UNO college students visit villages, towns across Nebraska

Three boys from the University of Nebraska at Omaha hit the road this summer to see the unknown pieces of their home state.
Seth Varner, Austin Schneider and Jack McGonigal—along with their stuffed Energizer Bunny—hit the road.
“The Energizer Bunny is our mascot because he never stops going, just like we never stop going and going to all these towns,” Varner said.
They have tried to visit as many historical sites, parks, etc. as possible along the way, but their main focus is to see all 531 incorporated towns in Nebraska.
Varner came up with the idea. “When I was 10, my dad and I did something similar where we would visit towns in the local area, but we had to stop because I was young and still in school,” he said.
“Fast forward 10 years later to March 2020 and we didn’t have anything to do, so I went to Austin one day and asked him if he wanted to visit every town in the state,” Varner added.
As of June 30, they had visited 331 towns.
They tackled towns east of Grand Island first, with a route planned each day with 15-25 towns to visit.
Each day of those routes would lead them back to Varner’s and Schneider’s hometown of Wahoo.
“We were never on the road for more than 15 hours, and we always came back to Wahoo,” the boys said of the first half.
The second half of the trip includes covering nearly 4,500 miles and some overnight visits.
“Due to COVID, we try to avoid physically going into any buildings along our journey, or interacting with any people if we can help it,” Varner said. “No worries, though, we’ve got plenty of Germ-X and Lysol in the car.”
July 7 brought them to Imperial, where they visited the courthouse and checked out the murals on Main Street.
“Every small town has something to do, you just have to go out and find it,” Varner said.
“The common thread between every town is their hospitality,” he added. “We’ve been recognized in several small towns, and everybody is always trying to help us out, whether that’s giving us freebies or pointing us towards the local attractions.”

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