MARCH-APRIL 1985 id A CATCH THE WIND: HANG GLIDING OFF BUFFALO MOUNTAIN =,b * KlNG OF THE BULL RIDERS FRECKLES BROWN OF SOPER. OK Official Mwine of the State of March-April '85 George Nigh, (ojl-8 ‘h,vernor i ZVol. 35, No. 2 b. 'Bm COVERS THE BELLES OF TAHLEQUAH At ;he end of their Trail of Tears, the Cherokees built a female seminarv that taught young women chemistry, rhetoric, Latin and mental arithmetic. .at a time when many American girls were lucky to learn anything at all. Las Vegas may have stolen the National Finals Rodeo, but they'll never take Freckles Brown-and his legendary ride on a bull named Tornadeaway from OKLAHOMA PORTFOLIO Oklahomans. A selection of Oklahoma subjects by Tulsa photographer Phiip Radcliffe. A differe~ltway of seeing the 18 Oklahoma bills, through windows designed by JUMPING OFF THE MOUNTAIN visionary architect Bruce Goff. Just west of Talihina, Buffalo Mountain Photo by Kirk A. Smith. rears its pinecovered topa roost for the Idejvni.Azaleas, birdmen of Oklahoma. Muskogee's Honor Heights Park. Photo by Fred W. Marvel. BacR. Baby birds. 24 Photo by Kym Wilson. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GOFF No one just walks by, or through, a house designed by Bruce Goff. One visitor said DEPARTMENTS FEATURES she hadn't had so much fun since her first ride in an elevator. Another stared at his Today in Oklahoma ........................................ 4 Bavinger House, with its saucer-shaped BookdLetters ............................................. 5 THE LAST VALLEY rooms spiralling around a mast made from Uncommon Common Fdk............................ 6 Take a walk on the wild side-15 miles oilwell pipe, and said, "I don't like it. But I Oklahoma Omnibus: The First Scouts ........ 23 from Tulsa, next door to a cement factory wish I did." Don't take their word for it- On to Oklahoma.............................................. 45 and 200 donyears back in time. or ours. See for yourself. Entertainment Calendar ................................ 46 memories of her school days in Indian Territory. & Some of you may wonder how pho- tographer Jim Argo managed to take that unusual hang-gliding photo on pages 18- 19.Jim mounted a camera with a 16mm, wide-angle lens on the nose of the hang glider so that the camera couldn't move. All the adjustments were predetermined. The camera was fitted with a motordrive and loaded with a 36-frame roll of film. A "sync line" (somewhat like an extension f the photograph of azaleas on the television during March. Selections from cord) with a button on the end was taped Iinside cover takes your breath away, their best shows will be featured during to a support on the glider. This allowed then you are going to want to join the Oklahoma Education Television Author- pilot David Howeth to fire the camera thousands who annually drive to Mus- ity's annual fund-raising telethon, March kogee in April to see the real thing. 9-24. You will also be able to see "The There, visitors can view more than 600 Music Man," "Becket" and Rodgers varieties of azaleas with blooms covering and Hammerstein's "The Sound of 70,000 plants. Scene of one of the South- American Music" during that period. west's largest azalea festivals, Honor Then there are the yacht races, lots of Heights Park has added 3,500 tulip bulbs country music and science shows with this year to another area. Across the way dolphins, sharks and bald eagles. It's my are 3,700 rose bushes. All are expected to favorite two weeks for television viewing. be at their peak during the festival, April The Okhhoma TODAY staff is excited 6-28. about assisting OETA with their tele- "If you haven't seen it, you just can't thon again this year. We are also work- imagine how beautiful it is," Ben Sumer- ing with OETA to develop a series of all, director of Muskogee's Parks and short programs that wdl be called, "Okla- Recreation Department, bragged. More homa Today." To be aired sometime with his right thumb. than 750,000 folks who attended in 1984 soon, these primarily will feature current Following Jim's instructions, Howeth would agree. and past stories in Okhhoma TODAY. glided through several maneuvers, press- Last year's show was somewhat affected We hope you'll find them to be informa- ing his thumb against the button occa- by the extreme winter temperatures, but tive as well as entertaining. sionally until the roll was shot. Sumerall says they are expecting an out- + Occasionally, our readers have re- The result is a head-on look at How- standing display this spring because of quested an index to Okhhoma TODAY eth banking the glider to change direc- the fall rains. articles. An index of the 1984 issues has tions, with a panoramic view of Buffalo ?+ Another sure sign of spring is the just been completed. If you would like a Mountain, where most Oklahoma hang Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. Held copy, please write and we will be happy gliding takes place, in the background. for the past 18 years in the downtown to send it to you. We expect to have a -Sue Carter Civic Center Park, the festival has com- 5-year index to be available next January. pletely outgrown the area-in exhibit & Some time ago, Polly Nelson Han- space, parking facilities and just plain old cock mailed us her yearbook and some walking space. other long-held treasures from her school So the festival is moving a few blocks days at the Cherokee National Female south to a new, permanent, year-round Seminary. The paper was fragde, but plaza, near Stage Center (formerly the somehow it survived the U.S. postal sys- Midnight and Noonday, or the Inciden- Oklahoma Theatre Center) and the tem. After all, the yearbook was printed tal History of Southern Kansas and the Myriad Gardens. In fact, some of the prior to statehood when the seminary Indian Territory, 1871-1890, by G. D. children's activities and performing closed. It was fascinating to read about Fweman; UniwaSItyof Okhhoma PY~SJ, artists will spill over into the Stage Center young Indian children away from home 1005AspAw., Norman, OK 73019; $24.95. facilities during the festival, April 23-28. at a boarding school studying such things "G. D. Freeman was a blacksmith who W National Geographic Specials will as Latin, rhetoric and logic. Turn to page decided to write a book. He had never mark their 10th anniversary on public 34 to read more about Polly Nelson's heard the axiom that it takes just as much 4 OklahomaTODAY effort to write a bad book as a good one, Revolutionary War to 1980. This is no have been born in the Creek Indian and it never occurred to him that a black- Sundayevening read: Prucha covers com- Nation (near Okemah). smith might more than likely write a bad plex and often cantankerous goings+n I remember traveling from Paden north one. He just rolled up his sleeves and on a national scale, and you have to pay to Route 66 somewhere near Stroud to pitched in--one sentence after another, close attention or be lost in two para- watch and cheer Andy Payne running in one chapter after another, never looking graphs. The reward for attention is an the Bunion Derby in 1928. I lived in back, never blotting a line, dipping his overview of the U.S. government's actions Oklahoma through the Depression. I pen and forging on-until at last he had toward the various tribes at various times- traveled often on Route 66 until they it finished." So says editor Richard L. and the paternalism that has always been changed the name and route. Now I Lane in his introduction to this reprinted at its heart. travel by air. I came to California in 1943 memoir, first published in 1890. Prucha's 1,257 pages of text and append- to work in a defense plant and have lived For all the grand sweep of the title, the ices give swift treatment to the Trail of here since. I keep my ties with Okla- book is mainly about Caldwell, Kansas, Tears, Indian Territory, the Dawes Act homa history partly with my member- in its boom days as a cattle town, rail and allotment, the Oklahoma probate ship in the Oklahoma Historical Society. town and border town-only a few miles court scandal. .. He also refers readers E. McMullen from the wild lands of the Indian Nations. to books that treat these areas in more Venturn California Freeman's chapter titles alone make detail-Angie Debo's AndSMthe Waters good reading. Here's just one, Chapter Run: The Betrayal of the Fhe CiwXzpd I am enclosing $10 for my '85 subscrip 25: "Indians on the Warpath-The Tribes, Grant Foreman's The Last Trek of tion and $6.95 for an '85 calendar. My Frightened Settlers Flee to Places of Safety the Indhns and Indizn Removal and Roy subscription may be early, but since I -Fortifications Built at Caldwell-Men Gittinger's The Formation of the State of discovered my beautiful home-state mag- Organized into a Force to Protect the Okhhoma. azine, 1 do not want to miss any future Town-Four Freighters Killed-The issues. Finding of Pat Hennessey's Body by I applaud the photography and arti- W. E. Malaley-The Rude Funeral." cles, which do justice to an alwaysremem- Lane says that in many ways this is just bered, beautiful and fun state! (I was born the kind of book a blacksmith wouM in 1922 in Ponca City and graduated write-"rough-hewn and gap-toothed from Ponca City High School in 1940.) and gawky." Sometimes Freeman's syn- For some reason I have found it difficult Marietta Shamn tax and references are downright puz- to get my hands on a copy of Okhhoma Santa Barbara, California zling, though Lane smooths the way TODAY.