By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley
The Missouri River Outdoor Expo at Ponca State Park has served over half a million visitors and provided countless memories and outdoor recreation “firsts.” In 2025, visitors can expect more than 90 vendors, activities and demonstrations Sept. 20-21. And on the school day preceding the public event, upwards of 700 children from approximately 35 schools will fill the canyons with laughter. From fishing and shooting, kayaking and river boat rides, to lumberjack demonstrations, dog shows and the smells of funnel cake, barbecue and kettle corn — the atmosphere is like that of a fair for outdoor lovers.
This annual outdoor event, in this quiet corner of Nebraska, is the largest of its kind in the Midwest. Nebraska Game and Parks staff and volunteers, and the town of 1,000 that pulls it off each year, have much to look back on this vicennial anniversary — and they have a lot to be proud of.
Challenging Start
The expo is the brainchild of a small team of staff and local citizens, including Parks Division Administrator Jeff Fields, who was then the superintendent at Ponca State Park, and Deputy Director Jim Swenson, who was then eastern regional park manager. This team envisioned a long-term event that would exemplify the Ponca State Park tagline: “Where people and nature meet.”
“We wanted an event that had the same kind of feeling as a county fair but was focused around the outdoors and what our agency represents,” Fields said. Visitors would gain hands-on experiences, such as shooting a gun or bow.
They wanted it to be free to attend because Fields saw the expo as a long-term investment — introducing people to the outdoors in ways they would not have a chance to experience otherwise. The expo would help “plant the seed” to growing the next generation of hunters, anglers and outdoors people.
Fields knew the event would need strong regional support and ownership. A team of staff and volunteers worked to secure community buy-in, which led to the creation of the Missouri River Outdoor Expo Board, an advisory committee made up of representatives from Ponca and surrounding communities, such as Sioux City and Newcastle, as well as groups, including local chapters of Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited and the National Rifle Association. Board members became spokespeople for the expo and vital to fundraising and recruiting volunteers, which they needed by the hundreds.
The educational aspect of the expo made fundraising easy; generous sponsors contributed and continue to today. These dollars go toward paying for the demonstrations, entertainment and activities offered, such as the dock dog show, Axe Women Loggers of Maine, delivery and set up of the rock wall and ropes course, and many more. Logistical costs include renting shuttle trailers, port-a-potties and golf carts.
Don Andersen, a longtime resident and former mayor of Ponca, became one of the expo board’s first members. He remembers the day Fields called him.
“Jeff had a vision of what we were going to do,” Andersen said. Andersen believed in the vision, too, and spent the next 10 years on the board helping grow community support.
Fields knew staff buy-in also would be critical to the event’s success, and Game and Parks’ northeast district were more than willing to roll up their sleeves. No matter which division staff worked in, they participated in the expo handling different aspects of the event.
With these pieces in place, execution was the next step, and the first expo in September 2005 became the true test.
That weekend, Ponca set a record for the most rain in a two-day period; 8 inches of rain flooded the riverfront where activities were stationed, forcing everyone to move up to the visitor center. Still, 1,500 to 2,000 people showed up.
“I think that tested our wherewithal a little bit with the group that helped organize it,” Fields said, but “we thought, ‘If that many people show up under those cruddy conditions, what could we do if we had a nice weekend?’”
It motivated them to keep moving forward.
Evolution
One of the venues established early on was the riverfront. Being the expo’s namesake, the team was adamant visitors would be able to “touch, see and smell the Missouri River.” Attractions in this area have included a heritage encampment with living history volunteers, boat tours (when conditions allow), logging demonstrations, and cooking and eating contests.
The visitor center, built in 2003, provides visitors a break from the elements. It houses additional vendors and the Better Ponca Foundation silent auction, which helps fund the expo. The area surrounding the visitor center is where activities such as kayaking, fishing, the rock wall, ropes course and dog shows are located.
The shooter’s village is the third venue of the expo. Although the shooting area has been there since the park was established in 1934, a formal shooting range was built in 2013 thanks to memorial dollars from the family of Eric Wiebe, a former Game and Parks conservation officer and one of the expo’s earliest proponents, who died of cancer in 2009, in conjunction with corporate and nonprofit donations, including from Scheels.
During the expo, visitors can shoot archery, shotgun, muzzleloader, .22 long rifle, pellet guns, slingshot, atlatl and tomahawk — all equipment provided — at the complex.
In the early years, the expo offered 20 to 40 activities. Now, the event has grown twice as large. The expo’s blueprint covers nearly 57 acres of beautiful, hilly terrain.
Gap Year
There was no expo in 2020 as COVID-19 forced restrictions around the globe. At the time, Ponca staff felt they could not do the event justice while maintaining social distancing. But skipping a year had its risks. As organizers saw across the country, many events and activities did not return after the pandemic.
In 2005, the Missouri River Outdoor Expo was one of maybe seven or eight in the Midwestern area. Over time, it has outlasted most in the country, Fields said. The gap year in 2020 broke 15 years of momentum, but the expo team forged ahead in 2021 under the park’s new superintendent Scott Oligmueller, and they were glad they did. Crowds have returned, but at more manageable sizes than the peak years when 20,000 people attended, lines were long and patience was short.
“People are enjoying it again,” Fields said. “That’s critical to keeping these events going — making sure it’s a quality experience for the staff and the volunteers, along with the public.”
Behind the Scenes
In November 2024, Katie Leware was named Ponca State Park’s superintendent, and the 2025 event will be her fifth expo. At the helm, she and new expo coordinator, Jessica Rich, are in the thick of meeting with expo board members and sponsors, working on contracts and making bids with vendors. Leware feels the weight of the 20th anniversary on her shoulders.
“I guess what’s daunting going into 20 years is the expectation of this event and what’s going to be new and different,” Leware said. “To be honest with you, we’ve had almost full turnover of permanent staff here at the park in the last year and a half and so, we’ve got a fairly new team, which is really great because there are tons of new ideas … but we’re also running this massive event as a new team, which has its own challenges.”
The Missouri River Outdoor Expo is not an event park staff plan mere months or weeks ahead. The expo is part of their day-to-day operations, Leware explained. They think about the expo year-round, about the small details that allow the event to run safely and smoothly. For instance: Who is providing portable toilets? Do food vendors have their health inspections and legalities in order? How many extra golf carts do they need?
Safety is also a priority. Leware ensures first responders and an ambulance are on site, and she facilitates the relationship between local paramedics and the expo’s emergency management team. Also throw in local law enforcement and conservation officers, whom she meets to discuss evacuation and emergency plans and lost-kid protocols. Even helicopter landing zones have to be identified in the event someone needs to be airlifted to the hospital.
Then leading up the event, it’s all hands-on deck with staff and volunteers setting up.
“It’s probably a five-page to-do list just to get the shooting range ready,” Leware said.
“This is a massive park, and we have a massive event,” she said. “This event doesn’t happen with one person. The team that we have and the support from the agency, all of our volunteers — I mean, this event didn’t make it 20 years without everybody who’s involved.”
Team
Ask Fields, Swenson and Leware to name what they’re most proud of in running the expo, and they will give you similar answers: being part of a great team, community involvement, the camaraderie, the passion and being part of a grassroots effort that has outlasted most of its kind.
“Those relationships that were established are longtime friends, longtime supporters of our agency. Those can’t be replaced. So that is, to me, probably the most important of everything the event stands for,” Fields said. The Ponca expo depends on 300 to 700 volunteers annually who fill a wide range of vital roles, such as setting up and tearing down, directing traffic and parking, collecting trash, teaching outdoor skills, demonstrating hands-on activities and more.
Perhaps volunteer birding expert Mark Brogie described it best: “It’s kind-of like Old Home Week because we see a lot of the other presenters that come up … a lot of people that we know have been doing presentations there for years and years and years,” he said. “It is a fun event.”
Brogie and his brother Ed, retired high school science teachers, now scratch the itch to teach through their bird banding demonstrations at Ponca State Park and elsewhere. Mark and Ed have been involved since the first Missouri River Outdoor Expo in 2005.
Husband-and-wife team Leon and Merrie Hansen also are familiar faces. They joined the expo in 2007. Although the couple have relocated to Wichita, Kansas, to be closer to their grandchildren, they faithfully return to the expo to offer their popular outdoor cooking demonstrations, as well as help set up during the week ahead.
This event is primarily run by volunteers, Leware said. And they’re always looking for more, especially on Sunday afternoon when everyone’s eager to get home.
“When it’s over, we’re all so thankful, but it is such a rewarding experience overall,” she said.
It takes a lot of heart, gumption and sweat to make an event of this magnitude possible. But to execute year after year, for two decades, introducing untold thousands to the outdoors in an accessible way — that’s a mission statement realized many times over. The expo’s impact has been immeasurable.
“It’s one of those places you can go and see parents, grandpa, grandma, the kids, the dog — all in one family unit,” said Deputy Director Jim Swenson, who often hears from people who chose careers in conservation because of the expo. “In today’s world of distraction and all kinds of options for families to consider, this is an event that brings them where they can truly find themselves and brings them outdoors. It keeps them connected — that connectivity to the landscape is critical to conservation.”
The Missouri River Outdoor Expo is where people and nature meet. Come experience it for yourself the third weekend of September.
Volunteer Don Andersen
Ponca resident Don Andersen was a charter member of the Missouri River Outdoor Expo Board. He helped raise considerable funds to get the first expo rolling, and his boots were on the ground when volunteers were called to help complete the Eric Wiebe Shooting Complex in 2013, the site of the expo’s shooter’s village.
Although the former mayor of Ponca and member of the Better Ponca Foundation has retired from many of his official roles, the 84-year-old has yet to miss an expo as a volunteer. Andersen leads the shotgun shooting range and recruits his own volunteers — about 30 — and he maintains the 20-some shotguns and dozen muzzleloaders that need regular cleaning during the course of the weekend. Last year, they went through 8,700 rounds of shotgun shells during the expo.
Andersen returns every year simply because of his passion for introducing people to shooting. As an avid hunter, it’s important to him to introduce guns to people in a safe, informative way.
“My [volunteers], they take it real seriously to get that beginner to do it the right way. And I think when you see them hit the target, it’s a lot of self-satisfaction,” Andersen said. “I see guys smiling. I see those kids when they walk away — how they’ve got a smile on their face.” It also tickles him that it’s often the women who are better shots than their boyfriends or husbands.
Andersen’s wife, Jane, also volunteers, helping to register school children during the Friday school day. On Saturday and Sunday, you’ll likely find her answering questions at the information booth.
Volunteers Ed and Mark Brogie
Brothers Ed and Mark Brogie have been involved with the expo since day one. Known for their expertise on birding, they run the expo’s bird banding station, where visitors can watch the brothers catch a variety of live birds with nets before banding them. They often catch species such as white-breasted nuthatches, chickadees, woodpeckers, warblers, catbirds and many species of sparrows.
“The kids, once they see a white-breasted nuthatch up close, hopefully they’ll gain ownership of that bird a little bit. [We] let them touch it, and hopefully they’ll never want to ever go shoot one with a BB gun again, because they’ve seen it up close and personal,” Mark said.
It’s older brother, Ed, who still carries a federal bird banding permit; Mark gave up his permit some time ago. The process for obtaining a permit is rigorous, and when issued, keeping it active is just as in-depth. Only a handful of people in Nebraska have one.
Another notable feature of the Brogies’ station is the study skins borrowed from Wayne State College — their alma mater — affectionately referred to as “birds on a stick.” Painstakingly preserved by biologist Wayne Molhoff of Ashland over 40 years ago, these study skins allow visitors to observe specimens up close. The collection of 200 birds is representative of birds found in Nebraska.
Local birder Bill Huser is a regular presenter, along with Ed’s wife, Lee. The team loves interacting with return students, teachers and parents, who come back with new questions and growing interest in birds.
Outside of the expo, Ed and Mark regularly volunteer at other Ponca and Niobrara state park educational events. Ed also teaches archery at National Archery in the Schools Program events and offers mentorship at local Pheasants Forever youth hunts. Mark is an active community member in Creighton, having served on several boards; he is currently the treasurer of the Ashfall Chapter of the Friends of the University of Nebraska State Museum.
Volunteers Merrie and Leon Hansen
Merrie and Leon Hansen earned their nicknames “Cold Feet” and “Hot Tin,” respectively, while backpacking the Appalachian Trail, where it’s customary for hikers to call each other by fun monikers — Merrie was always cold, and Leon was always cooking.
Their outdoor cooking demonstrations at the expo are extremely popular. They’ve cooked a variety of dishes, including roasted turkey in a cardboard box, Dutch-oven pizza, bison stew, cakes, pies, biscuits, eggs in orange peel cups and more. In addition to their demonstrations, the couple also arrives days prior to lend a hand with setting up the tents and putting up banners and signage. They’ve also helped build some of the new structures on the riverfront.
Merrie and Leon grew up and met in southeastern Nebraska, and subsequently, the U.S. Air Force took their family to Texas, Alaska, Missouri, Kansas, Montana and Colorado. All that traveling came with many outdoor adventures with their two boys, who are now grown. Leon is a lifelong outdoorsman, having been a Boy Scout as a child and serving as scoutmaster for 28 years. The Hansens have backpacked and kayaked all over the country.
“Being outdoors is just part of who we are. And since we have to eat, I think that’s how the cooking ends up being a part of it,” Leon explained. Despite their nomadic lifestyle, the couple finds the time to return to the Ponca Expo regularly.
“The park people and the local Ponca people — they’ve always been good to us. So that’s a good reason to go back — just to see people,” Merrie said.
