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Jeff Korbelik: NETV2 to show Nebraska
native's program about river
Charles "Chuck" Strinz is not one to sit and watch the
world go by.
"Life is to do stuff," the former Nebraskan said in a
phone interview from his Eagan, Minn., home.
Like hopping
into a car filled with video equipment to make a TV show about the
Mississippi River.
Strinz's first TV effort, "Back on the
Mississippi Hidden Trails, Offbeat Tales," will air at 8 p.m. Nov.
9 on NETV2 (channel 17).
But first, he
will screen the program in his hometown of Milford in the city's new
500-seat auditorium at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The screening is
free, but donations will be accepted. DVD and VHS copies will be
available. Half of the proceeds will go to the Milford Fine Arts
Boosters.
Strinz, 51, grew up a farm near Milford and
graduated from Milford High School in 1971. Before leaving Nebraska,
he worked as a radio announcer (KFMQ, KLMS, KECK) and attended the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln for three years.
"To be
able to go back to Milford to show this thing is just a kick," he
said.
As was making "Back to the Mississippi," he
said.
A freelance copywriter, Strinz conceived the
project after years of traveling the river, mostly on the back
roads, alone or with his wife and two children.
He retraces
the path of the Grand Excursion of 1854, an historic but largely
forgotten event that celebrated America's first railroad connection
to the Mississippi River.
The Grand Excursion featured free
rail and river rides between the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois to
the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
Strinz used
the excursion's recent 150th anniversary celebration as the jumping
off point for his hour-long program, focusing on the people and
places on the river between the two regions.
"I
was surprised to learn how certain pieces of contemporary life
across America and around the world originated on the shores of
and in small towns along the upper Mississippi River," he
said.
Viewers will meet a modern river rat judge who forever
changed the way law-breakers paid for their crimes, discover the
birthplace of water skiing and learn about Nebraska's Buffalo Bill
Cody's birthplace.
Strinz also visited Fountain City, Wis.,
where there's a house with a giant boulder in it.
"You've
probably heard of The House on the Rock' (in Spring Green, Wis.),"
Strinz said. "We don't go there. We go to rock in the
house."
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
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