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Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP
Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...
Are charter schools "state actors"?
The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board has authorized an explicitly Roman Catholic virtual charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, to begin operation in the 2024-2025 school year. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a pretend-conservative and Biden for President donor who won the GOP nomination with the help...
Read the Psalms monthly in 2024
For your consideration during New Year's Resolution Season: A little over a year ago, I decided I needed to do a better job of feeding my mind and spirit. I notice that my bedtime habit of listening to old British radio comedies (particularly Hancock's Half Hour) to help me drift...
Spurgeon on music in worship
An apt remark by P. Andrew Sandlin: Church leaders: if your praise band plays songs 90% of your congregation can't sing easily or enthusiastically, you don't have a church music program; you have a musical performance program. Let me urge you to start a church music program. prompted Noah Goedker...
Memorial Day weekend 1973: Saturday night in Tulsa
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
Do all cultures share the same values?
A recent tweet from Jeremy Tate, founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT): Classical education is fundamental an educational [sic] it what it means to be fully human. It is not a politically conservative alternative to the already politically hijacked mainstream education. Instead, it is an education in...
Sapulpa Route 66 Christmas Chute, Rhema Lights final nights
The Route 66 Christmas Chute on Dewey Avenue in downtown Sapulpa, Oklahoma, has just two more nights to run, but it continues to be a popular attraction two months after its opening on November 3, 2022. Ten overhanging steel structures decorated with a variety of themes stand in the...
Tulsa in the 1920 Official Automobile Blue Book
Before Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, before state highway officials collaborated to create a national highway numbering system in 1926, motorists traveling cross-country followed turn-by-turn directions contained in the Official Automobile Blue Book. These books are a time capsule of transportation history, not only mentioning routes, but road conditions, locations of...
1946 Tulsa County precincts
Newspapers.com has some amazing content that can help to locate long-lost rural places around Tulsa. I was searching for information about Bethel Union School, later known as Paul Revere School (which I wrote about in conjunction with the centennial of Southern Hills Baptist Church), and I found a legal notice...
1936 Tulsa County WPA Maps
During the Great Depression, the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) commissioned a series of maps in 1936 to document land ownership and taxable value. An example of the maps are shown above. Each map covers a Public Land Survey System (PLSS) township (6 miles...
Where are Tulsa's candidates?
I've made this plea repeatedly on social media, on Pat Campbell's show on 1170 KFAQ, and here on this blog. And yet I look at the list of candidates after two of the three days of the filing period, and I am amazed to see so many unopposed candidates. Four...
Improve our Tulsa 2: Why You Should Vote Against the Street Package
Brent Isaacs, a native Tulsan and city planner active for many years in advocating for a better Tulsa, has has written a piece below about why you should to vote against the first item on the November 12, 2019, Tulsa ballot. Labeled on the first sheet of the ballot as...
New hymnal: <em>Hymns to the Living God</em>
Religious Affections Ministries has published a new hymnal, and it's available for free download. Hymns to the Living God is notable for its slim size and the scarcity of copyright notices. Only 294 hymns were selected for inclusion, and nearly all of them are in the public domain. Scott Aniol,...
Tulsa County plats, indexes online
Exciting news! Yesterday, Tulsa County Clerk Michael Willis announced that subdivision plats for Tulsa County are now online. You no longer have to subject yourself to downtown parking and courthouse metal detectors to access this fascinating trove of Tulsa history. We have a pretty big deal launching in the Tulsa...
Teacher training a century ago
Amongst the discussion about education funding in Oklahoma is the claim that the large proportion of teachers with emergency or alternative certification is a danger sign -- we can't staff our schools with teachers that have the proper credentials. Getting the proper credentials involves taking certain courses in educational philosophy...
Heaven on earth?
During a recent long drive, I tuned in, via the miracle of the internet, to ABC radio in Australia, and listened to the "Overnights" show. In this particular hour, the host was playing songs with "heaven" in the title. Gospel songs about the eternal state of the blessed like "When...
TaxCutsNow rally today in Tulsa
The TaxCutsNow bus tour is making a stop today, September 12, 2017, in Tulsa, from 12:50-1:20 pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel north of 81st & Lewis, just west across the street from the Mabee Center, for a rally in support of tax relief for small business owners. The tour...
Jerry Lewis and Oral Roberts
On the occasion of the death of Jerry Lewis, Harry Shearer has posted his contemporaneous feature story about the 1976 Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. That was the year that, during a live appearance by Frank Sinatra, Lewis was reunited with his old partner in...
"There is no Negro business district anymore"
Relevant to yesterday's post on the Smithsonian Channel documentary that misrepresented the history of Greenwood, Tulsa's historic African-American neighborhood that its residents rebuilt after it was sacked and burned in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. The rebuilt neighborhood thrived and prospered for decades, becoming known as Black Wall Street, before urban renewal and expressway construction destroyed it again in the late 1960s. Here is a news story from the time that illustrates the social and financial impact of the decision to route the expressway through the heart of the Deep Greenwood commercial district.
Christian parenting: Immunizing against baptized liberalism, training the mind and the sentiments, and the call to heroism
One of the biggest fears of any Christian parent is that his child will abandon the faith in which he was raised once he's away from home. Some charismatic peer or professor will attempt to convert him to a new religion, which could be anything from a different branch of...
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