Matt Tompkins of 101.9 The Keg visited the University of Nebraska-Omaha last week to inform students on how he has gained success in his radio and T.V industry. 

Tompkins attended UNO for his college career. There he worked with MavRadoo here he conducted weekly radio shows. While a part of MavRadio, he began internships such as KVNO, in Omaha. Tompkins spoke on how they were unpaid internships but he was learning skills he thought were necessary to help him become successful in life. Some of the skills he learned were editing, writing, radio and video. 

He explained that being able to learn as much as possible in the field you see yourself is always beneficial. If you know how to use different skills in your career field, you make yourself more valuable. He explained how his company laid off a ton of people but he believes the reason he stayed is because he had many skills which made him able to be paid to be used in different areas. 

He started that although he knew he wasn’t gonna learn his dream job the first time around that these skills were helpful 

Tompkins explained what an air check was. He described it as a ten minute sit down, listening to your project in order to receive feedback from the higher ups. I feel this was information that was needed because you can apply this to any career in your life.

Tompkins and his brother began their T.V show “Omaha Live”  on WOWT for six seasons. Omaha Live was a comedy skit. 

Tompkins really stressed consistency through this speech. He said being consistent will help you create a better work ethic and show your employers that you continue to try and learn.

Tompkins offered the students help with anything project wise, careers wise or even networking.

Today, Tompkins is a morning talk show host on 101.9 The Keg and has used all the knowledge he’s gained over the years to help him in his career today. 

D’Onna Surratt, a student at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, routinely takes MixxedFit classes at the Health and Kinesiology building on campus.

“MixxedFit is a class filled with pumped-up music along with intense movements to help workout the body”.

D’Onna said that she uses the classes as a way to relieve stress and stay in shape. The classes offered at UNO are free to students with a valid Mavcard, but there are also classes available to purchase at local gyms around Omaha.

“The class feels like a family” D’Onna states. She mentioned that they all motivate each other to keep the energy high and positive.

She has attended the classes for the past two years. She feels as since the classes aren’t required, it puts a lot more self-discipline to keep up on her journey of a healthy lifestyle.

D’Onna said she began her new journey because she didn’t have a good mindset. Struggling with internal battles, she wanted to find something to help her cope and feel good about herself.

When it all came down to it one day she said to herself, I am tired of people making fun of me and judging how I look.

“My freshman year I was in my dorm room looking at the student life page. I then stumbled my way across the page for the new Mixxedfit class that was being offered”. She stated that was where it all began. This was what she’s been searching for.

The class was a way for her to change her appearance but not be an intense repetitive workout.

“I constantly got bullied for my appearance growing up. They used to make me feel terrible about myself and make it seem like I was never gonna be happy with myself” she stated.

She has since taken those comments and turned them into her motivation to better herself.

She connected herself to the UNO community more because she feels she’s found her safe place. She describes it as “a place to lose herself” when she had nowhere else to go.

“I’ve met many friends through the UNO Mixxedfit classes,” D’Onna said.

Without the Mixxedfit classes, she wouldn’t have met some of the people since they have different majors and are different grade levels.

“We never have negative energy. This is our escape and we all get to be positive no matter what happens in our personal lives.”

She stated that the class is only one step in her healthy living journey. She has since started to have a routine in working out, eating and even her sleep schedule. Also, she has begun to change her eating habits.

“Eventually I want to become vegan. I feel like I eat many processed foods and I want to know what I put inside my body.”

She has begun to meal prep and find different recipes online to help her with her new lifestyle.

“Change is hard. It’s not an easy task to change everything I know.” D’Onna started.

She said within a year she hopes to have maintained a healthier lifestyle.

She agrees the Mixxedfit classes have made her feel very welcomed in the UNO community and she has gained new friends and knowledge. She thinks without the Mixxfit classes, she would have never started her new journey to a healthier life.

“This class is what inspired me to help change myself when I thought I had no options”.

“I recommend everyone who doesn’t like working out to give this class a try! It is different from a normal workout, we get to change up the routines constantly”.

She said MixxedFit is more than a workout class. She feels it has helped her gain a more healthy lifestyle and has made her more inspired within her personal life.

Mixxedfit classes are offered every Monday and Wednesday at 6 p.m in the Health and Kinesiology building on campus.

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On Jan. 23  the Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert held a press conference to announce the support of a $200 million bond which would allow funding for long-term pavement rehabilitation throughout Omaha. 

“Conditions of our streets are important to me and our taxpayers” said Stothert.

The city said we should spend around $75 million annually on our roads but we only have spent $42 million instead. This leaves a $34 million gap.

This gap in money could be made up with an increase in wheel tax or sales tax. 

“The city could obtain the money without a vote” said the mayor, but that would go against her belief and values. 

On Jan 28. at  the city council meeting will be the first time the bond appears on the agenda. The final time to vote on the bond will be Feb. 11.

“Omaha is a greatly improving city and the cities infrastructure must match” according to Stothert. 

With the constant freezing and thawing cycle, potholes become more prominent in the streets. “The winter and spring of 2019 has shown us just exactly how this can affect our roads.”

The city put $13 million to fix these potholes, far from what needs to be spent according to Stothert. 

“$100 thousand home would pay $35.00 max for the tax”  to help improve our roads. According to the mayor and her team, they believe the tax will be significantly less than $35.

With this bond, it would need to be reoccurred every five years. The mayor states with the occurrence of the bond, the residents would see the improvement of the streets within the first five years that they would be more likely to help the reoccur. 

The levy increase would be a one time increase according to the mayor.

Stothert states she doesn’t want to raise taxes but wants the voters to decide for themselves. 

Questions: 

How did you come to the agreement that $75 million should be spent on roads?

When would the construction for these plans start?

What would be the average time frame that would be spent on the roads for repair?

On average how many lane miles should be repaired with this bond annually?

How do you plan to promote the bond to the residents as we prepare for them to vote?

The University of Nebraska Gateway is a newspaper truly run by students. With very little help, the students run the paper all by themselves. This allows them to gain real life experience in the journalism world. With the help and partnership of the Omaha World Herald and faculty of University of Nebraska, they are critiqued and  taught how to successfully write a newspaper. This is a huge benefit because since the newspaper is ran by students and is not under the University, they get to gain knowledge and learn tips from people who work in the business. Who better to learn from than a person in that field of study or field of work?! Students get to travel all of the country covering stories of politics, art, musicals, news to many more things in order to give a variety of news to their audiences. With the use of social media over the years, the new beginnings of The Gateway began. They have a website as well as other social media outlets as well. This is because times have changed and that are adapting to their target audience, the students of University of Nebraska. Adding the website has reduced the amount of hard copy newspapers that go out but has opened up many opportunities to learn and add new spots. They offer internships and always are accepting student written stories as well. Most of the students have been in the same journalism classes we’re taking now. These students said the classes helped them find their way into The Gateway. Since The Gateway offers interenships, it can help fulfill that requirement in a Journalism Media degree. Anyone from any major is welcomed and help is always accepted! Having The Gateway really has helped students learn and gain experiences they never thought they would have imagined .  

I liked being able to follow what was going on and being able to tweet during the action.  I also liked seeing different people’s tweets. Sometimes on the same thing that happens, thousands of tweets would go out showing a different person’s perspective. For example one play in the game may have some people think that the game is going to change while other people may think that the game won’t change. It was hard to concentrate on grammar and punctuation on Twitter because on my personal Twitter, I don’t always use proper grammar and punctuation. I learned that live tweeting can be difficult because you just always be paying attention or you may miss something but also proofread your tweets before posting. I also learned that it’s very easy to post facts that aren’t true. Making sure you have some pre history or learning as you go before you tweet “facts”.

Hello, my name is Robert Stanback. For this class (blog), I will be focusing on the student life here at the University of Nebraska- Omaha. I will interview and post about different student that are involved within UNO. For example I will have interviews with people who are apart of different sports teams, live on campus and also leaders of different clubs. You”ll be able to see different forms of media which include, audio, print, video and photo to help bring these interviews to life. If you have any strong connections to anyone that fits those categories, I would be interested to contact them.