- [Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska Stories, exploring the personal side of Johnny Carson, new life for the bells of First Plymouth, escaping Vietnam after the war, and a Nebraskan breaks another world record.

(steady rock music) (upbeat music) - [Johnny] Now we're going to turn left on South 13th Street.

My house, the old house should not be that far down here.

Here at the next block, Ah yeah, there it is.

Big old white house over there and the big white frame house.

God, I loved that house.

(slow piano music playing) - [Kay] In 1933 when he was eight years old, Johnny Carson moved with his parents from a small rural town in Southwestern Iowa to this unassuming 1500 square foot home in Northeast Nebraska.

The community of Norfolk would prove to be an ideal incubator for a boy whose talent as an entertaining magician would one day rise to national prominence.

And be anointed the 'King of Late Night Television.'

And it's here in Norfolk where Johnny Carson's life story is on permanent exhibit.

It all happened by chance.

When the director of the Elkhorn Valley Museum reached out to the famous comedian a few years after he retired as host of "The Tonight Show."

(jazzy big band music) - [Ashley] She just expected maybe one or two things or none at all.

And then you know after, it was maybe three months but then there comes the thought of, "Well it's not going to happen."

- [Kay] And then the phone rang.

- [Ashley] He called, and said that he would love to visit the museum.

And he would gladly bring us handfuls of artifacts from some of his Burbank offices.

And so he ended up visiting in 2001 and brought with him the first major donation of artifacts from the exhibit.

- [Johnny] Friends at Kung Fu U, will teach you how to make every part of your body, a deadly weapon.

- [Female Assistant] Every part?

- [Johnny] That's right, we'll teach you how to terrorize an entire community with your feet.

And I don't mean by not changing your socks.

(crowd laughing and clapping) I decided to trace my family tree!

- [Man] That is interesting.

Did you go to a genealogist?

- No!

I don't like putting my feet up in them stir-ups!

(laughing and clapping) Wow!

(laughing and clapping) They're cold.

It's dehumanizing.

-Yeah.

- Hunters are self-reliant, believe me when you're walking through a forest, you have to look out for number one and number two.

(laughing and clapping) - [Ashley] So we received some of the mugs that they would've used on set.

We also received his high school yearbook, some of his items from his time at UNL.

We also received... his Rolodex from his Burbank office as well.

And then just a handful of smaller items.

And I guess the biggest part of that would've been his six Emmy's.

Some of his more notable awards, as well.

- [Male Speaker] Johnny Carson, one of America's greatest television personalities, Johnny Carson left the Nebraska plains to reside over late night TV for almost 30 years.

With a quick wait and a sure golf swing.

Johnny's good natured humor kept the pulse of the nation and assured us that even in the most difficult times it was still okay to laugh.

United States honors Johnny Carson who personifies the heart and humor of America.

(clapping) - [Kay] Later the same year, the Johnny Carson Gallery opened.

And just recently it underwent a major renovation that has a slightly modified focus.

[Ashley] The past exhibit focused solely on his career and left out a lot of information about his general personality, his relationships, other people who were important to him.

So this one really, really highlights Johnny as a person and focuses on some areas of his life that while he was living, he was very private about.

- That's my mother and father.

- [Male Speaker] Please stand up there and take a little bow.

(applause) - [Kay] For a man who appeared affable on national television.

He had a distant relationship with his own mother.

Though said that she too had a great sense of humor.

But even at the zenith of his career Ruth Carson was sparing of affection and approval toward her son.

After her death in 1985 a box containing a lifetime collection of clippings about her famous son was found in her closet.

Which came as a surprise to Johnny.

- [Ashley] It took a lot for people to be he welcomed into his closer circle.

And even then he, was very quick to, to let people go.

If he felt that they had wronged him, even in the smallest of ways.

That close circle of Johnny were able to see things differently.

And so we have shared some of that information here.

- [Kay] Among the people Johnny considered special, was his favorite teacher, Faye Gordon.

Who he gifted a Rolex watch.

- [Ashley] I know that he returned every once in a while to visit old friends or family members or Faye Gordon.

- Hi everybody.

(class in unison "Hi") - [Ashley] Faye Gordon was actually one of Johnny's high school teachers for penmanship.

We actually see a small clip of her reteaching Johnny and a couple of his classmates in his... 1982 special.

I believe it was, "Johnny Goes Home."

We do ovals for roundness of letters and for the connecting stroke out of that.

- My ovals are better than your ovals.

- [Faye] All right.

(class laughing) - We have a handful of other items that we do keep in a preservation area.

Maybe the most the interesting would be his personal makeup kit.

It was kept exactly as Johnny left it.

And so it's sort of a way for us to look into, one, like how his mind worked.

And how he organized things.

Things that he found or felt were important.

Or essentials to have backstage.

I mean, it even still has one -of his deodorant sticks (chuckles) in a drawer.

And so it, yeah, it's just a way I think to feel feel a little bit more connected with him as a person.

- [Kay] Johnny was raised with two siblings, an older sister Katherine, and a younger brother Richard.

And Johnny wasn't the only Carson family member with a successful television career.

For more than 35 years, Dick Carson directed national shows like "Merv Griffin" and "The Wheel of Fortune."

But during the 1960s Dick Carson was the television director for "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

The brothers were close throughout Johnny's lifetime.

But it's another Carson relative who now checks in on the Elkhorn Valley Museum to lend a helping hand, whenever he can.

- [Ashley] We have had a couple of visits with Johnny's nephew Jeff Sotzing.

He's been our liaison between the Johnny Carson Foundation and he is head of Carson Entertainment.

He checks in on us every couple of months just to make sure that we're doing okay and what he can do to help.

(piano music playing) - [Kay] Though he rose to great fame and held court with millions of Americans on late night television, Norfolk is what grounded Johnny, the memories of being a regular kid.

Kicking around town and dreaming of things to come.

- [Johnny] Down the road here, a few miles is a town of Norfolk, Nebraska where I grew up.

The Indians, the Sioux, the Ogallala and the Pawnee who roamed this great plain state years ago, called Nebraska, Flatwater.

Most of us know it as the "Cornhusker" state.

I simply call it home.

(steady rock music) (carillon bell music) - [William] On a crisp Sunday morning, parishioners of First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, hustled to the iconic sounds of the church's 57 carillon bells, nestled away in the church's roughly 171-foot singing tower.

(mellow carillon music) But who makes the singing tower sing?

(door clicks) (buckle clicks) That would be this woman, Kathie Johnson, who at 74 years old still volunteers to climb the tower's roughly 100-step spiral staircase to play for regular services, weddings, concerts, and occasionally a funeral, and everything in between.

She even found ways to play during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(bells ringing) - During the pandemic year, I played every Saturday evening, and that got people outside.

They could sit and they called it "carillon in the car".

So people could sit in their cars, be socially distanced and listen to the carillon because it sounds for several miles out.

(orchestra plays Christmas music) - [William] First-Plymouth music director Tom Trenney says those concerts brought the congregation together during a difficult time.

♪ Joy to the World ♪ - I remember the first time our kids, and we came to to the concert, at the end of the concert, without any prompting, everybody just started honking their horns in celebration.

I remember tears streaming down my face after that because it felt like we were together.

- [William] For Kathie, the Church's carillon is much more than just an instrument.

It's where she first met First-Plymouth's previous carillon player and her future husband, the late Ray Johnson.

(choir singing) Kathie moved to Lincoln in 1968 to teach music in public schools.

During her first visit, she heard about a carillon concert being hosted at First-Plymouth, and having never seen a carillon before, the idea piqued her interest.

(choir singing) - Someone who's curious, I wanted to see what the carillon was like.

So I asked, can I see the instrument?

And they said, "Go on up, follow that couple up there that was going up the steps."

So I went up all the steps.

I was in spiked high heels.

I didn't know any better.

And he was very nice.

And he said, "Would you like to sit and watch?"

And I said, sure.

And his name was Ray Johnson.

And in the long run, he ended up being my husband.

(bells ringing) He taught me how to play the carillon.

We had a little carillon guild.

We practiced every week.

And then once a month, we had a little lesson where we all played for each other.

(car engine humming) - [William] That's why it was hard for Kathie when, for five months, the singing tower fell silent.

(bells ringing) After decades of regular use and constant exposure to the elements, time's toll on the bells was starting to show.

So, the decision was made to take the carillon apart, bring the bells down, and ship worn parts to be repaired or replaced.

Specifically, they went to the Verdin Bell Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, a family-owned operation in its sixth generation.

Company president Tim Verdin says the company was started by his great, great, great grandfather in 1842.

- There's about 160 carillons in the country, in the United States.

And we've probably, there's probably only a handful that we haven't worked on through the years.

- [William] It was while doing some routine maintenance on the church's practice carillon when Verdin says he noticed corrosions starting to set in.

- We used rigging equipment to lower the bells so that we were able to take apart part of the frame that hangs the bells.

At the same time, we also removed all the internal clappers, the parts that make the bells ring.

And we sent all that back to Cincinnati and we redesigned those clappers to, call it a modern standard.

And then once all that new equipment is built, we bring it back out here and install it back into the bells.

The part that actually rings the bell is called the clapper.

It hangs from a head piece inside the bell, and then the clapper hooks to the mechanical linkage that the carilloner plays.

So when they press the handle down on the keyboard, it pulls the clapper into the bell and rings it.

(loud deep ringing) - [William] And it was important that the carillon be handled with care.

In addition to being a complex instrument, the bells themselves are important to Lincoln's history.

(bells ringing in harmony) First installed in 1931 when the surrounding area was just farmland, the bells of First-Plymouth were purchased from a bell maker in White Chapel, England with donations from the community during the Great Depression.

(bells ringing) - With all the subscriptions and people who gave the bells, there's organizations, there's individuals.

(choir singing) The university, (indistinct), our church choirs, our Sunday school classes, and everybody chipped in throughout the community.

So we say the bells are the community's, and we just house them.

(bells ringing) - [William] With the bells returned and Kathie back at the wheel, the church-going experience feels whole again.

- I really do think they add something special in that they they help deliver the message the church is trying to send to the community, you know, that message of love and joy and beauty.

The fact that they're there and they spread that message in the surrounding area, I just think helps create the environment that the church wants to have here.

- I just think it's just so special, the music that's provided as you're walking up to the church is kind of the prelude for the message and the experience, and just the talent as we walk up to the church, and hear just the magic from God.

("Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" plays on carillon) - [William] As for Kathie, she's now in the middle of training her own protege, so when she gives up the reins, someone will be there to pick up where she leaves off.

However, she says she doesn't plan to give it up anytime soon.

(bells ringing) - Well, I'll be playing as long as I can make it up the steps.

That's the plan anyway (chuckles).

(carillon continues) (somber music) - [Christine] Refugee: a person who has been forced to leave his or her country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

When she was just 16, Dr. Bich Chau was forced to leave her home in Vietnam.

- It's a nice peaceful country until the chaos happened after the fall of Saigon.

(gunshots popping) - [Christine] Seven years earlier the Vietcong had launched a surprise attack on south Vietnam.

And with the fall of Saigon in 1975, it was all over.

The communists had won.

The Americans were leaving, and as one Vietnamese put it, "A black curtain descended over our country."

Dr. Chau's father was sent to prison to be reeducated as a communist.

- Then my mom not only have to support us, be a father, be a mom.

She make food and go to the market and try to sell food in exchange for goods to raise us, four of us.

That's why they decide to escape and get out to the freedom country.

Mom and dad told us, "Go to the river, play with your friend.

Don't go home until dark."

And then I saw my parents come down and then we went into little boat.

We took off from there.

- [Christine] It was 1980.

Thousands had been escaping on boats since the fall of Saigon.

Half of those boat people would never make it to freedom.

- You face with pirates.

You face with hunger.

You might even lost your life on the way and not make it.

If you got caught, the communist people would put you in prison and they would take all of your belonging.

You will have no house.

You probably won't be able to go back to school.

You'll have no job.

So basically you lost everything if you don't make it.

- [Christine] They took off from their home in Kien Giang Province, trading their small boat for a larger one holding 98 people, and headed to a refugee camp in Thailand with a few day's ration of rice and water - [Bich] It was very difficult.

I could not sleep for two days.

I got seasick when I first get onto the boat.

- [Christine] Pirates infested these waters.

Thai pirates who would steal their money, their food, and their daughters.

They outran the pirates and eventually reached Thailand itself where they were rescued just as their boat began to sink.

Bich Chau, with her parents, her sister, and two brothers, joined hundreds of other Vietnamese in a refugee camp made of straw houses.

But now the Thai pirates were everywhere.

At night her brother sat guard at each entrance.

Her parents slept on either side of their daughters in a protective cocoon.

- There is no policeman.

There is no security.

We just, us, all of us have to protect ourself.

- [Christine] After months of living in fear they were taken to a much safer place.

Galang Refugee Camp in Indonesia.

Home to thousands of Vietnamese refugees, all waiting to be accepted for asylum by countries around the world.

Dr. Chau's family was lucky.

The First Baptist Church in Lincoln sponsored them and promised to take care of them once they arrived - Nobody know about Nebraska.

Lot of people say okay, I go to California and Florida and New York, but not many people, even though none people that I spoke to at the time say we go to Nebraska.

So we didn't know Nebraska.

I have to look it up.

- [Christine] They flew from Indonesia to San Francisco, their first plane trip.

And then they headed to Lincoln, Nebraska - Huge crowd of people from the church, hang on the side and welcome the Chau's family.

It just a touching moment.

So we really feel welcome then.

- [Christine] Dr. Chau and her family were part of a great wave of boat people.

100,000 came to America in 1979 alone.

Bich Chau graduated from Lincoln High and met her future husband at the University of Nebraska.

He was a boat person, too.

- He escaped the country without his parents, only with one brother, teenagers at the time.

And the two just took off.

Take a deep breath in and out.

- [Christine] Dr. Bich Chau graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and now practices family medicine in Lincoln.

Her husband is a dentist and her brothers and sisters are all health professionals.

She says that being boat people made them strong.

- I feel pretty proud of being a boat people, being a refugee, and get to where I'm at right now.

Those title is nothing to be ashamed of, but to be proud of and give me a footage to move on and to work for the goals and what I want to do and accomplish it.

I don't know if I get where I'm at right now just being an ordinary people and not a boat people.

(upbeat music) - [Mike] A Nebraska man is best in the world at a sport you've likely never seen.

He's Ashton Lambie, a cyclist on a winning streak.

First, he broke the world record and became the first rider ever under four minutes in the 4,000 meter track event, averaging more than 37 miles an hour for the roughly two and a half mile race.

Then, the Waverly native and Hastings College graduate won his first world championship in the same event.

A race where riders start on opposite sides of a 250 meter banked track, and try to catch each other.

- Yeah, getting both of those things was huge.

I'm excited to like, be able to represent Nebraska on a big stage.

You know, I hope everyone else is as excited about it as I am.

- [Fan] Let's go, boy!

Come on, Lambo, come on!

- [Mike] Lambie had broken the record before.

He became the first rider under four minutes and 10 seconds in 2018, then set new marks twice in 2019.

- [Fan] Woo hoo!

Good job, Lambo, woo!

- [Mike] Would you have envisioned, three years ago, that you could get under four minutes?

- [Ashton] No, probably not.

I mean, I knew I had room to grow, but I mean, to go from a 4:10 to a 4:07, you know, and then be like, oh yeah, dude, double that.

- [Mike] A superstar in a sport that's largely unseen in the United States, it's no surprise that Lambie is a bigger deal elsewhere.

- Sometimes it is kind of overwhelming to go to events and have people, especially in Europe, you know, there's people that, you know, collect little, little rider cards.

So they're just like, they're standing outside the hotel and they're like, oh, please sign my card, please sign my card.

I love supporting my fan base and supporting the sport, but it does get a little overwhelming sometimes.

It's nice to be able to go to the Midwest and like, just be, you know, a normal person.

And you know, it's not that big of a deal.

- [Mike] Title and record in hand, Lambie plans to take a break from the track and return to the ultra distance and gravel racing he was doing long before he found success on the track.

A few years ago, he set a record by riding across the state of Kansas in less than 24 hours.

In another event, he covered 750 miles in four days.

Regardless of what he's riding on or how far he's going, no doubt, Lambie is going to keep pushing himself.

- If I have fun doing it, like, I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna enjoy the process.

You enjoy the process, you get the results.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) NARRATOR: Watch more Nebraska Stores on our website, Facebook, and YouTube.

Nebraska Stories is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation.

(upbeat music) Captions by FINKE/NET (upbeat music) Copyright 2020 NET Foundation for Television