Grandpa Barney’s Papillion: The Hometown That Raised Me

There are places that athat are written into your bones.

For me, that place is Papillion, Nebraska.

It is the place where I was born, and raised. The place where I learned what it meant to belong to a community. Even if I didn’t yet have the words to explain it. And, by the grace of God, it is still the place where I am proud to work today.

Papillion has changed a great deal since I was born in 1981. In those days, Papillion was still a much smaller town. The 1980 Census listed the city at a little over six thousand people. Perhaps by the standard of many Nebraska cities somewhat normal but a far cry from the Papillion of today, which has grown to well over twenty-five thousand residents. For those who have come here more recently, Papillion may feel like part of the larger Omaha metro area. But, for those of us who grew up here when the town was still small enough Papillion was not simply a suburb.

It was home.

And home, when you are young, has a way of becoming the first language your heart ever learns.

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Growing Up in Old Papillion

When I think of Papillion in the early 1980s, I do not first think of subdivisions, traffic lights, or population numbers. I think of people.

Of my Dad, a band director in the Papillion-LaVista public schools, pouring his love of music into generations of students. I think of my Mom and my Grandma Helen working at Midlands Hospital and medical clinic, serving the sick and the worried with the kind of steady faithfulness that often goes unnoticed by the world but never goes unnoticed by God.

And finally I think of our house on Washington Street. How it was only a short walk down the street to my Grandpa Barney’s grocery store, The Golden Rule.

That name still says something to me.

The Golden Rule was not merely the name of a store. It was a way of life. A reminder that a community is only as strong as the people willing to treat one another with decency, fairness, and generosity. Grandpa Barney did not just sell groceries. He helped hold together a piece of Papillion’s heart.

Long before I understood civic responsibility or philanthropy, I watched it all being lived out in front of me.

I saw my Dad serve through music. Mom and Grandma Helen serving through health care, and Grandpa Barney serving through business, charity, friendship, and constant community involvement.

And without giving me a lecture, they taught me that loving your hometown means giving something back to it.

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Bleeding Maroon and Gold

As my brother Mark and I grew older, Grandpa Barney began taking us to Papillion Monarch High School football, basketball, and baseball games.

Those nights and afternoons became part of the rhythm of childhood.

There was something almost magical about walking into a gym or sitting under the lights at a football game and feeling that we were part of something bigger than ourselves. We were not merely watching a team. No, we were watching our team, the boys who wore the name of our hometown across their chests. We were watching Papillion.

And because Dad was a music teacher, we also went to band concerts, parades, and marching band halftime shows. All the musical moments that gave the town its own soundtrack.

The drums, the brass, the uniforms, the fight songs, the gym echoing with cheers, all of it shaped us.

Papillion-La Vista High School, home of the Monarchs, with its proud maroon and gold tradition stretching back through generations of community life. For Mark and I, though, those colors were not simply school colors. They were almost a family inheritance.

We were Monarchs through and through, we bled maroon and gold.

We dreamed of the day when we would finally be old enough to go to junior high and high school. The day when we could be part of the Monarch band program and play sports for our hometown team.

That is one of the gifts of growing up in a town like Papillion. The future does not feel abstract. It feels like something waiting for you just down the road. Under the lights, in the band room, on the ball field, or marching down Washington Street in a parade.

Related reflection: Father’s Day and the Gift of Music

Grandpa Barney and the Work of Giving Back

Grandpa Barney loved Papillion, and he made sure we understood that loving a community meant serving it.

Mark and I, and later, as he got older, my brother Scott as well, spent countless hours riding along with him. Grandpa worked tirelessly for the Midlands Hospital Foundation, especially during Christmastime when he sold their famous fruitcakes. To a child, fruitcakes may not seem like the foundation of civic life, but looking back now, I understand that those fruitcakes were never really just fruitcakes.

They were a way of supporting the hospital and local healthcare. But, perhaps most importantly a way of saying that a town takes care of its own.

We also rode along as Grandpa sold raffle tickets for Papillion-La Vista Schools Foundation dinners and golf outings. For Lions Club spaghetti dinners and church festivals. He was always going somewhere, asking someone for support, and showing up for events. Helping to raise money, shaking hands, and telling stories, were his quiet work to keep the community alive.

All of these groups are still active today, thanks in no small part to the work that Grandpa and his generation did to start and nurture them along. That kind of work does not happen by accident. It happens because people decide that children, schools, families, and neighborhoods are worth investing in.

Grandpa Barney was one of those people.

He belonged to that generation of Papillion citizens who did not think of community service as something extra. It was simply what you did.

You helped, you showed up, and you gave what you could.

And then you taught the next generation to do the same.

The Summer Job That Became a Lesson in Stewardship

After I graduated high school, Grandpa Barney recommended that I get a summer job with the City of Papillion Parks Department.

It remains one of the best suggestions he ever gave me.

At the time, I probably thought of it mostly as a job. A summer job; a way to earn money and stay busy. But over time, I came to understand that working for the Parks Department was another kind of education.

It taught me a new way to love Papillion.

Not from the stands at a Monarch game, at a band concert, or from the passenger seat of Grandpa Barney’s white Mercury.

But from the ground up.

I learned to love Papillion by taking care of it.

Through mowing grass, preparing athletic fields, cleaning facilities, and maintaining parks. The work that most people only notice when it is not done. I learned that a beautiful park does not stay beautiful by accident. A clean restroom, a safe playground, a prepared ball field, and a well-kept public space are all acts of service.

They are acts of stewardship.

That may not sound glamorous to some people.

But to me, it is deeply meaningful.

Because I know what those parks mean to families, what those fields mean to children, and what those playgrounds mean to parents and grandparents.

I know what those public spaces mean to a city that has grown but still needs places where people can gather, play, and celebrate. Places where they can remember that they belong to something larger than themselves.

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Walking in Grandpa Barney’s Footsteps

Grandpa Barney gave back to Papillion through his grocery store. Through the hospital and school foundations, the Lions Club, and countless other relationships he built over a lifetime.

My way of giving back looks different.

I give back by helping take care of athletic fields, through helping to keep parks clean and beautiful. By doing work that allows children to play, families to gather, and teams to compete. Helping neighbors to enjoy the city that raised me.

Yet even though the work is different, the lesson is the same.

Grandpa taught me that a hometown is not something you simply consume. It is something you serve.

A hometown is not merely where you live, it is where you plant yourself. Where you accept responsibility and remember those who came before you. To try, in your own small way, to leave something good for those who come after you.

That is why working for the City of Papillion means so much to me.

It is not just a job, it is a continuation of a family lesson, a way of saying thank you.

Thank you to my Dad, who gave Papillion music.

Thank you to my Mom and Grandma Helen, who gave Papillion care, and a special thank you to Grandpa Barney, who gave Papillion his time, energy, business, friendships, and most importantly, his example.

And thank you to the city itself, which gave me a childhood rooted in place, memory, pride, and belonging.

Papillion Has Grown, But the Foundation Remains

Papillion is no longer the little town it was when I was born.

They may not know Grandpa Barney.

Many new families have moved here. New neighborhoods have been built, and many residents may not remember The Golden Rule. They may not know the old Papillion that lived in the grocery store aisles, the hospital foundation fruitcake sales, band concerts, and the Friday night lights of Monarch football. At least the times back when there was only one high school. Back when they played at the Snake Pit in Halleck Park.

They certainly don’t know Grandma Helen or the Papillion that Mark and I knew as boys.

But I hope they can still feel it.

I hope they can feel that Papillion is special.

That they experience a special feeling when they walk through a city park. When their child plays on a ball field. When they go to a parade, a concert, or spend a summer evening downtown. Or perhaps a quiet morning in one of the parks my colleagues and I help maintain.

Because the foundation laid by Grandpa Barney and his contemporaries is still here.

It is here in the schools, the parks, the old downtown streets, and in Monarch and Titan pride.

In the belief that a community is worth loving, serving, and preserving.

Papillion has grown, but growth does not have to erase memory. A city can become larger and still remain rooted; a hometown can welcome newcomers and still honor those who built the foundation.

That is my hope for Papillion, those who are new here will not merely live here, but come to love here.

That they will discover what so many of us were blessed to know from childhood: Papillion is not just a place to pass through. It is a place that can shape you.

The Golden Rule Still Lives

The Golden Rule grocery store is long closed now.

Grandma Helen and Grandpa Barney have gone to their eternal reward.

My parents have retired and moved away.

Many of the places and people that formed my earliest memories of Papillion have changed, closed, moved on, or passed into memory.

But the lessons remain.

They remain every time I go to work. Every time I look across a freshly prepared field, or I see families enjoying a park.

Whenever I remember Grandpa Barney’s tireless love for this town. In the simple conviction that he taught me: the place that raised you deserves your gratitude.

And so, my pride for Papillion continues to emanate from the same place it always has, from family, memory, and service. And from the deep knowledge that I was blessed to be born and raised in a hometown worth loving.

Papillion, Nebraska raised me.

And every day I get to serve it, in my own small way, I am reminded that love of hometown is not nostalgia alone.

It is stewardship, gratitude, work, and memory made visible.

And it is one of the quietest, most beautiful ways we can give thanks for the places and people who made us who we are.