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Hello and welcome to Focus on OLLI. What is OLLI? OLLI is a program at UNLV dedicated to active retired or semi-retired individuals who understand the importance of keeping themselves engaged. OLLI is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. Every month this program will dig into favorite classes, interesting teachers and members as well as special events offered through OLLI.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Keith McMillen 0:16
Hello and welcome to focus on Olli. Olli is a program at UNLV, dedicated to retired or semi retired individuals who remain engaged and active in civic activities and lifelong learning. Olli is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. Olli is made possible by support from the Bernard Osher Foundation, established by philanthropists Bernard and Barbara Osher with a mission to support lifelong learning, higher education and the arts. This series is designed to give you an in depth look at the Olli program and encourage you to join in the fun.
Ed Ort 0:54
Well, hello, I'm Ed Orr I'm a student as well as an instructor at Olli. Welcome to today's Olli podcast. Our topic today is a very interesting one. It's about history related classes at Olli. You know, over the years, Olli has offered many history related classes. In fact, just this last semester, Olli offered 15 history related classes ranging anywhere from the pioneers of aviation to great jury trials, even to the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 so today we're going to talk about some of the interesting history classes we offer at Olli and some of the great instructors who lead them. Our guests today are Wayne rohrbaugh, who has taught many classes about the American Civil War, Noelle Everhart, who recently taught a class called major events in world history, and Tony Kaufman, who has taught a variety of classes over the years, most recently, went on the reconstruction era after the American Civil War. Let's start with Wayne. Wayne rorbeck, Wayne, tell us about your American Civil War classes and why you lead them. What interested you about the American Civil War? Well,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 2:06
the reason I got interested in the Civil War was I was born and raised in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and that's about 13 miles from Gettysburg. So as a person growing up, I got to experience the 100th anniversary of Gettysburg. I was in the head of her band and marched in it. At that time, I was at the in reenactment of the Battle of Hanover, which happened the day before the Battle of Gettysburg. So that got me real interested in history, and I've been reading it ever since.
Ed Ort 2:37
So what do you get out of being an Olli instructor? Well,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 2:41
the one thing that I really get out of being an adult instructor is giving the information to the students. I'm trying to correct a lot of the misinformation that people have learned over the years when we were taking classes back in high school, what they taught in American history wasn't exactly the way it really went. So I try and fill in and correct a lot of the misnomers, misinformation that people have, let's say, got over the years. Are
Ed Ort 3:07
any Miss misunderstandings about Civil War particularly interesting to you? Could you relate some of them?
Wayne Rohrbaugh 3:16
Oh, well, a lot of them come to the way. Let me tell about what I was talking about yesterday. People think that the South won a lot of the battles in the Civil War, as I pointed out to my class yesterday. No, they didn't the class I was talking about yesterday, of the nine, or it was 10 battles I talked about, the North won nine of the 10. The South only won one. A lot of people think the South had a lot of really great generals. For the most part, they did not. If you take out Robert E Lee, Stonewall, Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest, you don't have many good generals, right?
Tony Kouffman 3:53
Most of them were drunks.
Wayne Rohrbaugh 3:58
What Tony just said? Yeah, there was a lot of of people that enjoyed the bottle. In fact, one guy named Henry Sibley, one person said that he loved the bottle more than he loved his mother or his country. Ha.
Ed Ort 4:13
You know, one of the people I believe had a drinking problem was actually Ulysses S Grant. Was that true? That
Wayne Rohrbaugh 4:20
is what I talked to the class about a couple weeks ago. And the answer is no. Ah. Now another misconception, a misconception. Now, was he an alcoholic at one time? The answer is yes, when he was out in San Francisco, yes, he had a drug or an alcohol problem, and that's why he left the army. But from what I've read and what I understand, no grant. Was not an alcoholic at all during the Civil War, what he had was migraine headaches. And if you think about a migraine headache and the after math that you get from those, it sure looks like a hangover from a drunk.
Ed Ort 4:53
You know, Wayne being an instructor myself at Olli, oftentimes, there are things I learned from the students in the class. As things I had not picked up during research. Are there any things that you've picked up from students over the years that you had not known about the Civil War?
Wayne Rohrbaugh 5:08
Well, there's always stuff I got off the top of my head. I can't give you an example, but yes, there's things that the students bring out. I go, Well, yeah, I never heard about that before, so I'm always learning. And I read a lot of magazines and books, and so I know that even though history is history, sometimes the way it's translated changes over time, right?
Ed Ort 5:31
So Noelle, you, you've also recently taught a class history related class about major events in world history. How'd that class come about, and what events did you cover? Well, originally,
Noell Everhart 5:44
I was teaching a class on today in history, and so I would go through different events of each day, but that seemed to confuse people, so I decided I wanted to do kind of whatever I wanted to talk about, not constrained to one day or one time period. And so I started out with it being called major events in world history. And as I looked at what I wanted to talk about, it became a random history class. We've talked about things from the molasses flood to,
Ed Ort 6:24
did you say molasses? Yes. Tell us about that.
Noell Everhart 6:28
Boston had a molasses flood in Oh, man, I hate when I can't remember things 1919, I think, yeah, 1919 1917 during the during the First
Ed Ort 6:38
World War. Was that a very sticky situation.
Noell Everhart 6:43
Unfortunately, 20 some people died, wow, some by getting getting stuck in the molasses, and some by being swept into the water, because molasses is part of an of the creation of ammunitions, and it's a byproduct, and so it was kept in this huge tank. And the tank was kind of poorly put together in the fact that it leaked. So people would get their molasses from the tank instead of other ways. And instead of fixing it, they painted it brown. And then one day, because it was cold, this was in January, it exploded, and it it burst and sent several million gallons of molasses flooding into the area.
Ed Ort 7:35
What is another one of these random events in history that you chose and why did you choose it? Well,
Noell Everhart 7:41
yesterday, I did the Well, I'm sorry. On Wednesday, I did the Johnstown floods. Dave had three major floods, and I chose it because it's a it's major event, and it's, it shows a bit of what happens when certain people behaviors affect other people, right? And then the next two were just part of nature. And how you can, you can plan for the best, and then nature can just say, Nope, not going to happen, right? And next week, we're going to do the Tower of London and the Ravens. Ah, very interesting,
Ed Ort 8:21
kind of an interesting collection of subjects. Like you said, it's random. It is pretty Yeah. So in addition to the four of us being instructors, we're all Holly students, too. And I'd like to get your perspective of Olli as a student. What do you enjoy in terms of classes, and why do you enjoy them. I
Noell Everhart 8:41
really enjoyed the variety of classes, because I've been able to take all kinds. I took a circus class where people talked about the actual circus, retired circus performers talked about being in the circus, and also the history of the circus. And I took a musical theater course, which I enjoyed. I know that there's diamond painting, there's ukulele, belly dancing, so I like that there's such a variety, and you can almost find anything. And you know, I was talking to Wayne, and I said, it's, it's kind of sad, because I'd take his course, except at the same time as one of mine, so you can end up really filling your days.
Ed Ort 9:26
Yeah, there's a real problem at all, right? There's so many good classes. There are, there are conflicts in time between two or three classes you might want to take, and you just have to pick one of them.
Noell Everhart 9:37
Yeah, but there's, it's nice. There's several that repeat during the three terms of of Olli. So you can, if you don't get it one time, you can get it another, right. And that makes it nice too.
Ed Ort 9:49
Tony, you are probably our longest Ali person in terms of being at Olli. 2006 is when i. I started, wow, they should put a plaque on the wall for you. They do. You bet there is one. Is there really? I
Tony Kouffman 10:07
won the longevity of Ali award given a few years ago.
Ed Ort 10:17
Well, I'll have to look at that. I guess I missed it. So you know, Olli is more than just an education experience. It is also a social experience. It's, it's kind of a community gathering experience, to someone who's been at Olli all these years, what? What's your perspective on that? Well,
Tony Kouffman 10:40
basically what I found in the very beginning, it was strictly academic. But what has happened over the years, we've become very social. We've had activities. For example, in the fall, we go as a group to the UNLV game, and this fall, it'll be UNLV against UCLA. And we also take a very personal view of of people. For example, all our brand new students their first semester, we always call them and make sure that they are comfortable and they're getting everything that they need so they people, sometimes are shy. Sometimes people have lost their spouse, and this is the first outing that they're really undertaking. So what they need, more or less, is sort of hand holding in some cases, and that's what we provide. We try to make everybody feel real comfortable,
Ed Ort 11:43
right? One of the other things about Ollie that really blows my mind is we get kind of really high end performers coming, like, just about a month ago, Clint Holmes, who's, you know, a very well known performer here in Las Vegas, came to ollie and talked about his life, talked about a book he's writing, but also sang a few songs, and it was just a wonderful experience.
Tony Kouffman 12:08
Yeah, we, we also had the former governor of Nevada just speak recently with the past few weeks. Yeah, we
Ed Ort 12:16
one of the types of classes at Olli also are kind of Speaker Series classes. We have a class called soapbox, where we get, you know, people to come and speak from a variety of disciplines, people in government, people in business. And it's really kind of an eye opening experience. Yeah,
Tony Kouffman 12:38
it's one of our most popular classes that we do have, and it's a very good experience because also the students get to ask questions of these famous people, and they enjoy that very, very much.
Ed Ort 12:53
One of the other things that I'd kind of like to get your opinion on is interesting experience you've had in your classes? Can you? Can you think about some things perhaps, that have come up in your classes, not necessarily in a history class, but just any of your classes that surprised you, maybe in a positive or maybe even a negative way.
Noell Everhart 13:18
I really had fun in the circus class, because I, at one point in time, had an application to the clown College, Ringling Brothers clown College, really. And I've been a huge circus fan for years, and so that was a lot of fun for me to get to talk to them and interact with the teachers. And lot of people take time, not just in class, but outside of class, to talk about, you know, the subjects that are passionate to them, or what they're teaching. And so that was a lot of fun, right?
Ed Ort 13:51
Wayne, getting back to you, where do you go for for, you know, gaining additional information about the Civil War. I know a lot of it has to do with your experiences. But where else do you look for information?
Wayne Rohrbaugh 14:04
Well, right now, I have a, probably a library of 300 Civil War books that I've read, all of them. I've also have somewhere around 600 Civil War magazines that I've read, and my wife and I have toured on six Civil War tours. So by doing that, I've got a lot of information. I've also had the experience of being with the James McPherson who wrote battle cry of freedom, which won a Pulitzer Prize. We spent a whole week with him. So that was some really great experiences that I've gotten over the years. Right? So
Ed Ort 14:41
one of the interesting things, I think, for me, is that in two of the classes that I have led, I've actually sung, and the first time I did a class, it was on Frank Sinatra and I I sang one Frank Sinatra song, and gave, gave people in the class the opportunity. Going to throw tomatoes, tomatoes at me, and not one hit me. So I decided the next semester I do another one. I gave a session on Tony Bennett, and I sang a song about Tony Bennett, and they still missed so but, but the point being that you could have a lot of fun at Olli both being a student and being an instructor, it's quite free form. Yeah. Wayne,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 15:26
well, one thing that I did this year, we made heart tack. Because one thing I do, I share what kind of foods the soldiers were given and what their diets were. And so I made hard tack for all the students, which was horrible.
Noell Everhart 15:44
Didn't have enough maggots.
Ed Ort 15:45
Was it 100 year old hardtack?
Wayne Rohrbaugh 15:49
No, no. My daughter made it for me that the night before. So we brought in fresh hard tack, if you will. What exactly is hard Well, it's really very simple. It's flour, salt and water, that's all it is. And you just bake the heck out of it. And it's very flat and very hard. It tastes like crackers, but just very, very hard crackers,
Tony Kouffman 16:08
huh? Ed,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 16:10
I'd like to talk about how it's affected my life, because I think it's very, very hard working. When I came here in 2006 to Las Vegas, I had retired, and I had a lot of time on my hands, and I just had no idea what I wanted to do. And my wife heard an ad about an organization Ali, and so I went down and registered and and took a course with a gentleman named Dennis Evans that was on all the current events, and it was in the summertime, and I just got hooked. And I get such great pleasure out of doing the classes and attending them, because it it it fulfills me very, very greatly. Yeah,
Ed Ort 17:03
I think I can definitely identify with that. And I'm I'm sure both you Wayne and Noel can identify with that too. Ollie, after a while, becomes a really important part of your life. And the fact of the matter is, there, there are a number of seniors out there who you know are looking for additional things to do, to add things to their day. And Olli could be just a wonderful thing. You don't really have to be interested in a particular subject. You could just go there for a social experience and meet people with similar interests, and meet people who would want to do things with you after Olli, outside of Olli. So it's really a terrific thing.
Noell Everhart 17:43
And they're, they're very supportive, because I was a student first, as you said, and I was like, You know what? We need more history classes. And they said, Okay. And I said, I want to do one. And they said, we'll put in a proposal. I said, Okay, that's
Ed Ort 17:59
a very important point, Olli doesn't have a fixed curricula. The curriculum each semester is based on proposals, and if you have a particular interest in a class that you would like to lead, or even, you know, suggest a class that somebody else can lead, Olli is very receptive to that you put in your proposal. They review it. I would say 99 out of 100 times they'll probably accept it. And as a result, Olli at UNLV has just a tremendously wide range of classes that can satisfy just about any interest. And
Noell Everhart 18:43
if you're not sure that you want to lead a class, there are several classes that allow students to do a presentation on a subject. We have one called America's hidden treasures, and each each week is a different student or person doing a talk on something that you might not know about in America. And that's how I kind of was like, hey, this was cool. I think I want to try this,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 19:13
right? Oh, he also has a policy that allows you to go to a couple of classes without registering, just to see if you like that, correct?
Noell Everhart 19:23
Yes, and it's, it's nice that it's, it's fall, it's spring and it's summer. So even if you're doing things during the fall and the spring, either there's summer classes as well that you can join and check out to see what you think.
Ed Ort 19:41
Yeah, actually talking about that. I do remember, in one of these classes, maybe it was America's Treasures. Noelle, you gave a talk about these strange mounds in Ohio.
Noell Everhart 19:54
Yeah, the Hopewell mounds, the mound builders that actually several of just be. Came UNESCO World Heritage Sites, right? And, yeah. And I also did one on it, on a place called serpent mount, which is, again, and they're all, you know, 1000 years old, 2000 something like that. And I also plan to talk about Cahokia, which is, if you've been to St Louis, there's mounds outside of St Louis, and it was one of the largest mound cities, wow in America during the pre Columbian time.
Wayne Rohrbaugh 20:25
Wayne, you might want to tell everybody about the open house that's coming up this summer. Yeah,
Ed Ort 20:34
we Ollie before each semester runs an open house. It's an opportunity for people to come to our edifice on the UNLV campus to learn about the classes that are going to be offered in the next semester and meet the instructors who are going to be there. Our next open house is going to be on Tuesday, August 19, from nine o'clock to 12 o'clock at the Olli building. In terms of numbers, it's the M, A, b2, building on the campus, and the address is 4350, South Maryland Parkway. It's two blocks south of Flamingo Road Tony. You've again since you've been at Olli for so many years. What are some of the things you remember about some of the open houses that you've been to? Well,
Wayne Rohrbaugh 21:27
it's matter that there's all kinds of new people coming in that I never saw before, and there are expressions of amazement at what we do and the facilities and everything is really very, very good, people get a flavor of what Olli is all about, and I think that's very important in their decision making whether they want to join and take the classes.
Ed Ort 21:59
So we really encourage you, if you have if you're not experienced at Olli and you're interested, you'll learn a lot about our classes. You'll meet the instructors, and you'll meet a lot of people who do go to Olli. So with that, that ends our session today. I want to thank our guests, Wayne Noel and Tony, and I want to thank you for listening.
Keith McMillen 22:22
Thanks for listening. To focus on Olli. There are several ways to get more information. Our web address is Ali o, l, l, i.unlv.edu You may also email us at Olli, at UNLV. That's Ollie. O, L, L, I, A, T, U, n, l, V, at sign unlv.edu, you can also just give us a call at 702-895-3394, Monday through Friday, between the hours of eight and five, except, of course, on university holidays, you.