UNMC employee has special tie to Cattlemen’s Ball

Jim Temme gets ready for being a blackjack dealer at this year’s Cattlemen’s Ball by dealing a practice hand with Patty Mast of UNMC’s public affairs department.

This year’s Cattlemen’s Ball is extra special to Jim Temme.

A 34-year employee at UNMC, Temme plans to trek back to his old stomping grounds and work as a volunteer at the event Friday and Saturday to help raise money for cancer research at the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center.

“I feel very proud to be involved with this year’s ball,” he said. “It’s great to show off my hometown area. Petersburg is actually closer to the ball’s site than Albion is. The people who live there are the best.

“It takes a lot of volunteerism to pull this off, but the whole area has really rallied behind the ball. Even though they are working volunteers, everyone has to buy at least a $65 ticket.”

This year’s Cattlemen’s Ball will be a family affair for the Temme clan, which includes four sons and two daughters.

Jim along with two of his brothers, Jeff and John, will be working as volunteers during the event. Jim will be a blackjack dealer in the casino area. His sister, Jane Prince of Meadow Grove, Neb., also is expected to attend. Their mother, Joyce, and three other area women are donating an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) that will be auctioned off at the Saturday dinner.

The Temmes know first-hand why cancer research is so important — in 1996, Joe Temme, Joyce’s husband and the children’s father, died of kidney cancer.

“We’re hardly alone,” Temme said. “Just about every family has been touched by cancer at some time.”

Temme knows quite well what his job will be at the Cattlemen’s Ball.

“My job is to create a fun environment for the attendees while also raising money,” he said. “Anybody who plays blackjack knows that in the end the dealer usually wins. In this case, it’s a good thing when the dealer wins. It means we’ll be raising more money for cancer research.”

“Anybody who plays blackjack knows that in the end the dealer usually wins. In this case, it’s a good thing when the dealer wins. It means we’ll be raising more money for cancer research.” Jim Temme

Temme, 58, graduated from Petersburg High School in 1967. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and wound up spending a year in Vietnam serving in the infantry. Upon completing his two-year military hitch, Temme returned to Nebraska uncertain of what to do with his life.

His brother, Jeff, was injured in a car accident, and his hospitalization in Columbus, Neb., marked Temme’s first exposure to health care. In 1969, Temme decided to enroll in the charter class at Platte College in Columbus. He earned his associate degree from the college and then wrote a letter to the University of Nebraska seeking information on career opportunities in health care.

“The only brochure I got back was from the radiation technology program at UNMC,” he said. He decided to enroll in 1971, and three years later, he earned his degree.

After earning his degree from UNMC, Temme was immediately hired as a full-time faculty in radiation science education. Over the years, he has seen the program expand to keep up with new technologies.

Today’s students take a wide variety of training, including classes in nuclear medicine, radiation therapy, ultrasound, radiography, cardio-vascular intervention and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/computed tomography (CT) scans.

Temme, who went on to earn a master’s degree in public administration in 1984 from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, remembers his hometown fondly.

He said in recent years Business Week magazine ranked Petersburg as the 33rd best small town in the United States.

“I grew up on a farm. It really teaches the value of hard work,” Temme said. “I mean getting up at 6 a.m. to milk cows when it’s 20 degrees below zero — now that will teach you discipline.”