Some people tell Jay Connelly that he and his wife Liane have a lot on their proverbial plates.
From an outsider’s perspective, it may seem that the Norfolk couple is busy – and overwhelmingly so, given their church activities, duties in higher education, Liane’s book club and Jay’s involvement in the Green Council – but to them, staying active in their community is a crucial part of their livelihood.
“You have to get involved and stay involved with something,” Jay said. “You have to take the initiative. Find something you have an interest in and try to make it a little bit better.”
It’s a good way to meet people, he added, calling it a “conscious effort.”
Jay, a mechanical engineer from Lincoln, and Liane, a native of Holdrege, dove head-first into the Norfolk bustle shortly after their move to the city in June of 2011. Spurred by Liane’s hiring as an assistant dean and associate professor for the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing in Norfolk. The new state-of the-art Nursing College (the school’s Northern Division, a recent addition to the UNMC family, is located on the Northeast Community College grounds in Norfolk), the new job forced her and Jay, now an Associate Dean for Applied Technology, at Northeast Community College on the same campus as his wife, to transplant northward, moving
from Hays, Kansas to Norfolk.
“We’ve enjoyed being here,” Liane said. “We’ve met a lot of people.”
She called them “very gracious and friendly,” the kind of individuals who run a business with the understanding that cash and checks can be forgotten at home and the belief that it’s okay to let a regular customer walk out the door without paying for her items because they know she’ll be back, checkbook in hand, at a later time.
In addition to the people, Liane has also developed a fondness for small-town life (everything she needs is right there) and the fact that the city of nearly 25,000 is experiencing growth, though not necessarily in terms of its size.
“I think Norfolk is progressive and growing,” Liane said. “It’s developing as a community, (and) is addressing its needs.”
Currently, one such place where issues have been resolved and necessities have been met is the community’s downtown sector, in which Jay and Liane both have an interest. He likes the atmosphere there (noting, especially, the music that plays during the day), and she likes the potential for residential space, something the college doesn’t provide for its UNMC students, as well as a healthy economy. “I want to see businesses do well,” Liane said. “It keeps people like me in the area.”
So she supports a local market, Kuper Farms, and looks forward to reading about new shops that open in the vicinity. And then, when Liane’s not doing that, she and her husband are enjoying the natural aesthetics of the region.
“It’s one of the nicest and prettiest places in Nebraska,” Jay said.
Over the summer, the area lakes and their fishing opportunities left him itching to take a recent acquisition – a boat – out on the water. The Cowboy Trail – a “jewel,” as Liane called it – had a similar pull and sent Jay downtown
to shop for bike parts so that he and his wife could join the countless others who use the path.
Lakes and trails considered, the Connellys believe the recreation opportunities in Norfolk are good and that the same goes for its work and shopping offerings too. All of this combined creates one giant reason for the couple to remain rooted in the community and stirs Jay, whose parents grew up in the area, to experience déjà vu moments and flashbacks to his childhood.
“There’s an awful lot to small-town life that people don’t realize they have,” he said. “They take it for granted.”
