WHERE THE WILQFlQWFRc ARL

OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA rnDN May-June 1991 Vnl dl, Nn -4 I FEATURES I WILDFLOWER REDUX 8 After decades as targets of sprayers, mowers, and bad-mouthers, Oklahoma's native plants are the new stars of garden and roadside. A look at a wildflower renaissance in full bloom. By BurkhardBilger

HAVE PICNIC BASKET, WILL TRAVEL 19 Swing by for lunch on your way somewhere else or spend the afternoon under a shade tree. These four city parks are top picks for picnics. By Susan Wittand Barbara Palmer, photographs by Fred W.Marvel

PORTFOLIO: OKLAHOMA TRIBESMEN 22 The regalia worn by Oklahoma tribes links the past and the present and is a source of identity for both young and old. Photographs by David Fitzgerald

ZEN AND THE ART OF BICYCLE TOURING 28 Toiling up a brutal hill and sailing down the ocher side. Broiling at high noon and floating on an evening breeze. All are part of the cycle of life, one learns along the course of the Freewheel bike tour. By Joel Everett, photographs by Scott Andenen

RIDING WITH RED 36 There are plenty of laurels for

Red is still up at dawn, out training for yet another bicycle endurance tour. By Teq Phe/ps, photographs by Scott Andem

TODAY IN OKLAHOMA 4 IN SHORT 5 LETTERS 6 OMNIBUS Chautauqua 'Til You Drop, by Douz Bentin 7 FOOD TheOnion-Fried Burger, by Bar(iara Palmer 39 WEEKENDER Red Earth, by Jeanne M. Dtwlin 41 ARTS Best of the West, by Marcia Preston 44 ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR A guide to what's happening 49

COVER: Kiowa storyteller Evalu Ware Russell of Anadarko at Red Earth. Photograph by David Fitzgerald. Inside front cover: A lone yucca and Lone Mountain in the Gloss Mountains in northwest Oklahoma. Photograph by David Vinyard. Back cover:A country road near Tom in McCurtain County. Photograph by David ~itz~erhd.

May-June 1991 3 ne day last February, time to explore the places other writers Oklahoma Today staff have described in the magazine, and I members met together for have only read about. lunch. This was an unusual Even though most stories and pho- event0 for this busy group, but we had tographs in Oklahoma Today are travel much to celebrate. The magazine- had related, they also bring- out what is won two new awards and circulation unique or special about Oklahoma, and revenue were inching forward to what makes this state different from meet our goals. the rest. Sometimes the magazine's The Oklahoma City Advertising focus has shown the ordinary, like the Club named Oklahoma Today winner of top chicken-fried steak restaurants, to its annual Addy and Addy Merit awards actually be extraordinary. for editorial excellence. These presti- We believe that our readers want to gious awards will be added to our office know more about Oklahoma-its display of others received during the heritage, geology, wildlife, the arts-to past six years in national and interna- pique their interest in travel and pride tional competition from the Regional in the state. We have tried to make ~ublisherskssociationand the Society them aware of the great lifestyle we of American Travel Writers. have here. The first test for each story Our circulation has increased 36 idea is, can our readers go see or do this? percent since 1987. This is important During my tenure, Oklahoma Today since research shows that 79.7 percent has grown from 40 to 52 editorial pages of our subscribers have attended an per issue and from four to six issues per event or visited a place afi year. Our color phot~ography has in- about it in Oklahoma Today. creased and now illust:rates each story. an important source of income for The magazine has undergone several Oklahoma. And that is our purpose- major changes in design and added to increase travel in the state and to regular departments in each issue. We make it more interesting. have produced a scenic appointment Our 35th anniversary year is reason calendar annually and have begun enough for celebration. 1 r many selling gift products. These not only magazines" last long- enough- 1 debrate promote the state but assist with gen- this milestone? For that matter, how I grating sufficient revenue to fundour I 1 many businesses? operating expenses. And, as I told our lunch1eon group, We have also produc:ed special issues with everything going so we11, this on the horse industry, the state's 75th seemed the ideal time for me to retire. anniversary, the 1889 land run cen- Yes, there are still unfinished projects tennial and Indian art. You have shown and many more stories to write, but this your appreciation by giving gift sub- is my final issue. I look forward to scriptions and renewing your own. Our spending more time with a new circulation has grown from 10,000 grandson and traveling at a more lei- to 45,000 as a result. surely pace. The real secret to our success has to For 12years as editor-in-chief, I have be a corps of freelance writers and had the opportunity to meet wonder- photographers willing to drive across ful, interesting people across the state. the state and make that extra effort to I've learned more about unusual places tell Oklahoma's story. David Fitz- to visit in Oklahoma and its heritage gerald, for example, spent the last three than you can imagine. Now I will have continued on page 6

4 Oklahoma TODAY In Bartlesville,200 Years of Mozart A Sign of Summer: The Blessing of the Fleet on "Performance Today" each season. It has been two-hundred years since In coastal fishing villages it was once Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart put pen to This year, the festival got an unex- the custom to usher the local priest paper and composed his final master- pected endorsement, when Time down to the wharf to bless the fishing piece, the "Requiem," only to die, magazine named Bartlesville a bicenten- boats before they inched out to sea. December 5, 1791, at the nial destination of choice "People involved with fishing felt, and age of 35. for Mozart fans in search justifiably so, the need for some divine Given the world's of unusual places in help to get home," explains Leffen fascination with anniver- I which to revel in the Pflug of Gore. saries divisible by five, music of their maestro. Five years ago, Pflug and friends it's no surprise that there "It's going to be a very decided a little divine intervention will be a Mozart bicen- exciting summer," might be nice for their sailing club. The tennial in 1991. What has predicts Ransom Wilson, appeal was twofold: "I think we liked to impress, however, in a renowned flutist and I the idea of thanking the creator who year when rap is king, is conductor of the made all this beauty," says Pflug, "and the international hullaba- chamber orchestra Solisti the idea of asking for his protection on loo that has marked New York, as well as one the water." Mozart's jubilee year, and of the masterminds hi^ M~~~ bust The Grand Lake Sailing Club timed the fact that has made behind the Bartlesville entrance to the Bart/emi//e its "blessing of the fleet" with the arrival Illozart's hometown of jty festival. (The festival is c center. of the summer sailing season. Salzburg, Austria, and inked in Wilson's It's now a local tradition. Bartlesville, Oklahoma, bed fellows. personal calendar and he's yet to miss Come hlay, skippers "heave to with Both of these small towns will be sites a season.) brushes and mops" to ready dinghies, of major jubilee events this summer. OK Mozart, set for June 7-16, will power cruisers, and yachts for what has For the last seven years, Bartlesville include nine concerts, chamber and become a parade of some thirty boats. music lovers have tried to tell Oklahoma lecture series, art exhibits, Austrian cafes, Skippers decorate their crafts with signal and the world that their OK Mozart and non-concert diversions ranging from flags or Mardi Gras frills. then outfit International Festival has become a parades and fireworks to laser light shows themselves as Thurston Howell I11 or world-class event. Lending credence to and picnics. Concert tickets are $10 to Captain Hook. Spectators watch from the claim: NBC's "Sunday Today" $20, and can be ordered by calling (918) shore or nearby boat decks. filmed the festival in 1989 and National 336-9800 or writing Box 2344, The local Episcopal priest, Father Public Radio airs the concert recordings Bartlesville, OK 74005. Howard Wilson. himself a sailor. becins the ritual with a brief shoreside service (complete with hymns and prayers). That done, hc moves to the lakc and a Cruising Route 66 30-foot Catalina, equipped with holy From Quapaw to Texola, through detoured for barbe- water. As boats putter by single file, Vinita, El Reno, Canute, and points in cue in Arcadia or to Father Wilson administers names, holy between, Route 66 jitterbugs across drive through water, and the sign of the cross. "Once Oklahoma for 400 miles. And the state Davenport's round concrete tuGel. they pass Father's boat." says Pflug,"the Route 66 Association plans to use every The cruise brings out scores of vintage sailboats break out their sails and take bit of the old highway for its second autos, says association member Don off down the lake, and that concludes annual Route 66 Cruise, June 8-9. Mullinex who operates an auto detail the day." Registered participants receive a shop in Clinton. Most folks, though, drive The ceremony has been refined "passport" to be stamped at any seven their family cars, what Mullinex calls through the years-a nod to the nature specified checkpoints across the state. I "grocery getters." Which is just fine. of sailors. "We used to do the service Drawings of completed passports on Everybody should have a chance, he after the blessing," says Pflug, sheep- Sunday will award prizes such as a hot air says in his loping drawl, "to get off the ishly, "but we found once people got on balloon ride over Elk City or a trip to wild highways and onto a nice, slow- the water they wanted to stay." Santa Monica, California-the I aced road. Take it nice and slow and feel This year's service begins at 1:30p.m., westernmost end of Route 66. followed by the rendezvous of boats at Eight hundred people registered for last 2:30 p.m. near Honey Creek Bridge. The year's cruise, but hundreds more came out closest viewing from shore is at Fifth and just for the chance to join a caravan across 6434 NW Expressway, Bethany, OK Boston Point: a water-logged street sign America's favorite highway. Drivers I 73008. marks the spot.

May- June 1991 5 Your magazine has helped my chil- continued from page 4 dren put facts and pictures to many of years photographing contemporary LETTERS the stories told by their great-grand- Indians in their traditional tribal cos- parents. For my husband and myself, tumes along with their elders shown in As a transplanted Nebraskan, I re- Oklahoma Today keeps us informed on this issue's Portfolio. Last year Jim ally enjoy Oklahoma Today. All the current issues and takes us back to our Argo and Fitzgerald drove to the ex- wonderful pictures and articles help childhood. What a wonderful combi- treme limits of the state to photograph me to learn more about the state. nation. Thank you so much. the contrasting scenery of the Pan- I've been sending my copies to my Sherry Kilgore handle and the southeast. son, who is serving with the 1st Cavalry Kailua, Hawaii Major credit has to be given to past in Desert Storm. I received a letter and present staff members. Perhaps the from him and he said, "Keep sending Your magazine is always a pleasure to most dedicated are current managing me all the things you've been sending, receive but you surpassed yourself with editor Jeanne Devlin and assistant especially the Oklahoma Today. I really the September-October 1990 issue. editor Barbara Palmer, who work with enjoy that magazine." The myth and photography proved the writers and photographers. They Dorothy Malcolm a wonderful blend and such a tribute to have given up countless weekends to Jenks the beauty of our state and its diversity. make sure stories and photos meet Thanks for all the time and effort this Oklahoma Today standards as well as In response to your offer to send a free must have taken-it was delightful. printing deadlines. Art director Felton subscription to a loved one on military Sandra K. Bobzien Stroud pulls all the bits and pieces to- assignment in the Middle East, I am Oklahoma City gether in the most attractive design. sending my son-in-law's address. He is Together, they will continue to pro- a native of Pryor and a graduate of I am an Oklahoma woman living in duce one of the nation's best maga- Pryor High School. I know receiving Colorado. I have asked for years that zines. your magazine would be a real treat for someone in my family or a friend send Your letters frequently tell me how him. me a copy of Oklahoma Today. Finally, much you appreciate the Oklahoma Thank you for your kind offer. this past week a copy came to my Today office staff who conscientiously Peggy Sue LaPorte hands. Needless to say, I was thrilled fill a variety of reader requests, organize Spring, Texas to, at last, have it in my possession. the Entertainment Calendar and pro- For subscribers who would like to send I am sending in a subscription notice cess subscriptions, among a myriad of a little Oklahoma to a loved one stationed today as well as this letter to you. The other tasks. Melanie Mayberry, Lisa in the Middle East, we ask that you send photography and articles were out- Breckenridge, and Pam Poston have us his or her name and mailing address, standing. been more than supportive. They run along with your name and address, and Annawyn DeBenning Shamas the place. we'N forward them a subscription to Littleton, Colorado Will I miss being a part of the Okla- Oklahoma Todayfree. P.S. I am a former president of the homa Today team? You bet. The Oklahoma Community Theatre Asso- magazine has occupied my thoughts Oklahoma Today magazine has been ciation, so found the article on com- almost every waking moment for the one of the greatest gifts given to my munity theater very interesting. past 12 years. But I look forward to family. My husband and I are both na- becoming a subscriber and reading tive Oklahomans, now living in Ha- Richard Day's photographs in the each new issue from cover to cover in waii. Through your publication we January-February 1991 issue were my retirement. have been able to teach our children wonderfully nostalgic. I grew up in -Sue Carter more about their birthplace and heri- Cyril, a small town near the Wichita tage. Mountains. Professional travels have 1 NEXT ISSUE: Oklahoma is said to 1 Living in Hawaii they have not ex- since taken me around the world, but have more horses per capita than perienced some of the pleasures so my love of Oklahoma's natural beauty any state in the union. It's also one common to children growing up in has not waned. The Wichita Mountains of only two states to house a Wild Oklahoma-visiting the Cowboy Hall remain a magical place. Thank you, Mr. Mustang Preserve. Come July, we of Fame or Pawnee Bill's Ranch, be- Day, for your exquisite shots of the visit the mustangs at their home longing to a round-up club, attending scenic delights of southwestern Okla- near Bartlesville. We'll also explore one of the many Indian festivals, or homa. summer's night skies in the July- even spending a simple day of nature James River August issue of Oklahoma Today. in one of Oklahoma's great parks. Topeka, Kansas

6 Oklahoma TODAY Chautauqua 'Til You Drop Nm lifefor an old-time tradition.

orn in 1874 and named for D'Alessandro of the Arts and Hu- the town in New York manities Council of Tulsa says where the idea originated, plans are to watch and learn this year the traveling Chautauqua was from the North Dakota troupe, then partB college, part concert, part seminary, establish Tulsa's own annual urban part craft show, part medicine show, Chautauqua. part debating society, and part vaude- Unlike the original shows, which ville. actually featured U.S. Grant, Theodore Chautauquas offered something for Roosevelt, James Whitcomb Riley, and everyone: the brilliant oratory of Wil- Jane Addams, D'Alessandro says the liam Jennings Bryan to the Mississippi North Dakota version (and thus the riverboat tall tales of Mark Twain. In modern version) stars scholars who fact, that magical, but odd-looking, dress up, lecture, and answer questions word promised what would have been (on taxes to the vote) from the audience the best show in town-even if it hadn't as famous people from our country's also been the only show in town. past might have. The tent crew arrived first to pitch It's funny-no one seems to have the open air canvas hall as near the rail- anything critical to say about road tracks as possible. A day later, the r rom wan vihitman to Frederick Douglass, Chautauquas. Teddy Roosevelt called first group of performers arrived by rail. the Chautauqua literaty line-up. them "the most American thing in Each troupe was dedicated to a par- America." But perhaps writer Gary H. ticular type of program. Singers and John Barleycorn in a tent to enlighten Holthaus summed up their appeal best: musicians might perform on Monday. our war-blooded boulevardiers. Susan "From the ranches and from the town, Tuesday morning, they would move to B. Anthony's earnestness was out- folks have come long distances to share the next stop on the circuit-leaving on Clara Bow's "It" was in. The in a community of inquiry, to discover the same train that delivered the next Chautauquas folded their tents. again the pleasure of learning and the literary speakers. Wednesday would see But Americans have a passion for re- stimulation of ideas, discussed, de- that troupe decamp in favor of actors discovering what was best and most bated, and mulled over during the drive who would perform two or three plays. unique in our heritage, and Chau- home. Tomorrow, they'll reopen the Reaching more rural Americans than tauquas are on the way back. In Okla- debate at the local coffee shop and the circus did, because they were will- homa, they're already here. Chau- general store, and in the weeks that ing to play smaller towns than the cir- tauqua '90 was held in Frederick last follow, they'll read a few books on the cus, Chautauquas reached their height summer, again supplying this town of subject; for these are questions that of popularity during the early years of 6,000 with the elements that made the have no simple answers." the twentieth century. Chautauqua seasons of 1914-24 in -Doug Bentin Then the movies, with their lowest Frederick so memorable: Entertain- common denominator approach and ment, intellectual jousting, and a touch instant visual gratification, crept from of the unusual. This was a marathon for North Dakota's Great Plains Chautauqua the big cities into America's rural the mind, and the thrill when it was brings its "Ameriratr Renaissa?~ce"srholars, portraying authon vath hat riel Haalthorne, outback and their novelty made any- over was not so unlike that experienced Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, thing that already existed seem tame. at the end of the Boston Marathon. Frederick Douglass, Hermat1 /I.felville, IValt The farm boys had seen Paree by the In 1991, AItus is on the circuit of the Whitman, and Louisa ibfay Alrott to Tulsa end of the Great War, and it took North Dakota Great Plains Chau- June 14-18. Pirt~idingbegirls at 7p.m.at something more sophisticated than tauqua, as is Tulsa, a town considerably Veterans Park, lectures at 8p.tr1. For Carrie Nation railing against the evils of larger than Frederick. Ninette information, mN (918)584-.?3.?.3.

7 May- June 1991 Wildflower Gardeners and urban planners are realizing what a few visionaries have preached all along.: ~klahornawas bok By Burkhard Bilger to be wild.

n the dog days of July and August 1820, along a river that runs from New hlexico's high plateau to the grasslands of Oklahoma, the myth of the Great American Desert was born. That summer, Major Stephen Harriman Long was leading an odd assortment of academics and rough frontiersmen through Ithe unexplored territories of what would later become , Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Sent by President to bring news of the , much as Lewis and Clark had reported on lands to the north fifteen years before, Long was at the end of his rope by the time he came to Oklahoma. Tormented by chiggers, ticks, and the relentless sun and stuck on what he had thought was the Red River but in actuality was the North Canadian, he didn't have much to show for three months in the saddle. In his mind, Long must have written his report to the president a dozen times, trying to convey just how unpleasant the trip had been. "I do not hesitate in giving the opinion," he finally wrote, "that (this country) is almost wholly unfit for cultiva- tion, and, of course, uninhabitable... It is calculated to serve as a barrier to prevent too great an expansion of our population westward." Thereafter, the words "Great American Desert" marched in big letters across maps of lands west of the Mississippi. Military leaders rejoiced that a natural barrier protected the country against invaders from the west, and restless settlers turned their attention back to the green fields of New England. It would be 60 years before farmers appeared here in numbers, and though they proved that the Great Plains didn't quite bear "a manifest resemblance to the deserts of Sibe- ria," as Long put it, the major's judgment still lay like a faint curse on the coun- tryside. Oklahomans have struggled ever since to destroy the myth of an inhospitable land and to turn their state into a garden. When the Dust Bowl threatened to make Long's words a reality, Oklahomans dug their heels in and nurtured the ground back until it produced grain enough to feed most of New England. When: their cities seemed barren and unfriendly, they planted oaks alang the streets,; sowed snapdragons in their gardens, and brought California poppies to grace their! parks. Today, even as some Eastern economists, echoing Long once again, claim; that the prairie states should be abandoned and left to the buffalo, suburbanites outside of Tulsa are lounging on their patios, gloating over their manicured lawns. In fact, if a visitorwere plunked down unknowingly in Oklahoma, he might guess that he was in Connecticut, California, or Virginia. For he would see magnolias blooming in carefully tended plots, Bermuda grass (improbably green in the blast of Oklahoma's sun) reaching innocuously into every corner, sprinklers running continuously...exactly like suburban Charlottesville or Palo Alto. You might say that we've replaced one myth with another. For Oklahoma is no green Virginia; it can't compare rose gardens with Cali- fornia. The beauty of the prairie is a running wind, a crowd of black-eyed Susans scattered across a hillside like substantial sunlight. It's a meadow of Indian paintbrush, or a cluster of mistletoe dangling from the twisted arms of an elm- not geometric hedges and lush English gardens. Long saw this country when its glory had already gone to seed, when everything, except the sunflowers, had lost its blossoms and gotten down to the business of reproducing. But if he had come in May, when the wildflowers were blooming in wave after wave of pure, sun- struck color, he would have seen a landscape quite unlike a desert. A landscape that still blooms along secondary roads and in fallow fields, around weathered fence posts and in the forgotten corners of cattle ranches. A wild native land- scape-dry, tough, and riotously beautiful-that we have tried our best to deny. If you ask the average Oklahoman to describe a nice, well-kept neighborhood, the answer might well remind you of the opening scene from "Leave it to Bea- ver." But that standardized view of landscaping is slowly changing, as an ap- preciation for wildflowers and native plants gradually takes root in this state. From elderly ladies in garden clubs who have fallen in love with their plants' wild, self- sufficient cousins, to businessmen who hope that flower-lined boulevards and meridians will lure more investments into the state, to environmentalists who want to conserve water and limit the use of pesticides, wildflowers have become the symbol of a return to native landscapes. Promoting wildflowers can mean helping to stop the invasion of exotics like kudzu or creating more habitat for indigenous birds and animals. It can mean saving millions of dollars in mowing costs by planting flowers along roadsides or just sowing a few cowboy roses next to a chain-link fence. As environmental causes go, it could well be the most democratic thing around-literally and figuratively, a "grass roots movement" in the making.

oyle McCoy was obsessed with wildflowers when most people still called them weeds. Born in 1917 on a farm just east of Chickasha, he used to sit by his family's fields of broom corn and cotton in the evenings, waiting for the mule team to rest before heading home. There, where wild na- tive grasses met the neat rows of crops, he would bend down tall stems of Iron- weed, taking apart the dozens of tiny purple flowers that clustered on top. "I'd sit there and see how they were constructed and examine those intricate patterns," he recalls. "I started to develop a great respect for nature's way of doing things." While most crops needed to be carefully planted, fertilized, protected from pests, and watered to grow, these flowers took care of themselves. They even planted their own seed. Such qualities weren't much appreciated by Oklahoma's farmers, who once spent a good deal of time ploughing up the prairie and then beating back recalcitrant wildflowers like Queen Anne's thistle. But for McCoy, who left his two-room schoolhouse and went on to earn a doctorate in botany LARRY d BROWN

Wild Rose, (Ko.su .retigru) With more rainfall than anywhere in the state, wildflowers in sourheast- ern Oklahoma often rival their hothouse counterparts. From lavish stands of Queen Anne's Lace (Dau6u~ camta)to wild roses climbing over from Oklahoma State University, wildflowers became the focus of a quiet sort of crusade. Beginning at Ada High School and later moving on to East Central University in Ada and Cameron University in Lawton, Doyle McCoy introduced thousands of students to Oklahoma's native plants. On countless field trips, he led them to the wild remnants of the state, rattling off Latin names and picking apart flow- ers. On evenings or weekends, he gave lectures to garden clubs, trying to give the people a sense of what wonders lay out there beyond their garden fences. In Oklahoma, promoting native plants, McCoy sometimes felt like a spokesman for an oppressed minority. Although Lady Bird Johnson was starting to get people excited about bluebonnets and other wildflowers in Texas, Oklahomans still mainly considered wildflowers a nuisance. Ranchers across the state were spray- ing herbicide from airplanes to kill these wild things, and here McCoy was try- ing to get people to appreciate them, even to plant them. People shook their heads at a man who seemed to think that wildflowers, like oil or farmland, were among our great natural resources.

Oklahoma TODAY cre for acre, in fact, Oklahoma has more species of wildflowers than any other state in the IJnion. California and Texas each have more species, if you want to quibble, but they also have more than twice as much space. Oklahoma manages to squeeze close to 3,000 wildflower varieties be- tweenA the Ozarks and Black Mesa-from red buckeye in southeastern meadows to yellow goat's beard in abandoned lots in the west. You can find the hlissouri evening primrose (the state's largest flower, with blossoms six inches across) in sandstone cuts around Oklahoma City, or the tiny yellow stickleaf (with little recurved hairs that stick to a shirt like a natural corsage) out in the Gloss Mountains. Golden currant, small and unremarkable, but unbelievably fragrant, grows along most any stream, and wild pumpkin, the state's foulest-smelling (though beautiful) flower, likes roadside ditches. If you look hard enough you can even find a prairie fringed orchid. Conventional wisdom says that mountainous states, where desert to alpine habitats exist on a single peak, have the best variety ofwildflowers. But Oklahoma makes up for what it lacks in topography in sheer breadth and positioning. Of the five wildflower habitats represented in the , this state has three: the humid east, the subhumid lands, and the Great Plains. Between the swamps of McCurtain County and the Panhandle, rainfall can vary from sixty inches to ten inches a year, and altitudes rise from 324 feet to 4,978 feet. With so many different niches to choose from, most of the country's wildflowers can find a place to settle comfortably. Yet even a botanist would have to think a moment to name ten species that cross the state from end to end. ,71 hat much said, it's almost impossible to define exactly where each wildflower grows. Unlike forests, which march across the landscape like solemn armies, dividing up territories and stopping cold at treeline, wildflowers tend to blow wherever the wind wants to go. Sometimes they'll land where they really don't belong, bloom gamely for a couple of years, and then disappear. Such wanderlust has kept McCoy's vacations extremely busy. Over the last forty years, hlcCoy has worn out a Jeep wagon, three Datsun pickups (no air conditioning), and half of a Mercedes hunting down the state's different species, figuring out their dis- tribution, and trying to snap a picture of each flower at the perfect peak of its bloom. "You don't go down to McAlester just one weekend out of the year and expect to do any good," he explains. "You have to be in each county several times during the year to get the different landscapes, because each plant will come out at a different time."

oadside 1;lowers of Oklahoma" appeared in 1976, printed at iLIc<:oy's own expense. "I took a chance and ordered 5,000 copies and went around to bookstores leaving them on consignment-no one really knew how they would go." By that time, several things were working in his favor.'R Beginning with the publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (ex- posing the effects of pesticides in the environment) in 1962 and followed by the first Earth Day in 1970, an ecological movement had steadily gained momen- tum in the llnited States. 'I'he Endangered Species Act of 1973 had focused at- tention on protecting native animals. Native plants were waiting in the wings for their turn. It was economics, however, that finally turned Oklahoma on to wildflowers. 'I'he year the Endangered Species Act was passed the state was in the fill1 throes of the energy crisis. ?'he 'I'ulsa Garden Club suggested that the Ilepartment of Transportation delay mowing along the 12,000-mile highway system until the wildflowers had gone to seed-thereby saving oil, the taxpayer's money, and, incidentally, encouraging wildflowers. In 'I'exas, the highway department had been transplanting wildflowers to medians, rest stops, and rights-of-way since the 1920s, saving- $8 million to $12 million annually on reduced mowing costs and, in the process, turning its roadside carpets of bluebonnets into springtime tourist attractions. (According to a recent survey, 40 percent of all spring visitors to Texas come to see the wildflowers.) In Oklahoma, the highway department decided to plant wildflowers from commercial seed donated by garden clubs and Boy Scouts. "We were very much pioneers in 1973," says Joanne Orr, coordinator of the Oklahoma wildflower program. "Nobody knew how to raise wildflowers. It's like farming on the side of the highway and that's not a very congenial environment." Equipped with "windmill seeders" that simply fling seed out onto the grass, highway crews walked over acres and acres of land. The next spring, nothing much came up. "The birds just got a meal," Orr remembers ruefully. "Hardly any of the seeds even reached the soil." So ended Oklahoma's first attempt at planting roadside wildflowers. Ironically, at the same time, McCoy's "Roadside Flowers of Oklahoma" was selling like hotcakes. By 1978, he had ordered another 8,000 copies of volume one and printed volume two. Meanwhile, some of McCoy's former students had gone on to be- come botanists themselves, joining a network of wildflower enthusiasts , throughout the state who echoed and amplified his message. Terry Harrison, a professor of botany at Central State, was taking garden clubs on wildflower tours; while at Southeastern State in Durant, John and Connie Taylor were preaching the gospel of native plants to a new generation of students. Out in Eagle Lake, Texas, Wildseed Inc. became the first company in the southwest to mass-produce native wildflower seeds-by 1990 they would sell 80 varieties of seed grown in fields so spectacular that they draw 70,000 visitors a year. Finally, in 1982, Lady Bird Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center on sixty acres of her land in Austin, Texas. By 1987, when the Oklahoma transportation department decided to take an- other stab at planting wildflowers, the reasons had begun to run a little deeper than economics. News of ozone depletion and the rise of global temperatures were giving the environmental movement a sudden second wind. This time, it would focus on a whole series of local concerns: from restoring native landscapes to beautifying cities to conserving water reserves and topsoil.

lthough more than a dozen Oklahoma wildflowers are currently in danger of extinction, none are legally protected by the state. The prairie itself, meanwhile, is the single most endangered ecosystem in the country. In A Texas, ecologically-minded planners are already working to restore na- tive grasslands along highway rights-of-way. These areas will then serve as cor- ridors for animals traveling between larger chunks of prairie-dramatically in- creasing the size of their habitats. In Oklahoma, groups such as the Natural Heritage Inventory (which tracks the state's endangered species), the Nature Conservancy, and the Native Plant Society have been founded over the last five years to stand up for the state's wild things. The Native Plant Society organizes field trips and wildflower workshops. The Conservancy has created a 52,000-acre lallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, which may one day be the state's loveliest spot to see native wildflowers. Ultimately, such programs aren't about economics or saving the environment, they're about aesthetics and a philosophy of living. Or, as botanist Annie Gillespie puts it, "It's a question of how we think of paradise. Do we control nature? Or do we try to live with it?" For much of American history, extreme control has been the method of choice for farmers and landscapers alike. According to Darrel Morrison, dean of environmental design at the University of in Athens, "l'he standard method is to eliminate the plants unique to the region, replace

14 Oklahoma TODAY

them with standard turf, a ~cwalandard LLG~Sand shrubs, arlu irrigate everytning to keep it green. In the younger parts of the country like Oklahoma, I think that ap- proach springs from a pioneering attitude that says you need to remove what was there and replace it with something better, or more familiar." In the process, American cities have not only become clones of one another, they have drained the country's water resources until, as Morrison says, "we're living on borrowed water." Over the last 20 years, landscape architects have tried to combat this history with %+&e;*&&p$vtg;:*,w $ .@$* a school of design called xeriscaping. The term conjures up images of cactus and &"Z* =&)* ,qp &?>%? Purple Prairie Clovet, (Daleapntpurea/ udf%2ir$~-&*-$ gravel, but it means using native plants that can survive on local rainfall, grouping The great variety of soil in the together those plants that do need to be watered, and limiting the amount of turf. Done right, a xeriscape can thrive without much water, fertilizer, or pesticide. Most Tallgrass Prairie in Osage County importantly, perhaps, it can help suburbia find itself again. makes it a haven for wildflower lovers. The native plants movement has found fertile soil in Oklahoma's business community. During the 1980s, many state business leaders bought into the idea that (Achilles Tall wooly yarrow lanulosa) wildflower planting could entice new industry to a beautified state and give pops up on prairies and along roadsides Oklahomans a needed shot in the arm. Over the last year and a half, United Bankcard across the state, but the yellow, large- Inc. alone has donated more than $40,000 to Orr's wildflower program. Oklahoma City Beautiful, meanwhile, has created an ingenious way to raise wildflower funds flowered tickseed (Coreopsis grandi- from average citizens. "We had always specialized in making things go away-like trash or eyesores," says executive director Sidney Dobson. "Wildflowers were the first thing that we tried to put out there, and they have really made the whole program." Through its annual "Penny Roundup for Wildflowers," Dobson's group continued on page 18

Oklahoma TODAY Where the wildr Y things are. @$ 1 L s m -*? -I, ,.I j ? *.r ;~ttf ,,f f hl?reacdmbdr ofwi1dflowerw;rtchers:rhe - who- to plan a wildflo~~~~~i~~w~rsbloswmdlyear, but most seeks OWthe wmt, mmt unusual blaoms--l&el~gn- wait till Uycu. ;fa& hrsh+r quantity, there ate some obvi- Twitmur whg&y enjoys a meal if it includes soq6 hi- ous choices: +C ; - &m

Prairie Pre- iw~~b.A scenic ddxCh~olrghthe

visw cowered in poppy mjallaw. blzing star, par- ple wind flower, and snow-on-the-

Phi- *It gmwa on abeur 15 mile* of mite

-Bum B'ier

-,+ -4 I* d * rot2tinuedfi-orn page 16 (together with First Interstate bank and Channel 5) has raised over $36,000 in pennies toward seeds that have been planted at twenty-nine sites in Oklahoma City. 'l'wo springs ago, they had perhaps their most spectacular success when thousands of Indian blanket, Plains coreopsis, coneflower, and lemon mint blos- soms sprang up along the median of the Broadway Extension like a yellow brick road to the capital city. ,I. owns from Caddo to Claremore, Guymon to Oolagah now have wildflower campaigns of their own, raising a total of $70,000 for seed over the last four years. (The Department of Correctio~sin Granite even donated 70 pounds of inmate- grown Indian blanket seed last year.) For the DOT'S crew-who plant all the Author offive books on Oklahoma's native donated seed-these campaigns have provided a chance to bury past mistakes. phnts and mentorto many of the state's botanists, D~~yleMcCoy 5. proudest moment DOT crews now spread across the state September through November, planting came on March 20, 1986, when the Indian Mexican hat, clasping coneflowkr, Indian blanket, catchfly, purple prairie clover, blanket became the oofcialstatewildflower. It and 23 other species of hardy wildflowers. "We have 116,000 acres of green always rankled McCoy that the state should be roadside, so the scale that we have to work on makes it almost overwhelming," represerzced by mistletoe,a drabparasite. A Orr says. "But ...I think it really does something for the morale of the state, seeing movement had been afoot to replace the mistletoe, but it wasn't untilMcCoy didsome those wildflowers out there along the highway in the spring." It is the Great "plainold lobbying" (includingdistributing American Desert as Stephen Lbng never could have imagined it. gotgeous glossies of Indian blanket in the state Over the last ten years, as people have begun to rediscover Oklahoma's native capitol)that Oklahoma gained an official glories, George Goodman has been doing his own part to dispel Long's curse. state wildflower. The vote was unanimousin 'I'he grand old man of botany in Oklahoma--Goodman was one of Doyle McCoy's the Senate and nearly unanimousin the House. "Onerepresentatiuefelt bad tha~we mentors-has spent his retirement delving into the diaries of a young man named weregoing to dump the mist/etoe,"McCoy . In 1820,James was barely 23 years old, but he accompanied Long says, "buttechnicallyit's still considered the as the offical botanist of the expedition. While Long grumbled about the ticks stare's 'oflicialfloral emblem. ' " and gathered dusty anecdotes, James went about quieter work: collecting hun- dreds of species of wildflowers, counting petals, and writing long, complicated names in his diaries. 'I'he Oklahoma that he saw could hardly have differed more Getting There from the one that Long later described to the president: '"The soil is growing Oklahoma's longest running wildflower more fertile and the game is very abundant," James wrote on August 24, as the workshop takes advantage of the state's party passed through what is now Blaine County. '"Today we have killed two diversehabitats by moving to a nmsite bear, three deer, and one turkey. The number of bear and turkeys is astonish- each year. Thisyear, the worMop will be ingly great." Where Long saw a sterile, uninhabitable land, James saw dormant May .3 and 4 in Ardmore. Topics will seeds and fertile soil. Where Long saw Siberia, James saw the teeming plains. rangefrom photography to seedpropa- More than a century and a half later, Goodman and a former student of his gation;at1 Sunday,participants will named Cheryl Lawson decided they would retrace the route of the Long ex- venture into theArbuckle Mountains. For more information, call (405)521-4037. pedition with the help of James' diary-which they had found in New York's At Quartz Mountain State Park S Columbia University library. 'l'hey wanted to see what was left of the Oklahoma atlnual wi/dflowerfestiva/on Ma-y 18, that the young botanist had described. Together, Goodman and Lawson deci- hihsget a peek at the rare lavenderlong- phered the scrawled diary entries and pored over topographical maps to find hairedphlox (foundon/y at thepark). where Long and James might have stopped. They traveled over 12,000 miles in Seminun on ~ildflowerphotographyand a jeep across the prairie, ending up in some canyons that had hardly seen a human crafrs are also on the agenda. For being since 1820.'They picked the same flowers that James picked, followed the infonnatiot~,call (405)563-2238. same thin streams, and pinpointed where his party had camped on each night of Also in May, volunteenguide visiton through the WichitaMountains Wildlife its trip. Although many of the valleys and unspoiled hillsides that James passed RPfuKe in search of wildflowen. One trip have been turned into malls and golf courses, others were immediately, eerily is by foot, the other by tram. For familiar from his descriptions. And all of the plants that he named, all of them, itgormation,call (405)429-3222. still existed. Goodman and Lawson are writing a book filled with their findings- October 26 and27, the Nariee Plarrt including over 700 native plants that they have reindentified from James' notes. Society holds its statmide meeting in Hidden within it, and within the flowers James collected that still lie in the New Poteau. Thesociely also plarzs tips to the York Botanical Garden, lie hints ofa truer vision of Oklahoma than that inherited Cirnamj Sand Dunes and the Ta//grass from Long. A vision only now starting to bloom, tentatively, unpredictably, along Prairie Preseme. Tojoin the Society, highways that run where Edwin James once rode. wtice: Oklahoma Native Plant Society, Tulsa Garden Center. 2435 S. Peoria, Tulsa,OK 74114. BurkRard Bilger is associate editor of Earthwatch.

------18 Oklahoma TODAY You only get so many Perfct days in any given year, and in Oklahoma, May and June get more than their share. lke air is warn, the sunshine is golden, the grass is tendex We found four parks madefor days like these.

Johnstone Park: Indian Territory Oasis ohnstone Park in Bartlesville would 2 be notable for its trees alone, trees E with trunks big enough to hide be- J hind, ancient ash mixed with walnut and towering red oaks. Some have stood along the muddy banks of the Caney River for bet- ter than a century. History is rooted in the park as well, begin- ning with the wooden oil derrick that stands along the Cherokee Street entrance to the park. Bartlesville was born on this very spot. In hindsight, it's ironic that the town was named for Jacob Bartles, a trader who settled along the Caney River in Indian Territoryin the CtZy WOTKtTS ~UVtLitUTtU UUZ JWW-YCU7-Uitt JlUmyJ I71 JUll713lU7ZC rU7K fm process. 1870s. Bartles bought a grist mill and built a 0 it2 Bart/eswi//e,digingup more than a horseshoes in the store on the north bank, and then watched across the river as a former employee, William Delaware. When Bartlesville was incorporated, the Johnstone, built a more successful store on the op- family donated river bottomland for the park. posite bank. After Johnstone and partner George Bartlesville started in the 1940s to collect remem- Keeler struck oil nearby in 1897, Bartles put his store brances of the past in the park: a reproduction of the and house on logs and dragged them four miles to the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 wooden derrick was built on north to start another town, which he named Dewey. the site of the original well, a 1903 Santa Fe freight (It took Bartles a year to make the move; his store train locomotive was installed, and a tiny Santa Fe stayed open the entire time.) station was moved into the park. The oil well, named after Johnstone's daughter Another 1940s' addition, a "Kiddie Park," is open Nellie, was the first commercial well in Indian Ter- every summer evening from 7:00 to 930 p.m. Most ritory. The land around the well was eventually al- rides are still a dime. The Bartlesville Art Guild has lotted to Nellie Johnstone, whose mother was a an exhibit building in the south end of the park, near

May-June 1991 19 softball diamonds and tennis courts. Pathfinder Parkway, a 13-mile walking, jogging, and bicycling path, begins in the park and follows the river to the east. Park benches sprout regularly along the path for those who want to simply sit and watch the river roll by. One view is particularly noteworthy. From a pavilion on the riverbank, picnickers can look across and see remnants of the mill brickwork of Johnstone's old rival, Jake Bartles. -Barbara Palmer Johnsfone Park is on the north end of Cherokee Avenue, which runs north andsouth in downtown Bartlmille. The Chemkee Street Bridge crosses the CanqRiver; the park entrance isjust to the west. Victorian Pastimes at Mineral Wells Park limpsed through the green haze of cottonwoods, the arched Victorian pavilion in Guthrie's Min- eral Wells Park has a Rip Van Winkle quality, as G if it has been sleeping for a hundred years. Well, almost. Its exact construction date is unknown, but the pavilion appears in photographs taken as early as 1900. Its charming architecture-all latticework, lapboard siding, and a weary wooden floor-brings to mind hand-cranked ice cream and lemonade. A marker south of the pavilion claims that Mineral Wells [prrf:.,. . . ::II-:y'I. ",;; is the state's most historic park. First called Island Park because Cottonwood Creek surrounded it on three sides, a I Mineral Wells Park was once a social center of Guthrie: parade made its way there to celebrate the inauguration of WilliamsJennings Bryan probablyspokehereatthepmilion. Oklahoma's first governor, Charles Haskell, with free bar- Oklahoma'sfirstgovemor Charles Haske/ld@nte[v did. becue and more speeches. The parade entered the park from Second Street, at the time the sole entrance. The official ofHarrison AvenueandSecondStreetin downtown Guthrie; entrance is now out on State Highway 77, but the ten oron Highway 77,justnort/roftheoldwatemorRsattheedge minutes it takes to drive through town to the old entrance of town. is well spent. The route passes the Capital Publishing Museum, the Blue Bell saloon, and other Guthrie landmarks. Way Park: A Hometown Hollow In 1919, the park's name was changed to Mineral Wells bwn in the hollow that is Drumright's pretty Park when mineral springs were discovered underneath its little Way Park, it's easy to see why first-time green lawn. A sandstone cairn was added, where taking visitors often go away whispering about its draughts of mineral water was fashionable. Thewater turned D sweet, simple beauty. But for locals, the out to have only middling medicinal qualities, and the park's charm is the memories it holds. popularity of the springs declined. Once Way Park was the center of Drumright social There are horseshoe pits at the park, simple playground life. During the Great Depression, free programs at the equipment, and a low water dam that crosses the Cotton- park's WPA-built amphitheater were the only "night on wood to a crumbling little gazebo, where ladies once gath- the town" people could afford. In 1934, the late Lou ered. The gazebo is one sign that Mineral Wells Park hasn't Allard, who the community sent to the state legislature remained as unchanged as it seems. The park isn't a place for 25 years, and the late Dr. Dale Warner decided to to go after dark. hold weekly summer programs. Allard was master of Remnants of a Shakespeare Garden add to an aura of faded ceremonies and his wife Wilma, who still lives a few glory. Early in this century, a movement swept the nation's blocks from the park, was stage manager. garden clubs to plant formal English tea gardens in tribute Folks came from miles around for the eight o'clock to William Shakespeare. Most of the plants deemed suitable showtime. Under the stars, folks heard big bands or local to the scheme were too delicate for Oklahoma's hot sum- comedians such as Charlie "Bullfrog" Allers, whose mers. An inoperative sundial, teetering birdbaths, and a barnyard imitations stole the show. Fernette Ashwell, peaceful trellis are all that's left. who had once danced in the Ziegfeld Follies, arranged -Barbara Palmer the dance debuts of Drumright's would-be ballerinas. EnterMineral WehPark three blocks south of the intersection Much of the talent was homegrown, but some acts were

Oklahoma TODAY professional, brought in by oil companies and others. The weekly shows were suspended during World War 11, but resumed after the war and lasted into the late 1950s, when, Mrs.Allard explains, television and air conditioning de- feated them. "That last show was really a sad time," adds resident Jimmie Cook, "It was a

little like 'The Last Picture Show.' " Friends still gather at Way Park to make memories-the city Easter egg hunt is held here, as are sunrise church services and class reunions. As for those just passin' through, the park remains an idyllic spot in which to

forget-. your worries for a while. -Susan Witt I WoodwardPark's 15,000adeaplants signs/ the beginning of spring; Way Park is On Broadway' Drumrkhr's iris, mse, ondhedgardens b@n b/oomi~ginMay andJune. bounded 4 Morrow and Cimarron streets. The fomaientrance, markedby astone arch, is on 3e nodside of State ~i~hw&3. I At that time, some Tulsans were less than enthu- siastic about the possibilities offered by Helen Woodward Park's Nooks and Crannies Woodward's wilderness. Too far out of town, said agnificent old trees make Woodward Park some. Accessible only by wagon trail, said others. a restful place, with plenty of places for Today the city fathers' wisdom is evident. youngsters to play hide 'n seek. Many of Somewhere on these glorious grounds is the per- the huge black oaks, post oaks, and hicko- fect place to plant a simple picnic hamper, a home- ries have grown here since 1909, when the city con- made quilt, and a jug of mom's fresh lemonade. demned what was then known as Perryman's Pasture Somewhere in this park is also the perfect place for with the notion of turning its 44 acres into a city park. a grand wedding, an Easter family portrait, or a mo- ment of meditation. In fact, it's the eclectic mix of id 1 woodsy walkways and sunken gardens that endears .I Woodward Park to Tulsans. ,. 2 More than any other park in Oklahoma, Woodward I;P Park manages to be all things to all people. It is home to formal gardens, including the Tulsa Municipal Rose Garden with its 9,000 rosebushes, six terraces, symmetrical walkways, fountains, reflecting pools, , and shaped junipers. It is privy to secluded limestone 1 paths that wind through woodsy azalea gardens. In the spring, its ridge is covered with the blooms of 15,000 azalea bushes, dogwoods, redbuds, tulips, and daffodils. Tulsa garden clubs care for an herb garden, iris, orchids, cactus, and an English knot garden within the park's boundaries. And the Tulsa Garden Cen- ter maintains a conservatory and an arboretum with shady trails and benches. The park is also a refuge for an ornate art deco monument to Shakespeare, rock gardens, and bronze statues of a nymph and Pan. Yet, for all these things sown by man, there remains an allure to Woodward Park that is nature's alone. And, its greatest draw. -Susan Witt DncmrightI residents say they are accustomed to spotting cars Woodward Park is bounded on the nod by S. 21st Way with out-of-statetags at Park. It's hara'to resist hepark's adon by Avenue in Tulsa. spreading boa@ andcoolpockets of shade. street bria OKLAHOMA LiLZSMEN EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY.

Photographs by David Fitzgerald

hree years ago, David Fitzgerald bridge by which tribal tradition will pass became enamored with the idea to the next generation. "The simplest way of photographing American In- to keep the fires strong," observes Sac N dians in their tribal regalia. The Fox elder Ronnie Harris of Stroud, "is to Oklahoma City photographer had heard keep within the sound of the drums." one's tribe could be identified by the It is a philosophy these elders live by. regalia he Harris' whole wore, but he I family dances, also knew dis- so does Tso- tinctions were tigh's. Nine out blurring-to of Paul Rough- the dismay of I face's ten chil- tribal elders. dren dance, and In June of though the 1988,he set up Ponca elder a temporary fears the lan- studio at Red guage of his Earth, uncer- small tribe will tain about how '~rahamPrimeaux, a Pawnee--Siouxfrom Norman, die with h is he' d be re- spins in his malefancy dance regalia. generation, he ceived by the sees his child- thousands of Indians who descend on ren's dancing as evidence that much of his downtown Oklahoma City for the annual tribe's traditions will endure. gathering. The response: open arms. "A lot of people get away from the In- Fitzgerald wasn't the only one worried dian way," adds Kiowa full-blood Hubert about recording tribal details for the next Tsotigh, "and it's a shame. We try to teach generation. Says Kiowa full-blood our children both ways. We tell them Phattie Tsotigh of Del City, "I get tired 'don't forget you live in two worlds now, of beading costumes and it's hard on the but still try to remember where you come eyes, but I still try to do it because I want from.' We went to a dance the other night. my children to keep up the traditions. It And they all danced. They came home and may soon be all gone if someone doesn't the next day they went to school. They're keep them up." living in both worlds and it makes me Tsotigh isn't alone in believing that proud." dance and dance regalia may well be the Jeanne M. Devlin

22 Oklahoma TODAY

.-I .-I traditions

'at Mooreps

g #ernin my oCa

wear the porcu quill headdress

Pawnee. The been very imp0 in my tribe, but everyone could carry it. In the o days, the Pawne didn't carry any-

It was all sacred to

AND THE By Joel Everett OF Photography by Scott Andersen ART he sun crept up warm and ominously pallid through the cottonwoods and oaks on the humid banks of Lake Hudson. I packed my tent and gear away in my BICYCLE seabag, and slowly walked my bike to the highway leading out of Salina. The routine was familiar. A gnawing ache crept into my back as I settled my raw tailbone onto the saddle. Strapping my feet into the now familiar kamikaze TOURING position, I peered over the handlebars at heat waves rising off the tarmac. It was instinct. The pain meant little. It would come and go during the day like a bad memory, and there would be One man finds the backsides of hills to make it go away altogether. The bicycle felt like home, and the hills appeared unexplored himself on the on the horizon. My odometer would soon read 520 miles as the seventh and last day of Freewheel '90 rolled under the bike. country's second Thinking back on the week, memories tumbled together: a soft seat in Lost City, a cold apple in Albion, white sweat oldest bicycle stains on the back of black shorts, like sweat on the bill of a farmer's cap. Over two thousand cyclists made the ride tour-the -Tulsa from Marietta to Noel, Missouri. There was anguish and poignancy along the way, and pain and laughter. Like a Worlds Freewheel family reunion, it was a place you'd love to hate to go again. Leaving Clayton on Day Four, Free Wheel bicyclists face a big climbfirst thing in the morning. Hills and the temperature would soar still higher.

May-June 1991 Day One: slope. (My knee was strained in the Refreshed, I made my way slowly to First Timers' Blues and The Sweet- process, and it would be four days be- Sulphur, where we would camp for the est Water in the State fore the aching subsided.) night, and I got a taste of the unex- y watchface was not yet At the top of the rocky summit, past, pected solitude the afternoons would readable as the first riders the observation point, the sight of a bring. Pedaling by the Boss Bar in crept through zippered giant S-curve-this time going down- Davis, the parking lot standing full of hatches of tents, like hill-brought a smile to my face as chopped Harley-Davidsons, there was spacewalkers exploring weightlessness. sweat evaporated in the wind and pain only one rider visible in any direction,

There is no mass start on the annual i.L-: - $-..- *- Freewheel, just an ever increasing rumble as tents float to the ground and riders of all description cram seven days' worth of clothing, toiletries, bed- ding, and tents into their seabags and head out. This year, the town they left behind was ~arieita.I joined a wispy thread of riders that stretched ahead like a human duck migration. The rid- ers were wall-eyed and silent as they anticipated the day's journey. It is hard to believe 2,000 bicycles populated this year's Freewheel. Un- til amassed again at nightfall, it was entirely possible for a rider to believe he was out with a group of friends riding at about the same pace. The only sign to the contrary was the steady rhythm of passing riders and them passing you. Conversations came and went, and names were not a necessity. At midmorning, pedaling between Lake Murray and Gene Autry, Deborah Crane came riding through a dusty intersection off a side road and said to nobody in particular, "Relief is just a dirt road away." A veteran /Freewheeler, Deborah is vice-presi- dent of the Tulsa Bicycle Club, and so I took her announcement as gospel. We talked and pedaled, until ~eborah'took off in the direction of a duck call (a sig- nal her son was trying to find her), and I rode along in silence again. By one-thirty, the sun was at its ze- and tiredness swept away. Turner Falls a lone cyclist half a mile or so behind nith. The road tar had wrinkled from was at the base of the hill, and riders riding a wavering silver tunnel of the heat and it stuck to the thin bicycle poured through the checkpoint, paid highway. tires. The Arbuckle Mountains loomed their dollars, and left their bicycles to ahead like hell's own gate, as I labored wade and sit in the cool, rocky stream. Day Two: with other riders up this freeway of fire I met a middle-aged couple from Here Comes The Sun ...Again. and into the hills. Many riders stopped Houston who were also on the eaving Sulphur in the morning, to rest under trees or at the sag vehicles Freewheel. As I swam away, they thoughts came about the "why" parked on the long incline into the clambered up a mist-covered boulder of this ride. Over five hundred mountains. But my ego got the best of under the falls, and dove into the clear Lmiles of bicycling in the middle me, and I strained up the simmering waters like otters. of the summer? I knew my own rea-

30 Oklahoma TODAY sons. Freedom, escape, adventure. As- this ride you wonder about. "Armadillos suffer from a false sense pects of life that a salary can't give and Such thoughts took me twenty-five of security." This was in my notes at mostly never offers: The continual miles farther down the highway, this point in the ride as gruesome en- rolling of the silver spokes as they shine through the small community of counters with these lanceless knights of hypnotically in the sun; scenes nor- Reagan and to a splintered wooden the highways increased. Armadillo mally blurred by the speed of a car bridge under which the Blue River ran jokes would be a barometer of attitudes window zooming in close; barrow in a deep, shadowy gully. Several and the butt of many jokes in the long, ditches revealing stands of native grass thirtyish riders were sitting in the clear hot days ahead.

"Oasis" promised booths where local people sold grilled hamburgers, spa- ghetti, salads, fruits, and cookies; its atmosphere was not unlike a church social. The man behind the operation was Richard Bennett, a kinetic flash of energy from Tulsa who got the idea for the Oasis after riding in a Freewheel. I did not interview Richard. If you sit long at the Oasis, chances are he'll in- terview you. He worked the crowd like a rainmaker in a ten-year drought. "Yesterday," Richard shouted, "I do- nated all the money I made from the Oasis to that little Methodist Church in Springer." There were taunts of "Sure, Richard" and guffaws from the crowd. "No," Richard countered, "I am laying up goods in Heaven by doing good deeds here on earth, and someday I'll have my own Oasis to go to in Heaven." His voice droned on nonstop. Sprawled under a shady oak with a handful of cookies, my mind dulled by forty miles of hot road and bloated armadillos, I found myself wishing he would talk about running water or an icy stream- bed. J I left Richard's shade behind and moved on down the road. If possible, A? Ithe sun was hotter still. Cattle were up Freewheel offen riden a /eisure/y look at Americana, Oklahoma-sole. Here W.T.Hollandand to their backs in stock ponds, and buz- JuniorRogenstudyamuralofarodeobu//paintedonthesideofastoreinCoalgate.Afm zardscircledanew-mownhayfield. miles out of town, biken stoppedat Olney, where Amish bahsoldcoflee and buns. That night we camped at the Donald Mike Mayer football field in Coalgate, and wildflowers; and muddy streams water, laughing, and throwing palmfuls a resilient community that prior to the gurgling under bridges and smelling of of raindrops over each other's heads. Depression of the 1930s was the center decay and the cycles of life. On a bike They looked like executives who grind of a thriving coal industry. This past in Oklahoma in June, the margins of their teeth in their sleep and fight with year a fire left much of its downtown a Johnson grass curl with the heat, like a their spouses over the remote control. mass of charred bricks. But there were Dead Sea scroll. Trees are tall. Wind is My questions were abated. It was all as no bitter faces among the Coalgate hot. And there are more than 2,000 simple and basic as a ball bearing roll- residents who joined the cyclists to hear people whose motives for coming on ing downhill: map, bicycle, highway. a fiddling contest where usually foot-

May-June 1991 ball teams duel. A group of three eld- community was building it stick by mind began to clear. It was morning. erly ladies stood next to me listening, stanchion,'much of the lumber cut from theireyesshininglikegems.Oneofthe the surrounding hills. A portable Day Four: ladies was patting her foot; the others lumbermill sat in a hill of sawdust be- If You Can't Be Miserable, Why Be were mouthing the words of the song side the building, and McCormick Out Here?and Catching the Big Five-Oh. in silent bliss. The strains of the fid- pointed to the carpenter kneeling dlers carried over the tent tops in the against a vertical joist, a smile showing t was Wednesday as U.S. 271 took camping area as sleep came. through his long, frazzled beard. The the ride east Past the pine-covered carpenter was introduced, and he told Potato Hills near Kiamichi. Riding Day Three: of a cold stream a mile down the road. I became more laborious as the road The Paradox of the Tilting Horizon Riding a Freewheel alone, solitude approached the foot hills of Winding and Feeding the Fire. is a constant companion, especially in Stair Mountain. Elderly gentlemen sat he terrain, if not the weather, the long afternoons. Standing in the in a sedate row in front of the Talihina was to change today. It was a cold, flowing mountain stream the car- Post office, chatting and enjoying the sixty-mile ride from Coalgate to penter had told me about, I couldn't impromptu parade of bicyclers passing T Clayton due east. Mid-morning, shake the feeling that the lines be- through town. after passing through Stringtown, a tween nature and art were blurring; it Five miles outside the city limits, onetime coach stop on the Missouri to was a feeling of being in tune with riders began to scale Winding Stair Texas trail, the terrain changed to where you are, and the serenity that Mountain. In the Process, cyclists got larger, sharper hills and streams run- comes from the purpose of motion, and a feel for how it must have felt to be an ning along the valley floors. The trees absolutely nothing else. The stream Oklahoma prisoner in 1919 digging a were getting taller, and the road was was hard to leave, but the smooth new bed forthis road- The ascent left many slightly rolling. The only way to tell the road to Sardis Lake stretched ahead. riders on foot. One father physically road was in fact climbing was by the That evening in camp, over a heaped pushed his son UP the mountain, by sheer force of your legs against the plate of barbecue beef, Ron Harper, a riding beside the child with a hand on pedals. Confused riders complained of schoolteacher from New Mexico, in- his back. For many of the cyclists, this fatigue and a sudden energy drain. It troduced himself. In his thirties, stout would be the hardest segment of the was an optical illusion that lasted for and bearded, Harper was a habitual ride- I doggedly fell in Pace with two miles along the rough, gravelled road. cutup. We discussed the possibilities of other riders who were also gasping in Indian Nation Turnpike signaled the armadillo fishing, settled on the idea of the close, boiling air. end of the rough Stringtown Road, and stringing chicken wire alonga highway, "This'll make You earn Your keep," as bicycles passed underneath the with openings at one-mile intervals, said one of the riders, a middle-aged highway, kids from the sag wagons then debated the merits of insect or man who managed to smile spiritedly stood along the roadway with water carrion lures (whichever brought the as heclimbed. bottles, spraying down the hot, ill- armadillos out on the road in the first "Wouldn't want You to Come out tempered riders. place). We hooted at variations on this here and make You think biking's In the afternoon, the trees turned theme. The solitude and exhaustion easy," countered the other guy. from hardwood to stands of pine as the were taking their toll. "It's a bugger of a hill," I commented miles clicked by. It was another hot By nine-forty that evening, the camp ba~eengasps. afternoon, and the buzzingof cicadas in was quiet. Sizzling quiet. Sleep was a We all shut UP as another curve nearby trees sounded like highline dreamless coma-like affair that com- straightened out and the mountain rose wires at a transformer station. The road, menced ten minutes after laying down, once more into the pines. We shared a recently completed by the Corps of only to end a few seconds later when knowinglookandthemiddle-agedgu~ Engineers, was new and smooth, and the first zip of a tent zipper broke the lookedresolutel~uptheroadashesaid, the traveling was easy compared to the silence like the yipping of a very small, ''If YOU can't be miserable, why be out morning's. A sandwich sign on a valley obnoxious dog. Achilling thought came here?" road lured riders off the main route, to mind: Was it morning or was it night? Fittingly, lunch was at the top of the depositing them at a work-in-progress. The air was much cooler, almost tepid, mountain. Weary riders staked out At the stop, riders sat at folding which hinted of early morning. Raising available shade, as if it were beachfront tables, their elbows resting in the sun. my weary head to peer through the property. Then rested, they collected A man named McCormick informed slack mosquito netting, I saw a dull the payoff. me the rough-hewn building was glow the color of weak coffee spread- The back side of Winding Stair Adel's community center, a place for ing over the eastern horizon. Holding Mountain was an ear-popping descent quilting bees and get-togethers. The one eye open with two fingers, my around curves and past deep ~hasmsof

32 Oklahoma TODAY mountain filled with pine trees. The counties around. Here in eastern Day Five: ride was steep and long, and speeding Oklahoma, it was as common as pine Halcyon Days and the ulnvolun- bicyclers glanced anxiously at bicycle trees and hills. The twenty miles to tary Dismount" Argument computers mounted on their handle- Poteau seemed easier. bars as they tried to gage their speed. In camp that evening near the hursday was the longest leg of Many riders would reach fifty miles per Poteau football field, I ran into the the ride. Eighty-two miles, and hour, or the "Big Five-Oh," as I over- school teacher from New Mexico T the way the miles had been I playing chernselves out, you could tack five miles onto that just to cover the map variance. The morning was cool, however, and spirits were high. Riders had grown almost accus- tomed to the heat and some physical discomfort. Poteau marked a turning point for terrain as we headed north and west to Vian. We were out of the tall pine hills and into rolling pastures. Outside of Panama, Maximillian sunflowers tow- ered in yellow brilliance in ditches, and among them sat the New Mexico school teacher with a flat tire. After a sag crew fixed Ron Harper up, I ped- aled with him down the pothole- plagued road into a small town and right up to a lemonade stand in front of a white-framed Assembly of God church. "How many more miles of.bad road Mernben of the Tulsa Bicvc/e Club treat Duane Blankenshia and Audm Brown to a have we got?" I asked. squirt at tiefinish line. fie pair was one of a handful to ;de a tandemdbike. "That's the worst," promised one of the girls working the stand. heard it called by a group of high school again. Ron Harper said I needed to Chatting with the girls as we finished guys. meet Jeff Hurst, a young Tulsan who our lemonade, I decided to hazard a That afternoon, a sign advertising had been reaching each day's camp by guess: "This is Keota?" cold pop lured me off the highway to noon. As we talked, Ron spotted Jeff "This is Bokoshe," cried the girls in the tiny community of Summerfield. and yelled at him to come over. Jeff unison. Sitting on a wooden bench in front of turned out to be of medium build, with "I was being optimistic," I said qui- the country grocery store drinking my curly blond hair, and a pleasant smile. etly. pop, a pair of high school girls pulled up He didn't appear overly athletic. With "You were being optimistic," Ron in a pickup. They were curious about Ron's prompting, he explained the se- said reproachfully, dismayed by my the ride. As we talked they mentioned cret of his technique: He broke camp map reading. "By about ten miles." a swimming hole south of Summer- a little after four each morning. "So Back on the highway on a county field, and though it was out of the way, you're one of the guys they refer to as road north of Bokoshe, our conversa- I pedaled alone toward it in the stag- 'animals."' tion turned to what to do in the event nant heat, anxious to find a place to cool "No, this is my first Freewheel," of an "involuntary dismount." Ac- off. said Jeff. "Uh, I don't even know cording to current wisdom, Ron said The pale green waters of Holson nothin' about bikes, just, you know, the proper way to handle being thrown Creek running under the road told me like I was tellin' (Ron), I borrowed this from your bike was to land on your I'd arrived. Floating on my back in the I bike. I don't even ride bikes." head and shoulders, thus saving your cool water, my thoughts went to west- I felt a familiar need to despise this elbows. We discussed the merits of ern Oklahoma where I was raised, and morning person, but I found it a hard various alternatives. Eventually Ron how this much water in one place attitude to maintain in the face of surmised, "The person who coined would have drawn people from several someone as unaffected as Jeff. (the term involuntary dismount) also

- - May-June 1991 worked for the government at one asphalt below. The hills in the area prom night, filtered through the time." I looked over at Ron to see if he were not long in duration, but their canopy. The remaining twenty miles to was serious. It was hard to tell. Ron steep ascents had many people on foot. Salina clicked by with small talk and continued, "He told soldiers to beware Equipment was taking a beating. My joking. of bombs because they could 'rapidly gears were out of sync, a cleat was dan- It was Friday night in the last camp, disassemble.' " gling from one shoe, and a chain and I was reminded that early in the The miles rolled by with easy ban- slipped its sprockets and jammed at week Deborah Crane of the Tulsa Bi- tering. As the sun fell towards the one point. cycle Club had advised me if there treeline, the River rolled under Relief appeared in the form of two were to be any parties during the U.S. 64. An Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper passed me cruising slowly, his yellow lights flashing and top40 music flowing from his outside speakers. The Union Pacific Railroad's buttressed bridge paralleled the asphalt in rusting elegance, and the patrolman's music faded as we neared the fmish of the longest day.

A ~ree~heelTraining Tip

I day's end, the mercury would pop through the hundred degree gra- I dient, once again. My notes from Fri- day, after several miles of hills in the

hills we crossed that morning. Bihtook a rare wrong turn near Lake Murray on Day One. BilZ CarmichaeZfrom Alabama ~ ~ into F~~~~ib~~~,~ the~ took a spin~ while companions~ huddled withd a map. i ~ ~ group encountered the rewarding mile- long downslope of S.H. 1. Riders low-water crossings, where cyclists Freewheel, it would be the last night. seemed to burst from the sky as they wallowed like livestock. Back on the The evening was calm along the shores raced down the tree-lined highway. road, if there was shade falling over the of Lake Hudson save for a group of After lunch, just north of Hulbert, roadbed, there were people standing on young guys who had built a large bon- the week's wear and tear began to it, drinking water from their bottles or fire in the sand. Their rock'n'roll music show. St. John's Hospital of Tulsa had squirting it over their heads. At Lost filtered clearly back to camp, and the a medical RV on the road and it passed City (little more than an open air pa- music carried on until after midnight, riders at regular intervals. There was no vilion set in a small, grassy meadow) when sleep finally came. Every once in breeze on the narrow road. Heat waves tired riders ate cookies, sipped drinks, a while, back in the main camp, you lifted off the pavement and sweat and lounged in salvaged movie seats could hear an anguished and despair- poured into the eyes and dripped from with deep, soft padding. A breeze, like ing cry ring out in the night:"SHUT the chin, only to evaporate as it hit the the one that blew through the gym on UP." They might as well have been

Oklahoma TODAY throwing rocks at the moon. ers blowing in the breeze. who he or she is. With fourteen miles left in the ride, ,I.hen again, maybe a lot of the road turned abruptly north along Freewheel is just ignoring the pain, Durrurus UK~DOXC~~S and A Fina the Arkansas border. The wind blew humming a tune, and counting dead "Aloha" from behind now, and the end was so animals. I just don't know. Thinking t was Saturday, and the final day o near you could almost smell it. back. it wasn't all fun. But there were Freewheel '90. We'd go througl It was at this point that shadows be- moments of crystalline intensity in the three states to get to the finish line gan crossing the highway in front of me. oddest places when time and place and IOklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri rI7hey appeared as large as an icebox history came together at one point for and as nimble as a fencer. 'I'hey a brief space and you moved through swooped at incredible speeds, dwarfing it and with it, like the end of the par- my meager progress, and I suddenly allel lines that Ken Kesey searched for felt like the lumbering armadillo must on a rocky beach in hlexico. And for feel. Despite the sweat in my eyes, the two dollars, you can't ask for much grizzled heads of the buzzards were more than that. unn~istakable.Drawn by the activity on Joe/ Ecerett is a iMuskogee free-/utzce the road, they were to leave disap- writer. This is hisfi.st ortichfot. Okla- pointed. But as this reminder of mor- homa 'Today. Scott Anderse~zof ,flWidw~st tality circled overhead, I, like the other City p/atzs to ride i,r free Ib2ee/ '91. riders, braced my pedals and pushed harder towards the finish line. The first sign came in the steady I, stream of oncoming cars packed with bicycles and headed back to Oklahoma. Thefinish appeared shortly, thereafter, marked by a wide, cool creek with paddleboats and waving youngsters. At 'l2e 461)-tderoute of FrerI.Vher/ '9I the high school in Noel, Missouri, rid- be@s this yeat- oti Sut~day.June 9. iu ers sat on their seabags waiting for the Paris. 7i.x~~.teii miles ucruss the bordrr. bus that would take them back to'l'ulsa Bikers ail/ stq o~'e17iightit] A tltlrts. or for family and friends. Others la/ihitnl. MrAlester, Hrtiryetta. c~tid splashed in the spray of a fire hydrant Hotniri-y. 72r r-inr zitrcils douvi turned on by local firemen to cool off Saturday. JUIIP15, iti Sedut~,Katis(~s. the finishers. Kiu'ers can pid up (01.dwp out o/j Mostly, however, it was a personal thr t~drat UII~pott~t, s~w Lih/..v Sfulfrr. ending. A slap on a back. A shout of of 'l'he 'l'ulsa World,a hike tour spatiso,: Bikers (utt~pat sctoo/~ards,ci~ laughter. And, yes, also a strange, hol- parks. or ui/~~wherethe host toww cutifit low silence. the~trr.I,ast year: t/eur/y .j.Od~)bikers uond "Hey, see you next year." supper/ peop/e made the trip. I heard the words behind me and Iti its 14th pear. ttir Frerll.'/ree/tour Although it was the shortest day on thc turned to see a doctor I'd met on the has /qisti((~doa'ti to u s~ietiw. ride, it would not be the easiest. But thc second day of the ride. Surprisingly. he "Sag a~agotis"/i///oa~hehitid the bikers to promised land was in sight an( had just commented on something I pick up at01 riders who nedu /$. Host thoughts turned easily to indoor show hadn't even considered. touw mukt surr food is ut~ui/uh/rfor ers and air conditioning, crisp sheet "Yeah," I answered, waving. "See punhusr; cieeii groups ofit/ prepare and downy pillows. you next year." spaghetti suppeu or other cclrbob~~drate- ii~tetisivefNre.A n~edirule-atist(Iffed An ox-eye daisy waved from thc Nothing is permanent in America. It ayith doctors orid tiursrs tuukes the trip rocky ditches along the smooth jet is our sense of transience and curiosity atidn semi-truif trai/er loads up bikrrs ' black roadway, and the name of thi that always takes us one .hill beyond. tet~tsatid lugage eu(slr ~i~ort/it~gatid year's Freewheel came to mind, "l'hc Most people are familiar with that de/icetx it to the nr.vt cuttip.~ite. Lazy, Hazy, Crazy, Daisy Summer.' spirit, whether or not they talk out loud Hegistrutionfor the tour is $2. hr 'l'he ride was named for the town o about it. Traveling the backroads of mow it~ormutiw~,(TI// Stalter at (918) Daisy, Oklahoma, but its spirit seemec Oklahoma, one can reach through the 581-8300 or a,r.itu: fierib%&,/ '91. p.0. to be personified in these small flow stillness of time and remind himself of Box /77L), 7ir/.w. OK 741~12.

May-June 1991 WITH RED CALLAWAY The father Oklahoma bicycling By Terry Phelps Photography by Scott Andersen Red logs 8,000miles a year on his bicycle-more than some folks dtiwe. He &n 't raced much, but when he dihhe won the 55-plus age gmup state championshipand took second at nationalsfor the 60-plus group.

s the pack of bicyclists neared the end of the 110-mile "Like when you're pulling at the front of the pack and he's ride from Oklahoma City to Blackwell one day, they drafting behind you, he'll say, 'Man, you're doing sogood up Anoticed a lone figure gaining on them-despite their there' or 'You're so steady and easy to follow.' You'd ride 25-mile-per-hour clip. The cyclists tried to widen the gap, yourself into the ground for him." but as they turned into the final 10-mile stretch, the lone Because pulling requires as much as 30 percent more figure, now obviously almost twice the age of anyone in the energy than drafting, riders pull in shifts. Red Callaway has group, caught them. "Red, you're unbelievable," someone been known to wear out two or three riders trying to pull said. "I can't believe you caught us." beside him. Harry Masch, a state bicycling champion, puts "I had to before you turned into that crosswind so I could it this way: "You're pushing as hard as you can, barely ride in your draft," Red Callaway, the 65-year-old founder of hanging on, when you look up and see this white-haired (it's the Oklahoma Bicycle Society, the state's largest bicycling not red any more) old man pulling in front of you, barely organization, said modestly. breaking a sweat, making it look easy. And you think, 'No It was classic Callaway, and one of countless stories told way am I going to drop off.' " about the man many call the father of Oklahoma bicycling. What pushes Red? "The sheer delight and personal sat- Charles Gray tells a story about a grueling tour in the New isfaction of achieving," he says. Mexico mountains last year when one Oklahoman slipped It's a delight he likes to share. On a tour in Colorado last off the back of the pack, too spent to hang on. "Red dropped year, one rider was having trouble getting up a mountain, so back and gave him a prune, somewater, and encouragement. Red carried her saddlebags. "Even with that extra 20-25 Within a few minutes, Charley was rejuvenated and back pounds," recalls Dorothy Wilson, who was also struggling with the group. that ride, "he would give me a little push once in awhile." "Red has a way of getting people to do their best," says Red and the two women finally pulled in after dark, six Gray,who has competed in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. hours or so after everyone else had finished the 104-mile

Oklahoma TODAY climb from Montrose (elev. 6,400 ft.) to Club, and an invitational tour which ' Lake City (elev. 8,700 ft.) But they has included trips to Colorado, Vir- A Compendium were in good spirits. ginia, Nova Scotia, and France. He And Miles to GO... regularly juggles four or five events at of Cycl~ngEvents E~~~~~~~~~l callaway in a time. Few realize that Callaway may , Loveland, Colorado, Red grew up 500 miles just to set up a century icyclists are social animals-some Bin D~~~~~where he delivered ride-finding workable routes, setting 3more social, some more animal than newspapers on a bicycle. 16 he ped- up water stops, coordinating with others. Consequently, as bicycling has sled ten miles daily to his airport job as county commissioners, property own- grown more popular, the number of a lineboy, washing, fueling, and ers, and law enforcement. "One of his group rides has increased dramatically: ingplanes. ~l was his~ first love,i and~ favorite~ lines," says Wilson, "is 'there's everything from breakfast rides and he became a naval aviator at 8, flying no limit to what you can do if you don't multi-day tours to endurance events transports and patrol planes. care who gets the credit,' and Red and races for beginners. doesn't care who gets the credit." Below, a schedule of summer tours ~f~~~15 years in the N~~~ he joined the ~ ~~ d ~A~~~~~~ ias ~a pro-~ ~ Gray~l says hei once drafted~ Callaway~ and races-some requiring entry fees, cedures specialist. H~ moved to okla- to work with the Oklahoma Triathlon others offering t-shirts,medals,or prize homa city in 1963 and started bicy- Association, even though Red is not a money. Many provide choices of dis- cling around the neighborhood with member nor a triathlete "because I tance; some require a USCF license. friends. Every Sunday would be a "big wanted the best." MAY ride" of seven or eight miles. Eventu- The lronbutt Tuha Wor/dMaple Ridge Criterium, ally, Red coaxed everyone into a 13- ed's pet project is the Ironbutt Tulsa, May 1, (918) 581-8300 mile trip around Lake Hefner. "We he organized in 1987. Riders Oklahoma City University Chief had trained for two years for that ride," R log as many miles as possible Classic, OKC, May 4, (405) 521-5304 quips Red. around Lake Draper in 24 hours, re- American Lung Association Huff & Puff, Lawton, May 4, (405) 524-8471 There's NO Limit cording laps by depositing tokens (an im~rovementOvertonguede~ressors) Pedalers Spring Century, Bartlesville, n 1973 Red organized the Greater May 4, (918) 661-4479 oklahoma city centuryR~~, hand- into a canister. Twenty-five cyclists made the inaugural ride. In 1990 the World Neighbors Family Fun Ride, Idelivering 25 notices to bike shops May 4, OKC, (405) 946-3333 from Norman to Stillwater and dispers- "umber masochistshad grown to92 from several states, and 23 others were T-Town Trek, Tulsa, May 5, 8) ing 5,000 newsletters to riders, asking 581-8300 them to become charter members of turned away. This year, Callaway will launch the Tinbutt as a qualifying Tulsa Wor/d Tulsa Cup Criterium, the Oklahoma Bicycle Society. Tulsa, May 18, (918) 581-8300 Encouraged by the 135 riders who event for the Ironbutt- For him, the Ironbutt remains the Freewheel Graduation Ride, Tulsa, paid $2.50 to ride the century, ~~d May 18, (918) 587-8619 organized the 1974 Grand Tour. Fif- endurance challenge- He the for the age Spring Festival of Bicyclin~.Tulsa, teen riders joined the tour from Stars May 19, (918) 596-5990 and Stripes Park by ~~k~ ~ ~ group:f 338 miles.~ Last~ year, following~ , a July 4th cycling accident in Cola- Tulsa Bicycle Club Spring Cer y, around Lake Thunderbird and the Tulsa, May 26, (918) 587-8619 airport, and back. ~h~ ~~~~d T ~ rado,~ ~he was, confined to directing the event. Othenvise, friends say, he would Fred Webber Memorial Day Ride, now a nine-day scenic 500-p1us-mile Shawnee, May 26, (405) 275-4980 rideeach June, rolls through Oklahoma have pushed the Ironbutt Oldtimers' record over 400 miles-an incredible JUNE and adjoining states. onetour began Oklahoma Bicycle Society Grand on the state capitol steps with then- feat, considering that only a half dozen riders (the 'ldest of whom was 39) Tour, OKC, June 1-9, (405) 943-5161 Governor David Hall leading the way. MS Bikefest Pledge Ride. Yukon, TheGOCCR became the Lake Hefner have reached that mark- His fourth through sixth vertebrae June 2, (405) 840-2848 streak in 1982. N~~ run by 0klahoma Tdsa World Hillcrest .,..:nge, City Beautiful, the Streak attracted fu~edfromthe accident, he spent three months in an elaborate brace. By mid- Tulsa, June 22, (918) 581-r(5l)O nearly 1,600 ,.iders in 1990 and raised Tour of the Wichitas, Lawton, June December 19903 Red was back in the more than $6,000. What once took 40 22, (405) 536- 1808 people to run now requires more than saddle, his eye on the 400-mile mark in the Ironbutt. No one was surprised. TBC's Ring Around the County, 200. Tulsa, June 23, (918) 587-8619 Two other events bearing the Tinbutt, OKC, June 29, (405) Callaway stamp are the fund-raising Teny Phe/ps is director of the Learning 943-5161 Bike-a-Lion, sponsored by the Lions Centerat Ok/ahoma Ci0 University.

May-June 1991 Winners of the 1990 Oklahoma Today and State Parks Photography Contest

"When I look at a picture, All contest photographs I want to grasp the intent were taken between May 1 immediately," says nation- and October 31, 1990, in ally acclaimed photogra- Oklahoma's 62 state parks. pher David Fitzgerald, one The contest was open to of a panel of three judges professionals and amateurs, who chose the winners of children and adults. the 1990 Oklahoma Today Incidentally, Dwyer state parks photography doesn't think her status as a contest. professional photographer With her photograph of gave her much of an advan- her eight-year-old son fish- tage over anyone else. "I've ing at Lake Murray, entered many, many con- Meeker photographer Carol tests before," she says, "but Dwyer made her point I never won a thing." and "UUWII r URrR , JUKM 111 LUKC ~VJIIIT~~state pad by ~arnl~tzyer Richard Green, who won and won the Grand Prize. won the GrandPrize in our annualphoto contest. Eight-year-old first place in the scenic cat- "Everything seemed to Stephen Dwyer, says his mom Carol, "livestofirh." egory, calls himself only a center on the little boy and "rank amateur." But his his pole," says Fitzgerald of Dwyer's photograph. "All the method in taking his winning shot of sunrise over Lake elements of the picture seemed to flow together." The Alms in Quartz Mountain State Park was worthy of the pros. scene struck an emotional chord in Fitzgerald as well. "It Green hiked up a mountain a half hour before dawn and reminded me of a little boy who used to attempt to fish. sat on a rock to wait for the sun to come up. "I looked Myself, many moons ago." through the viewfinder and saw what looked like a volcano Dwyer, who has worked as a professional photographer erupting. I knew if (the photograph) stayed true to what I in Meeker since 1985,shot the photo last May with a mini- saw in the viewfinder, I really had something." mum of equipment, a 35mm camera she totes along for Indeed he did. Green entered one of about 30 frames of family snapshots. the scene shot with a Konica 35mm camera.

Winners, alongwith their hometowns and SecondPlace,TiffanyColston,Marietta, Lone Grove, Lake Murray StatePark the park where photographs were taken, Lake Murray State Park Outdoor Recreation: SecondPlace,Jed are: Third Place, Matthew Scott Kelly, Green,OklahomaCity, BeaversBend State ~ ~ d p ~D i ~~~ ~~~~~k~:~ ~ ~Ninnekah,~ k, ~ Red~~ Rockl ~ Canyon, State Park Park

Murray State Park , '# , ,*:$'F,.;~'~Wildlife: First Place, Monta K. Third Place, Linda Ratliff, Piedmont, Scenic: First ~la&-~chafd.' "Green, * I ' -?' Campbell, Muskogee, Sequoyah State Fountainhead State Park Oklahoma City, Quartz Mountain Stare Park Posters with all the winning photographs Park Second Place, Carol Dwyer, Meeker, will be displayed in nature centers at Second Place, Howard Jay Rosenthal, Lake Murray Park Beavers Bend, Sequoyah, Fountainhead, Tulsa, Lake Wister State Park Third Place, Brenda Fry Kimmel, RobbersCave,QuartzMountainand Lake ThirdPlace,CindyBrooks,Weatherford, SequoyahState Park Murray State Parks. Quartz Mountain State Park Wildlife, Children: First Place, Tyler Look for infomation on how to enter the children, scenic: ~i~~~place, ~~~~kR. Joseph McCall, Broken Arrow, Beavers OklaAoma To+ Photography Contest in an McCall, Broken Arrow, BeaversBend State Bend State Park upcoming issue. Park Second Place, Gretchen Thompson,

38 Oklahoma TODAY TheOnion-FriedBurgm The homely little barger thatpat EI Reno on fhe map.

ne communal conversa- hamburgers with onions grilled in, a invented by two El Reno men, H.W. tion, moderated by owner diner is asked whether he ever slips Davis and E.C. Cannon, or whether the and cook Ed Graham, is over to another grill. Before he can two men simply imported the idea. making its way up and down answer, Graham points his spatula at What is certain, though. is that the the0 row of padded stools at Robert's him. "He'd better not." onion-fried burger, first cooked in El Grill in El Reno. Customers sporting In El Reno, joshing around over a Reno at the Hamburger Inn in 1926, ball caps and denim jackets order as if plateful of onion-fried burgers is a caught on and hung on. they'd done it a time or two before: cherished tradition, second only to After World War 11, when Route 66 "Two-burgers-no-cheese-light-on-the- eating onion-fried burgers. The town through El Reno was humming with onions." Breath. "Coffee." lays claim to the title "Onion-Fried cars, there were at least a dozen cafes Graham prowls along the front of the Burger Capital of the World" and and grills where you could order an grill, one eye on the sizzling burgers, seems in no danger of having it wrested onion-fried hamburger. Today, three one eye watching for empty coffee away. remain: Robert's Grill, Johnnie's Grill, cups. When the topic winds around to Local opinion is divided as to and Sid's Diner. (Sid's location and the merits of El Reno's hallmark, whether the onion-fried burger was name are brand new, but for years,

May-June 1991 owner Marty Hall ran the Dairy Hut, a a plastic basket. The popularity of the El Reno panorama, a counter covered long-time onion burger favorite.) coneys, onion burgers, and French fries with historical photographs under ep- The basic method for making an has spawned yet another El Reno in- oxy-215 views of old buildings and onion-fried burger varies little from stitution. At any grill you can order any picnics and El Reno's war heroes. grill to grill, and hasn't changed at all combination of the three at a special "We've got folks pullin' in off 66 all the since the 1920s. First, a round piece of price, say, seven for $5. time. I thought they'd like to know freshly ground hamburger meat is something about the town," says Hall. tossed on a grill. The cook does some Carolyn Howard, who moved to El light preliminary flattening with a wide "To me there is a lot to Reno from Dallas to act as director of spatula and then tosses a handful of El Reno's Main Street program, thinly sliced onions on top. This is it,how thin yoilr onions learned a good bit about the town followed by more serious flattening, are, how hot yourgrilk during her first encounter with the onion-fried burgerlconey culture. She incorporating the onions into the is. I don 't mean to soilnd burger. Once grilled, the burger is stopped in at Robert's Grill one after- placed on a bun with pickles. The like we're something noon and asked, "Can I have a hot customer adds his own ketchup, mus- special but I think there dog?" tard, and mayonnaise. The cook shot her a look and then Though the steps to making a burger is a lot to it." grinned. are simple enough, El Reno grill cooks -Marty Hall "Are you from out of town?" give burger-making the authoritative -Barbara Palmer spin that speaks of years of experience. Ed Graham came up through the ranks, Since the menus are so similar and working as a dishwasher at Robert's prices vary by mere pennies, the dif- ferences in El Reno's grills hang mainly Grill before former owner Marvin Stout El n a initiated him into the art of tending the on nuances. Judging by exterior alone, Getting grill. Marty Hall, a co-owner of Sid's Robert's Grill would be the sentimen- There Diner, started working at Johnnie's tal favorite: a dumpy, low, white Each May, E/ Reno ce/ebrates its when he was 13. After four months of building that looks as if it hasn't training this spring, his uncle Bob Hall changed in decades. Graham has for- onion-fridburgerw heritage with an was beginning to get the knack of sworn painting the building any color "Onion-Fried Burger Day," the high/ight cooking the burgers, he said. but white, in deference to the original of which is cooking the wor/d's largest "If somebody is good at what they 1920's establishment, Bob's White onion-jried burger. In 1989, the town do, they make it look easy. To me, Rock Grill. wa/ked away with the tide "Wor/d's there is a lot to it, how thin your onions The atmosphere over at Johnnie's is Largest Onion-Fried Burger, "uwarded are, how hot your grill is. I don't mean a little more genteel-if that word can by the "Guiness Book of Wor/d Records." to sound like we're something special, be used to describe a place where you Though no one hus contestedthe title, the but I think there is a lot to it." sit two feet away from frying meat. town continues each year to flex its burger musc/e. The 150-podburger is cooked One young man at Johnnie's wielded There are booths here and more private on a 9-f00tgd/fahricatedby a vo-tech the spatula with such dash it seemed to conversation, along with a machine that class and topped with a 110-pound bun. contradict the notion that it was an art grinds coffee beans. Otis Bruce, who The hardpart, confesses organizer gained slowly. But he turned out to be bought Johnnie's from Johnnie Silar in Caro/yn Howard, is getting both the top owner Otis Bruce's son Eric, who 1967, is universally well liked in El and bottom bun portions situated. The practically grew up flipping burgers. Reno and serves customers who have finished burger sems 300 peop/e. Hand in hand with the onion-fried stopped in a couple of times a week for A c/assic car show and /oca/ acts are burger is the local version of the coney, more than 20 years. part of the ce/ebration. For information, topped with cabbage slaw and chili. Sid's, not even six months old, has ca// (405) 262-8888. Xi& Di~~er,300 Choctaw, is open The economical slaw was developed in had little time to settle into the burger s. 10:30a.m. to 9:00p.m, Monday to landscape. But locals give owners El Reno during the Depression and has Saturday. Robert's Gd,101 W. Wade, is been a mainstay ever since. The slaw Marty and Bob Hall points for their open 6 a.m. to 9p.m., Monda-y to is, in fact, a matter of course; you need willingness to venture boldly into new Saturdqy; atd Johnnie's Gd/,301 S. only speak up if you don't want it. The places: Sid's has a potato and salad bar Rock Is/and, is open from Monday to coneys and burgers are most often ac- and serves old-fashioned sundaes and Saturdayfrom 6 a.m. to 9:30p.m. andon companied by galluptious orders of ice cream sodas. Sundaysfrom noon to 8p.m. French fries, served on waxed paper in Marty Hall has also installed a sort of

Oklahoma 'I'ODAY A practcea eye can teffa fancy dancer, af the extreme left, fmm a tradttonal dancer, at the mtme right. A straight dancer is in the fompund

he second year of Red Earth only two years old. How big a deal Oklahoma in June since. I was in Providence, Rhode could it possibly be? Rome wasn't built Island. At the time, I knew I in a day, right? My rationalizing was cut ooneexpected Red Earth to Twas in the wrong place. Two short when I chose that moment to flip become so successful so fast. weeks earlier, I had almost canceled on the television. Even without sound, N Least ofall, its founders: Okla- my plans when I realized my stay would the undulating wave of a thousand homa Supreme Court Justice Yvonne coincide with the Indian-festival-ev- American Indians in ornate regalia was Kauger and Oklahoma City investment eryone-in-Oklahoma-seemed;to-be- so unlike anything you'd see anywhere banker Ken Bond. The day the idea talking-about. But non-refundable air- else in the world that I knew instantly was born, the two old friends were plane tickets have a way of making your what was unfolding before my eyes on, simply having one of their leisurely decisions for you, and so here I sat in yes, national television: lunches in which they traditionally one of those ubiquitous hotel rooms Red Earth '88. outlined the world's great problems trying to convince myself that eating It was a journalist's worst nightmare over salad, then proceeded to fix them Italian macaroons in Providence was as come to life: A historic event was going over dessert. "We were talking about good as eating Indian fry bread in Okla- on in my homestate, and I was out of the loss of the national finals rodeo (to homa City. state. That was three years ago. No Las Vegas)," recalls Kauger, "and I After all,I rationalized, Red Earth was one's been able to shoehorn me out of said, in my view, it could be replaced

May-June 1991 41 with something that could be of inter- national significance." She didn't have to say another word. Bond knew Kauger believedOklahoma 3 had a duty to preserve its American 2 Indian heritage. "We were right on the 5 same wavelength," crows Kauger, who 3 also operates the Gallery of Plains Indi- ans in Colony and has the distinction of having been adopted by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. I1 1 Shoving water glasses and silverware aside, Bond began to jot down ideas on the back ofone of his business cards. In I his head, he saw visions of an art mar- ket; across the table, Kauger was visu- alizing the pageantry of an Indian dance contest. As idea followed idea, the big picture snapped into focus for Kauger. "I tend to see things finished," she explains. "You know how sometimes (in a magazine) you've got the before picture, with the after picture. I always I 1 saw Red Earth as after." 'The irony of that, of course, is that I 1 outside the restaurant it was the spring of 1985.Oklahoma's economy was in a I I shambles. One could drive down almost any block in the metro area and see not I 1 one "for sale" sign but one after an- other. That day when Ken Bond left I I the restaurant, he had one particularly unpleasant task scribbled on the back of his business card: call the Chamber office about money. As his meeting with the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce board ap- proached, Bond consoled himself with one thought: As vice chair of the Cham- Precise tnovements ~fiuructe~izecomptiitiotrs, but itrter-ft~bu/dutrcts om uttru~uttrsof siy/ts utuf sret ber, he had long fooled around with ways to use the new Myriad Gardens in Company, Bill Durrett of American gun to agree that (as a state) we ought to downtown Oklahoma City. "We had Fidelity,Lee Allan Smith of what was stick to cowboys and Indians. That's spent all that money on the gardens," then Ackerman & McQueen Advertis- what we're known for and that's what recalls Bond, "and I couldn't see why ing, Ed Cook, Chamber president, and we are. I think we felt there was no use we couldn't produce a Santa Fe-type Frank McPherson of Kerr McGee, in trying to be a Houston or Dallas or art atmosphere down there that would among others. The group listened New York. We ought to be Oklahoma, make touristswant tostopin downtown stone-faced to Bond's presentation. and what Oklahoma is is the home of and buy art." "There was not a lot of wild-eyed en- the red man." The catch was convincing the thusiasm," recalls Bond. "Everyone That day the Chamber voted to sup- Chamber board of the viability of that knew that other events of this kind had port Red Earth to the tune of $30,000, vision. It would not be an easy sell. been tried and failed." and much needed staff, office space, Sitting around the table at the Cham- What kept the idea afloat, Bond says, and telephones. "There was not a single ber that day were Jim Harlow ofOG&E, is that Red Earth addressed a gut feel- dissenting vote at the Chamber that Ed Martin of the Oklahoma Publishing ing of this particular board. "We'd be- day," says Bond, proudly. "I remember

Oklahoma TODAY well, that it was unanimous. I also re- those on the panel was Cherokee Chief hillip Bread's first encounter member there were varying degrees of Wilma Mankiller, leader of the second with Red Earth may sum up as doubt that we could pull it off." largest tribe in the nation. It was at that P well as anything why Red Judge Kauger was, and is, so single- meeting that the name Red Earth Earth's fame has risen like a shooting minded she says she never entertained emerged. Christy Alcox, event director star. In 1986, Bread was a young Kiowa the notion that the idea might fail. "I'm of Red Earth, still remembers the traditional dancer who listened to tapes the mother of Red Earth," she says murmur that ran through the crowd as of northern plains drum groups with simply. And, like any good mother, the the name was suggested and written on the attention most young men reserve judge harbored no doubts about her the board. for rock 'n' roll. At the time, the group offspring's potential: Of course, it was In the end, "We agreed we had the Mandaree from Newtown, North Da- special and, ofcourse, it would have the ingredients here to be another Santa kota, was to Indian music what the best. Fe, if not something bigger," says Rolling Stones are to rock "The first "Early on," recalls Bond, "we real- Reynolds. "We're second in the United time I saw Mandaree live was at Red ized it was like anything. There are a States for the number of Indian popu- Earth," says Bread. "I sat there and I lot of golfers, but only a few good ones. lation and we're dang near first in the thought,'Here is a living legend.' I usu- It's the same in that part of the Indian arts. And we agreed our artists shouldn't ally record the music but I didn't even culture. There are some great dancers have to go out of state to sell their push a button. and singers and artists and a whole wares." "I remember feeling so proud." bunch that aren't so great. In our first The catch was fashioning an event Or as Justice Kauger puts it: "It's the discussions, we asked what it would that Indians would feel comfortable most spine-tingling thing anyone could take to attract the best. We asked what both attending and having promoted. see anywhere. When you see that many the level of prize money was in compe- From the beginning, Reynolds, now dancers in feathers and buckskin, it's titions-what it would take to be in the president of the Red Earth board of like they're dancing off the pages of a big leagues. And that's what we of- trustees, made it clear that ruled out a history book. And you can see these fered." (The total purse for Red Earth powwow. Powwows are run on Indian tribes are not dying but alive and well." '91: $72,000. Dancers vie for a share of time; things start when they start (not JeanneM. Devlin $50,000; artists, for $22,000.) the kind of timetable tour guides like The same year Red Earth was being to adhere to), and include certain things, launched, Oklahoma saw two major such as giveaways, where a family may Indian dance competitions go belly up spend much time and fanfare present- Getting .'Oklahoma City when promoters were unable to pro- ing gifts to others. "This is why we call duce promised prize money. Theword Red Earth 'an event,' not a powwow," There on the grapevine was that the national explains Reynolds. "It allows us to ad- T Indian community had blacklisted here to a schedule and not offend Red Earth '91 opens June 7-9 at the anyone. Oklahoma. "Entire families and tribes Myriad Convention Center tY Plaza in may travel cross country to attend an "We set up the art market for the Ok/ahoma City. Each day opens with a event," explains Phillip Bread, pro- visitors," he adds, "and the dancing is breakfast symposium at 8 a.m. at the motions manager for Red Earth. "It's mainly for the Indians. It's the cultural Sheraton Centuty Hotel, followed by the expensive, and many counton the prize part of the event, and it brings a good opening of the festiva/gates at 10 a.m. money they win in competitions to pay cross-section of Indians not just from Tickets to the symposiums are $15. for their trip back home." Oklahoma but from different states." The grand entry of dance competitors Realizing this Bond and Kauger made In addition, that first year Kelly happens daily at 1 p.m. and 7p.m. at some critical decisions early on. They Haney spent much of his time person- the Myriad (Inter-triba/ dancing begrns at 9p.m. on Friday and Saturday.) ally asking Indian artists across the signed on Allie Reynolds, president of Thefestiva/ opens Friday at 11:30 the board of trustees for the Center of country to give Red Earth a chance. a.m. with a parade of tribesmen in full the American Indian and a respected The single gesture that did most to regaha through downtown. member of the Creek tribe, as well as endear Red Earth and Oklahoma to the Ticketsfor the daib dance State Senator Enoch Kelly Haney, a gun-shy American Indian population, competitions are $5 in aabance, $6 at Seminole who has worked in the art however, came from Allie Reynolds, the door. Ticketsfor special evening world for more than two decades, and who personally signed and cashed dance performances on Friday and Phil Lujan, a Kiowa tribal judge from checks at the Myriad until 3:30 in the Saturday are $10 for adults and $5 for Norman. morning that first year (and the next chiIdmn under 12 years. (Prices include admission to artsfestival.) For three), so dancers and artists would In 1986, Lujan headed the first inter- information, call(405) 232-2784. tribal discussion on Red Earth; among have money for the long journey home.

May-June 1991 43 Best of the West Rzcbhng elbows with th nationS top wes&m oflists

he crowded galleries He's spotted among the crowd the un- the two days of art seminars, demon- bubble like soda, the buzz assuming figure of millionaire T. Boone strations, and chuckwagon lunches that of voices intensifying as Pickens, art appraiser Rudi Wunderlich surround the exhibition opening. seven o'clock approaches. of Chicago, and editors of several na- Patrons, like the Johnsons, greet GlennT and Irene Johnson of Illinois, tional art magazines. A good showing friends they haven't seen since last regular buyers at this event, brush past here could guarantee not only this year's show. They cluster in small a man in a western-cut groups, speculating on tuxedo and ostrich boots to 2 which paintings and 2 assess a Colorado land- sculptures will garner scape painting. An excel- the awards to be handed lent piece, they agree, and out at Saturday night's they've yet to own one by banquet. There's con- this artist. Irene signs her jecture, too, about name to a bid slip and which of the exhibiting feels the familiar thrill as guest artists might be she drops it into the small voted into membership white box mounted be- in the Academy. "It's side each work. Although definitely one of the she tries, she can't see most important shows of whether the box is full or ~tskind," says Rudi empty. They move on to Wunderlich, a nation- their second choice, ally-known authority on quickly, before bidding is I western art whose asso- closed. liation with the Hall The Johnsons pass a ~ncludesbeing a panel- small knot of people "Sun Smtch, " a 2990 enmy by NA WA member GddBa/cit ...... I is' at NAWA seminars where arti s t S h i rl e y of riuer otters, "River Companions, " was the 1985 Prir de West Winner. and a judge for the art Thomson Smith of Okla- show. "It gives the homa City stands twisting a turquoise year's income but a promising future for lesser-known artists an opportunity for ring around her finger, trying to pay a young artist. exposure to the public alongside the attention to the conversation. Occa- The whole scene might be drawn from well-known, established artists. Some sionally she checks her watch and TV's " Dallas." But this is no fantasy; of these lesser-knowns may be the ma- glances toward the opposite wall, where it's the annual opening of the National jor artists of tomorrow." four of her graceful sculptures stand on Academy of Western Art show at the The established artists include men limed pedestals. In a few moments, Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma like Tom Lovell, Donald Teague, and names will be drawn and posted above City. This June, the museum will up- the late John Clymer and Robert each work. What if all the boxes by her hold a nineteen-year tradition when it Lougheed, whose reputations already pieces are empty? What if they're all hosts "NAWA '91," an offshoot of the were secure when they became charter full? country's most prestigious association of membersof NAWA. Theworks ofWil- Shirley flashes an understanding western artists. The event is a major son Hurley, Edward Fraughton, and smile to a fellow artist who's slipping attraction in the world of western art Bettina Steinke-the only female outside to have a smoke on the loggia and brings artists and art lovers from all charter member-star in current exhi- and wait it out. It's his first time to ex- over the nation to Oklahoma. Last bitions, commanding respect from pa- hibit here, and he's too nervous to summer, more than 700 patrons trons and art dealers alike. Prices in the watch the drawing. With good reason. crowded into the Hall to participate in 1990 show ranged from $450 for a tiny

44 Oklahoma TODAY Montana artist Tucker Smith came to the show in 1990 as a guest artist. He left, not on4 as tire winner of the Prix de Westpurchase awardfor this painting, but as a new member of NA WA. "The Return of Summer," classic in its style and subject, is now part of the Ha//'s co//ection. bronze to $75,000 for a large, gouache Lougheed's vision included a true The competition begins in Septem- painting. In the past, notably during the teaching academy, with permanent ber, when work by potential guest art- oil boom of the late 1970s, some pieces classroom and studio space at the Hall ists is screened by a committee of brought more than $100,000. of Fame and academy members donat- NAWA members and museum officials. ing time to instruct neophyte artists. Artists invited to exhibit must submit orn in 1973 with a charter Although this goal was never realized, actual works by April, to undergo membership of 23 artists, the the seminars associated with the annual jurying before acceptance in the show. National Academy of West- show are a remnant of that dream. The work of veteran academy members ern Art is no stranger to con- Despite later disagreements over also is subject to jurying-perhaps even troversy. Under the colorful leadership methods of guest artists selection, more stringently-because the com- of then director Dean Krakel, the jurying and judging for awards, one mittee expects Academy members to Cowboy Hall of Fame split with the thing remained consistent: the high uphold the standards set by their work Cowboy Artists of America, after host- quality of work accepted for the exhi- in previous exhibitions. ing the group's annual show for several bition. Members send their best efforts An artist becomes a member of years. Krakel felt the museum should to NAWA, because as New Mexico art- NAWA by first being accepted as a have the right to some control over the ist Wilson Hurley once observed, "In guest artists two consecutive years, and quality of work in the show and the Oklahoma City they play hardball, and then by a vote of the current member- opportunity for financial benefit. Artist everybody knows it... It was created and ship. Usually, one to three new mem- Bob Lougheed agreed, and together the endures becaust it is based on the no- bers are inducted each spring. This new two men hammered out the framework tion of artistic excellence through blood keeps the organization vital and for NAWA. competition." prevents older members of NAWA

------May-June 1991 45 from coasting on their past successes. Membership in NAWA is an impor- tant step in an artist's career. Shirley Thomson Smith, only the third woman to join the Academy at the time of her induction in 1985, supported herself as a secretary for many years while prac- ticing her art at night. Smith made the leap into full-time fine art in 1980. With encouragement from Mike Wigley, owner of Quail Hollow Galleries in Oklahoma City, she began to concen- trate on sculptures of Navajo women, whose quiet strength had fascinated her when she lived for a few years in Durango, Colorado. Now, the smooth, uncomplicated lines and exaggerated hands and feet of these subjects have become her trademark, and galleries in seven other states also handle her work. Smith was accepted into NAWA after exhibiting as a guest artist only twice, a rare honor that she doesn't take lightly. The impressionistic "Late February in Penasco, "a 1990 entry by NA WA member Walt Gonske, "Those initials (NAWA) behind your shows how the definition of Western art has broadened. name are like Ph.D. as far as the arts are concerned," she says. subject of much discussion, some of it recognizes the best exhibit of three or John Free of Pawhuska is the anly critical. With so much outstanding work more works. In 1990, two new awards other NAWA artist from Oklahoma, and on display, the judging ultimately added even more incentive-and cash: he is a charter member. A private man highlights those works that appeal to the Frederic Remington Award, voted who lives on his ranch and operates a by member artists and honoring artis- family-owned bronze foundry, Free tic merit; and the Nona Jean Hulsey chooses to participate regularly in only "We can 't go back and Buyers' Choice Award, named for a one show each year, and that's NAWA. create a Geoqe Catlin long-time patron and determined by a "It's where the file hits the steel," Free collection. It? gone. vote of buyers at the annual sale. says. "It sharpens me up. I go down But the honor carrvine, w the most ca- there and see that wealth of good work, But trlle Hal' is creating chet is the Prix de West, a purchase and I'm energized and renewed. I think award selected by the National Cow- about it all year." a collection as boy Hall of Fame for its permanent Free's central subject-the man on a it goes along. " collection. Only one piece each year is horse-has been the bread and butter -William G. Kerr chosen. The Prix de West group now of the exhibition since its inception. But includes eighteen- works, encompass- over the years, subject matter has ing a variety of styles, media, and sub- broadened to include southwestern the particular tastes and personalities of jects. The collection rotates with other themes associated with the Santa Fe or the judges. displays in the contemporary galleries at Taos areas, wildlife indigenous to the After the show is hung in early June, the Hall and travels to museums and West, and sweeping landscapes like the a panel of authorities nominated by the exhibitions across America. In 1987, ten ones for which Wilson Hurley is known. Academy and selected by the Hall pieces from the group were exhibited in Representational art is the mainstay of chooses gold and silver medalists in Kyoto, Japan. the show, but in recent years a loosen- four categories: oil, watercolor, drawing, Executive Director Byron Price ex- ing of both restrictions and styles has and sculpture. These honors carry cash plains that in the beginning, the Prix de allowed growth and variety. Still, when prizes of $1,000 and $500 respectively, West was basically a "best of show" a loose, impressionistic landscape by furnished by the museum. award. But as the years progressed, the Taos artist Walt Gonske won the gold In addition, the Robert Lougheed criteria changed toward the purpose of medal in oil in 1989, the choice was the Memorial Award, instituted in 1988, rounding out the Hall's collection.

46 Oklahoma TODAY While the quality of execution is a for the NAWA opening often stretch foremost consideration, the purpose, he into the small hours of the last morning, says, is to "survey the breadth and when black coffee and giddy fatigue depth of western art in all its facets." weld friendships among staff and vol- Past winners include landscapes, unteers. cowboy paintings, and sculpture, and But when the doors open Friday Getting subjects ranging from Indians and still morning and a wave of patrons surge There lifes to wildlife. Neither a portrait nor into the galleries for a preview of the a drawing has won the Prix de West. show, the museum will be ready-the Tickets to NAWA '91 euents, June 7 The addition of a drawing seems most art flawlessly displayed, the floors pol- and8, are first offered to memben of the unlikely, Price says, because it would ished, the hollow-eyed staff beaming Cowboy Hall of Fame, but a /;mi& have to be "really strong" to win out with pride and hospitality. And Satur- number usually are availablefor over a large, outstanding bronze or day evening, when opening-night purchase by the genera/pub/ic. Tickets painting. magic ripples through the crowd, artists are $30 for the cocktailpmiew paq, The selection for the Prix de West like Oklahoma City's Shirley Thom- J50for the awards banquet, and$70 also takes into account the variety and ason Smith will lay their talents on the for the Ftiday and Saturday seminars. An all-inc/usiveticket is $150. AN scope of the artist members, being line, risking ego and careers for accep- NA WA men^ take place at the Cowboy careful to see that no major figures are tance by the art-savvy audience and the Hall of Fame and Western Heritage omitted. In 1989, many patrons ex- cachet of being part of the best art in the Centw,Located at 1 700 N.E. 63rd pected a magnificent oil by Howard West. Street, in Oklahoma City. Prices subject Terpning to be selected, but Price -Marcia Preston to dange. points out that the collection already Thdibit of NA WA art maimon included a Terpning. Although the Man-ia Preston of Edmond ispl~blisher dis& at &4e Hall of Fame thrnugd group now contains two Tom Lovells of ByLine, a magazinefor writem. She September. Formom information, call and two Hollis Willifords, Price feels has written for Southwest Art and the Hall at (405) 478-2250. such duplications will be rare. "Every Delta Sky magagines. year the Prix de West collection gets stronger. What may happen is that the $ more stunning works from each show may come back as choices, because the 7 collection has enough pieces now it's becoming balanced," he says. William G. Kerr, president of the Wildlife of the American West Art Museum in Jackson, Wyoming, and a member of the Hall's board of directors. is less modest about the series, calling it the nation's finest public collection of I contemporary representational art "One hundred years from now, it will be even more important, because it's the finest example of what was being .:. ?- ,. -* d' done in representational art during this .,-:,. period. We can't go back and create a s<--~,,. George Catlin collection, for example .+ as Gilcrease has; it's gone. But the Hall is creating such a collection as it goes .> along, with the Prix de West." . -- !?- Ed Muno, art director for the Hall, ?-# - says he expects "NAWA '91" to include .-+. two-hundred pieces by more than fifty artists, a real challenge for the curate- rial staff who must uncrate, catalog, in a teachingacademy;pai jdemonstratons by NA WA members, /;A. _.hn E - ias dJ hang, and label the show. Preparations Denver, Colorado, abwre, atthe annualshow are remnants ofthat vision.

May-June 1991 The Perfect Gift? rn

Discover Oklahoma's best beaches, barbecue and balloon races -or > visit a cozy bed and breakfast. Your family and friends can find it all in a gift subscription to Oklahoma Today, the award-winning magazine of the Sooner State. Where else can $13.50 buy the perfect birthday or summer present! First gift subscription $13.50, all others are $11 each (outside U.S., add $5 per year, $10 airmail). Two-year subscriptions $23. To order, use the subscription order card in front of this issue or call toll-free 1-800-652-6552. - Oklahoma Map Puzzle I Oklahoma Coffee Mug Button Covers . Popular with all ages, the V0ur original coffee mugs were . Enjoy the "Southwest" look map puzzle is an educational designed in Oklahoma. Each kiln- with this stylish fashion gift. Each hundred-piece puzzle fired black ceramic mug sparkles accessory. They simply snap features state rivers, lakes, with color. Dishwasher and on, and can be worn by both history and symbols. The microwave safe. Only $7.95 men and women. Set of four puzzle measures 13"x2OW. each plus $2 shipping. only $18, set of six only $27. Only $9.95 plus $2 shipping. -

Is A Lasting Gift. I Oklahoma State Flds- , Route 66: The Mother Road. v~hese3'x5' flags were flown This definitive book is from at Governor Walters' inaugura- Oklahoma author Michael Wallis. tion! The "collector's flag" is Includes 230 stunning images. $37.50 plus $1.50 shipping. A Only $29.95 plus $3 shipping. 4"x6" desk flag is available at Oklahoma Today in Bound $2.95 plus .50 shipping. Volumes. The 1990 edition is now available. The 1989 edition features the Centenrlial Series. Only $29.95 each plus $3 shipping. David Fitzgerald's OKLAHOMA. This oversized IO"x13 112" OKLAHOMA w18.~m~.roco edition is filled with over 100 I :\ 1 I i I D. breathtaking color photographs. Only $32.50 plus $3 shipping. The Long Lost Recipes of Aunt Susan. Edna Vance Mueller was Food Editor of the Daily Oklaho- man from 1929-1943. Her Treat yourself, a friend or recipes (550 total) and vignettes relative to an Oklahoma gift. To provide a glimpse of Oklahoma order, use the order card in front culinary tradition. Only $14.95 of this issue or call toll-free: plus $3 shipping. n1-800-652-6552. DAR

+ May 2 The joint will jump when the Glenn Miller Orchestra performs at the Masonic Temple in Guthrie. The 20-piece orchestra plays the old standards using Miller's arrangements from the 1940s. + May 25 A troupe of cowboys, Indians, cavalry reenactors, and other adventurers stage a smaller version of Pawnee Bill's legendary Wild West Show at Pawnee Bill State Park near Pawnee. Ropers and sharpshooters on trick horses perform using original 1888 scripts. * May 26 Potato knishes, kosher corned beef sandwiches, and chicken soup with matzo balls are served up with klezmer bands and folk dancing at the Israeli Festival at Emanuel Synagogue in OKC. +June 6-9 Boise City salutes its pioneer history during "Santa Fe Trail Daze," with a rodeo, parade, lots of smoky barbecue, and a posthole digging contest. n JUNE 1-30 Elaine Armstrong Exhibit, Plains Indians and Pio- neers Museum, Woodward, (405) 256-6136 ]-August 31 Aerospace Team '91, Air Space hluseum, OKC. MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES (405) 427-5461 MAY 2-July 7 "The Golden Age of Jxzi: Photos by William 1-26 "Illun~inationand Radiance: Epiphanies in Con- Ciotclieb." Bartles\ille hluseum, Bartlesb ~lle.(918) temporary Palntlng." 011 hluseum of Art, Norman. 336-2386 (405)325-3272 9-August 31 "Visions of the Midwest in the 1930s." Kirkpatrick 1-29 Bonsai, Kirkpatrick Greenhouse, OKC, (405) Galleries. OKC. (405) 427-5461 427-5461 18-July 10 Individual Artists of OK, Bartlesv~lleCommunity 1-31 Fred Olds Exhibit, Plains Indians and Pioneers Center, Bartlesville, (918) 337-2787 hluseum. Wood~drd,(405) 256-6136 21-23 Plein-Air Painters Show, Arti~ansof the hlidlands, I-Junc 20 "Spring Nights," Klrkpatrlck Planetar~um,OKC. Grove, (918) 435-4213 (405)424-5545 22 Rendezvous Fair, Gilcrease htuseum, 'I'ulsa, (918) 1-June 30 "'The Pictures of the Year," Int'l Photo Hall of 582-3 122 Fame, OKC, (405) 424-4055 22-Sept. 2 Rendezvous 1991 Exh~btt.Giicreasehluseum.'Tulsa. 3-June 2 Oriental Brushwork5 Society Exhibit, Kirkpatrick (918) 582-3122 Gallerlcs, OKC. (405) 427-5461 4-5 Festival of the Dolls, Artisans of the Mldlands Gal- < lery. Grobe, (918) 782-2689 8 - +June 30 "Platters," Firehouse Art Center, Norman, (405) 3294523 10-11 OK hlineral and Gem Society Show. Omniplex. DRAMA OKC, (405) 424-5545 MAY 10-August 18 \trildlife Art by Robert hlengel, OK hluseum of 1-19 "At the End of the Ralnbow There's Only Rain," Natural History, Norman, (405) 325-471 1 OK Children's Theatre. OKC, (405) 948-6408 1 1-Sept. 2 "L~feBeyond Earth." Kirkpatrick Planetarium. 2-19 "A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the llkraine," OK(:, (405) 424-5545 Jewel Box Theatre, OKC, (405) 521-1786

May-June 1991 3-18 "Little Footsteps," Carpenter SquareTheatre, OKC, "Art in the Park," Clinton, (405) 323-9095 (405) 232-6500 Tulsa Int'l Mayfest, Brady Theatre Area, Tulsa, 9-12 "Sound of Music," On Stage, Woodward, (405) (918) 582-6435 256-7120 Ada Fest, Ada, (405) 436-3032 10-12 "Scribesand Heresies," HellerTheatre,Tulsa,(918) Rising Star Arts and Crafts Festival, Downtown, 743-1218 Lindsay, (405) 756-2164 10-12 "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Italian Festival, McAlester, (918) 423-2550 Forum," Ponca Playhouse, Ponca City, (405) 765- Spring Arts and Crafts Show, Grove Community 7786 Center, Grove, (918) 786-5372 10-19 "Lie, Cheat and Genuflect," Theatre Tulsa, Tulsa, Israeli Festival, Emanuel Synagogue, OKC, (405) (918) 587-8402 528-2113 10-19 "The Boys Next Door," Lawton Community The- Sunfest, Sooner Park, Bartlesville, (918) 337-0999 atre, Lawton, (405) 355-1600 16-19 "Steel Magnolias," Community Center, Bartlesville, JUNE (918) 336-2787 1 Nescatunga An Festival, Alva, (405) 327-1647 17-June 15 "A Streetcar Named Desire," The Pollard Theatre, 6-8 Black Gold Days, Glenpool, (918) 322-5409 Guthrie, (405) 282-2800 6-9 "Santa Fe Trail Daze," Boise City, (405) 544-3344 23-June 16 "Merry Wives of Windsor," Hafer Park, Edmond, 7-9 Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival, Myriad (405) 340-1222 Gardens, OKC, (405) 232-2784 24-June 1 "The Odd Couple," Southwest Playhouse, Clinton, Chautauqua Festival, Altus, (405) 482-0210 (405) 323-5953 Canterbury Arts Festival, Hafer Park, Edmond, (405) 31-June 8 "The Murder of Cardinal Tosca," Muskogee Little 341-3855 Theater, Muskogee, (918) 687-1714 Pecan Festival, Okmulgee, (918) 756-6172 31-June 9 "The Rainmaker," Theatre Tulsa, Tulsa, (918) Great Plains Chautauqua, Veterans Park, Tulsa, 587-8402 (918) 584-3333 Juneteenth Celebration, OK Jazz Hall of Fame, JUNE Tulsa, (918) 583-4545 6-15 "Annie Get Your Gun," Shawnee Little Theatre, JuneFest, Chandler Park, Purcell, (405) 527-6283 Shawnee, (405) 275-2805 ReggaeFest, Veterans Park, Tulsa, (918) 596-7877 7-9 "Performance Art," Heller Theatre, Tulsa, (918) Fairview Show of the Arts, Major Counry 743-1218 Fairbuilding, Fairview, (405) 227-2527 7-Aug. 24 "Oklahoma!" Discoveryland Theatre, Tulsa, (918) 245-6552 8-Aug. 24 "Trail of Tears," Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah, (918) 456-6007 11-22 "Singin' in the Rain," Lyric Theatre, OKC, (405) MUSIC AND DANCE 528-3636 MAY 20-30 "Nunsense," Jewel Box Theatre, OKC, (405) "Night Hawk's Dream," Prairie Dance Theatre, 521-1786 Base Theatre, Tinker AFB, OKC, (405) 478-4132 20-July 14 "Measure For Measure," HaferPark, Edmond,(405) Tri-State Music Festival, Enid, (405) 237-4964 340-1 222 Glenn Miller Orchestra, Masonic Temple, Gurhtie, 25-July 6 "Follies," Lyric Theatre, OKC, (405) 528-3636 (405) 282-7242 26-30 "The Emperor's New Clothes," OK Children's "Madama Butterfly," Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa, Theatre, OKC, (405) 948-6408 (918) 582-4035 Symphony with Tommy Tune, Community Cen- ter, Bartlesville, (918) 337-2787 Lee Ritenour-Jazz Series, Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, (800) 627-71 11 FAIRS AND FESTIVALS Symphony on the Square, Utica Square, Tulsa, MAY (918) 584-2533 Owasso Trail Days, Owasso, (918) 272-2141 Tulsa Philharmonic Classics Concert, Chapman SpringFest, Downtown, Bethany, (405) 495-1313 Music Hall, Tulsa, (918) 747-7445 SpringFest, Weatherford, (405) 772-7744 Music Under the Stars, Cimarron Circuit Opera Co., Iris Festival, Ponca City, (405) 762-1002 Andrews Parks, Norman, (405) 364-8962 Fine Arts Festival, Art Center, Ponca City, (405) Prairie Dance Theatre, Kirkpatrick Center, OKC, 765-9746 (405) 478-4132 Onion-Fried Burger Day, Downtown, El Reno,(405) "Carnival of the Animals," Tulsa Philharmonic, 262-8888 Tulsa, (918) 596-71 11 Kolache Festival, Prague, (405) 567-2222 Celtic Series: Moloney, Keane and O'Connell, Per- Arts Festival, Downtown, Edmond, (405) 340-3808 forming Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-7111 Grove Fest, Community Center, Grove, (918) Tulsa Philharmonic Pops Concert, Chapman Music 786-9079 Hall, Tulsa, (918) 747-7445 Strawberry Festival, Stilwell, (918) 696-571 1 Gospel Music Show, Cherokee Fiddlers Park, Grove, (918) 786-4272

Oklahoma TODAY JUNE JUNE 7-15 OK Mozart Festival, Bartlesville, (918) 336-9900 13-15 Haraway Rodeo, Vian, (918) 773-5792 8 Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra's Summer Picnic 13-15 PRCA Rodeo, Grady County Fa~rgrounds. Pops Concert, Lawton. (405) 248-2001 Chickasha, (405) 224-3593 13 Summer Twilight Concert, Chandler Park, Tulsa, 22-30 Nat'l Pinto Horse Show, Expo Square,Tulsa, (918) (918) 596-5990 744-1 113 14-Aug. 10 NSLI River City Players hlusic Show, NSl1 Play- 26-30 OK Jumping Festival, Lazy E Arena. Guthrie. (405) house, Tahlequah, (918) 458-2072 348-5783 20-23 Jazz in June, Norman, (405) 325-3388 h 25 Starlight Concert, River West Festival Park, Tulsa, (918) 582-0051 SPECIAL EVENTS MAY 3-4 Wildflower Workshop, Goddard Center, Ardmorc. INDIAN EVENTS (405) 521-4037 MAY 4 Antique Plane Fly-in, Airport, Tahlequah, (918) 1-31 "Red Earth Circleof Honor Exhibit." Center of the 456-873 1 American Indian, OKC, (405) 427-5228 4 Chili and Bar-B-Que Cook-off, hlarland hlansior~ Indian Art Market and Festival, ExpoSquare,Tulsa, 2-5 Estate, Ponca City, (405) 767-5826 (918) 744-1 113 4-5 Spring Fur Trade Encampment, hluseum of the Birthday Powwow for Chief Hollis Roberts, Arrow- 11 Great Plains, Lawton, (405) 581-3460 head Resort, Canadian, (405) 924-8280 6 USGS Batfish Reunion, Muskogee, (918) 68242% Jones Academy and All-Indian Rodeo, Hartshorne, 25 11 "TheGreat ChisholmTrailChili Challenge," Enid, (405) 924-8280 (405) 237-2494 31-June 2 Jackie Beard Pow-wow, Concho, (405) 262-8535 11-12 Spring Flower Show, Tulsa Garden Center. 'Tulsa, (918) 749-6401 JUNE Earth Fair, Ardmore, (405) 223-2541 14-16 CreekNation Festivaland Rodeo,Okmulgee, (918) Quartz Mountain Wildflower Festival. Quartz 756-8700 Mountain (918) 245-6983 14-16 Tribe Pow-wow, Perkins, (405) 547-2402 Antique Auto Swap Meet, Chickasha, (405) 15-July7 Tra~lof Tears Art Show, Cherokee Heritage Cen- 224-6552 ter, Tahlequah, (918) 456-6007 Pawnee Bill Wild West Show, Pawnee, (918) 28-30 Pow-wow, Shawnee, (405) 275-3121 762-2108 28-30 Pawnee Indian Veterans Homecoming and Pow- Biplane Expo. Frank Phillips Airport, Bartlesville, wow, Football Stadium, Pawnee, (918) 762-2108 (918) 336-3976 Okie Twist off Air Show. h.lunicipa1 Airport, Stillwater, (405) 624-8383

KWUhW AlUU HWKSB BVBlU 1 S JUNE 1-9 The Nat'l Sandbass Feqtival, hladill, (405) 795- 243 1 2-4 IPRA Rodeo, Tumbleweeds Sports Arena, 7-9 Leake Auto Auction, Expo Square, Tulsa, (918) Stillwater, (405) 377-0075 744-1 113 4 OK Pinto Horse Show, Expo Square, Tulsa, (918) 8 Model-T Hill Climb, Chandler Park, 'Tulsa, (918) 744-1 113 596-5990 4 Sooner Appaloosa Horse Show, Expo Square, Tulsa, 8-9 OK Route66AssociationCruise,'lexolatoQuapaw, (918) 744-1113 (405) 495-7866 4 Ben Johnson Pro Celebrity, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, 14-15 Pushmataha County Homecomlng, Antlers, (405) (405) 282-3004 298-2488 4 Kentucky Derby Day, Blue Ribbon Downs,Sallisaw, 15-16 Open Regatta, Kaw Lake, Ponca Cit), (405) (918) 775-7771 767-4334 11 OK Palomino Horse Show, Expo Square, Tulsa, 16 Jacob Fussell Day, Downtoun, Ponca Clt), (405) (918) 744-1113 762- 1002 11 Crossroads of America Bullfight, Rodeo Arena, El 20-22 Experimental Aircraft Fly-In, hluskogee, (918) Reno, (405) 262-2949 682-2401 11 OK Paint Horseclub Show, Purcell, (405)478-1599 27-29 Heritage Days Celebration and Rodeo, Iluncan. 23-25 CASC Frontier Days Rodeo,Poteau,(918)647-8660 (405) 252-8696 24-25 Memorial Day IPRA-ACRA Rodeo, Rodeo Arena, 27-29 Longhorn Days, Lone Grove, (405) 226-3666 Grove. (918) 786-9079 24-25 OK Cattlemen's Range Round-up, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-3004 25-26 Green Country Paint Horse Show, Expo Square, A/rhough the infomation in the calendur is currerrt, dutes (t~~dtitne.~:,-INNrh(t)ige Tulsa, (918) 744-1 113 without notice. Please check in advance btjore aatt~dingUI~ txrellt.

- May-June 1991