Political parties in the United States are led to rally round an individual in order to acquire a more tangible shape in the eyes of the crowd, and the name of the candidate for the Presidency is put forward as the symbol and personification of their theories.[1]
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Pete Ricketts, if you’re reading this…YOU should subscribe to my newsletter!
Grand Island decided to do something about living in Kearney’s shadow. No, we weren’t getting a Target department store so we could purchase stylish yet affordable clothing while eating a box of popcorn, but we were getting something else they already had. An arena.
Whoa.
We were stoked.
Naturally, once you get an arena, you need to fill it with stuff, right? Wrong. That’s not the Grand Island way. When Kearney built an arena, they brought with it a United State Hockey League amateur team called the Tri-City Storm. The “Tri-Cities” are Kearney, Hastings, and Grand Island, but we all knew it was Kearney’s team. They were just trying to rub our noses in it. Come to Kearney, watch hockey, shop at Target … f**k off Kearney.
But when Grand Island’s arena was built, Kearney was surprisingly cool about it. The Tri-City Storm people made a big deal about how they would love to have another hockey team nearby. They said Grand Island would provide a natural rival and help grow the sport across central Nebraska. The USHL unanimously approved putting a franchise in our fair town. The only problem was, Grand Island was Grand Island. They didn’t want it. They didn’t want anything to change. The arena people made a statement about how a hockey season would fill up too many dates and conflict with their other plans. Never mind the fact that filling up dates is the point of an arena, but what were these other plans? We never found out. They had some rodeos and stuff, but mostly I used the parking lot to learn how to drive a manual transmission.
Then something interesting happened, and in Grand Island interesting things don’t happen. The nation was in the thick of midterm elections, and blood red Nebraska was somehow being represented by (GASP) a Democrat. Ben Nelson was a former Governor and political centrist. He was well liked across the state, even by my parents. The same parents who when I asked, “what’s a liberal” responded with, “oh, those are the bad people.”
“I am pro-life, from before birth to all the days on Earth.”[2]
Check. Yup, that plays well in Nebraska.
“I’m an avid hunter and have a lot of trophies to show for it.”[3]
As the home of Hornady Manufacturing Company, the self-proclaimed “largest independently owned maker of bullets, ammunition, and tools in the world,”[4] Grand Islanders liked that about Ben.
“I keep a sharp eye on my spending, my investments, and my family’s financial bottom line. Always have. My staff liked to tease me that I’m tighter than three coats of paint.”[5]
Pro-life, pro-second amendment, and fiscal conservative. Ben Nelson hit upon the holy trinity of Nebraska convictions.
“So, in Washington, I wouldn’t give up those core values, but I would look for ways to bridge differences, to find creative ways to reach goals, and perhaps most important, to listen to what others offered in the way of compromise to get something done. I would be willing to cross party lines; I would try to be constructive.”[6]
We loved this guy.
But despite Nelson’s ability to find common ground across his constituency, dammit he still had a (D) behind his name whenever he made an appearance on C-SPAN. The Republican Party smelled blood, and a potential Senate seat. Infamous political strategist Karl Rove certainly did at least. After Nelson spurned an offer to serve as the secretary of agriculture in the presidential cabinet to get him out of the Senate, Rove “traveled to Nebraska and recruited Pete Ricketts, the son of Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, to run against”[7] Nelson in the 2006 election.
Pete Ricketts was a political newcomer, and to make up for it, he actively spent millions from his trust fund to bombard the Nebraska airwaves with political ads and Nelson hatchet jobs. His family still owned the financial giant TD Ameritrade and eventually bought the Chicago Cubs. And his head was shaped like a penis. The millions of dollars in ad time weren’t really working. My buddy Noah Woods liked to jokingly say, “did you know Pete Ricketts eats babies?” Since we had yet to enter the post-Trump political climate where crude hyperbole and explicit lying were considered campaign strategies, this was still funny to us.
Pete needed some help. Pete needed a hero. Enter W.
In a Hail Mary pass, George W. Bush, the current president of the United States of America, announced he was going to make a campaign stop in Nebraska to appeal to the people. His people. Bush had handily won Nebraska in 2000 and 2004 by a margin that exceeded Nelson in his own election. Despite Nelson’s two terms as Governor and one in the Senate, there was something about the aww-shucksy demeanor of Bush Jr. that appealed to Nebraskans. Even though Bush said Nelson was “a man with whom I can work, a person who is willing to put partisanship aside to focus on what’s right for America” and nicknamed him “Benator,” he was coming to Nebraska to convince us to fire him.[8]
But the tricky part was lil’ George needed an event space large enough to hold a political rally, secure enough to host the ruler of the world’s largest economy, and completely available with zero scheduling conflicts within a week’s notice to allow for several days of security sweeps without something like, well any sort of event, getting in the way. Grand Island had just the arena. The W. bullet was aimed smack dab in the middle of the state. The part of the state where it’s safest to shoot at things.
The president of the United States of America was coming to Grand Island, Nebraska. Holy s**t.
I’ve never been very political, but George W. Bush amused me. I had bought an animatronic Bush doll at KB Toys in the Conestoga Mall that moved his hands, hips, and mouth while the robot recited some of the president’s famous gaffes. The doll sat on my bedroom shelf next to my Hillary Clinton nutcracker and matching Bill Clinton corkscrew. With the push of a button, I relived our world leader’s profound and poignant rhetoric. Inspirational maxims such as:
“Rarely is the question asked, ‘is our children learning?’”
“Will the highways of the internet become more few?”
“A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”
“It isn’t the pollution that’s harming our environment. It’s the impurities in our water and air that are doing it.”
“I understand small business growth. I was one.”
“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”[9]
And my personal favorite:
“The vast majority of our imports come from outside our country.”
The only celebrities who came to Grand Island were in country bands playing the county fair circuit. And the last presidential visit to central Nebraska was when Bill Clinton planned an impromptu visit to Kearney after realizing Nebraska was the only state he had never been to during his two terms in office.
But that was dirty liberal “bad guy” Bill Clinton.
This was God’s gift to democracy George W. Bush.
F**k off Kearney.
The rumors spread through Grand Island Senior High faster than the time Sadie O’Connor’s older sister’s water broke in gym class and no one knew she was pregnant. Mike and I were in the band room when our director got a phone call. He looked excited, Ricketts’ team just called to ask our high school pep band to play ahead of the rally. I’m not sure what the protocol for a public high school participating in a campaign event is, but for us it was a no-brainer. We were going to play for the president. George was going to f*****g love our pep band rendition of “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne.
…
Austin was eating a late-night stack of pancakes at Tommy’s Restaurant when he overheard the waitresses talking about plans for the next morning. Tommy’s was adjacent to the normally vacant arena about to house the most powerful man in the world. The younger servers were trying to convince beehive hairdo a late-night fixture at Tommy’s for as long as I’ve been eating waffles—that she should skip church to see the president eat at the restaurant. From what Austin could hear, the ladies had been given the impression that George would be stopping by before his big speech to eat an order of biscuits and gravy. It seemed a little crazy, but as Austin told the story I remembered a detail from Bill’s visit. According to someone who once told me about it, the people of Kearney wanted Bill to try a Runza sandwich—the state’s fast-food delicacy. Runzas are a perfect tube of cabbage and hamburger stuffed in warm bread, cheese optional. They sell them at Husker football games out of Styrofoam coolers, and the hot bread cylinders make great handwarmers as you walk back to your bleacher seat in Memorial Stadium. They’re like sex in your mouth. Naturally Bill was interested. As a result, a Runza franchise was shut down for twenty-four-hours while a secret service agent observed an employee prepare the sandwich of the gods, making sure to leave out any cyanide. The employee then spent the night locked in the restaurant under the vigil of Clinton’s private security detail.
The Runza story was probably b******t, and this Tommy’s one was likely b******t, but if W. was planning on treating himself to a chicken fried steak and eggs before winning hearts and minds, they would likely have to alert beehive hairdo ahead of time. The lead felt worth following up on. Mike and I slept at Austin’s the night before the presidential visit and set an alarm early enough to get breakfast and catch a glimpse of the Commander in Chief. We sat in a corner booth for as long as we could before we had to report to the arena to have our instruments inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs. Our date stood us up. Good thing beehive hairdo didn’t skip church.
Ok, kind of a bummer, but the day was young. We had a lot more to look forward to. Today, we were playing for the president. I promised the drumline I would make shirts with any reference Bush made to our marching band. Something like,
Hey, there’s a band here.
—President George W. Bush
This great man had a way with words. And those words deserved to be emblazoned on a t-shirt. Whatever he inevitably said about our efforts, it was going to be amazing.
Since I don’t participate in cattle showing competitions, I had never been inside the Heartland Events Center. We anxiously watched as trained canines stuck their muzzles inside our instrument cases. This was a little nerve-racking, not because I had planted any explosives, but because we often used our drum cases as storage containers. Nothing illegal, but I wasn’t relishing an interrogation from Bush’s private security detail asking about the sweaty boxer briefs left over from our last band competition. We passed inspection. Time to make like Bono and play for the president.
…
We dragged our drum cases to the bleachers, our home for the next three hours. As I took in the surroundings, I was confused. I guess the event wasn’t meant to appeal to Grand Islanders, but rather what the Ricketts campaign team thought an archetypal Grand Island voter was. The troupe put a lot of effort into their representation though, as they sat around campaign headquarters brainstorming while drinking San Pellegrino and munching on freeze-dried bean sprouts.
Like any barn, you smelled it before you saw it. A musty, damp scent of hay and soil hung in the air, got in your clothes, and sat on your tongue as you breathed through your mouth. The approach to the arena floor gave few hints, but once you reached the top railing the silver spoon perception of a central Nebraska community was on full display. The arena cavity was wrapped in silence, the only bodies other than ours belonged to black-suited security guards strategically placed throughout the space, curly wires placed in their ears, steely gazes taking in everything and yet nothing at all. There was no background music, that was going to be our job. My parents, along with the other volunteers recruited from the Republican Party of Nebraska mailing lists, were still getting security screened before being funneled into orientation sessions. The crowds who would later provide obligatory laughter at poorly written jokes and spontaneous boos at the mention of the Democratic Party were entirely absent.
It was hard to know where to start, but a green farming combine stood taller than the rest of the scenery and attracted your gaze. As your eyes settled lower, hay bales lined the arena bowl and directed you toward a fiberglass cow—Grand Island’s signature artform. The cow had been stolen from its normal resting place in front of Texas T-Bone Steakhouse, and American flags were draped across the marquee board on either side of its stomach to hide the previous day’s lunch specials. The Ricketts team found the exact dimension of flag to mask the cow’s true purpose of selling medium rare chunks of beef. Where the hay bales parted, standing room only sections were roped off in front of the catwalk where George would be giving his remarks, the presidential seal podium just visible in between dried corn stalks placed on either side.
In preparation for a presidential visit, our event center had been turned into a pumpkin patch.
…
We set up our instruments as the main gates opened and the citizens of Grand Island started funneling in. The event start time was vague. We were supposed to be at the event center by 10:00 a.m., but Bush wasn’t scheduled to speak until 3:10 p.m. Doors opened to the general public at 11:00 a.m. No one was sure what was supposed to happen for the four-hours and ten minutes between 11:00 a.m. and 3:10 p.m. The Grand Island Independent had published a series of stories ahead of time to report as much detail as possible, but they resorted to interviewing our band director who could only say that “he has not been told what and when the band will play … The band will apparently play one tune, ‘Hail to the Chief,’ when Bush is in the events center.”[10]
That was as much as their investigative reporting was able to unveil. Some concessions were open in a limited capacity. The crowd reached a critical mass, and we were signaled to start playing. We started out with “Carry on My Wayward Son” and followed it up with the Huey Lewis and the News classic “Hip to Be Square.” These were our go-to tracks, the bangers, the real crowd pleasers in our repertoire. We knew we had to bust out the good stuff. We kept going, but we were running low on hits and started in on some of the deep cuts. We ran through “Shout it Out” from the Nick Cannon movie Drumline, and then it was time.
“Ok, Hail to the Chief. One, Two, Three, Four.”
The stage remained empty. We were told to pack up. I was confused. Our director said they decided to have George walk out to the Nebraska Husker tunnel walk, the song “Sirius” by the Alan Parsons Project that plays before the Husker Football team takes the field.
“So, we’re done?”
“Yeah, go get a hot dog.”
I didn’t hide my disappointment, but maybe George still heard us in the back? There had to be some hope for my t-shirt ambition. There’s no possible way he wouldn’t thank or at least comment on the hundreds of high school kids in matching purple polos carrying instruments, right? Surely the Ricketts team put our name on the list of opening remarks. We were a big enough part of the day’s event to get a preemptive article in The Grand Island Independent, after all.
I found my dad doing crowd control (or something) as part of his volunteer duties, a task he quickly realized was useless since the actual Secret Service was there. He decided just to chat with old buddies who he knew from when he was a cop. One of these guys was fairly high up in the Grand Island Police Department now and was privileged with a few more details than my volunteer dad.
“Might as well get comfy Randy. Bush hasn’t even left Texas yet.”
I guess when you ride on Air Force One you don’t have to worry about missing your connection or showing up at the airport two hours early. The connection waits for you, along with the arena full of people that your Senate candidate thinks are either farm hicks or scarecrows. I returned to my seat and shared what I learned from my dad. We were done playing. Bush wasn’t listening. We weren’t making t-shirts.
I was feeling pretty down about the whole thing. And pretty bored. We had been there for hours and all we had done was eaten nachos and taken allergy medication for all the organic particulate in the air. Unrest was starting to set in, and people were uneasy and growing more and more frustrated with their sovereign leader. I wasn’t the only one who felt it. The drummers were set up in the front row and had a full view of the men in suits at ground level. There was radio chatter. Finger to earpiece, mouth to front of sleeve, finger to earpiece, mouth to front sleeve, finger to earpiece. Steely gaze even steelier.
An agent turned and made eye contact.
He walked straight the f**k toward Mike and me.
Yes. A member of the Secret Service for the president of the United States, tasked with preventing the growing unrest in the Heartland Events Center from turning into the finale of Les Miserables, came to speak with me and the man who had twice dated the woman I loved.
“Your country needs you.”
Ok, he didn’t say that. But he did say:
“I need you two to do something.”
“Yes sir.”
“I need the two of you … to get your band … to start the wave.”
“You mean like THE WAVE wave?
“Yes.”
“Like where everyone goes around the arena and waves?”
“Yes.”
“We got it.”
Mike and I did our patriotic duty and bought Bush about another three minutes of civil obedience. I wouldn’t say that we were heroes, but I’ll let you say it.
…
Bush eventually arrived, walking out to the Alan Parsons Project holding, but not wearing, a hat shaped like an ear of corn often found at Cornhusker football games. No mention of the band, but the next day our AP Government class examined the most profound quote of the afternoon:
I had an opportunity to say hello to his honor, your mayor. Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. I appreciate you coming. I’m honored you’re here. My only advice is, pave the potholes. [Laughter] Although, Mr. Mayor, if you please, I didn’t feel any on the way in.[11]
—President George W. Bush
…
When election day finally came, Pete got his ass kicked.
[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 1, (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 135.
[2] Ben Nelson, Death of the Senate: My Front Row Seat to the Demise of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, (Potomac Books, 2021), 8.
[3] Nelson, Death of the Senate, 8.
[4] Hornaday corporate website, accessed August 20, 2025, https://www.hornady.com/corporate/company-history/.
[5] Nelson, Death of the Senate, 8.
[6] Nelson, Death of the Senate, 8.
[7] Nelson, Death of the Senate, 60.
[8] Nelson, Death of the Senate, 54.
[9] Things an animatronic George W. Bush doll said when you pushed a button. Supposedly the real Bush said them, too.
[10] Harold Reutter, “GISH Band to Play for Bush Visit,” The Grand Island Independent, November 4, 2006.
[11] Gerhard Peters and John T. Wooley, “George W. Bush, Remarks at a Nebraska Victory 2006 Rally in Grand Island, Nebraska,” The American Presidency Project, accessed August 20, 2025, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/271676.
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