I'm originally from Nebraska. My family have been Nebraskans for a hundred years. It's what people on the coast call a "fly over" state. If people know anything about my home it's that Warren Buffet lives there, and that the university's football team is the Cornhuskers. That is usually where the knowledge and conversation about my home state end.
Midwesterners feel like they need to play catch up with the bigger coastal states. We take great pride in our accomplishments, though those accomplishments may not snag the national spotlight. If you ask anyone from Nebraska what Nebraska is known for, they will tell you every famous person who lived or was born there: Gerald Ford, Fred Astaire, Warren Buffet, Charles Starkweather, Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, Alexander Payne, Nick Nolte, Henry Fonda, William Jennings Bryan, General Pershing, Marlon Brando, Senator Chuck Hagel, Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town and the Hall brothers, creators of Hallmark cards. They'll tell you Nebraska has the largest underground water supply in the continent, the Ogallala aquifer. They will also tell you Nebraska is where Kool-Aid, the 911 emergency number, the yellow school bus, and the strobe light were invented. They will brag that on September 11 the President flew to a bunker at Offut Air Force Base because it was the safest place in the country. They still laugh when they say Wahoo, NE was on the Letterman show. They boast that their football team had the first black captain in collegiate football. They have all seen "Election," "About Schmidt," and "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmayer" a hundred times. They are proud of their unicameral legislature, and of their recent split electoral vote in the 2008 election.
Now Nebraska has another bragging point. Mainstreet.com, a financial news site, listed Nebraska as the happiest state economically. The website cites Nebraska's low unemployment rate, low foreclosure rate and low mortgage debt as the reasons for the state's cheerful economic outlook. The country's development of ethanol has kept Cornhusker farmers in much better shape financially than before. So now the state has another reason to sing "There Is No Place Like Nebraska."
(That's actually not the state song. No one knows the words to "Beautiful Nebraska" so no one sings it.)
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