(upbeat tone) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota - R-Town, The Show About Rochester catches up with what's new and next at the University of Minnesota, Rochester.

We also hear from a horologist, with a story to tell.

Then we nerd out with a shop dedicated to nostalgia and fun, and check out a new gallery opening on North Broadway.

All that, coming up next on R-Town, The Show About Rochester.

(upbeat music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, R-town.

(upbeat music) So watches tell time and they keep us on schedule.

But today we're joined by watch fixer and enthusiast, Rawhi Said, who also knows that watches have quite a story to tell.

Welcome to R-Town, Rawhi.

- Hi Nicole, thank you for having me.

- Well, I'm super excited to have you on.

Can you tell us a little bit about what a horologist is?

- Absolutely.

So hologist really is a fancy word for someone who studies time and that could be a watchmaker or someone that practices horology through clock making.

So anybody that loves time.

- Are there particular types of watches or an area of the world or history that you're particularly passionate about?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, being an immigrant to this community watches are one of the very few belongings that you can have and pass down for generations.

And so my true passion is around wristwatches.

And I've spent a lot of my time tinkering with them, but also collecting stories through watches.

And so any type of wristwatch that someone might have, that's the kind of piece that I'm most interested in.

- And you've been sharing some of these stories, can you tell us a little bit about kind of how you've been sharing these stories?

- Absolutely, yeah, so I originally came from the former Yugoslavia, which is now six different countries.

And through my love for watches, I felt that it's a great way to both educate people about horology, but also tell the stories of how people from the former Yugoslavia, especially from Bosnia have immigrated to the US.

And so, you know, on my, it's nothing special, but on my Instagram page, I try to capture the watch that people have or the watch that I have, and then share that story and teach them both about the watches and horology piece of it, but also share the story of, you know, hey, this is what used to be grandpa's watch and now it was dad's watch and now it was passed on to me.

And it's really cool because watches are that intersection that serve many purpose, both time telling, storytelling, and it's also art on your wrist.

- For sure.

Your Instagram page is quite artful itself.

- Thank you.

- In terms of capturing just the image of those watches but also the stories.

You brought a couple of watches with you today, can you tell us, can you share a little bit?

And maybe share one or two stories.

- Absolutely, so I couldn't bring them all, and I wanted to bring things that I thought would be kind of unique to talk about.

So I mentioned a minute ago, I am from the former Yugoslavia, from Bosnia and I'm a very big sports fan.

And you know March Madness is right around the corner, so I thought this would be a really cool piece to talk about.

So I have a Nevada wristwatch.

It's actually what they call in the in the watch community, new old stock.

So it's from the 80s, but it's never been worn.

It still has its original packaging, and if you see the dial you'll see a little basketball on there with the letters KSJ, which stands for Koaarkaaki savez Yugoslavia, which was the National Basketball Association of Yugoslavia.

And in 1980 when this watch was made, it was given to the Olympic gold medalists that year, which was the Yugoslavia team by the government of Yugoslavia.

So I thought that was kind of cool.

I don't know exactly who, which player it belonged to, but I got it from an auction in London.

So I thought that was a kind of a cool story.

- Definitely.

Thanks for sharing that.

- I also have some other watches that I brought as well.

I'm really interested in the idea of commemorating life events in one story.

And my father is a refugee, I'm a refugee, but my grandfather was also a refugee.

And so I brought one of the only things that I still have left from my grandfather, which is a watch that he bought from my dad when he completed medical school.

And it's nothing special, it's nothing crazy, but it's a Seiko.

And what's really crazy for me, is this watch was saw the ups, the downs, the good days, the bad days, the happy days, the sad days of both my grandfather, my father, and now I'm kind of the custodian of this.

And I think there's very few things in the world where they can last for generations, especially in today's day and age, I feel like a lot of things are period, they have an expiration date and they kind of expire after that.

But watches stand a test of time, no pun intended.

And for me, it's one of the few things that tell a story besides just the time, and I love all of those intersections that it can do.

- I love that, thank you for sharing those.

I'll encourage everybody to continue to look at your Instagram piece for more of these stories.

- What I really would like for people in the community that are interested is to send pictures of those watches that mean something to you.

And it doesn't have to be pricey, it doesn't have to be flashy, it just has to have a story.

And by sending a picture of the watch and the story, I'd love to highlight those.

And I think that's a great way to talk about what's happening in our community through watches.

- Thank you so much, Rawhi for joining us, thank you for bringing these watches.

- Absolutely, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on R-Town.

We geek out with the vintage toys and video games at Nerdin Out and catch up with Chancellor Lori Carrell and Chris Barry from the University of Minnesota, Rochester.

But up first we check out the opening of Gallery 24 on North Broadway in this week's our culture segment.

(upbeat music) - Tonight, we having a party, a block party, that is G24, Gallery 24, Kismet and Tulips and Truffles.

So we three going to make a big party together because we want to celebrate our reopening.

Well, we moved to this location from next door and just a nice way to invite people in and celebrate it with our neighbors.

Just meeting new people and giving them a chance to look around and be inspired by something.

That's important to us.

You know, bring the artists to the community and bring the community to the art.

So our galleries, I think has a future of being an active agent in our community.

So we are very happy with that.

- This year we are renovating everything.

We have periods of different exhibition, like team exhibition.

This year we going to have mystical paintings and all this kind of weird stuff.

We are also going to have future one artist, which doesn't belong to the gallery.

But we want to promote the artist in Rochester, so we invite them and they come on Saturday and exhibit, and also we participate with Med City Art Festival too to do some innovations in the teaching area.

So we have different projects, a lot of new projects, we are very excited about this year.

(upbeat music) - What we try to do, it coincides this time with one of our members, Curt's opening in the back.

We are going to have the monthly exhibitions.

We'll do that at least once a month.

- The series is of the Whitewater River.

The project overall is Waterways in Minnesota.

And with a focus and kind of a message about preservation.

I decided to do a series, basically of a study of the river.

The pictures though that are on random display here are all inside the state park.

So it is a place that people can visit.

There are 18 on display, and I shot about 9,000 frames altogether.

And some of those will be turned into a stop motion videos that I'm gonna release to put in social media and stuff.

My favorite thing is talking to people and answering questions, whether they're technical, or just where to shoot it or whatever, socializing and talking to people that aspect.

Yeah, I was looking at the grant application and I needed to have a site to have this show.

I needed to have a fulfillment.

And it's part of the contract that they have you agreed to.

And we have a thriving art scene, it could be hard to find a place.

So the fact that Gallery 24 is able to help me out was instrumental.

(upbeat music) - We really are welcoming to everybody.

We would love to see new artists and we're a nonprofit, so that's kind of a rare thing for the art in town, but we're proud of that.

- We renew a lot.

So as we do the art, we change the the art in the walls.

Some people change every three months, some people change every six months, some people change every month.

- I think it already is successful because there's people here gathering and celebrating art and I mean I'm sure there's some people who haven't been here before.

So it's just a way to celebrate, so I think it's definitely successful.

(upbeat music) - For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter at KSMQ #RTown or ksmp.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight and we are highlighting 125 Live, because all the social activities are happening.

I'm here with Jennifer Schoenfelder.

- Welcome.

- Thank you.

- And I'm so glad that you jumped on board to share a little bit more about why is the parking lot so full every time I come here?

- Well, although we have a multitude of fitness classes that run in the morning, we do also have a lot of social activities too.

Everything from bringing in Medicare specialists, elder network to promote their programs to WSU nursing students talking about different medical conditions.

So we are busy all the time, it seems like.

- Well, it's incredible because we did highlight in the Walkabout segments, the foodie group, that's a new thing that's happening.

People are really into that.

I know that there's pottery.

I want to go to one of those classes.

So there are a couple of events coming up soon.

Do you wanna share a little bit more about that?

- Sure, I believe it is March 3rd in our monthly program guide, you can pick this up.

All our schedules are also online.

March 3rd, it should be a Friday, we have a celebration celebrating St. Patrick's Day with an Irish breakfast.

- Ooh, that sounds good.

- Monthly we have the Winona State nursing students coming in and giving blood pressure checks and hand massages.

But then they also present a monthly presentation.

Also we have coming up some many, many pottery or pottery and painting classes.

One of them would be an afternoon with friends.

You can make some pottery using our wheel, and enjoy some wine.

If not, we have non-alcoholic beverages also.

- Well, that's wonderful.

And I know that there are some new classes.

One of them is, for the exercise specifically is the pottery class, I just recently did one of those.

There's a lot activity here.

Why do you think people are so interested in coming to 125 Live to do these things?

- I think a lot of people are drawn in for the fitness side and don't realize what we have to offer socially.

When they come in and we start telling them about the different things we offer, they're like, oh wow, we didn't realize you had this much.

Or they take the tour and they're like, this building is beautiful, we didn't know that you had all of this.

And oftentimes they come in with a fitness reimbursement so then they can get even a little bit more of a decrease on their social membership and they're not paying very much compared to other businesses, gyms, social activities within the city.

We're just getting busier and busier.

I think people are ready to be back and get connected again with friends and family.

- Thank you so much, Jennifer.

- You're welcome.

- You're wonderful.

And that is all folks.

This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Well again, this is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Legislative Rundown.

This last week, the House of Representatives passed House File 5.

This is the bill that would provide free school lunches and breakfast to kids in the state of Minnesota.

This was the policy during Covid-19, and this is an attempt to continue that policy.

It comes with a price take of about $190 million a year, so it's not cheap.

And it passed entirely on a party line vote.

The similar is expected to happen in the Senate, and the governor's budget also contained a similar proposal, so there's a good chance that this will become law.

Local school board member Justin Cook brought up an interesting question though, for so long we have used free and reduced lunches to help evaluate the relative wealth of schools.

And if that goes away, there's some consideration that has to be given to, how are we going to use a metric to try and come up with factors for equity, just like we use free and reduced lunches.

Another topic being discussed at the legislature is the topic of paid family and sick leave.

Representative Andy Smith Freshman from here in Rochester tweeted out an image of what parental benefits look like around the world, and how exceptionally rare it is here in the United States that we don't have paid family leave.

Now this would be a relatively expensive proposal to provide some level of sick leave and benefits to all folks in Minnesota.

And it does come with a funding mechanism which makes it controversial.

And that funding mechanism represents a six tenths of a percent payroll tax, which in the governor's budget can be split between the employer and the employee.

And this would go to fund 70% pay while a person is on leave.

This is something that other states are looking to do, and it's up for consideration here in Minnesota.

The proposal for family leave is supported by a number of local elected officials, but is opposed by some, as well as the Rochester area Chamber of Commerce.

House File 96 is a bill that would create some changes to Minnesota Care, that's the publicly funded healthcare option here in Minnesota.

And what this could do is allow people to buy into the program.

For example, this would help farmers who have to otherwise buy insurance on a very expensive market.

It does give more options for people to enter a relatively well-liked healthcare program.

However, the other side of that is that public plans tend to have lower reimbursements than private plans.

So representatives from rural areas point out that this could be a hardship on already thin margins in regional hospitals.

Finally, we couldn't make it through a season of legislative rundowns without talking a little bit about bicycles.

Now in Minnesota, the Idaho stop is being considered.

That is where bicyclists approaching a stop sign can treat it like a yield sign so long as it's safe to do so.

This is already common practice and law in 12 other states.

It's up for consideration in the House this year.

We'll see if it passes, I'm sure because it's related to bicycles it will be in no way controversial.

This is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Legislative Rundown.

(upbeat music) - This is Danielle Teal with Dr. Walkabout.

I'm at Nerdin Out with Brad Vigesaa.

and we are checking out what do you got to offer.

So I just saw some gentlemen come in here.

They were showing you some items that they had that they were looking for you to buy.

- Yeah.

- How does that rock out?

- Well, for us, we buy/sell trade.

So we have comics, video games, action figures, there's statues, board games, and people can come in purchase the items from us, they can bring in items that they've had in their collection for years or maybe just actually inherited and they can sell them to us, or even trade for in-store credit.

- And I know you have Pokemon because my child is super into it.

But there's a lot of other offerings, there are Pop figurines, those are all the rage as well as comics.

And if you're looking to game with lots of friends, there's tables back there and laser tag on the other side of the building.

(people shouting while playing games) - Right next door, we own a business called The Battleground and we offer laser tag for kids or adults.

We also have dodge ball, archery tag, and then a new game called Splatter Ball, which is basically like Orbis that disintegrate.

So basically it's no mess, doesn't do that much.

And you're taken care of.

- So by the way, just so everybody knows, I'm really good at laser tag.

Laser tag, (imitates game sounds) (laughing) (upbeat music) - Where can people find out more about Nerdin Out?

- You can either come to our store, we have a store in Rochester, Minnesota, in EMG Grove Heights.

You can find us on nerdinout.com or - Just come here.

- Anywhere.

- Just come hang out, trade your cards, play laser tag do all the fun things.

- That's right.

- It's a good time.

- Absolutely.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you.

- This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabouts.

I'm signing off with Batman at Nerdin out.

(upbeat music) - Over the last few years the University of Minnesota Rochester has grown, expanded, and continued to strengthen its institutional presence in our community.

We're joined by Chancellor Lori Carrell and Kris Barry, Director of Health and Wellbeing, here to chat with us about what's new and next for UMR, as well as the impact of recent national trends in higher education and enrollment on our own local colleges and universities here in Rochester.

Welcome both of you to R-Town.

- Thank you, it's nice to be here.

- So Chancellor, it's been quite a while since we've caught up, and there's been so much going on at UMR.

Can you tell us a little bit about some of the recent growth and expansion of UMR downtown?

- Yes, we have continued to grow through the pandemic in terms of our enrollment and we're really pleased about that, because there are such workforce needs in the healthcare industry and we wanna meet them with our diverse graduates, and so we're enthused about that.

But our most recent development that's going to support our continued growth is that we have been with Titan Development remodeling the DoubleTree Hotel into the Student Life Center and that's going to include intercultural space and dining for the very first time.

And the thing we love best about this new project is that every first year student will now be able to be in a living-learning community because we have this new space.

And those communities help students succeed.

So we're just thrilled about this development.

- We would be remiss to not talk about the pandemic and the continuing sort of effects of that.

Can you talk a little bit about what the lasting impact of the pandemic has been on your students and learning environment, sort of moving forward?

- I think all of this continues to evolve.

And so this year's freshman class, our first years, we call them, are very much engaged in campus life.

And it's been refreshing for all of us after the stuttering fits and starts of the last couple of years before that.

So the campus is coming back to life in student energy, student activity.

In terms of lasting impacts, I really think that young people who have gone through this crisis at the time that they were coming of age and who are passionate to make a difference in the world through a career in health are going to be exceptional leaders and contributors going forward.

There's a level of compassion and curiosity and awareness of big problems and how they intersect with each other, like health disparities for example.

And I just look to this generation as we support them through a time of difficulty and vulnerability, that in the future they are going to be exceptional contributors.

- So I mentioned in the introduction that there has been this sort of national trend around the decline in college enrollment across the nation.

Can you talk a little bit about what impact if any of this is having on UMR?

- Well, it is an interesting situation and I think when we look at it sociologically, there are great concerns, and problems for educators to address at all levels.

One of the interesting things about the national trend is that it is disproportionately male.

So fewer young men going to college than young women.

And this is interesting too.

And of course there are folks on it looking into cause and also working to support.

Of course the jobs that are available, that's part of the decision that young people are making.

But there are many other things that they're struggling through and that is affecting decisions about college choice.

In the state of Minnesota, nearly all campus enrollments are down, not so at the University of Minnesota and Twin Cities and not so at the Rochester campus of the University of Minnesota.

But across Minnesota State and the other campuses of the University of Minnesota, that national trend has been true.

- Rochester, most people don't know it as a college town at all, but you have such a presence downtown.

How are you continuing to engage, I guess, offer students opportunities to continue to engage and feel a sense of belonging to this community?

Especially, I know personally that you have a very diverse student body.

How are you doing that?

What sort of steps are you taking?

- Well, I'm glad you asked the question because sense of belonging is absolutely critical to success in college.

So it isn't all about the academics, but instead the whole person.

And we have numerous programs from diversity dialogues, to other kinds of intercultural programming and our living-learning communities, all with the aim of contributing to sense of belonging.

But I do think that our students, as future health professionals have this aspirational belonging to the vibrancy of downtown with all the health professionals and the patients from around the world, at least Monday through Friday, those skyways are really vibrant, and our students are connected to that.

And 78% of our students have a learning experience at Mayo Clinic while they're undergraduates.

And so that's a connection point for them as well.

But you are right to identify sense of belonging as absolutely critical.

- And Kris, as we wrap up here, you're the director of Health and Wellbeing.

We're here at 125 Live, I know you've been working a little bit with this space, can you tell us a little bit about some of the things that you've been doing to sort of advance wellbeing and wellness here at 125 Live with students?

- Yes, yeah, so we are thrilled to partner with 125 Live and really have been in connection since they opened.

So 125 Live is community based and share some of the very same values that we have at UMR.

And so over the summer we were so excited to strengthen and evolve our partnership with 125 Live by offering or providing full access to 125 Live for UMR students.

So what that access looks like is, I have full access to the beautiful facility, to all the programs and classes, and importantly they also have access to the Pottery Studio and art experiences and music experiences here.

So all of which we have heard are really beneficial for students and that they value very much.

- Well thank you both so much for joining us.

I hope to continue to catch up with you both and UMR as you continue to grow and expand.

And thank you all for joining us today.

For more content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #R-Town.

I'm Nicole Nfonoym-Hara host of R-Town.

Be well and stay safe and we will see you next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat tone) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.