Our Sister to the South Has the Prettiest Blue in April

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https://www.mreavoice.org/9gnigey9bj The Oklahoma wheat is the deepest, most luscious green I have seen in years.

https://paradiseperformingartscenter.com/mtvfnej1y I met a funny goose in the parking lot yesterday whose sparkling white feathers were glistening in the sun.

https://penielenv.com/kocul8o6gsr In April, a rainbow of colors begins to show across the state. The red, red roses. The sunshine yellow daffodils. The pastel colors of Easter eggs.

https://getdarker.com/editorial/articles/2qc72o1kq But yesterday when my parents sent me this photo of the Texas bluebonnets they were gazing at during their annual southern trip, I had to give one up to the Lone Star state.  Their “Bluebonnet Blue” is heart stopping and worth a trip south in order to soak that color into your brains.

click here This Good Friday morning, Texas, I’m tipping my hat to you. Long live bluebonnets.  Long live our southern border friendship. And thank you, humongous state, for the beauty you share every year.

https://www.elevators.com/qshb4zq0bck [kelly]

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The Art of Standing in Line: Pioneer Woman Book Signing at the Full Circle

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https://dcinematools.com/bqkwvnmt On March 31st, 2012 the lower floor of 50 Penn Place was packed with people.  The chairs were packed.  The walls were packed. A group of people stood behind the designated seating area around the elevators, and there were even people behind the stage who were looking for a vantage point.  After being delayed in traffic due to a wreck on I-35, Ree Drummond (better known as The Pioneer Woman) was ready to begin her book signing event at OKC’s beloved Full Circle Book Store.  The event doubled as a fundraiser for the YWCA Domestic Violence Shelter, and by the crowd, it looked to be a good day to help out the provision of those important services.

https://www.yolascafe.com/f8cgk2uu5 Drummond mentioned she “gets nervous speaking,” so she used a Powerpoint presentation.  The crowd was interactive as she went through her slides covering the history and development of her online blogging, cooking and TV projects highlighting life on the central NW Oklahoma cattle ranch where she, her husband and their four children reside.  The attendees’ smiles turned to laughter as she finished her presentation by singing “Endless Love” to her Basset Hound, Charlie.

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https://guelph-real-estate.ca/b276ayi0ao One key to a good audience connection is an open and one-down position.  Drummond interspersed her presentation with many of these moments, including one instance where she had backed up until she ran into a plant behind her.  As she played with the plant fronds bouncing around her head she commented, “I’m so nervous I’ve backed into the plant!”  Continue reading The Art of Standing in Line: Pioneer Woman Book Signing at the Full Circle

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The Easter Pageant

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Photo by Darren White, all rights reserved.

source link “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 https://purestpotential.com/uq0qxmtb6 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.
see ~ Alisa Hines

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