Like so many kids, Enrique Mazone simply walked into Girls and Boys Town near Omaha looking for a place to stay. Here, they call these walk-ins "pilgrims."
 Girls practice volleyball at the field house where many sporting activities are held. Now know as Girls and Boys Town, located in Omaha, NE it was originally founded by Father Edward J. Flanagan who opened a Boys' home in 1917 to provide a haven for troubled kids. In 1979 the first girls enrolled and now make up half the population.
Sometimes they arrive with a note asking for help. Sometimes relatives call and say the child is on way.
Enrique flew in from Las Vegas where his mother knew he needed to get away from the city's gangs. He remembers seeing the bright lights of Vegas as he took his first flight. Then he saw the darkness of the Midwest. He welcomed the change.
"I wanted to come here. My brother was here and he made it. When I showed up on the doorstep, they didn't know who I was," Enrique, a clean-cut teen with short, dark hair.
They took him in, of course - they always do.
"We never turn any kid away," said John Melingagio, public relations director.
"They may not end up here but they'll stay here until we find the best place for them," Melingagio said, adding that the Omaha center accepts only youngsters with desperate needs.
Walk around the campus and you'll never suspect this is a place for troubled kids. The 900-acre village that includes a middle school, a high school, a post office, fire department and a farm and more than 70 homes where the students live. It's one of 19 Girls and Boys Town sites across the nation.
The campus feels like a prep school. You'll see students guiding visitors.
Others are playing soccer on spacious fields. Some are at the farm feeding the animals or cleaning stables. Girls are in the gym practicing volleyball and basketball.
"This is the best place I've been," said our guide, John, who wants to be a chef. "I spend a lot of time in the kitchen at our house."
Like John, most students live in a home with a married couple and half-dozen other students. Here they get love, understanding and strict discipline. There are rewards for good behavior and consequences for breaking the rules.
Many of the youngsters were been abused, abandoned or neglected before they arrived.
"I've seen them coming from places where there was no hope to a place where there's hope," said Alex Franks, one of the surrogate parents.
Alex and his wife Melissa have been here eight years - long enough to have a houseful of young women return "home" for the holidays. The village was opened to girls more than decade ago.
"The day a kid looks at you and knows you care - for a kid that has protected her emotions for so long - it's a wonderful feeling. Almost all of them turn that corner," he said, adding that the ones that don't make it can break your heart.
Father Edward Flanagan, who founded Boys Town in 1917, designed the individual home structure before he died. "Father Flanagan never had it in his mind to build an orphanage. He called it a home for boys," Melingagio said.
He believed there were no bad kids, only bad situations.
"Our young people are our greatest wealth," Flanagan told visitors. "Give them a chance and they will give a good account of themselves. No boy wants to be bad."
Enrique said the system helped transform his life. Today the six-foot-tall senior is quarterback on the high school football team, mayor of Girls and Boys Town and holds an off-campus job.
Not bad for a kid who just showed up at the door.
DANCE OF LIFE
The drum Orville Little Owl had been playing was silent now. He sat, talking with friends between performances of native American dances - on a hot afternoon, in a clearing, near the banks of the Missouri River.
"I do this, more or less, to bring awareness to people," he said. "We're still alive and we still practice our traditional ways."
 As part of Council Bluffs, IA Annual Louis and Clark Reenactments, two young Indian dancers perform in front of a crowd while they dance to the beat of a drum and chants from their elders. Each performer dances differently - expressng the individual style (and costumes) which come from various regions.
A half hour earlier, young dancers hopped and pranced in the clearing whileLittle Owl sang and kept rhythm on the big drum.
It was a success, he said, because dozens of visitors learned something. They saw the grass dance, the fancy shirt dance and the jingle dance with a dress laden with metal that rings when the dress moves.
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"People took part, they came up and asked questions," Little Owl said.
He was in Council Bluffs, Iowa as part of a Lewis and Clark celebration. Across the river in Omaha, Nebraska, they were getting ready for another Lewis and Clark celebration the following week
For western Native Americans, the arrival of Lewis and Clark was the precursor to waves of pioneers and settlers that would nearly destroy the traditional life of Western Native Americans.
Today, they search for ways to live in American society while retaining their culture. For Little Owl, that means living in a square house instead of more traditional round one. It means finding what unites people and sharing what they have in common.
"We all pray to the same God," he said.
It means sharing the music and dance of his people. The dances have meaning, of course. The jingle dress, for example, is a healing ceremony.
"The traditional songs are like opera, they tell stories," Orville said.
Little Owl likes to meet people and talk about his traditions, but there's an undercurrent of sadness for what's been lost over the past two centuries.
 Route6Walk Joe Hurley and photographer Travis Lindhorst stayed overnight in one of Don Strinz Tipis located in Milford, NE. Don fabricates Tipis and tents, which he sells for many reenactments or for public purchase.
Native Americans are everywhere in our society, but we don't notice them, he said.
"The Indian is the forgotten American," he said.
Then he added: "In white America, we are our brother's keeper."
He wouldn't explain that. He wants us to figure it out.
NEBRASKA'S CAPITOL
Folks in Lincoln will tell you that a panel of architects voted Nebraska's capitol one of the most beautiful buildings in world.
 Standing 14 stories high the state capitol in Lincoln, NE can be viewed from miles away. Selected from a nationwide competition, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was the architect who was involved in building the capitol. It was built in four phases over the existing capitol as to not disrupt workers. It was finished in 1932.
At first glance, you might wonder whether the architects were looking at the right building. The 14-story capitol is an early skyscraper topped by a dome.
It's nice. It towers over the landscape. It's no Taj Mahal
But look more closely and you'll get a different picture. Step inside, and you're surrounded by pictures and sculptures. This capitol is a museum as well as a working office building.
The artwork built into the floors, walls and ceilings tells the story of Nebraska from prehistoric to modern times. You'll find trilobites and mammoths etched into the floor of the rotunda hall.
In the vestibule, you'll find murals of homesteaders sitting by campfires, plowing fields and building houses - all in striking reds and yellows, the colors of Nebraska's sunsets.
The story continues with scores of murals and sculptures on the ceiling, floor and walls of the foyer. You'll find memorials to people and events that helped make the state, the like the schoolteacher who guided her students to safety during the killer blizzard of 1888. There's a state hall of fame where you'll find people like Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town.
There's more in the dome, where Norman Rockwell-like paintings depict the nobility of everyday people fighting poverty, healing the sick, and working for freedom.
Look at the outside of the building and you'll see history of Western civilization told in sculpture.
The capitol tower rises above a flat two-story building that symbolizes the prairie. The lower building stretches for 437 feet, mirroring the state's 437-mile width.
The capitol even reflects Nebraska's frugal heritage. It was built in the 1920s pay-as-you go basis. When the project ran out of money, construction stopped until the following year when new funds were appropriated. The building was paid for when construction ended in 1932.
But the capitol wasn't quite finished. The builders had left room for much of the artwork that now adorns the structure. The homesteader scenes in the vestibule were done in the 1960s. The dome murals were completed in 1996.
The capitol houses the governor's offices, the Supreme Court and the nation's only one-house legislature where there is no party system.
If you take a tour of the building, step out onto the walkway outside the dome.
On a clear day you can see forever.
Copyright: Route 6 Walk.
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