one, two, 34.

Get my shoes on at the door.

I'm Lapchick.

seven They feel great.

I'm gonna shine after I do it, I'm gonna do it.

But do they get a look at this guy with the beautiful color about the weather?

Just for me to not share it with another?

I got to show to give that out singing show.

I'll take a look and say a beautiful harmony that's earned your beautiful, easy and together make beautiful light.

And that's you wanna see the come along with me?

That's right.

Welcome to experience Michigan.

I'm the show's producer, Kelsey Summer, and thank you so much for being with us.

We're excited to get out and experience 2022 together.

And on today's show, we are going to experience a lot of learning and camps and all kinds of exciting things.

The South Bend Winter of Learning is happening with the Saint Joseph County Library, as well as the city of South Bend, a partnership there and Dave has that for us.

We are also going to find out about Winter Fling, which is a program that's happening at St Patrick's County Park for families with preschoolers, as well as the Smithsonian.

Museums along the Grand Mall in Washington have always put out wonderful summer camps, but now they have virtual opportunities for us right here in the Michigan area to experience as well.

But first of all, Elvis has entered the building.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Well, Elvis has returned to the building.

one of our favorite friends here at Experience Michigan, a Dr. Church is here to join us.

You may not recognize him as Doug.

You might recognize him as Elvis.

Welcome.

Thank you very much.

It's good to be back.

Now you've been around for quite some time and you've been doing Elvis impersonations for a while.

How long have you been doing it for?

Let's just say a long time.

We'll go with that.

Well, we'll go with that one.

How did you get started doing this?

Well, that's a great story, really.

When I was in high school, I love singing the songs of the King.

And then when I got into the service shortly after, I found out that they had talent contest.

And so I decided that I try my hand at it as Elvis.

And it just really worked out great for me.

It gave me a lot of experience with audiences and the stage, and I was winning.

These contests did about one and all of them.

I think there were 13 or 14 contests in four years, and I happened to amass eleven first place trophies and a couple of second place and even a third.

So you're really kind of known to be a very authentic voice of Elvis.

I really try to be, yes.

To me, the most important thing about doing an impression of Elvis is the voice.

I'm really excited to share that you are going to be putting your show beyond 77.

Coming up Friendship Shahana over at the Blue Gate.

Can you tell us more about that?

Absolutely.

Beyonce, 77, is a fantasy.

What if show?

It's a one man act, and it begs the question What would Elvis have been like if he hadn't died in 1977?

What if he had live and his career went on?

And so I'm basically reinventing Elvis with new music, new costumes and sort of a new look for Elvis that might have been good for him in the 1980.

So it's about a ten year hiatus that Elvis would have taken from 1977 to 1987, at which point he would have come back and said, Hey, you know, here I am for my second big comeback.

What I'll do is I'll come out and I'll give him half an hour of the traditional Elvis before 77 even says it on screen before 77.

And then there will be a lot of video enhancement and we'll take you back in time to when Elvis passed away.

And then there will be a segment where it says, what if it didn't happen that way at all?

And then the the news commentator comes back on and says that Elvis has canceled all of his performances and decided to check himself into the hospital.

And I'm not going to give you any more than that.

I want to keep it as a surprise.

Don't spoil all of it, but I will.

I will tell you this.

This is a very interesting point.

You're your own Gordy young.

Help me out with some of the video on this.

And he dressed up in a seventies outfit and he proceeded.

He came on looking very seventies, and as the commentator who says that Elvis has checked himself in and he's getting himself in shape and he's taken ten years off, and now how can people get tickets for the show?

Well, you can contact the Blue Gate Music Hall.

You know, you go on to Blue Gatcombe on their website and you can get tickets that way.

It's January 20th, 21st and 22nd and then February 17, 18 and 19.

OK, so just six days.

Those are your six shows, those six opportunities that we can come and watch you in action.

What are you doing on the days of the tour, not being Elvis?

Well, we do a lot of honeydew and, you know, just trying to clean up everything after Christmas and booking shows myself, you know, I pretty much represent myself.

Opened so it's most of the time spent in the office on the phone trying to, you know, get that next gig going and you have really traveled the world.

What has been some of your favorite places that you've traveled?

I'd have to say Denmark, Finland, England.

I've been to Chile, which was great.

I just wish that some of these places would bring me over there in the summertime.

I'm sure it gets mighty cold in Finland.

I'll tell you that I've got into ties.

And how is Elvis perceived in other countries around the world?

Oh, just just wonderfully.

They love him.

They still love him.

After all this time, I think it's kind of like an unrequited love that that never happened.

They never got to see him live.

And so if there's a guy that's doing Elvis, that's the next best thing for them.

And they just needed a.

So any girls fainting in the front row?

Well, I hope not.

That would make you realize that actually, no, they're very appreciative and they're very respectful and they haven't gotten really too crazy.

OK, OK. And now you have a number of those championship belts under your name to what's kind of tell me, maybe one or two of your most memorable moments as an impersonator for Elvis?

Well, I would have to say that my first big contest when I was in the Air Force was in Germany and I wasn't actually up against other Elvis impersonators.

I was against lots of other performers.

I mean, they were doing everything from musical duets to comedians to, you know, whatever it was.

And the funny thing is that my category happened to be called musical potpourri, which means that just it didn't really have a category.

They just kind of threw it in there.

And so I was I was first place in my category and a lot of these contests.

But when I won first place in the regional contest and all of the European command for the Air Force, that was a biggie.

And her first big win.

Well, that's amazing.

Absolutely.

And that's kind of that was one of your earlier ones, too, that really got your ball rolling, right?

Yes, it was.

And then stuck in big win was when I led competition in Memphis, you know, Elvis's hometown.

And I was number one for a whole year in the entire world.

That's pretty amazing.

Can you give us a little tidbit of it?

Can you give us like maybe a sentence or two?

Well, I don't know exactly what you're trying to say, but I was just really meant the world to me, and it's just been a wonderful career and I hope to keep doing it as long as I draw breath.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, that's amazing, Doug.

I appreciate you so much.

And I think knowing that the king of rock and Roll is here in the house right now, but bringing those memories back for people, I think is just such an important thing to keep that music going and to keep it in our minds and to keep it fresh.

And then I love the concept of just sharing, you know, what would it look like if we've gone beyond 77?

And I also produced a show called Salute to the Stars, which is a three tribute show Act three Act tribute show rather than I got that backwards.

It's a 33 different tribute artists, and I've been playing at the Blue Gate since 2020, and we've had Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton.

We've had Roy Orbison and Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre and oh my gosh.

Kenny Rogers was with Dolly Parton for one of those shows, and that's a great place to come.

See, it is at the blue gate.

Absolutely.

And you do a number of different impersonations too, but you do different voices and things like that also.

I hear voices.

That's the thing you know is.

Well, with that, we can't wait to hear your voice coming up.

So make sure you get your tickets again, only six shows coming up.

eleven Ship Shobana we can't wait to see you out there.

Thanks very much as Jan 20, 21 and 22 and February 17, 18 and 19.

I'm here in downtown South Bend at the all new public library.

This place is absolutely amazing.

And this winter, they're going to be doing something even better.

I'm here with Nora all alone.

Nora Winter of learning.

Tell me about that.

What is it?

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's the initiative that's a result of a partnership between the Saint Joe County Public Library and the City of Saucepans Technology Resource Center.

And our hope really is to kind of provide a series of programing for adults.

You know, as the New Year is starting, a lot of people have new life goals, the things they want to take on.

And so we're providing a lot of different kinds of workshops and classes, as well as a new idea that we're launching , which is our learning circles.

Now you're the marketing and engagement specialist with Bendable for anyone watching who doesn't know what bendable is.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

So bendable is our learning platform that the library launched, I would say, June of 2020.

Mm-Hmm.

And so it's essentially a place where kind of our solution to you've always been able to come to the library and check out a book.

Now you can check out a class.

And so there's kinds of there's over thousand classes on their resources that some offer even college credit and professional certifications completely free with your library card.

We have a few things that do come with a cost.

Those are usually classes offered through the local community colleges or local universities, things like that.

But the overwhelming majority of our offerings are completely free.

And yeah, we've had a lot of people get, you know, almost associate's degree level certifications without paying a penny.

So, yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of talk in the world right now that we have everything we need to learn at our fingertips and and really, it's there.

And although college is still a great way to go about education, there's many ways to educate yourself.

And there is an air of optimism on social media right now with people.

And maybe it's the new year, you know, New Year's resolutions, but what are some of the stand out kind of things that you can learn that would kind of come to mind for you because you said there's like thousands of things you can learn .

Is there anything that's really unique?

I would say definitely the ones that offer college credit and professional certifications for free.

There's not a lot of places that offer that our our hope really was to try and build as robust of a platform as possible because we went out and asked people, What do you like to learn?

How do you like to learn it and what barriers or challenges they face when learning?

And so we kind of took all of that together.

And so we have some stuff that is more career focused like, you know, you can get an electrician license or certification or, you know, you could learn about data analytics.

We have something for everybody.

But then we also have some things for fun.

I learned how to fix my bike.

We have a couple of music classes.

We also have a lot of different writing courses because it's the library.

We have a lot of people who like to write here.

But yeah, there's there's something for everybody, for sure.

I'm really terrible at doing stuff around the house.

Is there anything for things like that?

Because of the reason my wife watches this, she's going to make me come to it.

I would say there is for sure we have at least the stuff that you can do on your own time online.

So we have a couple of things about, you know, plumbing and things like that, like if you just want to learn some basics of woodworking.

But yeah, there's a lot of different stuff on there.

So I know that learning circles will be a big part of this.

Can you tell me exactly what learning circles is?

Sure.

So think of a book club.

But instead of taking reading a book, everybody's taking a class together.

The topics that we have focused on for the winter of learning for the next two months are creating a business plan, how to build a website, how to be better with money and then a technology basics one.

For folks who might want to learn how to use Zoom or how to set up an email, things like that .

And that's really to try and meet everybody's different needs, as we heard from people.

And our hope is after these two months, we'll be able to add on a lot more with a lot of different topics.

So if you have ideas, please reach out to us and answer us and we'll try and create a learning circle.

So will these be online in person or a mixture of both?

So it's really just dependent on the folks who attend.

So as people sign up, we send an email out to them and ask them, Do you prefer to be virtual or do you prefer to be in person?

And for the folks who want to be in-person, would you rather meet here at the library or the Technology Resource Center or any of our other ten branches?

So this is actually a partnership.

It's not just the library.

I know the city has programs as well.

Can you tell me about some of them?

Absolutely.

So the city is hosting their SB Academy course, so that's essentially going to be courses throughout every month.

So there's one in January, one in February and one in March, and the one in January is going to be kind of an intro to excel.

If you want to learn how to do how to work with Excel and then it'll be a kind of more advanced as you go along.

And then they're also hosting the self-made self-taught talk series, where they're bringing on self-taught entrepreneurs to talk about their stories.

And I think the next one is on January 25th.

It's, I think, midday at the Technology Resource Center, and it's going to be with the founder of Important Joes.

I don't know if you've seen their coffee company around town.

I know Joseph.

He's he's an awesome entrepreneur.

Yeah.

His story is really interesting, and you'll be able to come in and hear him speak and then also ask questions about if you're interested in starting your own business.

You know, I grew up in a lower income family.

And one thing that I've realized is there is a lot of barriers for people and there's barriers for people of all incomes.

And sometimes those mental barriers, like people, have a lot of great ideas.

But putting together the business plan or the website, you know they've got these ideas that could really help them.

Create their own businesses, but having these extra tools really just gets them over those those hurdles, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Our hope is that by the function of it being kind of like a book book club, it's not necessarily a class.

You're not dealing with the same kind of like you come in and someone teaches you something and then you leave, you're learning together.

And so someone might be really good at this one, like they really know how to do a market analysis or something like that for a business plan.

But they might not know anything about, like what legal entity they should do or what kind of filings they need to do all this stuff.

Everybody will learn together, and we do have facilitators who have a background in this topic to be able to help guide people find resources, things like that.

So really, it's just creating that kind of supportive environment.

And, you know, we're moving that kind of scariness of, you know, I'm not going back to school.

It's not like a class like, you know, you just meeting up with other people who also share your interests.

Yeah.

And it's not intimidating.

It's done in a way that's fun and formal, and you can all support each other.

And of course, once the classes are over, you probably have lifelong friends.

Then as you're all going on this journey together, you'll keep helping each other well beyond the winter of learning.

Yeah, that's that's our hope.

My hope is, you know, you take the creating a business plan and then maybe the next learning circle you do is like marketing or finance or something like that and you just like, learn different things together.

Our hope is to really have returning patrons, so those people watching right now, but they feel a bit snowed under with life, but they'd like to start something in a couple of months, but not right now.

Is there ways to do that in the future or is winter of learning just very specific to right now?

I would say, honestly, we have a very robust kind of calendar of programing throughout the year.

OK.

So if you know, January and February are not it for you, you could start in March.

We are currently working on designing and planning those programs.

And so we're going to have workshops for every age at all times.

I think a lot of people associate the library.

A lot of things for kids, but we have a lot of offerings for adults.

So yeah, just go to our website, npr.org and you'll be able to find programs and you could always just learn on your own time at bendable.

So that's the South Bend bendable dot com.

Well, Nora, thank you so much.

Thanks for all you're doing.

And there may be somebody watching this right now who has an idea but is intimidated because it is very intimidating to go from an idea to making it a business.

There's a lot of different things that you have to go through, and I know that's just one aspect of what you're doing, but continued learning and being able to do it in a way like this and for free in most cases is really wonderful.

So thank you for all you do.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm joined by a male who is from the Saint Joseph County Parks.

Emil, tell me a little bit about what's going on at one of my favorite local parks St Patrick's County Park, ethically Typekit County Park.

We are waiting for snow and we're crossing our fingers because I know there's a chance of snow coming up.

And so we're just hoping that it amounts to enough that we can do our skiing programs and our upcoming inner tubing programs.

Yes, there has been a lack of snow, which as somebody who's not originally from here, I'm from Ireland and we don't get a lot of snow, so I still get very excited about snow.

But most people locally, not so much, but you're also hosting a winter fling program for families with preschoolers.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yes.

Well, we you know, we know that sometimes our inner tubing hill, if it's full of people, it can be a little intimidating for little kids.

And so we wanted to have a special event where tubing hell would be reserved for families with preschoolers.

And we would also have a variety of other outdoor winter activities that are perfect for that age group, provide some snacks, will have a campfire.

So we just like to have a good family experience for both.

So when is this happening and what time?

Well, this is happening on Thursday, January 27.

It's ten to noon and it's in the Brown Barn at St Patrick's County Park, which is where we normally do our cheap rental.

It's right by the team.

You know, I feel like St Patrick's County Park.

I used to live right beside it and it quickly became one of my favorite parks and not just because it was close by, but I feel like it's one of our hidden gems around South Bend.

I definitely definitely agree with you.

I mean, that part, you know, everything from the bald eagle nest to the river is so forests, fields, ponds, fishing opportunities.

It is just an absolutely wonderful place.

I feel like there's something for everyone there now.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we actually featured the bald eagle nest unexperienced machete before.

And we also like the 911 Memorial is there as well, which is really nice and really pretty.

So for families, is there certain ages?

You said preschoolers?

Is there any cause for families to do this?

There is a cost it's $5 for the whole family, and that includes all the activities, the inner tubes and the time on the hill snap, everything's going to be outdoors.

But there is a warming room available in case you get cold and you need to go inside and honestly, there's bathrooms available.

We do ask for advanced registration, though, so we need people to call us ahead of time and let us know if they're coming OK. And I do have to ask because I've been in there so many times, is that $5 for the families that include like getting into the park for parking as well?

Yes, there's no gate fee, it's just the fee for the program itself.

OK. And five bucks for an entire family is really awesome.

So you said you do want people to register in advance.

So if there's parents listening right now or grandparents who want to bring along their preschoolers, what's the phone number to call?

They should call five, 746543155 and we'll get you signed up.

All right.

So that's St Patrick's County Park listing their winter fling on Thursday, January 27th because it is for families with preschoolers, it's between 10:00 a.m. and noon.

We just want lots of snow before January 27.

All right.

Well, Amal, thank you so much for coming on experience, Miss Gianna, and I hope lots of families sign up and get out of the house and enjoy some winter activities.

Let's hope.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Now we all know how important it is for us to learn, especially our kids, and we're always looking for unique ways to do that.

And speaking of unique ways, the Smithsonian is doing in-person and online camps, and that's one of the reasons we wanted to bring it to you here because even people here in cold Indiana have a chance to be a part of this wonderful experience.

And joining us today to talk to us about it is Bridget and Bridget.

You're the director of the Smithsonian summer camp.

So.

So what is that like?

first, let's talk about the in-person camps.

Why do you guys do this and what is it like for people to come and experience the Smithsonian?

Is it like the movie?

I, well, you know, everybody asks this that question, and I always respond that if you ever see something come alive, you come talk to me, right?

And then we'll go from there.

But it is.

It is an immersive experience to be a part of the Smithsonian and to come at the camps here on ground, as we like to say on the here on the National Mall.

It is an opportunity for you to use the museum's immerse for the collections, the ideas, the research that we have going on here all the time and to be able to discover everything that we have to offer.

We bring the Smithsonian alive through the challenges.

Visit to the museum, meeting with experts, talking to people, using our research skills, and we develop things and activities and projects throughout the week that then culminate either in a show and cheer for parents or friends and family.

Put on an exhibit.

Do a show anything that kind of culminates the whole entire immersive experience that we have going on throughout the week.

So that is kind of the day to day.

We do that for eight hours here on the National Mall.

It starts at 9:00 a.m. in the morning and it goes all the way to 5:00.

And it allows your child to work in a group of similar age children.

Usually we have two teachers and then our two youth teaching assistants, which are 15 years old and older kids who come and join us.

And they help with not only the logistics of getting camp happening, but also work with the teachers to bring the camp alive and to to get involved with the kids.

Go to the exhibits and they get to see all the objects.

They discover new ways of making also connections.

Pan institutionally, which is a big word here that we use here at the Smithsonian.

But as we have 19 museums, the idea is that to make connections through each of the individual museums so you can talk about a variety of subjects, but you could look at one subject and make connections with the objects in all the different museums.

So that is part of their experience.

And then, of course, Washington is so very, very rich, and the area around us in Virginia and Maryland as well is very rich with other museums and other monuments and other places to visit.

That, of course, can also support the ideas that we're trying to put forward.

I've had the chance to to go along the mall and experience a good, fair share of the museums with the Smithsonian, and it's just there's just so much and it just draws you right in.

So I'm thankful for that opportunity.

But for our viewers here locally, beyond being able to maybe have a chance to do that in person, one of the blessings of COVID, if you want to call it that, is that we've found creative ways to make things accessible for people who otherwise couldn't have experienced it.

And you guys have created online programs that people can experience the Smithsonian and learn still.

So tell us a little bit about those.

Well, I guess it is, thanks to COVID.

It's kind of weird to say that we were kind of pushed off the cliff and said, We are full camp array of camp.

I'm on the ground camp, so we're ready to go.

And then, of course, COVID happened.

So we had to figure out very, very quickly how to turn that around to virtual opportunities.

So we created a two hour or one hour, depending on the age of your child.

Opportunity to do exactly the same things that we do in our own ground camps, as well as doing them online.

So you're going to meet experts, you're going to talk about themes that are inherent to the Smithsonian and our collections.

You're going to discover challenges.

We'll just do them a little off camera versus on camera.

It is in a small setting.

So again, you're going to get the two teachers who are going to communicate with you.

And it's lived their lives.

They're talking to you.

They're able to communicate with you.

The kids are able to communicate back and with each other.

So it's an opportunity to embrace the idea of a classroom without being on a classroom, and that it is also the idea of the Smithsonian.

And, you know, whether it's dinosaurs or oceans or we're looking at history or the stars, we're again immersing ourselves in that in that those objects in their collections, that's just such an amazing opportunity that that people have.

And unlike the day camps, it's something that people from across the country can actually be a part of.

So how do people connect with you?

How do you how do they register?

I would assume they have to register for the camps.

There's only so much space.

How do they do that?

You can go to Smithsonian Associates and look out, or you can just Google Smithsonian Summer Camp and on the Smithsonian, and you'll click there and it'll get you right to our website, which has all the interest.

About an hour, both virtual and hour on the ground camps, as well as if you have a child that is going to be here in Washington and wants to be a youth teaching assistant and find the up to get volunteer hours.

I know that some of the schools require that for graduation.

So, you know, we offer that as well.

And you.

And for those of you at home, if you want direct links to those camps and be able to sign up, we'll have those on the experienced machine and org website.

Bridget, thank you so much for taking the time and good luck with all the camps.

Thank you so very much, and I hope you all get to join us online.

We'd love to have you.

Thanks.

That's it for today's show.

We're so thankful that you've been along with us as we get out and explore all the things that you can do in the mission.

Remember, if you have ideas of things that we'd love to experience and share with our audience, hit us up on Facebook.

Give us a mention there or why you're out experiencing things.

Use the hashtag Experience Machina, and we'll find it that way, too.

Well, until next week where we get to explore even more.

Have a great weekend, guys.

Experience michiana is made possible in part by the Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County and the Indiana Arts Commission, which received support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.