, but runs on a varying scale year-round.

“We have heated trolleys, and in the summertime, we have four trolleys that are openair and the others are all air-conditioned,” Davis said.

The trolleys are especially popular for wedding parties, with as many as 600 bookings a year, and for other private bookings like corporate events and personal celebrations for 15 or more participants.

Ollie the Trolley public tours include Haunted Cemetery tours, led by trained historians (including Davis, who dresses up like an undertaker) that feature local cemeteries and infamous locales from Omaha’s “Wicked City” period. Taco Tequila Tuesday tours highlight South Omaha and a tour guide with a mariachi background teaches participants a few new songs during the ride. Other public tours include River City History tours in partnership with The Durham Museum, Bloody Mary Brunch and Tours on Saturdays, and seasonal College World Series and Holiday Lights tours. The company’s newest offerings—introduced this spring—are Beer, Barbeque & Bourbon tours that include visits to Nebraska Brewing Co. and Soldier Valley Spirits, along with stops for food and activities like indoor golf.

Davis and Skinner have been together for a decade and married in 2019. They both grew up in Omaha but spent years away from the community for work.

Skinner was in Wisconsin for 20 years, as owner of Skinner's Riverside Marina in Marinette for seven years and as a tourism marketing consultant for the state for 13 years. She returned to Omaha in 2003 to work for the Convention & Visitors Bureau followed by later positions in marketing and development. Davis served as a presidential appointee in the George H. Bush Administration at the Federal Department of Transportation.

“I’ve walked with presidents and I’ve helped the homeless,” he said. Davis remained in Washington, D.C., for another decade before returning to Omaha in the mid-1990s.

“When I came back from the Bush administration, I went into banking for a short period of time. Then I became assistant mayor in Omaha for Hal Daub, as well as his civil rights director,” Davis said. “Then, when I left his administration, for a short while I managed the small business network. I taught business classes and political science classes at Metro [Community College] and I enjoyed teaching for 11 years.”

Davis’ resume also includes seven years with Union Pacific and three with Federal Express, and the stint in retail management before he and Skinner bought Ollie the Trolley.

“Two people with no money had no business buying a business,” Skinner said, with Davis laughing heartily in response. “But we had great resumes, so we were able to get a loan and buy the business.”

Ollie the Trolley’s tagline is “all about fun,” but the journey has had some detours, like when the business had to move twice when buildings it leased space in were sold. “Trying to find a building for eight or nine trolleys is not easy,” Davis said, adding that the fleet is now comfortably ensconced at 1716 Cuming St., just north of downtown. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the successful business had to abruptly put on the brakes. Fortunately, grants and loans kept things moving.

“We had to hang on,” Davis said. “We were able to survive it and keep going.”

Now they’re rolling along again nicely.

“We’re an Omaha icon and the business has been around 37 years now,” Skinner said.

“We think this is going to be our biggest year ever.”

Visit olliethetrolley.com for more information.

MAY 2022 • 60 PLUS

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“I MISS THAT IT GAVE KIDS SOMETHING TO DO OTHER THAN L O O K A T A S C R E E N .”

-K EL LY W I T T

he year is 1988. It’s Kelly Witt’s senior year of high school, and she is riding high. Well, roller skating high is a more apt description. Witt whips and whizzes past her peers on the rink. It’s all a swirl of twinkling lights above and neon fashion to her left and right.

With each lap around Skateland’s slick wooden floor, she picks up momentum.

Faster and faster she goes. At this point in time—in this little corner of a thenOmaha cornerstone—Witt and her roller buddies are skate stars. The 17-year-old didn’t know it yet, but she is living and racing through a piece of history. One that’s soon to fade away in the coming decades like disco and drive-ins before it.

“It was my whole childhood. I remember skating all the time,” Witt said. “I was the one who went around the edge really, really fast, dancing and dipping around.

Me and my girlfriends, that was our perfect Friday night.”

CERNIK CRE ATED A ROLLER-SK ATING REVOLUTION IN OMAHA, WITH THE REST OF T HE COUN T RY SHOR T LY FOLLOWING AS HE SOLD HIS BLUEPRINTS NATIONWIDE. In fact, the Irvington location was the third metro Skateland to be opened in a total of six. Frank Cernik opened the first off of 108th and Q streets in 1967.

Black-and-white illustrated advertisements for its grand opening read “Take a family fun break!”

Business soon exploded—and Omaha became one of the birthplaces for the roller disco boom in the 1970s.

Funky 1980s music blaring. Disco balls hanging overhead. The girls attempting sleek, gliding skating tricks to impress the boys and vice versa. Donahue remembers it all.

Her friends group wasn’t limited to her classmates. She had a crew that spanned citywide as kids from different schools flocked to the rink and bonded over their love of lacing up.

“I met so many people…kids from all over,” Donahue said. “Everybody who went week-to-week wanted to have the best skates. We’d have different color skate wheels or decorate the inside of our roller shoe cases with collages of magazine clippings. It was a big deal.”

Though Witt was hanging rink-side half a city away, she too remembers kids’ drive to express their creativity by dressing up their skates and cases.

60+ NOSTALGIA • STORY BY SEAN ROBINSON • PHOTOGRAPHY CONTRIBUTED • DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

Rolling Along THE BYGONE CRAZE OF ROLLER RINKS IN OMAHA

Once upon a time, from the years of about 1960 to 2000, roller rinks were the place to see and be seen. Witt was just one of hundreds of Omaha residents who reveled in the golden era of this pastime. Invoking nostalgia and notions of the past, roller skating was all the rage for metro kids looking to have a good time on Friday and Saturday nights.

From all corners of the country, rink operators came to see what this fella in Nebraska was doing so right. It’s because his state-of-the art rink wasn’t designed like those from the 1940s and 1950s.

According to family information, his had many firsts in the industry, including “panda parties” where kids could win stuffed animals by inviting friends.

“Oh, I had the biggest pom-poms on my skates,” Witt said. “And there were bells and everything was puffy. Imagine me in those and my bell bottoms. What a look.”

“It was an every weekend night thing.

Sometimes Sunday days, too,” Witt said.

“There was even overnight skate occasionally where you’d be there until 6 in the morning. It amazed me because this was the one place we all went and hung out.

Good times, man.”

Cernik created a roller-skating revolution in Omaha, with the rest of the country shortly following as he sold his blueprints nationwide. Located off 132nd and Grover streets, Skatedaze was Cernik’s last Omaha rink to open and the last to close, operating from 1982 until 2019.

Their favorite hotspots have closed—as have almost every other roller rink in the city. The only place still inviting people to spend a night on wheels is Skate City off Fort Crook Road in Bellevue.

Witt and her friends called Skateland off Irvington Road their weekend home away from home. Her mom worked as the ticket taker, and her high school beau was a skate guard. (Think lifeguard but on roller wheels.)

This was hardly the only place Omaha residents were letting the good times roll.

“Skatedaze was where we belonged,” Jen Donahue said. “It just felt like we as kids always had a place to go in the ’80s, especially if you were one of the regulars.

It wasn’t like going to the mall where it was just a ton of random people walking around. You had your people you knew.”

Witt and Donahue may have hung up their skates decades ago, but their memories of pom-poms and parties at the rink live on.

“I miss the exercise of it all now as an adult,” Witt said. “I miss that it gave kids something to do other than look at a screen. We were interacting. We were getting a workout in. We were having the time of our lives and didn’t even know it.”

Visit skatecitybellevue.com for more information.

MAY 2022 • 60 PLUS

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60+ ACTIVE LIVING // STORY BY BRODY HILGENKAMP PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

g n i d i Rith iends w Fr

LAZURE SPREADS THE MESSAGE TO BRING CYCLISTS TOGETHER L

ee Lazure was always physically active, running for a number of years until his knees started hurting. That’s when he decided he needed a new way to occupy his time and keep moving. He considered indoor pastimes, but was drawn to the outdoors; hunting or fishing didn’t provide much social interaction.

Bicycling, however, checked all the boxes. It also granted him a new life endeavor and a new community.

Lazure, 77, began his cycling journey nearly two decades ago when he bought a TREK 7200 Hybrid and started riding three or four miles per outing. He realized he liked riding because he could listen to music while he rode, and it was an enjoyable way to meet people.

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“Everybody who’s on a bicycle seems to get along with everybody else, and it’s a great social activity as well to just exercise,” he said.

»

“IT’S ENJOYABLE TO RIDE BY YOURSELF, BUT IT’S PERHAPS EVEN MORE ENJOYABLE WHEN YOU RIDE WITH A GROUP OF PEOPLE AND YOU STOP TO HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT, HAVE COFFEE OR BEER AND YOU CAN RIDE WITH EACH OTHER AS YOU’RE

”

GOING DOWN THE HIGHWAY.

LEE LAZURE

// 60+ Active Living // FTER A FEW YEARS, LAZURE GOT MORE INVOLVED WITH THE OMAHA CYCLING COMMUNITY THROUGH THE OMAHA PEDALERS BICYCLE CLUB, AND EVENTUALLY HE BECAME THE VICE PRESIDENT OF BICYCLE RIDE ACROSS NEBRASKA, A 400-PLUS-MILE RACE THAT OCCURS EVERY JUNE.

The Omaha Pedalers organize rides «throughout the Omaha area. Some of the

rides are weekly outings, such as joining the Taco Ride on the Wabash Trace Nature Trail in Iowa, “Rusty Spokes” rides on Thursday mornings, or Saturday rides from Waterloo to Fremont and back. The group also organizes signature rides like the Great American Pie Ride—scheduled for May 21—tours of historic landmarks throughout Omaha, and rides to vineyards.

Camaraderie and community hooked Lazure because the rides are accessible to all levels of cyclists, from those who want to ride fast to those who pedal at a more leisurely pace.

“They’re just open to anybody and everybody. No one is left behind,” Lazure said.

“They’re a social event as opposed to a race.”

Lazure begins each year hopping on one of his three bikes during warm days in January and February, if weather and trail conditions permit. As the spring progresses, he’ll start doing hill training on the stretch of Highway 75 that runs from Omaha to Fort Calhoun and Blair. Eventually he’ll work his way up to 90 or 100 miles a week during the peak riding season of the summer months. All of the outings organized by Omaha Pedalers and the motivation to ride in BR AN, which Lazure has done nine times, mean Lazure easily rides 2,700 miles in a year. His personal record is 4,104 miles in a year.

“It’s enjoyable to ride by yourself, but it’s perhaps even more enjoyable when you ride with a group of people and you stop to have something to eat, have coffee or beer and you can ride with each other as you’re going down the highway,” he said.

Kim and Doug Scherlie have worked closely with Lazure in promoting the cycling community in Omaha, Kim as the president of Omaha Pedalers and Doug as the president of BRAN. “Lee was always there to help out,” Kim said. “He’s always been a really good supporter.”

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60 PLUS • MAY 2022

Lazure’s biggest impact, they said, has been in promoting BR AN. Lazure first rode in BR AN in 2010, and years later, when he came on board as vice president, he took over the public relations responsibilities. Ridership had fallen into the 300s, because as riders aged out or developed other interests there weren’t new riders coming in to replace them. The previous group that organized BR AN, Northwest Rotary Club of Omaha, had seen its membership decline and no longer had the manpower to organize the event, Doug said.

The Omaha Pedalers took over organizing BR AN in 2018.

“There really had not been a whole lot of work done to reach out to people, to advertise what BR AN was about,” Lazure said.

He didn’t have much experience in marketing but had taken some classes in graduate school. His first idea was to place advertisements in magazines like Bicycling and Adventure Cyclist. To accomplish this, he secured grants from the Nebraska Tourism Commission to pay for the advertising. He also enhanced communication with local media, and developed posters and other material to display at bike shops and wellness exhibitions. BR AN has also started advertising on social media. The result was a notable increase in riders—425 rode in 2019, the last year BR AN was held.

“He’s been really good about writing stuff and promoting it, and he’ll call you up and he’s like, ‘Hey, can I knock [an idea] around on you?’” Kim said.

Lazure said his favorite part of working with BR AN is the interaction with the BR AN committee, all of whom are volunteers. The event requires coordination with seven different towns that will have to accommodate more than 400 people in an evening. “You get to know the people in the smaller communities in Nebraska, and they are just wonderful people to work with. They really add to the ride,” he said.

This year’s BR AN will be June 5-11 from Alliance to Wahoo, with stops in Hyannis, Thedford, Callaway, Ord, St. Edward, and Shelby. The course is 424 miles, and the longest stretch is from Thedford to

Callaway at 82 miles. It’s the 40th BR AN and is dubbed BR AN 40.2 because the event was canceled the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lazure worked in human resources for 43 years, and he retired in 2015 from his role as the personnel director for Douglas County, one he had held for 10 years. He found his experience working in human resources applied to promoting BR AN because both revolved around recruiting and developing relationships with people.

“When you work in the human resources profession, a lot of times you’re dealing with really complicated issues and problems, and in a way getting into the [cycling] organizations and the clubs and so on, I could see where there were a lot of things that could be done for the benefit of the sport and for the benefit of the people,” he said. “In HR, you are an advocate for the employee to make sure they’re well taken care of so you can retain them. In HR, you’re constantly trying to take care of the most important asset of the company.”

The Scherlies said Lazure’s work experience is an asset to BR AN. “He not only helps us get the ride going but then he thinks about the post-ride: what we need to do, what we need to ask, what worked well and what didn’t work well?” Kim said.

It’s obvious Lazure enjoys devoting his mental and physical energy to cycling because he is always interacting with people on rides and is so proactive in promoting BR AN, the Scherlies said.

“There’s an old saying, when you get off the bike you feel younger,” Doug said. “...

It frees the mind and the soul to do a lot of things and it gives you a lot of time to think, but it also affords you the ability to communicate and hang out with a lot of other people too.”

Lazure agreed: “When you retire you kind of feel like, 'Well, what am I going to do next?' And here cycling was a sport that provided enjoyment, it provided people interaction.”

Visit bran-inc.org for more information.