The Easter Pageant

Photo by Darren White, all rights reserved.

“John Delgado of Los Angeles, California, would you please meet James at the Lighted Cross?  Mary Mayernik of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, would you please meet Martha at the Lighted Cross?”

Ruth and I looked at each other in awe, then we asked our parents, “would someone REALLY come that far just to see the Easter Pageant?” Typical responses ranged from “Anything’s possible with God,” from our mother, and from Papa, “Oh probably just someone stationed at Altus Air Force Base or Fort Sill.”

It was hard for me at age seven to fathom that an Easter Pageant held outdoors in a wildlife refuge in Southwestern Oklahoma could possibly outshine anything the East or West Coast had to offer, but it did.  Perhaps it was the location, with the permanent buildings built in the 1930s that gave the Pageant the authentic look of the Holy City.

I am thankful for Christian parents, who, even when money was tight, still took us to the Easter Pageant every year.  Preparation for this annual event began early on Saturday, the day before Easter.  Papa would gather the sleeping bags, extra blankets and a tarp or two.  We would add our pillows to the pile.  Mama would get out the picnic basket and ice chest.  She would spend the morning making chicken salad sandwiches and other goodies for a picnic supper.  By late afternoon, we were packed and ready to go.  The pageant didn’t start for another 10 hours, but Papa insisted on getting there early.  He wanted to make sure we had the perfect spot for viewing the pageant from the mountain side where the audience sat.

The drive over on Old US 62* seemed to go on forever, but a mere 45-50 minutes later we arrived, parked and unloaded the car for the short trek to our viewing spot for the night. Once we set up our viewing area, we headed off to walk thru the Holy City.  Strolling thru the various replicas of buildings from the life and times of Jesus left us in a sense of awe, as though we were really were in the Upper Room, or the manger in Bethlehem. My favorite was the chapel.  Built to resemble Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, where President George Washington worshipped, once inside you truly felt like you had walked into Jerusalem via the murals painted by artist Irene Malcolm.

At sunset, we gathered on our sleeping bags for a picnic supper served by Mama.  The Lighted Cross began to glow behind us as darkness crept over the mountainside, now packed with thousands of people.  Before settling in for a long nap, Ruth and I would walk up to the cross, just to see who was paging whom.  Snuggling into our sleeping bags, we eventually drifted off to sleep amid the hushed conversations of the families around us.

Promptly at midnight, church choirs and music groups from around the area would began singing gospel music.  They entertained the gathering until a few moments before the official 2 a.m. start time.  The final notes of the music faded as did all light on the pageant side of the mountain. A hush fell over the crowd that quickly escalated into ooohs and aaaahs as the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth unfolded before us.  Papa and Mama always stayed awake for the entire pageant.  Ruth and I sometimes fell back asleep.  No one however, slept thru the final scene. Continue reading The Easter Pageant

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Gloriously Memorial-ous: Victorious OSU Cowgirls Win NIT B-Ball Tourney

Honestly, I can’t even write this post without a shaky feeling overtaking my gut while my eyes begin to mist.

It’s been a hell of a year.  And yet, somehow the Oklahoma State University (OSU) women’s basketball team just completed what can only be described as a feature film finish.

In spite of losing their lead coach and their mentor assistant coach in a plane crash ten years after the OSU men’s team experienced their own plane crash, the women’s team won the NIT championship against James Madison University (JMU) in a 75-68 gloriously memorial-ous contest on Saturday.

And, everyone in the community did everything they could to pack that house for the team.

Case in point?  OSU men’s basketball coach Travis Ward announced on Thursday before the game that he had purchased $2000 worth of $5 tickets for any student to attend the game who couldn’t afford to go.  Hours later, another donor added another 30% to that number, inspired by Ward’s leadership.

The efforts of everyone who made up the record attendance for the year were not in vain.

When the game was over and victorious shock worked itself through the entire stadium, the game’s emotional climax came to an apex when the now-deceased head coach Budke’s widow, Shelley, was invited to be the last up the ladder to cut down the net.

Okay, now I’m crying.  I swear to Pistol Pete’s six-shooter, I can’t write about this incident without feeling grateful, sad, elated and undone.  And if a clinical instructor feels that way, then what in world do the players and their now head coach Jim Littell now feel?

All I can imagine is: Amazing. Weirded out. Sad. Ecstatic.

And maybe…satisfied.  They gave an honorable gift back to a hurting community, and to themselves.

You go, OSU Cowgirls BBall team.  You did it…and I thank you.  We all do.

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On the Horizon: They’re Just Like Us

On my recent trip to Ireland with the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program (OALP), we visited many farms around this small island nation. What we discovered was, they’re not all that different than farms back home in Oklahoma. They have many of the same concerns we have, government mandates, subsidies, production values, etc., only in some cases, they deal with much more than we do. I overheard one of my classmates saying, after coming here, I won’t complain about the mandates we have to deal with, they’re much, much less stringent than in Europe.

We were also able to see a lot of diversification from dairy farming to vegetable farming to sheep farming and also some of the problems that they have been dealing with for years. In this week’s video blog, travel to Ireland with OALP and see what we saw and learned when it comes to Irish farming.
~ Alisa Hines

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Diagnosing Your Own “Communication Breakdown”

photo used by permission

In 1970, I began kindergarten in a small town in mid-southwest Oklahoma.  At the same time I was learning letters and running around in the aisle to avoid the swinging ping-pong paddle when our teacher got mad, Led Zeppelin released their now-classic hit, “Communication Breakdown.”  One of the more compelling lines in that song is: “Communication break-down….drives me in-sa-a-a-a-a-a-a-nnneeee!!!” Then cool riffs begin to play, and we’re rocking to the rhythm once again.

I have a love/hate relationship with that song.  I love the music.  The lyrics are way too real, however.  Every day I silently witness communication breakdowns and at times they really do drive the parties insane.

I heard a story on NPR yesterday over a gentleman who is trying desperately to instill some peace talks in the Middle East.  He said, “If the enemies can first agree on what is wrong, THEN we can begin making progress.”  That’s true, isn’t it?  If you are having a difficult time deciding exactly where you are struggling with communication, then you might feel lost in trying to improve things.

Therefore, I’ve decided to give you a bullet point list today…just a few things that tend to happen frequently when people have communication problems.  If you find yourself in this list, then perhaps you can find a way out: Continue reading Diagnosing Your Own “Communication Breakdown”

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Spring Cleaning…Our Blog

(Note: I wrote this post a full two weeks ago but never posted it. Now, I actually AM cleaning up links, videos and other messy stuff.  However, you might be curious why there has been a little less activity on the RDC for the past few days…Well, wonder no more. Just read this post and you’ll understand.  Spring Cleaning is icky. ~ RDK)

I have been a bona fide blogger for approximately seventeen months. Between the time I set up my first “Blogger” site called “Red Dirt Kelly” through today I have grown the project through three different platforms and four different structures.

Further, I’ve deployed 1.997 posts per day since I began for a total of 910. That calculation doesn’t include the four sitting in the “draft” status on my queue. My plan with our current “online magazine” (I’m trying to decide whether I want to change to that language…it was used in the introduction for our recent TV appearance) was right at that reported level of content.

I knew that if all the contributors split up the work, then we would only have to write 1-2 times per week. THAT part of the plan hasn’t panned out as well as I thought, but a fully operational volunteer blog with twelve people who are willing to write on a volunteer basis is tough to muster. I think about advertising all the time.  I know that I personally would be more willing to write on a scheduled basis if I were being paid.

But aside from reflections about growing the RDC, I’ve been having thoughts about MAINTAINING the RDC.  What do I mean by that?

Well, take for example this illustration:  Yesterday I was perusing back through the content I’ve written and posted quite a while ago.  I smiled when I saw a post I that had included a funny song from YouTube.  That song was just so quirky to me I decided to rewatch the video.  I was surprised, but not shocked, when I got this message:

“The Singing Nuns …”
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including:

  • Web Sheriff
  • SOFA Entertainment
  • Web Sheriff
Sorry about that.
Oh, YouTube Sheriff, SOFA Entertainment and Web Sheriff Number Two, you’re not THAT sorry.  You’re just doing your job according to the law.
But now I’m torn.  Do I take that post down?  Do I leave it just as it is for a message to any potential readers that should they wish to hear the song they may need to purchase it? Or, do I modify the post and put in a note about the video no longer being available? Continue reading Spring Cleaning…Our Blog

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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.