It is a rainy November morning and the Durham Museum’s Director of Communications Dawn Myron is checking in with Keegan Smutz.
Smutz works for Union Pacific performing bridge maintenance, but for one week out of the year, he and his team cut, deliver and decorate the Durham’s annual Christmas tree. This year is Smutz’s 10th tree.
“Everything’s going to go as planned, unless you tell me otherwise,” Myron said.
“Everything should go alright. Gonna be real fun, first one I’ve done in the rain,” Smutz replied.
Rain, snow or shine, Smutz and his crew are there to get the tree to the museum.
More than a dozen Union Pacific employees are wearing neon rain gear and helmets. Instead of their usual task of bridge maintenance – they’re taking part in an Omaha tradition that goes back to the 1970s.
The team will spend the next three hours cutting down a massive 40-foot-tall spruce tree from a West Omaha front yard. Then, the tree will be loaded onto a flatbed truck, driven 18 miles through the city and placed inside the main hall of the Durham Museum.
The consistent rain slowed the process down, but Smutz and his crew methodically worked, Smutz acting as the point person and directing.
Standing off to the side, watching the crew and chatting with Smutz, are Pete Gantier and Dave Weigel. Gantier and Weigel are both retired now, but Gantier was a Union Pacific foreman, Smutz’s foreman at one point, and Weigel drove a boom truck.
Much like Smutz, they would traditionally spend a week in November cutting, delivering and decorating the Durham’s annual Christmas tree. The two reminisced about trees they had cut and delivered in the past with Smutz.
“Remember the one we waited until it got real soft,” Gantier asked Weigel.
“That was at the crossroads,” replied Weigel. “What that was, it was froze in the morning. By the time we got the tree loaded, they had to pull us out with a wrecker.”
“It was disastrous,” Gantier said.
“How many years did you do this,” Smutz asked.
“I can’t remember. 10 or 15 we did it?” Gantier said.
“You mean I’m catching up to you, this is number 10 for me,” said Smutz.
“Oh yeah, you’ll probably go right past me,” replied Gantier, chuckling to himself.
With the buzz of the chainsaw, the tree is delicately set down.
“Perfect, another one down,” Smutz said as his crewmates congratulate him.
They get it loaded onto the flatbed truck and head off to the Durham.
It’s just something awesome, to be part of something so big in Omaha,” said Smutz. “A lot of planning goes into it and it always comes out really well. Like I said, I mean, it’s like the Rockefeller Center tree, but for Omaha.”
He joined Union Pacific in early 2015 and was put on the bridge maintenance crew, the team that oversees this project. He had no idea when he joined, that he’d be part of such a time-honored tradition.
His dad also worked at Union Pacific, but in a different department. Smutz wanted to follow in his footsteps.
“My dad worked for the railroad for 34, 33 years I think,” said Smutz. “He’s been coming to every one since I’ve been here, since I’ve been doing it.”
Normally, Smutz’s route takes him away from his family for long periods of time. One of the perks of this Christmas assignment is staying close to home.
“We go from Council Bluffs to Grand Island, and then from Offutt up north of Sioux City,” Smutz said. “We got a pretty good-sized territory, almost half the state. So, this keeps us home for the week. It’s kind of nice.”
After a few attempts, and mopping up of water from the rain, the driver honked the pickup truck’s horn as a warning, followed by flooring it and zooming past excited onlookers.
The main hall at the Durham erupts into applause, and for many the Christmas season had begun. The tree had officially arrived and Smutz reflected on the journey.
“Luckily, it was just the job I hired out on the railroad, and I had no idea that this department did it,” said Smutz. “Just fortunate enough to be the first one, or my first tree.”
Smutz said it’s important to him that his family attends each year.
“My wife and my kids came, and then both my parents showed up today. So that was awesome,” Smutz said.
Smutz and his family take pictures in front of the 40-foot-spruce, which is lying on its side within the Durham’s large entrance hall. Smutz and his daughter bantered back and forth about Christmas.
Wiegel came to watch the tree get driven into the museum, and makes sure to tell the daughters to know what is important on this special day.
“Now, when you girls get old enough for school, you tell Mommy, you got to have the day off to come watch,” Weigel said.
“That’s a must,” said both Smutz and his wife.
Even after a decade of bringing Christmas spirit to the Durham, Smutz says he has no plans of stopping.
“I’ve got 25 years left in my career here at the railroad, and I’ll do it as long as I’m into in the department,” he said. “I’ll keep making it.”
