Ethnic entertainer: Musician Chris Sayre of Lincoln played various instruments and songs and shared stories about ethnic groups in Nebraska Monday afternoon during a visit sponsored by the Nebraska Humanities Council and the Gothenburg Library Foundation. Right, Sayre plays and sings the state song, “Beautiful Nebraska.”

The song was written by a German from Russia, who immigrated to Nebraska, during a song-writing contest in 1967. Sayre (left) plays a button accordion and plays a Czech polka from the 1840s. Sayre noted that, in 1867, the biggest ethnic group in Nebraska was Germans, followed by immigrants from the British Isles and then the Swedes and other Scandinavians and Czechs.