Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 39

NEBRASKA Sunday May 9, 1999 PStatehouse, 2E Journal Star NEWS FROM ACROSS THE STATE Page design: Rob ScNotterbeck AL LAUKAITISUncom Journal Star Birthplace of a legend: Dancer and actor Fred Astaire was bom in this house in Omaha. Despite his legendary career in Hollywood, there is nothing to mark the site's connection to Astaire. 4 S)GD Nothing indicates where Fred Astaire was born 100 years ago in Omaha Kearney museum Ccts Osborne KEARNEY A bronze bust of former Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne was unveiled to a drum roll, a standing-room-only crowd and raised glasses of champagne. The sculpture was created by Holdrege native George Lundeen after a quick-sculpt session with Osborne that lasted about an hour. The final bust was revealed Friday afternoon and donated to the Museum of Nebraska Art by a group of 11 donors.

The contribution to the museum set a record for the highest price paid for a quick- culpL Donors included Ellen Baldwin, Cliffs Charitable Foundation, Lynne Heiden, Tom and Cindy McGowan, Carl and Jane Rohman. Clay and Beth Smith; and L.R. and Jane Smith. 1999 '49ers passing through i HASTINGS A wagon train commemorating the 150th anniversary of the California Gold Rush was expected to enter Nebraska this weekend. Wagons and their occupants are re-creating the trip on one of the overland routes gold seekers traveled in 1849 to California.

On Jaa 24, 1848, lumber mill workers found gold at Sutter's Mill, on the South Fork of the California's American River. The discovery led to the gold rush of 1849, in which thousands of '49ers made their way west to seek their fortunes. --v Last week the California National Historical Trail Wagon Train left Pony Express Monument in downtown St Joseph, according to information on the wagon train's World Wide Web site. The wagons will pass through seven states and arrive in Sacramento, on Sept 1 The wagon train has scheduled stops in Alexandria, Belvidere, Oak, Deweese, Dyer Park south of Hastings, Hastings, Kenesaw and Fort Kearny northwest of Mindea It was expected to arrive at Alexandria Saturday. Rubella outbreak hits 11 cases OMAHA An outbreak of rubella in the area has grown from seven to 11 confirmed cases, health of ficiab said.

The cases are the first reported since 1990. Several possible cases of the disease were being evaluated, said Carol Allensworth, Douglas County Health Department epidemiologist Ten of the people with rubella r- also referred to as German measles are Hispanics who were born outside the United States. The 11th person was born in the United States but has ties to the Hispanic community. Nine of the confirmed cases Involve Douglas County residents. Two are from Pottawattamie County.

Nine are men and two are women. From wire reports JOURNAL STAR LIBRARY Dapper dancer Fred Astaire was bom Frederick Austerlit? in Omaha May 10, 1899. He went on to act in more than 40 films. He and Ginger Rogers (below, from the 1946 film "The Barkteys of formed perhaps history's most famous dancing team. Austerlitzes lived 1429 N.

19th St. and later, 1426 19th St are gone lived in a wooden frame house about 20 minutes walk to the business district and not much faster by buggy," Astaire wrote in Steps in Time," his autobiography published in 1959. "My father used to take me: to town on Sunday afternoons, riding beside him in a two-seater to visit his friends at Sak Cigar Store." Astaire recalled very httle of his early years. His mother took him and his sister, Adele. to New York for professional dance training in 1904.

Their father stayed in Omaha, where Astaire could hear the distant sound of locomotives and whistles when he sat on the front porch or lay in bed, imaging he was riding on a train going someplace. He also remembered being quarantined with scarlet fever, a disease that could kill a child in those days, and going to the Chambers Dancing Academy on West Farnam Street with his sister. Although many press clippings mention the studio as the place where Astaire learned to dance, he said he remembered the school only because he went there with his father or mother to deliver or pick up his sister. "Dancing was merely something my sister did, something that all little girls did," he wrote. "I let it go at that and the hell with it." He did recall a tale told by family members that at age 4 he found a pair of ballet slippers in a corner while waiting for his -i sister to finish a dance lesson.

"I had seen other children walk on their toes, so I put on the slippers and walked on mv toes. It was as simple as that," he wrote. "I 1 More on ASTAIRE, Page 2E BY AL J. LAUKAITIS Lincoln Journal Star OMAHA On a forgotten street ma rundown east Omaha neighborhood sits the. birthplace of someone unforgettable, a great dancer who twirled and tapped with the likes 1 of Ginger Rogers, starred in more than 40 films and made dancing seem as effortless as breathing.

One hundred years ago Monday, Frederick Austerlitz was born in the humble bungalow at 2326 S. 10th St. The world would know him as Fred Astaire, a man of grace, style and elegance, dashing in his trademark top hat and tails. In places like New York, people will remember Astaire on Monday with a centennial celebration of his films. In Omaha, no hoopla is planned to recognize the birth of one of its most famous native sons.

His birthplace, now painted white with red trim, a faded wooden Wheelchair ramp running down from the porch, was home to a beer salesman and a school teacher. It is here that Astaire may have taken the first steps on a road to stardom. i He made dancing seem a wonderful but quite impossible dream for all the lead-foot -males in the audience," Los Angeles Times columnist Charles Champlin wrote after Astaire's death on June 22, 1987. Neighbors in what some call Omaha's i Little Italy are vaguely aware Astaire's birthplace is in the neighborhood, but no plaques or statues honor the man who had a long and illustrious career in Hollywood. The family moved to the north side of town near the old Stor? Brewery when he was about a year old.

The dilapidated brewery still stands, but the two homes where the Inn1, I :4 I ri: Si II 'Ml ttumirii -a-ilf iiMI 'lllllllll Paths of enUghMme love lead to Valentine 11 I VALENTINE The woman in a white Punjabi suit, folds her legs into a pretzel, puta her hands palm to palm under her chin and speaks a word from the other side of the world. Journal Starl 7 JS3 and a former climber of corporate ladders in New York. And here she is, teaching yoga in Valentine. She's a vegetarian in the heart of cattle country. She grew up in Bangkok, the Thai capital with floating markets, marathon traffic jams and 6.5 million people.

She now lives in Valentine, the seat of Nebraska's largest Celebrate 1000 "Namaste," Boontiva Truong-Quang says, directing the traditional Hindi greeting at her student, Audrey Cordry. "Namaste. Audrey." NEBRASKA LIFE ft ii i 1 1 i ii The yoga instructor and student sit atop county, a place where cattle outnumber folded quilts on a wooden deck outside home to about 2,900 people. DAYS UNTIL 2000 AMLRrtAS Comnmnicatioius n't insurance corp. Truong-Quang home.

The house is surrounded by a robin-egg sky patched with clouds. Songbirds offer melodies to the sun, and the wind plays a bamboo chime hanging "I was very much a city person, but I've learned to like the beautiful silence and the environment," she said, I have friends, people say 'Hello' to me wherever I go." JOE DUGGANlmcom jouml Star Classical yoga: Yoga instructor Boontiva Truong-Quang (left) begins a session of asanas with her student, Audrey Cordry. from the soffit ut why did she come in the first place? For the next hour Truong-tjuang gem The short answer is love. She lives with her Lottery in Des Moines, Iowa, where her sister met her at the airport. She walked out of the terminal, saw snow for the first time and had that seminal American culinary experience a McDonald's hamburger.

er worked as a chef in foreign embassies. The couple raised two daughters and two sons. "It's so intense (in Bangkok)," she said. "Bangkok has the most heavy traffic in the world." Truong-Quang attended Catholic schools, where she learned English she also speaks Thai, Vietnamese, French and Japanese. After she graduated from high school, she worked two jobs to save enough money for a one-way plane ticket to the United States.

It was Christmas 1972. She got off the plane leads Cordry through a series of stretches and postures called asanas. In the end, the instructor asks the 72-year-old member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe how she feels. "I feel relaxed, I feel great," then a smile turns the corners of her mouth and she adds, "I feel ageless." It's the kind of testimonial Truong-Quang loves. She's a 47-year-old, 4-foot-10 effervescent evangelist for classical yoga.

She's also the daughter of Vietnamese political exiles, a native of Thailand who speaks five languages fiance, former New York City defense attorney Dana Hanna, who now works as public de-i fender on the Rosebud Reservation in nearby South Dakota. But the complete answer to the question has as many twists and turns as the lotus In 1930 her anti-communist father, Vay, and his wife, Thuc, fled Vietnam for Thailand. In Bangkok Vay worked a variety of jobs for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and her moth- i Poworball (May 8) 25, 28, 30, 34, 47 Powvrball 14 Estlrtiatod (ackpot: $12 million i Nabraska Pick 5 (May 8) 18,21,23,27,30 Cash 4 Life (May 8) 47,78, 87, 88 bne soon moved to DeKaiD, where sne attended Northern Illinois University. She said she wasn't a brilliant student, but she worked hard and graduated with a master's degree in marketing and fashion design.

After several stints in retail and clothing More on PATHS, Page 2E.