I moved to Omaha the summer of 1977 as a 16 year old girl about to enter her senior year of high school. At 16, the last thing I wanted to do was leave my friends, move to a new state and attend a new high school for just one year. Seriously? Do I have to do this?? Yes, my mom said....you do.
When it came time to move, I kicked and screamed. I’m sure I threw a major hissy fit. I begged and I pleaded with my parents to please let me stay in Wichita so I could finish high school with the friends that I had started with. Tears didn't work. Threatening to run away didn't work. My older brothers godparents lived in Wichita and they were more than willing to take on another teenager. Hell, they had a house full of kids; they wouldn’t have noticed another one. (One of those ‘kids’ is even on my Facebook page...lol.)
Plus, it was partly because of them that we were moving. My dad had taken a job with my brother’s godfather. His mission? Move to Omaha, Nebraska and turn an all news radio station into a country music radio station. My dad had been in the radio broadcasting business for as long as I could remember and I know that the challenge of this job appealed to him.
In the end, my parents won and I was whisked away to God forsaken Nebraska. Let me just state now that I hated it. Can we say COLD?? Moving to a new school when you’re a senior in high school isn’t something I’d recommend. In fact, it affected me so much that when I had Ryan and Lynsay, I told KJ that if he ever got transferred while the kids were in junior high/high school....he was on his own. Seriously.
While to me my reasoning for this was simple, I’m sure it was also totally emotional. We moved right after my 6th grade year. I was able to go to the same junior high all thru 7th, 8th and 9th grade. We moved to Wichita my sophomore year but then moved to Ft. Worth for the 2nd semester of my sophomore year. We moved back to Wichita for my junior year and then to Omaha my senior year. I had no consistency and being a teenage girl, it was hard making friends. I didn’t ever want my kids to experience that, especially Lynsay. Junior high and high school is hard enough without moving around and having to make new friends and try to fit in. Yes, I know that military families move around a lot too, but we weren’t military and I wasn’t supposed to move. Especially right before my senior year.
Looking back, I know that what my dad did was the absolute best thing for his family. I certainly never held it against him. Well, maybe for a few months I did. Okay fine. I did. I was probably a holy terror that first year we were there. I’m just saying that sometimes what is best can still be really hard and looking back, while it was hard, it probably wasn’t nearly as traumatizing as I thought. But we all know that when you’re a 16 year old girl, friends are your entire world. Your family is your family but you still wouldn’t be caught dead out in public with them.
That being said, everyone knows that not only did Omaha grow on me, it became my home. It was where I 'grew up'. It was where I met KJ and got married and where we raised our family. Pure and simple, it's home.
The radio station transformation turned out just fine and the ‘ranch hands’ became my 2nd family. To this day, I'm still in touch with some of them. The picture above is a copy of one of the fliers that were printed up every year for the annual anniversary show. Seeing this brought back so many memories of my dad, of the ranch hands and of spending many a weekend at various KYNN events. I went to concerts, was able to go backstage and ‘hang’ with the artists and I met people I would never had met otherwise.
My dad has been gone almost 27 years and now and then, I have a hard time picturing what he looked like. But when I do conjure up a memory, this is how I see him....with his cowboy hat planted firmly on his head and his feet slid into his favorite boots.
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