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Al Clauser and His Oklahoma Outlaws and Patti Page
Another blog article started long ago, July 26, 2021, but never quite finished, until now. In 1982, Oklahoma was celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood, and it was one of the focuses (along with Korea) of the Smithsonian Institution's 1982 Festival of American Folklife. The program book...
Bob Wills discography in Record Research
In 1966 and 1967, a trio of researchers, Glenn White, Bob Healy, and Bob Pinson, published a series of articles in Record Research: The Magazine of Record Information and Statistics, covering the life and career of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. The introduction to this four-part series mentioned that...
Tulsa GOP 2020 precinct meetings
This Thursday night, January 30, 2020, starting at 6 pm, the Tulsa County Republican Party will hold precinct meetings, the first stage in the process for selecting delegates to the Republican National Convention and developing a party platform. The meetings are open to all registered Republicans. To simplify the logistics,...
Minneapolis bans single-family zoning
NOTE: I will be on KFAQ 1170 with Pat Campbell at 8:05 am on Wednesday, October 8, 2019, to discuss this issue, which was mentioned by Minneapolis police union president Lt. Bob Kroll in his interview with Pat Campbell this morning, as well as the City of Tulsa's plan to...
Tulsa attorney restores Bruce Goff-designed home
There's a flat-roofed home that stands at the crest of a hill at 14th and Quaker, just east of Peoria Avenue. It's easy to spot as you pass by on the Broken Arrow Expressway heading into downtown. It sits in a narrow residential sliver between the expressway and the Cherry...
Turning the Arkansas River into Joan Rivers
Tomorrow morning (Friday, September 19, 2014) at 8:05 am, I'll be on 1170 KFAQ with Pat Campbell to discuss "improvements" to the Arkansas River, the broad prairie stream that flows through the western and southwestern parts of the city of Tulsa. The "improvements" would involve renovating the Zink Lake dam,...
Tulsa's Emerson Elementary celebrates a century Friday, May 2, 2014
Emerson Elementary School, north of downtown Tulsa at 909 N. Boston Ave, will celebrate its centennial this Friday night, May 2, 2014, from 6 to 8 pm. Dinner will be provided by Elote and music by Muskogee's Wild Card Band. There will be a silent auction to benefit the school's...
Wichita WiFi and coffee
Business has had me in Wichita fairly often over the past few weeks. I was telling a friend about my recent sojourn, and she replied that she'd driven through Wichita a few times and couldn't "get on board with the whole Kansas thing." I'll admit that I didn't have a...
Gene Kranz: Obama "wrote the epitaph for manned space flight"
I saw an article today that made me aware of a missed opportunity. Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the safe return to Earth of Apollo 13, and the Cosmosphere -- just a short four hours from Tulsa in Hutchinson, Kansas, and home to the mission's command module, Odyssey, hosted...
A happy place in Kansas
I'm not normally a bubbly person, but I'm feeling pretty cheery at the moment. I'm on my way home after a long stretch of long workdays in Wichita. I got a later-than-planned start and left town without eating. I decided to stop in Winfield, Kansas, at a coffee house there....
Take the downtown housing survey
The city's economic development planners would like your thoughts on housing in and near downtown, and they've set up an online survey to collect your input, now through November 23. They want to find out who would be willing to live within the IDL and the neighborhoods immediately to the...
Buy Christmas gifts from crafty Tulsans
I've noticed a surge of interest among Tulsa's young adults in arts and crafts. You'll find their creations on sale at local boutiques and coffeehouses and at special events like last month's Indie Emporium, which featured handmade knitwear, jewelry, clothing, accessories, toys, art prints, photographs, greeting cards, and much, much...
Cornett conflict of interest charges; rail fans dial Preservation 911
Oklahoma City has a lot going for it, but it has its problems, too. Here are a couple of recent news items that may be of interest at the east end of the Turner Turnpike. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has a new job with ad agency Ackerman McQueen. (He's...
PLANiTULSA: Which scenario is rosiest?
An edited version of this column was published in the May 21-27, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. The date of the PLANiTULSA scenario rollout was May 12, 2009, not March...
Yes, we went to the Tulsa State Fair
We spent most of Saturday at the Tulsa State Fair. Despite my disgust at many of the decisions of of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (aka the Fair Board), as I mentioned last year, going to the fair is a family tradition that predates my existence. The fair was...
Brady Village a "best place" to buy an old house
This Old House, the pioneering PBS series on home restoration has saluted Tulsa's Brady Heights neighborhood as one of the best places in the country to buy an old house: Brady Heights existed before Oklahoma was a state. The area, originally known as the Silk Stocking neighborhood, saw hard times...
Walkability and ice storms
No one had left the house since I got home from work Friday afternoon, and the plan was that no one would leave the house at all today, until my daughter woke up complaining of a very sore throat. So I made a trip to the drugstore late this morning,...
Condemning TU: University of Tulsa benefits from city's abuse of eminent domain
An edited version of this piece was published in the August 9, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The edited, published version of the piece is online in the Internet Archive. Posted on the web April 28, 2013. Condemning TU By Michael D. Bates Usually it's the daily paper's editorial...
Falls Creek a "detainment camp"?
I was cheered to learn a few days agothat Oklahoma's Southern Baptists would be hosting Hurricane Katrina refugees at Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, southwest of Davis, Oklahoma. (Here's a Google satellite photo centered on the church camp.) This was the plan, according to a September 5 press release from...
Letchworth State Park is gorges
During my week-and-a-half trip to western New York, I had last Sunday afternoon off to roam a bit. I spotted a marked scenic route on the AAA map about an hour east of Buffalo -- Letchworth State Park, near Perry, New York. After a morning storm, the day was perfect....
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