Iowa Life Episode 301

Nebbe: Coming up on this episode of "Iowa Life," we'll meet an author, gardener, and blogger in southeast Iowa... I had so many things that I loved learning about growing up, and I still did them.

I didn't have the same purpose in doing them, but I did it.

And so I think I needed a way to kind of give that sense of purpose to what I was doing.

Nebbe: ...an aspiring professional wrestler... They use their body as their language in the ring, and I connected with that immediately.

Nebbe: ...and we'll learn how a nonprofit is making sure pets stay with the people who love them the most.

Bartels: Quite a few older people, elderly people, would come in, literally in tears, and say, "We have to give up our animal because we can't afford to feed both the cat and ourselves," or the dog and ourselves.

That's how Midwest Pets came about.

It's all coming up next on "Iowa Life."

Funding for "Iowa Life" is provided by... ...and by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hi, I'm Charity Nebbe, and this is "Iowa Life."

Today we are on Kaleb Wyse's farm in southeastern Iowa, where his passion for growing and creating is deeply connected to the land and his family's traditions.

We will find out more about Kaleb in just a few minutes, but first we are going to meet a man whose passion takes him in a completely different direction.

In fact, Carlos Oliva is living proof that passion can turn something ordinary into something completely extraordinary.

♪♪ Olivo: I'm a server at The Dandy Lion.

-Got this one here for you.

-Thank you.

Any condiments that I can get you?

Any ketchup, hot sauce?

I am originally from Guatemala City, Guatemala.

I immigrated here when I was around five years old in 2008.

Been in Iowa ever since.

There's not many Spanish channels on TV.

Spanish was my first language, so getting used to that was a bit hard.

I couldn't really connect to much stuff on TV.

But one thing that I do remember connecting with was professional wrestling.

[ Indistinct shouting in distance ] [ Bell rings ] Aaah!

[ Applause ] One!

Two!

Two!

♪♪ Oliva: Time moves so slow right before a match.

♪♪ What makes a good wrestling personality is yourself, honestly.

It's just you tuning it up to a thousand.

I stick by my real name, Carlos Oliva, but I go by the Guatemalan Dragon.

I wanted to bring a piece with me to the ring as well, representing who I am, and this was the best way to do it.

Pro wrestling is physical theater.

At its core, we're trying to tell a story.

Meza: My name is Marcos Meza.

I wrestle as Dante Leon.

It's an art form.

It's, you know -- it's same as writing or painting or music.

It's just a little bit more physical.

[ Cheers and applause ] Announcer: From Guatemala City, Guatemala, the Guatemalan Dragon -- Carlos Oliva!

Oliva: Once I hear my music play out and then I go out through that curtain, there's nothing in my brain besides just wanting to have fun.

Aaah!

[ Crowd shouting indistinctly ] Aaah!

They use their body as their language in the ring, and I connected with that immediately.

I was hooked ever since.

The second you walk out those curtains, we're telling a story, and you want to connect with the audience.

You want the audience to remember you.

-[ Ring floor bangs ] -There we go!

[ Shouting indistinctly ] Oliva: You may think the goal would be to win the match.

The main priority in every match is to connect with the audience.

Meza: It becomes about the crowd and about giving them what they want.

If they want to boo, then give them something to boo.

If they want to high-five and cheer, do some cool stuff.

Crowd: Four!

Five!

Six!

Seven!

Eight!

[ Indistinct shouting ] -[ Ring floor bangs ] -Oh!

One!

Two!

Three!

-[ Crowd cheering ] -[ Bell ringing ] Announcer: The Guatemalan Dragon -- Carlos Oliva!

One thing I really wanted to do deeply was to be a wrestler, but that was never a thought that occurred in my head.

So I looked online, Googled "how to be a pro wrestler," and then I stumbled upon Black and Brave Wrestling Academy up in Davenport, and I was like, "This is a gold mine.

I have to do it."

So I immediately signed up.

No hesitation whatsoever.

We're both graduates of the school.

And usually when you graduate, you stick around and you train and try to become better.

Man: Okay.

All right.

So you got to sit to your butt when... Oliva: I was just training in the ring.

He was also training in the ring.

And then we did a couple moves on each other.

Next week we did it again.

The following week we did it again.

And then it just kept going and going and going, and we created a bond together, a good mentorship vibe.

Meza: So many people come and go and some people stick around, and I realized Carlos was one of the ones that stuck around and really wanted to try.

The way me and Carlos train is, we practice how we play.

You know, we bring the aggressiveness, the, uh -- the hard hitting that we would do in front of a crowd.

We do that in front of no one.

It's not all fun and games all the time.

Your body hurts.

Your body will break down.

Oliva: I get hurt a lot in this business.

Even though some people can say it's fake, the stuff we do really hurts.

Many people's careers end very early in this profession.

If you don't have a heart for it, you're just not gonna be a professional wrestler.

[ Indistinct conversations, music playing in distance ] Announcer: And finally, Iowa City, Iowa!

[ Cheers and applause ] Oliva: I see my friends pop out, I see my family pop out, and I see how excited they are in the audience, how passionate they are, how much they're screaming.

I could mess up so many times and they're still like, "Just get back up!"

you know?

I love it every single time.

And that's what drives me.

You know, just seeing the support, the local support.

Crowd: [ Chanting ] Carlos!

Carlos!

Carlos!

Carlos!

Meza: He wants to help not just with wrestling, but if you ever met Carlos, you know that he is a genuine, sincere person.

You know he cares.

And Iowa professional wrestling is better off for it.

[ Cheers and applause ] Oliva: We're just trying to connect to the Iowa City crowd.

You know, we want to bring wrestling everywhere.

[ Crowd cheering ] ♪♪ Nebbe: Growing up in a Mennonite farming family in Iowa, gardening, canning, and cooking have always been a way of life for Kaleb Wyse.

To share his passions, he started a blog in 2012, posting recipes and gardening advice and sharing videos and tutorials on social media.

Are you ready to make my grandma's best cabbage dressing?

You're gonna want this in the fridge all summer long.

Let's make it.

Nebbe: Kaleb's authentic and down-to-earth way of living found a hungry audience.

And in spring of 2025, he published his first cookbook -- "There's Always Room at the table."

Wyse Guide has a following of more than two million people across social media platforms.

But as the fourth generation to live on his family's farm, Kaleb makes it a point to stay true to his Iowa roots.

Kaleb, it is so wonderful to be here with you.

It's really nice to have you here.

We actually have a really good day for it.

So we are in southeastern Iowa.

And this is where you grew up.

This is.

So this right here is where my grandparents lived when I was really little.

The generational farm is kind of across the road, catty-corner.

So pretty much every summer day it seemed like we were walking over here, enjoying the yard, or the house with Grandma, and Grandpa was always out with Dad on the farm.

So it's always felt like home, without -- I don't think my parents meaning to.

They gave me the opportunity to kind of just do "chores" wherever they fit in.

I was always much more a part of the community of preserving things from the garden, being in the kitchen with both grandmas and Mom, paring apples, freezing fruit of some type.

And so I think I just -- I don't know if I was drawn to it, if it called me, or if I just always really enjoyed it.

So you went away to college in Virginia and you studied business, but you always knew you wanted to come home.

Why -- Why did that feel so important to you?

We were a very close-knit family growing up, so my comfort level always felt very secure at home.

And I think accounting and business, when I went into that, it was -- I don't love, necessarily, doing accounting.

And what I love doing was the things I knew to do, which was what I grew up doing.

So you did try to be an accountant for about three years.

-"Try" is a good word.

-[ Both laugh ] And then -- and then you found -- you started working in landscaping.

So you found a way to -- to make money doing the things that you really did love.

But Wyse Guide, that sort of started because you needed a creative outlet?

Tell me how that began.

I had so many things that I loved learning about growing up, and I still did them.

I didn't have the same purpose in doing them, like I didn't have maybe as big a family, or I didn't have as big a reason to have a big garden, but I did it.

And so I think I needed a way to kind of give that sense of purpose to what I was doing.

Nebbe: Kaleb dove headfirst into making Wyse Guide a trusted source for all things cooking, gardening, and decorating, and later decided to share more of his life through daily stories on Instagram.

Hello, hello, hello, friends.

Uh, it is a beautiful Monday.

Nebbe: In 2020, Kaleb's way of living really started resonating with people who found themselves stuck at home during the pandemic, craving peaceful, simple content.

Wyse: Look at these.

I think when you grow up, maybe just anywhere that's rural or something, or Midwest, you think so much of it is just kind of normal.

It's stuff you can take for granted.

Yeah, it's the stuff that kind of in your head it was the chores that you didn't want to do, or it was the stuff that seemed boring.

And so I think I was trying to always hide that part and instead show something that made me feel like I was actually something special.

Like, I wasn't a chef, but, oh, if I show something that feels like it's maybe a little bit more elevated, that will make me feel real.

When I started getting messages from people saying, "What you just did was something my grandma had done, and I have not known how to do that all these years, and wished I had known," that then started making me, I think, more excited and comfortable and think, "Okay, there's a place for this and others might want to know something about it too."

Friends, today we are taking tomatoes because they're in season, because they are ripe, and because they are only delicious really for a small snapshot in a whole year.

People have a real hunger for this.

What do you think they're looking for?

What do you think that people find in your stories, in your food, about being in rural southeastern Iowa that they connect with?

There's something nostalgic for people.

A lot of people have a memory of a farm in their life.

It could be a grandparent, it could be a distant relative, but some form of a farm that sometimes is a core memory.

And I think this just, with a lot of the food or memories I share or having my mom on and we're doing things together... I could make the sound.

[ Imitates mixer whining ] [ Laughs ] Wyse: I think it brings out that core memory and that little bit of nostalgia for people that is comfortable.

We a lot of times throw around the words "comfortably familiar" because there's something that's familiar about it which then we find comfort in -- 'cause anything familiar we kind of always feel comfortable with -- but then it's sometimes just different enough, or maybe modernized just enough that it's new also.

And I think, in a way, isn't that kind of what we're all searching for all the time is something we know enough to feel comfortable, but want to try something new?

I mean, let's talk about gardening.

What do you love about gardening?

Isn't that good?

That's a good question.

I don't always know necessarily, 'cause it's a question sometimes I ask myself.

Because in the middle of summer when I'm outside sweating and it's hot and I'm watering, and I just want that one beautiful tomato off that plant, I do sometimes wonder, why am I doing this with such a large garden?

But I think it's something about it's so ingrained into me.

But I find this... Maybe there's something about knowing my family.

My great-grandparents, my grandparents all worked so hard that a piece of me wants to -- in a weird way, this is -- I want to honor them, almost, by still doing it.

Because, yes, we have modern conveniences.

Grocery store is honestly, what, 15 minutes away?

And it does taste better.

Let's not -- Take away that food grown at home -- I always think -- I always tell people, every time I'm out doing stories in my garden, I'll taste, like, the cauliflower or a carrot.

I'll be like, you have no idea what it really should taste like until you harvest it from the garden where you have tended that soil that has, like, good nutrients, good compost, and it flavors the food in a way that is just so rich, and you can't get -- so there's that.

Kaleb, thank you so much.

This has been such a pleasure.

Thank you for coming.

I think the whole point of food and what I do is to share it with people.

Carroll, Iowa, is a town where neighbors look out for each other, and the sense of community runs deep.

More than 60 years ago, that spirit was on full display during one night that would leave an unforgettable mark on this small town's history.

♪♪ In the heart of Carroll, you can find a full-sized basketball court decked out in purple and gold.

It commemorates the day an airplane fell from the sky and forever bonded this western Iowa town with one of the most legendary franchises in professional sports.

I just remember being awakened with the sound of this horrible -- not horrible, but a noise that I wasn't familiar with.

There was some noise going around, but we really didn't know what it was.

And I got out of bed and I walked out on my patio, and my next-door neighbor across the street was screaming at me -- "Look out!

Look out!"

Hutcheson: Circled the water tower -- about 200 feet.

All they could read was "L-L" on "Carroll" because of the fog and the snow.

You could see everything about that airplane.

You could count the rivets on the bottom of that plane.

Nebbe: On the evening of January 17, 1960, the then Minneapolis Lakers were flying home in a blizzard following a basketball game in Saint Louis.

Experiencing an electrical failure and low fuel, the team's plane was forced to pull off a miracle landing in the middle of a cornfield.

This is almost the precise site.

Touched down.

It came in from the south.

And it flew around the town at least nine times.

Nebbe: All 23 players, pilots, and passengers survived the landing.

Donovan: Well, it looked like a miracle.

It looked like this airplane sitting there in the middle of this cornfield, snow field.

The only place where the corn was down -- the only black area there in miles around, and he found it.

He had the Holy Spirit working with him that night.

Nebbe: The team returned home by bus the next day, and the plane was flown out a few days later.

Steffes: Carroll, Iowa, has a lot to do with the NBA.

If the Lakers had not survived and Carroll didn't come to the aid, it would have been down to seven teams.

There were only eight teams in 1960.

Nebbe: In 2010, the now Los Angeles Lakers donated $25,000 to build this court to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the miracle landing.

The ribbon cutting was -- that was pretty exciting.

We had the people from the Lakers here.

Steffes: We had a perfect day in September, did a flyover.

We had a few of -- Tommy Hawkins made a great speech, then he kissed the court.

It was a fun day.

It was a lot of people here.

And did the ribbon cutting, and the DC-3 went over just at the right time.

Nebbe: Today, travelers can visit this historic site and shoot some hoops on the exact spot where Carroll residents came to the aid of the NBA.

It's very well known in the community.

It's one of the pieces of history that every town would like to have that has a good ending.

Makes me feel really good about Carroll, Iowa.

♪♪ For most of us, pets aren't just animals, they're their family, companions, a source of comfort.

In Clinton, Midwest Pets For Life works with elderly or disabled residents to make sure that pets stay part of the family while their owners maintain independence, connection, and everyday joy.

♪♪ Bartels: Three of us down here used to work at the Clinton Humane Society, and what we saw while we were up at the Humane Society were quite a few older people, elderly people, would come in literally in tears and say, "We have to give up our animal because we can't afford to feed both the cat and ourselves," or the dog and ourselves.

You could not walk into any animal shelter at this time and not hear the same stories of, you know, "Fifi, great dog.

We've had Fifi for 17 years.

We just can't take care of her anymore.

We can't afford it.

We can't afford the food."

My mom passed away seven or eight years ago now from Alzheimer's, and she had a cat named Smokey.

And, I mean, that was why she got up in the morning.

It was because Smokey needed her.

And I think that's the case with so many of these people.

I mean, once that animal's gone, their whole life is gone.

They're done.

That's how Midwest Pets came about.

We decided we were going to do something about that.

We were going to help feed these animals, to keep them with the people that loved and needed them most.

Jessica: I have been involved since it started, so back in 2014.

I love animals.

[ Laughs ] I think anybody who does this job just loves animals.

Bartels: We used a little building up in the north end of town called the Train Depot, and it was just a little building, but they let us use it for nothing.

And we did low-cost spay/neuter up at the Train Depot.

And so, I mean, really from there it just grew.

It started out feeding animals, and then it went to adding spay/neuter.

And then we added vaccinations and microchips.

And I mean, look at us now.

We're taking up this whole building.

It's 7,000 square feet.

This is the warehouse.

♪♪ It doesn't last very long.

It goes pretty fast.

Kennels to help.

These are two big traps that we use when we get called to try to catch dogs that are loose, left, or dumped off.

How I first got into it, I seen people just dump their dogs out in the country and it just, like, ripped my heart out.

Bartels: Sometimes that's all they have left, these homeless people that come in here.

They don't have anything, but they've got their dog, or some of them have a cat.

And I just -- it would break my heart to see some -- I start crying for this stuff.

[ Sniffles ] It breaks my heart to think they'd have to give it up.

Man: He's a rescue.

The Humane Society.

And I actually did get his backstory.

More than likely outside all the time.

He don't like getting wet.

He hates the rain.

He don't bark, so he's actually low maintenance.

Good dog.

They told me to get rid of him -- go to a shelter, go door-to-door, or take him out in the country and just shove him out.

I told them, "He stays with me."

But for mental-health purposes, very important.

That may be the only thing that they have, the one person or animal that they can connect to, to talk, to where nobody else is listening, but their cat or dog is always listening.

And they're truly family.

There is a misconception that we are a vet clinic, which we are not.

You might have heard today where I was talking about rabies vaccines and that we do not have a vet on site and we are not allowed to do rabies vaccines, that they could come to our vaccine clinic, which is quarterly.

We do work with a vet from DeWitt.

She is the one that comes in and does all of our vaccine clinics.

I always see people that are very grateful, very happy that we're filling this void.

So people truly care for their animals and they're trying to do best by them.

And if this is the most affordable way for them to do it, I'm glad I can help.

Jessica: Kim and Sandi are very persistent.

They -- They would go out to the community and they would just be like, "We need this.

The community needs this."

And the community agreed.

I'll take it.

Thank you so much for the donation.

Kim: Are we financially secure?

I don't know that any nonprofit is.

But we're funded only by donations, so it does take a community to get to where we are today.

You know, so it's fundraising, it's getting out into the community and taking Lindsey -- taking them out into the community, talking about responsible pet ownership.

Because the pig is what gets you in the door.

It gets you the show.

[ Notes playing ] Yeah, she's our spokespig.

We call her the MPFL spokespig.

She is really smart, isn't she?

16 might have been when I got my first pig, so I got Annie Oinkley first.

Maybe a few months later, I think Frank Swineatra came.

And then Ham Solo came.

And, yeah, it just went on and on.

Hohrman: I absolutely love the spokespigs.

They are a great addition.

It's nice having them, especially most of them coming as rescues, especially like Lindsey LoHamm, who is an adorable little thing and just wants attention and to be loved on.

What could go wrong there?

Bartels: I don't know.

I got so wrapped up in it.

I didn't mean to ever be a hoarder.

But I think I kind of am now.

You know, I've got 11 pigs.

God.

Who does that?

Can you sit?

Sit.

Kim: Honestly.

Yeah, that opened the door for a lot of programs to get out in the community.

Bartels: What do I get out of what I do?

Nothing.

[ Laughing ] I get absolutely nothing.

But what I mean is, I don't get a paycheck.

But you know what?

I do get satisfaction out of it.

I go home so many times happy with what we've done for the community.

And I mean, we're taking care of, I think, five counties.

It does bring me joy.

Thank you.

You have a good day now.

That's it for this week's episode.

Thank you for joining me as we explore the passions that shape people's lives and the ways we keep family close in spirit, in tradition, and in community.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

See you next time for more "Iowa Life."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Funding for "Iowa Life" is provided by... ...and by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.