Sample articles

From the clip ﬁles of Kirby Lee Davis
All of these articles appeared in The Journal Record, Oklahoma’s daily business newspaper. Many also ran
on the Associated Press news wire and in other publications or web sites around the world. Photos taken by
Davis accompanied several of these articles.
Sing us a song, we're the piano men
Published August 31, 2007
TULSA – Brian Lee sat alone as darkness descended on the Full Moon Café, sipping from a can of Red Bull
and a cup of ice water. With his long brown hair swept back, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes, Lee folded his arms
on the bar and paid little attention to the audience crowding into the restaurant at his back.
Across the busy room Tom Basler lifted the lights on two miniature grand pianos, one crimson shell bearing
white University of Oklahoma logos facing off against its black mate trimmed with Oklahoma State banners. The
man with the salt and pepper goatee checked the electric Yamaha P-90 pianos and Bose amplification systems,
all the while chatting with a beautiful woman who, like dozens of others, reserved a table around the stage that
Saturday night. He smiled as she wrapped her arms around his flowery shirt for a quick photo, then rose to greet
other diners.
At 9 p.m., as festive conversations threatened to drown out anything the waitresses asked, Basler guided Lee
to the OSU piano, where his blind friend settled onto his bench. Taking his place behind the crimson and crème,
Basler welcomed the audience before launching a lively rendition of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. Lee
jumped in before the opening chords faded, harmonizing both with vocals and keys.
“One down, 200 to go,” Basler said at the end, even as Lee charged into a tune of his own. Basler listened for
a moment, then lent his talents.
That set the tone for the whole evening, singing within a crowded half-circle of fans dining on burgers or
downing cold brews as they filled out request forms and screamed out the choruses. The whole experience marks
quite a change of pace for both artists.
By day, Basler sells amplification systems, keyboards and other equipment at Tulsa’s Guitar Center store.
Besides writing music and performing with the band Freak Show, Lee pens jingles with two of Tulsa radio’s
veterans at the Pro Spots advertising firm and directs the band at Christ United Methodist Church.
But by night, three times a week, they’re the dueling piano men at the Full Moon Café.
“I really don’t care for that term,” the 50-year-old Basler said of the dueling pianos gig, even though he uses it
on his business card as the entertainment director for the midtown Tulsa restaurant and bar. “I prefer sing-along
or rock ‘n roll sing-along. Outplay each other? That’s not what we do.”
For the last two years, Basler and Lee have provided the equivalent of a two-piece piece band without guitars
or drums.
“Anybody could do this with the technology that’s available today,” said Basler, who gave up chasing a degree
at Penn State to carve out a journeyman career with the keyboard. “We deliberately don’t. Part of the magic trick
is that we’re just doing it with two pianos and two guys singing.
“In our business there’s about 50 songs that we dueling piano players refer to as core songs, songs that every
piano player knows,” said Basler. “Piano Man, Tiny Dancer, American Pie, Brown-eyed Girl… they’re like the
standards. And then we have a handful of songs each guy has in his own show where you have your certain
signature songs that you have to put your own stamp on. Brian does Leon Russell real well. I don’t know any
Leon Russell, but he knocks them out of the park.”
They don’t rehearse or talk about what they plan to perform. Basler considers that spontaneity part of the
act’s attraction, no matter whether they blend into a soaring rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody or a bouncy
California Girls.
“That’s part of the fun thing of our job, because I have no idea what he’ll play next and he has no idea what I’ll
play next,” he said. “That’s part of the challenge to me, not knowing what sort of curve my partner’s going to throw
me.”
Girls like to sing
With decades of experience between them and thousands of songs running through their heads, it provides
for a challenging experience.
“The fact that we can pull it off, that’s what makes us unique,” said Basler.
Ad-libbing what they don’t know – or even what they do – just enhances the fun.
At one point Basler opened the familiar chords to the Turtles’ standard Happy Together, drawing immediate
applause from the audience. But he then twisted the words into a Dr. Demento-styled parody, which Lee naturally
slid into.
“He’s an absolute riot on stage,” said Lee, a 23-year industry veteran who credits Basler with teaching him
Recent press clippings for Kirby Lee Davis, page 1

how to do this act. “Tom’s a hoot. It’s cool to be able to work in the business as long as he has and to be able to
gain as much life experience from a cat like that.”
Lee uses such humorous turns to springboard into other directions, as when he leapt into Sittin’ on the Dock
of the Bay, to the crowd’s delight.
“Just sittin’ on the dock of the bay,” he sang, “doing… what?”
“Wastin’ time,” the audience harmonized.
That interaction plays to the heart of the show.
“The audience is part of the show,” said Basler. “They don’t know it at beginning, and they may not at the end,
but it is.”
Both artists get a kick out of building that interplay. When spurring the audience into whistling the Otis
Redding hit, Lee drew upon Lauren Bacall’s famous line from To Have or Have Not.
“You know how to whistle, don’t you, baby?” he called out to a table of women. “Put your lips together and
blow.”
Or he’ll twist the words in a classic call-and-response with the audience.
“Where am I?” Lee broke into one lyric to ask those around him.
“Under the boardwalk,” the audience sang back, giving away the song’s title.
“More specifically,” Lee wondered aloud.
“Down by the sea,” they responded.
Basler often gets more direct, telling the audience how to do it while encouraging them to drink so that the
duelers will sound better.
“I say ‘Bennie,’ you say ‘Bennie,’” he called out during the bluesy Elton John tune. Many listeners did just
what he asked, with exuberance, though Basler obviously didn’t think it enough.
“Now I say ‘Bennie,’ you say ‘Bennie’ louder,” he urged. “Bennie…”
“BENNIE.”
“Bennie…”
“BENNIE!”
“Bennie, Bennie, Bennie and the Jets.”
Later on he demonstrated how to clap, or make a request.
“You might make some in combination with some green,” he added, holding up a greenback with a filled-in
request form. “If you think we’re whores, you’re right. Five to 10 bucks will impress us. Twenty dollars will get you
the next song.”
He then launched into the theme from Cheers, which brought a cascade of applause.
“I think for a lot of people, it’s a chance to blow off a lot of steam,” Basler said of the interplay. “You may notice
that 65 to 70 percent of the audience is female. That’s because girls like to sing.”
That Saturday night met his expectations, with whole tables of listening women, ice buckets and snacks at
their elbows.
“We often attract groups of girls who want to have a good time, cocktails, party,” he said. “It’s not like a meat
market environment, so girls feel very safe there. And I don’t mean just the Full Moon, but at this type of show.”
Spiritual side to the work
As might be expected, Basler generally leads the presentation and handles the requests. But Lee’s blindness
doesn’t limit his connection to the audience.
“I’m very adept at listening to what’s going on around me,” said Lee, who has been blind since birth. “Just as
Tom can see, I can hear by the start of the song. I’m listening to things in a stereo path behind me.
I’m listening to the crowd all the time. I’m listening to their reaction to my joke or my partner’s joke or how they
respond to the song. It’s never a problem, except in driving to work.
“As far as music goes, I have fun with it,” he continued. “People bring me Stevie Wonder requests; I have a lot
of fun with those. They want to hear Ray Charles; that’s fine. I joke about that. If you’re a blind musician, you have
to learn all the blind musicians’ songs.”
Lee marvels at being able to make a career using his gifts.
“Johnny Restaurant person in there can yell out songs for me and I’ll play it for them,” he said. “I get to play
music for people. It’s a gift God gave me that I get to use.
“I’m just a tool,” he said. “The reason I have this musical ability is a God-given gift. It’s really cool to be able to
share that. I enjoy music. Music is what I’ve had since I was born. I enjoy listening to it, I enjoy playing it. I’m just
tickled that people want to come out and hear what I do.”
Occasionally the show dips into the adult realm. One night a request sought a special song for a birthday girl,
so Basler called on her to come down. When a reluctant 23-year-old brunette stepped into the light, he asked the
blushing beauty to sit atop his piano, where he chatted with her to break the ice. Basler then sang an adoringly
mellow Babyface, to the audience’s delight and her emerging smile.
But with the second verse, Basler started suggesting just what he’d like to do with that baby face. With each
lyric’s extension the crowd’s roars matched her reddening checks.
For Lee, such interplay’s just another part of the business.
“God has a sense of humor,” said Lee. “God knows what I do. Look at the duckbill platypus and tell me God

doesn’t have a sense of humor. You know, my church is very supportive of what I do. They come out and see me.
They know it’s a show. It’s a little blue humor. They know it happens.
“Me and my God are real cool with that,” he said. “He knows my first priority and my first answer is to him. I
know it’s not hurting anybody. It’s not reality. It’s just fun.”
Basler also sees a spiritual side to his work, though from a different direction.
“Any questions I had in my mind about a higher power were erased last fall, because I am definitely here for a
reason,” he said, reflecting on two critical months one year ago when Lee manned the stage on his own, pulling
substitutes for his mentor.
Last summer Basler noticed a lump the size of his fist forming just under his neck. Though he admittedly
hadn’t seen a doctor for seven or eight years, having no health insurance, in early August he decided the time
was right for a check-up. His physician immediately sent him to St. Francis Hospital, where he began a dangerous
six-week stay.
“I found out within an hour that I was diabetic, almost within a diabetic coma,” he said. “My doctor told me
later I could have died within 20 hours.”
Basler doesn’t remember anything over the next week or so as they got his blood sugar stabilized. But that
led to an internal infection and other complications, with mucus building on the outer wall of his lung. Addressing
those concerns led to another blackout period of over a week.
“When I came to, I was already in recovery,” he said. “By the time I had any idea what was going on, it was
already over.”
Although he got out of the hospital on Sept. 11, the ordeal left him bed-ridden until October. That’s when he
had to start building up his stamina, easing back into work about an hour a night.
“It was tough,” said Lee. “Not only was it my partner, it was my friend. There was a time I was afraid I was
going to lose my friend.
“Granted I missed playing with Tom on stage, but the hardest part was that I didn’t know if my friend was
going to make it,” he said. “That’s tough. It sucks on one level but even worse on the heavier side.”
A nice life
As a single, divorced father whose 13-year-old son had endured his mother’s passing two years earlier,
Basler said the experience gave him a new appreciation for life. The full-time musician added the Guitar Center
gig to not only gain health insurance, a 401(k) policy and other long-term benefits, but also the potential stability of
a corporate path.
“Guitar Center’s already recognized the fact that I could be an asset to their company because of my
experience and my skills,” he said. “My thing is, if I have to work somewhere 40 hours a week to get benefits, I
ought to do it someplace where I get to meet people. And I get to play with lots of toys.”
But the Full Moon gig remains his career of choice, as well as his primary source of income. As it does for
Lee.
“Brian and I get paid about the same money that a band would be paid,” said Basler.
Since such takes are split but two ways, Basler said playing dueling piano bars (though often with different
partners) provided him a nice life, even for a single parent who’d had full custody of his son since age four.
“Brian and I are probably two of the only guys in town who make a living doing this,” he said of Tulsa’s
professional musicians. “Ninety-five percent of the guys who play in bands have a daytime job, and it’s not
because they want to. They have to.
“I never realized how lucky I had it, working three nights a week at the Full Moon, until I got my day job,” said
Basler. “Basically I’d worked about 10 hours a week. And now I work about 60 hours a week. Now I can’t just put
off a job until tomorrow because tomorrow’s next Sunday.”
Neither piano man intends to drop their Full Moon headliner act.
For Lee, it’s steady work just a few miles from home, one that allows him to take other opportunities that
come his way.
For Basler, it provides a stable home for his son, and keeps a promise to stay in one place throughout his
son’s high school days.
For both, it’s a chance to keep working together, entertaining an audience.
“It’s fulfilling,” said Lee. “I’m tickled by the fact that I get to go and sit down and play songs that people want to
hear for a living. That’s just awesome.”
Basler echoed that.
“I’m going to take care of my advantage to do a sing-along as long as I can, because I really enjoy it,” he said.
“The people here are very friendly. And after living in some of the places I’ve lived in, that carries a lot of weight.”
Second act
QuikTrip veteran sees benefits in switch to nursing
Published December 3, 2015
TULSA – The pain within her work sometimes gets to Jo Ann Brown. The nurse has seen many critical

patients pass through Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s seven-bed intensive care unit, often more than
once in her seven years on the job. She knows many by their first names.
“I’ve only cried once in front of a patient,” said Brown, 61. “Usually I can get out the door before the tears
start.”
But she said she loves her job for the chance to help the needy and the opportunity to witness miracles.
“You try to give them hope and encouragement,” Brown said. “At least be there to hold their hand in their final
days or hug them.
“Encouragement is the biggest thing,” she said. “I’ve seen miracles come out of that unit, where our doctors
didn’t even think they were going to make it, and they did. They come back to see us and they’re walking and
talking and doing well. It’s just a wonderful experience.”
Such devotion is one of the key attributes CTCA seeks in its nursing staff, said Aaron Triska, manager of the
hospital’s special care and intermediate care units.
“We can teach you how to do the technical skills,” he said. “Those soft skills are the ones that’s a lot harder to
teach. That’s what we hire for here. She is a very good example of that.”
“She’s very engaging,” said Triska.“She has a sincerity and a genuineness when approaching (patients). She
really does want to get to know them.”
Brown started considering a career change to nursing at age 40. But the timing didn’t seem right to the 16-
year QuikTrip veteran.
“I was raising kids and trying to get them through school,” said Brown, who started with Tulsa-based QT as a
benefits coordinator. “You just don’t have those opportunities then.”
She felt secure in her career, rising through the ranks to benefits manager for a convenience store operator
that now employs almost 20,000 workers at 725 locations.
“We don’t have much turnover,” said QT spokesman Mike Thornbrugh, pointing to a full-time employee
turnover rate of just 12 percent, one-fourth of its industry average. “She was a longtime employee, well-liked, and
she was an asset to the organization.”
But the repetitive nature of her job started wearing on Brown.
“I felt like their mother when I was there,” she said. “It was an awesome job. Everybody liked me and I liked
them. But it was the same routine, year after year, and I thought I wanted to do something different.”
When her kids were finally out of the house, Brown and her husband decided they could afford for her to quit
work and start studies at Tulsa Community College. The program typically takes two years.
“Actually it took me five years to get through, because I took some time off to take care of my mother, who
was ill,” Brown said of her 2009 graduation.
That extended time raised the financial burden on her family, although her husband’s house-painting business
kept them in sound shape.
“My husband was very ready for me to go back to work by the time it was all said and done,” she said.
Brown discovered that she loved going back to school, although she was the oldest student in her class. But
her age difference was not what many might expect. TCC nursing students average 32 to 34 years old, said
Associate Dean of Nursing Rick Hollingsworth.
“That would lead us to think that they are either continuing their education or seeking a career difference later
in life,” he said.
Although fears of a nursing shortage have lessened, Hollingsworth said job demand remains high. He said
every TCC nursing graduate who seeks a job finds one. Many find positions before even graduating.
“Everyone looks at nursing and health care as a secure type of job,” said Triska, whose department hired
Brown four years ago. “There’s always going to be sick people that need to be taken care of. It’s also one of those
decent-paying jobs, where you don’t need a four-year degree.”
Brown agreed with that, although she didn’t make the change for the money.
“I would have made a lot more staying in the field I was in and staying in the position I was in,” she said. “I
could have advanced to director by now.”
At age 61, Brown expects to continue as a full-time nurse at least four more years. She may then switch to
part-time service as she manages nursing’s physical strain.
“There’s many a day I go home and my lower back hurts a little bit,” she said. “But you can get a low back
ache from walking, so it’s mostly in a day’s work.”
The emotional strain weighs on her more, as does the job fulfillment.
“Success stories,” she said. “That’s the reason I do it.
“I know I’m not going to save everybody,” said Brown. “I just like what I do. I love being a nurse.”
These Walls: The Center of the Universe
Published on April 18, 2014
TULSA – For years beyond number, mankind has searched for the Center of the Universe, never realizing it
sat atop downtown Tulsa’s Boston Avenue pedestrian bridge.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Michelle Place, executive director of the Tulsa Historical Society, echoing the

words of many others.
Most of those few with knowledge of that 15-ring circle of bricks have no clue how or when it got there, or why
it does what it does.
“Nope, I don’t, and I don’t,” said Amanda DeCort, preservation planner for the city of Tulsa and the Tulsa
Preservation Commission.
Perhaps that confusion’s not too surprising, since no official markers proclaim the existence or tell the story
behind the Center of the Universe. Then again, many city executives are not certain exactly when that bridge was
even built, much less when the Center appeared.
All anyone knows for sure is that the Center distorts sounds heard by those within its circle. Even their own
voices will seem strange to them, although those outside the Center will hear things normally.
It may have other unusual properties as well.
“It’s a very unusual situation,” said Paul Strizek, Tulsa’s maintenance manager for the Center, the nearby
sculpture Artificial Cloud, and other city properties downtown.
“When you stand in that circle and face the obelisk, the metal sculpture, you’re not even lined up straight with
it,” Strizek said. “You’re offset a little bit.”
Such mystique’s fueled Internet tourism pages and a year-old music festival named in its honor. Tourism
officials suspect that hundreds, if not thousands, of travelers from around the world may have paid homage to the
Center, although that too remains speculation.
“There’s no way to really say, because there’s not a gate there,” said Vanesa Masucci, director of sales for
VisitTulsa. “Tourism in Tulsa is very hard to gauge.”
Jason McIntosh, chief executive of the neighboring Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, believes the Center was an
accidental anomaly that came from the bridge’s brick, steel and concrete construction. So does Ken Busby,
executive director and CEO of the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa.
“It’s sort of amazing, when you think about it,” Busby said. “It just sort of happened.”
Some observers suggested that the Center may have been built with the installation of artist Bob Haozous’
Artificial Cloud. But Strizek thought the Center predated that 1991 sculpture. He suspected that the circle, which is
ringed by planters and a pair of embracing brick arms, came with a late 1970s to early 1980s renovation to repair
the Art Deco bridge after a devastating fire.
That’s when that steel and concrete span, which went up in the late 1920s or early ’30s, was limited to
pedestrian traffic.
DeCort agreed, noting that downtown’s original rail yard-spanning bridges sprang up from a 1927 bond
election. Since workers completed construction of the neighboring Union Depot Building (now home to the Jazz
Hall) in 1931, DeCort suspected that Boston Avenue’s original bridge was built at about the same time.
Strizek referred inquiries to the Tulsa office of Leidos, whose structural engineers are studying the bridge’s
integrity. They said the span was built in about 1930 by the Frisco Railroad. They had no information on the
Center of the Universe.
The Tulsa City-County Library archives hold one clipping about the Center, a 1997 Tulsa World article dating
the artistic brick design to construction of a new bridge section completed in 1983 as part of the fire repairs. That
article entertained a range of theories about how the bridge’s composition, planter wall arrangement, the Haozous
sculpture, or other elements could cause the anomalies.
DeCort appreciates the mystery.
“I like to watch people at all times of the day walking by there, stopping and standing on it,” she said.
Strizek focuses primarily on protecting it. A number of bricks are damaged or missing in one arm reaching for
the circle. Graffiti abounds around the site.
“We often just paint over it because we get dozens of little graffiti marks every week,” he said. “They will tag
anything they will get their hands on.”
Part-time pastors
Church leaders take on dual careers
Posted March 29, 2011
TULSA – Any given weekday, you might find attorney John Rule arguing a fact of corporate law for clients of
the Tulsa firm GableGotwals.
Every Saturday, you would find St. John’s Episcopal Church Priest Associate John Rule working on the
sermon he will deliver Sunday as the interim victor for Tulsa’s Christ Church Episcopal. Or you would see him
leading the Brotherhood at St. Andrew men’s group. Or both.
“When you tell people you’re a priest and a lawyer, you get a reaction like, ‘How can you possibly be both of
those?’” said Rule, his lips pursed in a subtle smile. “People probably wonder whether there’s some conflict there.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said. “There are times when I have something of a religious nature going on during the
week and I would wear my clergy garb to the law office. That always causes people to look at me differently, when
I come in those days. They all wonder what I’m doing.”

John Clayton understands such curiosity. Although he usually works from his Fort Smith, Ark., home, his
business card lists him as a Little Rock apartment broker for Phoenix-based Hendricks and Partners, serving
under Tulsa broker Aaron Hargrove.
It’s those who visit FOCUS Church of Fort Smith who see Clayton at his true calling, guiding the 60-member
church he founded in January at Second Street Live, an old downtown warehouse transformed into a performing
arts venue two blocks from the Arkansas River.
Clayton, like Rule, feels perfectly at ease in both roles.
“I see it as an opportunity – and a challenge, OK – but I see it as an opportunity to be able to glorify Jesus
Christ by my words and my actions,” said Clayton. “There should not be a dilemma.”
Such multitasking might surprise those who know and view a pastor’s position as full-time leadership of his or
her flock – a principle some religions hold as a matter of faith.
“The whole spirituality of the church is centered around the sacraments and prayer,” said Deacon John
Johnson, chancellor for the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Tulsa, which allows no bi-vocational priests. “The
church provides for the priests so that they may dedicate their full attention to the sacramental needs of the
parish.”
But a great number of executive pastors thrive under a variety of other faiths. Clayton said about half of all
Southern Baptist ministers draw their primary income from other positions, as he does and his father before him.
“It’s just the way the Lord set it up,” said Mike Wade, who works full time as an American Airlines machinist
when he’s not shepherding his 50-member flock at the nondenominational New Beginnings Church in Skiatook.
“I’ve preached off and on, filling in jobs for different pastors through the years. The opportunity came up for this
one and I said I’d do it until the Lord sends somebody by. Well, that was nine years ago.”
With more churches struggling to find and afford ministers under today’s baby-boomer retirements and volatile
economy, some observers foresee an increasing reliance on bi-vocational clergy, either in primary or secondary
staff roles.
“I really think there’s an advantage for the church in doing that,” said Rule. “There’s a struggle in making sure
that the pastor who’s serving in that role can be available when needed. People don’t die on a schedule or go to
the hospital on a schedule. There’s a need for pastors to be able to provide services when the moment of need
comes up.”
That’s one reason some faiths, like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, rely solely on bi-
vocational pastors. With no paid ministers on staff, the Mormons expect all believers to voluntarily preach and
administrate when needed.
“It’s very, very much a lay membership,” said Travis Campbell, a vice president of investment relations at the
natural gas giant Williams and LDS clergyman. “One man doesn’t have to take that whole burden. It’s really
shared over the whole membership.”
But some ministers reluctantly accept the bi-vocational role.
“I think it’s a wave of the future, but for a different purpose,” said Jason Grewe, who works as an exterminator
and pizza delivery driver so he can serve as pastor of the 30-member Town and Country Christian Church in
Coweta.
“The culture of the church has become more selfish and they don’t see the need to support more ministry,”
said Grewe, speaking not of Town and Country, but general trends he’s observed. “As a result, pastors are … put
in a position to support their church while they also need to support their family.”
And there are plenty of challenges of balancing two jobs.
Besides his weekend and evening church leadership roles, Wade stays on call around the clock for New
Beginnings while working 40 hours per week for American Airlines. He said his congregation understands his
schedule and limits interruptions during those hours to serious needs. When that happens, Wade said, American
always proves accommodating.
“They’re very good about allowing me to work schedules out,” he said. “If I can’t take vacation or if for some
reason I’m out of vacation, I can leave that morning and make up my time.”
Rule draws similar support from GableGotwals and St. John’s.
“We all go through this struggle of how do we integrate our deepest ethical and moral beliefs in our daily
lives,” he said. “One would hope those don’t conflict.”
With three jobs and a young family, Grewe seeks balance through careful time management. Campbell and
Clayton stressed the need to flexibly prioritize.
“Balance is a myth,” said Clayton. “There is no such thing as balance. It does not exist and I don’t believe that
God intended for it to exist. Rather what I believe is our lives consist of short intervals of controlled attention and
participation.”
Between brokering apartments for Hendricks and Partners and serving FOCUS Church, Clayton also attends
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., all with the full support of his wife and
three children. He said he focuses on all five roles – husband, father, pastor, student, and broker – no
differently than any other Christian handles his equally complicated life.
“Balance is a myth,” he repeated. “You have to deal with every specific situation as it comes along and pray
that God gives you the wisdom to discern what to give priority and how to deal with each individual situation.”

That’s why Clayton, Rule and others see no ethical problems in working both for God and a human employer.
“I don’t see it so much as conflict as confluence,” said Rule. “I’m trying to balance out the same thing that
anybody’s who adherent to a faith balances.”
Clayton agreed.
“Regardless of whether I am an ordained minister or not, God has a call on my life,” Clayton said. “Regardless
of my being a minister, if I am a believer, the ethics are the same for me. I have believed that all my career. I’m not
behaving any differently today as a minister than I would have or should have 10 years ago when I was not a
minister.
“When you engage in a business transaction, it brings out all of the life issues that people have to deal with,
that they struggle with, and as Christians, a business transaction is a perfect opportunity to display the love of
Christ and the walk of a Spirit-filled life,” he said. “A business transaction is a testimony.”
Grewe drew upon such faith to face the career uncertainties bi-vocational pastors may face.
“I don’t feel like it’s my life to plan,” he said. “I just feel like it’s my life to obey. When we moved back to Tulsa, I
didn’t know how we were going to be able to make it financially with my wife being a stay-home mom, but He’s
always provided in a way that we would never see. We never saw this church I’m currently working at being an
opportunity, but it is.”
On that, they all agreed.
“To be honest, you’re very blessed because the Lord will bless you as you’re working and in His service things
work out,” said Campbell. “My family was very blessed because of the time I was a bishop and I was in that
service.”
That’s Rule’s long-term comfort. When practicing law finally proves too much, he sees his ministry as his
retirement.
“I figure that as a lifetime deal,” said Rule.
New equations
Former teacher manages beauty-supply chain
Posted November 26, 2014
TULSA – The vast number of beauty supply products fascinates Dan Snider.
“I like the names,” Snider said as he walked the aisles of State Beauty Supply‘s 4,000-square-foot central
Tulsa store, 9516 E. 54th St. “Big Sexy Hair. Healthy Sexy Hair. Blow It Up. H2NO.”
“That’s dry shampoo,” the 62-year-old said. “You don’t use water with that. You just spray it on.”
Although his mother ran a salon, and his wife, Sherry Snider, had long operated a franchised State Beauty
chain in the Tulsa area with her parents, Dan never worried too much about keeping stock of the growing beauty
product sector. He enjoyed a 30-year career teaching advanced math courses at Tulsa’s Edison Preparatory
School, building close ties with students and faculty members.
“He has a very unique way of getting his point across without telling you how to do it,” said Edison instructor
Angela Winston, who worked with Snider for eight years. “He uses a lot of questions to get you to think about
things. He has a way of leading you in that way, without telling you.”
But when State Beauty Supply co-founder John Newman died in spring 2013, Dan and his wife thought he
should accept a management role at what was then a three-store chain. So he stepped away from education and
dove into retail as franchise co-owner with his wife and mother-in-law, Joann Newman.
“My strength is numbers, and financial and business planning, those types of things,” Dan said. “My wife,
while she’s good at those, is really a people person, and Joann is really a people person.”
His math background proved a boon, helping Snider master the details of selling shampoos, hair colors, and
other beauty products while opening a fourth store, then acquiring a fifth.
“I’m constantly looking for patterns in the numbers,” he said. “If our sales are increasing in a particular area, I
look for trends and patterns, populations.”
Such skills help him observe what’s selling just by walking store aisles.
“He’s doing really good,” Sherry said, noting that Dan had taken over management of their new Bartlesville
location.
The duo anticipate moving that shop to a larger site by the end of 2015.
But leaving Edison left a gap with many students. Waller and Co. co-founder Mary Waller said her daughter
had agreed to take an advanced statistical course at Snider’s urging, only to struggle with the course in his
absence. Other students also encountered difficulties.
So Snider volunteered tutoring services to these students, on top of his 50-plus-hour workweeks. He
considered these evening Panera Bread sessions no different than when he’d started each high school workday
at 7 a.m., dedicating that extra morning hour to any student who came in seeking help.
“He did this for all the kids,” Waller said. “Any kid who was willing to work hard, he was willing to work hard to
help them, as long as they owned it and they tried.”
Such efforts thrill Dan.

“I really just enjoy being that teacher that can help them understand,” he said. “I get a great day of satisfaction
from that. When I can explain something and you see the light bulbs going off and you go, ‘I get it!’ It’s like
opening a Christmas package.”
Fellow teacher Winston said she expects Dan to continue volunteering his time as long as Edison students,
former students or teachers ask him to. Dan is tutoring two students this semester.
“It’s his relax time, and his fun time,” Sherry said.
Having watched Dan tutoring, Waller expressed no doubt he would make a great business manager.
“I sat there at a separate table and listened to the way he taught,” she said. “He got them to ask the right
questions and thinking. He just sort of mentored them through it, and gave them the confidence they could do it.
“Every time I asked if I could pay him, he said absolutely not,” Waller said. “So I bought him a cup of coffee,
and he just said how much he enjoyed it, teaching.”
With sales up 15 percent this year, Snider foresees the State Beauty Supply chain adding a few more
locations over the next few years. But the longtime math instructor still expressed some challenges grasping the
many applications and nuances among beauty products.
“When our stylists come in here, they want us to be more shopper-friendly, so that instead of working just like
a warehouse where they would come in and pick stuff off a shelf, like a Sam’s (Club), they want to be more
mimicking what their salons would look like,” he said. “Well, you can imagine they come up and ask me about
Exquisite Shampoo. And I go, “Ahhh…”
Shadows of a dream
Stand-up comedian reflects on career burnout, considers comeback
Posted April 18, 2011
TULSA – If you drive onto the car lot at Claremore’s Suburban Chevrolet, don’t blink if a somewhat frazzled
sandy-haired man pitches you more jokes than he does automotive facts.
He’s just sharing what he knows best.
Five years ago stand-up comedian Roy Johnson surprised the Maxim magazine/Bud Light organizers and
won their “Real Man of Comedy” competition in Atlantic City.
Newly married, his first CD just hitting the ground, the Tulsa native soon found himself sitting in the same
dressing room Bob Dylan warmed up in before igniting the crowd at Philadelphia’s Tower Theater.
“That’s when I knew that was it – I’d done it,” Johnson said, his face still aglow with the euphoria of that
pinnacle moment. “I had arrived. That blew my mind that I was sitting in the same chair that Bob Dylan had sat in.”
Such are the dreams of the American artist, but just as those dancing sugarplums hide the hard work and
opportunity required to reach that stage, so do they gloss over the trials and tribulations still to come.
By June 2010, still in search of that next big break after a decade on the road, Johnson reached the end of his
endurance. His marriage over a year past, his four-year-old first CD now his only CD, the comic found himself
daydreaming even as he delivered still another club performance.
“I was numb,” Johnson said of his last professional gig, standing before an encouraging Stardome audience
in Birmingham, Ala. “It was a great experience but I just was numb. I was on stage and in my mind I was thinking
of other things. I had done the act so many times that I could do it and be thinking about Yankee baseball in my
head. I wasn’t going over well with the audience and I just kind of knew, ‘This isn’t what you were in it for.’”
In some ways that wasn’t true. Unlike many who take to the road seeking entertainment royalties, Johnson
had actually managed to scratch out a career on the road. That had been his goal on Sept. 13, 2001, when he
stepped into the Tampa, Fla., Improv club spotlight for his first professional performance – which also just
happened to be the first show after the 9/11 tragedy.
“Up until then I had been doing open mic shows filled with my friends,” recalled Johnson, who had grown up
telling jokes in a family that loved to laugh. “I went up there and I did about a minute of saying what happened
was significant and what happened has touched us all, but we’ve got to move on and I went into the act. When I
saw a switch in the audience and they laughed in my first joke, I was overwhelmed in the power of the medium. It
made me fall deeper in love with what was going on.”
Having served as a waiter, bartender and club manager at Tulsa’s Full Moon Café, Johnson had always
enjoyed engaging people. But it wasn’t until he took on that Improv audience that Johnson knew he’d found his
calling.
By his own standards, it took him two years to where he thought he could be funny every night.
“I had a concept of what it was and how to structure the joke,” Johnson said. “It was a natural way of how I
talked and presented myself.”
He earned his stripes embracing one of the most grinding professions. Johnson said the typical stand-up
comedian spends a week at major clubs, performing one show a day Wednesday through Sunday, with a second
show on Friday and Saturday. That leaves Monday and Tuesday for traveling to the next gig.
“The club pays for your hotel on the nights you work, plus usually about $100 a set,” he said. “So on a seven-
show week you get 700 bucks. And they’ll feed you while you’re there at the club, and usually buy you drinks. And

the rest is up to you.”
For eight years this dominated Johnson’s life, consuming 30 to 45 weeks a year. He actually brought an
entrepreneur’s eye to his road show, self-funding his CD and a series of T-shirts, which he sold after each gig.
“I was one of the first comics in the business to have a cellular credit card processing machine,” he said with a
proud smile. “I was a moving store. That’s a huge thing when you think about your expenses.”
But that cash-flow boost often was consumed by expenses in those down weeks where he took a break from
performing. In his best years, Johnson said he drew annual revenues of $25,000 to $30,000 – against $15,000 to
$20,000 in bills.
“Even with good T-shirt sales, you’re lucky enough to make it to the next week,” he said. “You have off weeks
and your off weeks aren’t paid vacations. You make nothing. You still have your expenses. You’re still kicking
down 10 percent to your management. You’ve got to pay for your website. There’s so much involved. If you want
a tape of your show, the clubs will usually charge you $20 to do that.”
The grind left him somewhat self-sufficient, providing for his daily needs, but it also chewed up nearly
everything he touched, with no cushion to fall back on. It allowed him to rub elbows with the best in his profession,
but it offered little security and no stability.
“When the music stops, you don’t have a chair,” Johnson said. “You’ve got to start all over. If you keep it
going, if you keep going to the next gig, going to the next gig, you just keep maintaining, you keep feeding the
beast. When the music stops, you find you don’t have anything.
“Your friends all have houses, they can afford to take vacations, they can afford to have a family,” he said. “I’m
busted. I’m bankrupt. That’s about it.”
The pot of gold that most such artists pursue – a Tonight Show appearance, a self-titled sitcom or film
introduction – still remained far on the horizon, at the end of that romantic rainbow.
“Every once in a while I’ll get a $17 check, which is typical when you’re not well-known,” he said of royalties
from his 2006 CD, Love Notes From the True Romantic.
While the CDs sold great at shows, Johnson figures most were listened to once before entering the stack.
“I venture to guess I probably sold about 10,000 over the years, mostly after the shows, mostly to people
wanting a piece of what they just saw,” he said with a shrug. “Of those 10,000, probably 4,000 or 5,000 got
listened to twice.”
Although Love Notes drew from his most enduring comedy lines, it didn’t protect his marriage from the grind.
“We always knew somewhere in the back of our head that maybe we’d made a mistake,” he said of that 30-
month effort. The needs of her own career kept him on the road alone.
“She never changed her name,” said Johnson. “She kept all the accounts separate. She was a great woman,
I love her to death, but we just went in different directions.”
In many ways Johnson pins his burnout on the grind – not because of stress or frustration, but just the
distance it placed between him and the everyday experiences that great stand-up comedy draw upon.
That’s where his latest comedic dreams rest, as he coaches his nephew’s sports teams and learns anew of
the cultural magic that is humanity.
With each day, Johnson said he’s building more material for a possible comeback. But he admits to equally
strong desires to just gain a stable life.
“It’s a great job,” he said of Suburban Chevrolet. “They’ve been good to me. They took me in, not knowing
anything about cars. They think I’m good talking to people.”
Once a month he hosts a show at the Looney Bin. He occasionally does charity gigs, and has a beginner’s
class in stand-up in development.
“The best part is, I can do comedy now and not worry about how much money I’m making, not have to worry
about what it means to the business or anything like that,” he said. “If I never work as a professional again, I can
live with it because I did it. I played with the biggest names. I worked at the biggest clubs. I worked with the
biggest comedians, and they said I was good. I did it.”
These Walls: Bridge No. 18 at Rock Creek
Posted on October 2, 2015
SAPULPA – Larry White enjoys driving Sapulpa's remaining original stretch of Route 66, a 3.3-mile jaunt of
aged pavement that curls though forested hills around an old, but still active, rail bed. A relic caps the road's
eastern edge: Bridge No. 18 at Rock Creek.
"A lot of people don't even realize this is here," said White, a board member with the proposed Heart of Route
66 Auto Museum, which hopes to set up its shop just east of the bridge. "We're going to advertise this in our
planning and promotional efforts, because I want people to know it's here."
That steel-truss bridge actually predates the Mother Road. Creek County built the structure in 1921 as part of
the Ozark Trail roadway, according to Sapulpa Historical Society records. The National Park Service and other
sources date its construction in 1924. The difference factors in when considering the road's founding role as part
of State Highway 7, which was designated in 1921 as one of eastern Oklahoma's few paved roads at that time.
That route was folded into U.S. Highway 66 in 1926, as former Tulsa City Commissioner Cyrus Avery pushed

to make his growing city the hub of the nation's premier highway. Route 66 gained global fame with the consumer
travel surge that followed World War II, its lore heightened by the silky voice of Nat King Cole and Martin Milner's
vagabond smile.
Evolving construction techniques played into the roadway's romance, creating landmarks within those
changing times. Bridge 18 illustrates that, gaining sentimental favor for its steel-truss construction. National Park
Service records honor it as one of Oklahoma's best surviving examples of that long-employed style.
Originally made of wood, truss systems gained initial use in the mid-1800s to cross shallow rivers and creeks.
They worked by absorbing load stress through tension and compression. Changing to steel allowed truss bridges
to span deeper and wider streams and rivers, freeing road planners from dependence on low-water crossings.
In technical terms, Bridge 18 represents Parker through-truss construction, a step between beam bridges and
those using cantilevers, truss-arches, or lattices. Its eight-panel, compound-truss and polygonal top-cord design
allowed the 18-foot-wide bridge to stretch more than 120 feet, which was considered a good feat for its day. Its
unusual brick decking helped Bridge 18 make the National Register of Historical Places almost two decades ago.
Steel bridge construction remained the industry's primary choice until concrete designs gained favor through
that epoch-making war. That change jumpstarted the romantic nostalgia that grew around spans like Bridge 18, as
did the bright orange rust that eventually claimed so many of them.
Bridge 18 stands out as an industrial age work of art, a web of brick and steel that supported daily vehicle
crossings for decades even after its famous highway was rerouted to a newer, broader path in 1952. After aging
issues forced its March 2013 closure, the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program provided a $5,013 cost-share
grant for bridge repairs and other Oklahoma Department of Transportation recommendations to preserve it.
Completed in January, the city's restorative efforts included a hanging gate limiting vehicle heights to 7 feet, 2
inches, which should keep heavier vehicles from topping the bridge's 4-ton limit.
"We still have many travelers running Route 66 each year from all over the world," said Mike Jeffries, director
of the Sapulpa Historical Museum. That downtown Sapulpa fixture houses the first historical marker that graced
Bridge 18. "Now that this bridge is fixed, many (tourists) stop to take pictures and travel the few miles of the old
road before it takes you back to the current version of Route 66.”
Auto dealers in peril
Published on April 28, 2009
TULSA – The pain carried through the phone lines.
“I just got the news a few hours ago,” Jerry Ferguson said, reflecting on GM’s move to shut down the
franchise his family built an automotive empire around. “Of course there’s been a lot of speculation. I’ve been
hearing rumors. But still …”
Announced Monday not in a press release, but in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, early
attention focused on word General Motors intended to close its 83-year-old Pontiac brand within a year, impacting
Broken Arrow’s Ferguson Superstore, Norman’s Ferguson Pontiac Buick GMC, and 53 other dealerships across
the Sooner State.
But with each of those selling Pontiacs alongside other lines, that economic impact would prove far less than
another ominous element in the GM restructuring plan. The nation’s largest automaker intends to shutter 42
percent of its dealer network, reducing those ranks from 6,246 to 3,605.
With GM accounting for 108 of Oklahoma’s 300 new-car dealerships, each one supporting 30 to 70
employees or more, that promises a tremendous shock to the Sooner State economy.
“I think it’s going to have its biggest impact in the rural communities,” said analyst James Kenderdine. “It will
affect big cities, where you will have people lose jobs, but the hit on ad valorem taxes and the hit on the kind of
contributions to the community they make will be much greater in the smaller communities.
“You take a car dealership out of Purcell, even a town as big as Pauls Valley, and you’re going to feel it almost
immediately,” said Kenderdine, professor emeritus of marketing and supply chain management with the University
of Oklahoma Price College of Business. “Take one out of Oklahoma City and you might not even notice it.”
That could hold true even when subtracting the entire Pontiac line. As the Oldsmobile shutdown illustrated a
decade ago, other makes and models should absorb the sales demand. So Monday’s GM move effectively could
reduce competition between existing GM dealers, strengthening the remainder for battle with Toyota, Ford and
other makes.
“For the dealers that survive it, it will be great,” said Rick Jones, owner of a Pontiac Buick GMC dealership in
El Reno. “For the others, it will be dealers sitting with properties that may not be paid for. There will be some
financial ruin for other dealers.”
But even that doesn’t reveal the true blow to Oklahoma’s economy, since Ford and Chrysler may follow GM.
The maker of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles may move to close its entire dealership network, which includes
55 in the Sooner State, if the embattled automaker cannot iron down a merger with Fiat or some other company
by the end of April.
Since Ford has talked of trimming its ranks, it’s conceivable Oklahoma could see a third to half of its new-car
dealerships disappear over the next few years.

“The impact on the economy is going to be huge,” said Steve Rankin, president of the Oklahoma Automotive
Dealers Association, whose sector employs 13,000. “Their payroll is about 13.2 percent of the total retail payroll of
the state.”
‘No progress without change’
Rankin suggested bankruptcy was not the answer for these manufacturers, which face that hurdle under
reorganization efforts with the Obama administration and its automotive task force. But the OADA also stands
against GM’s proposal.
“We don’t see the need for the reduction in dealers to the extent they’re talking about,” he said. “The dealers
are the manufacturer’s biggest customer. They’re not an expense to the manufacturer but a profit center.”
But to the dealers, the writing seems on the wall.
“You can see where GM is in a necessity to do this,” said Ferguson. “In the long run it needs to be
streamlined. We need to get things right-sized and try to absorb what we can.”
Jones said the Pontiac move, coupled with the sale or closure of Hummer and Saturn and the divestiture of
Saab, would eliminate one management group at GM.
“It’s a big change,” he said. “Pontiac’s been around all my lifetime, all your lifetime. It’s kind of sad to see a
change happen, but as they say, there’s no progress without change.”
Jones expects the reductions to hit metropolitan areas first, where for decades GM, Ford and Chrysler have
operated far larger dealer networks than their import counterparts. That could suggest Oklahoma may not endure
a 42-percent cut by GM, since many of its Sooner State dealers serve much larger geographic regions than those
on the East or West Coasts. Connecticut, for example, is home to 300 dealerships.
“I would say Oklahoma’s numbers won’t be that high,” Ferguson said.
But he foresees some reduction, with GM operating six Chevrolet dealers in Tulsa, as well as three Pontiac
Buick GMC dealerships and a Cadillac dealer, all competing against equally high Ford numbers, slightly less
Chrysler numbers, two Toyota dealers and equally small numbers among import lines – some of those with GM,
Ford or Chrysler dealers.
“We have a lot more competition and therefore the profit margin is a lot lower on our cars,” Jones said.
Although he has not heard any details from GM, Jones expects the manufacturer to urge dealers in small
communities to either partner with or buy out their competitors, leaving one or two operators per market. Jones
already has had talks along those lines with El Reno’s other GM dealer, Benny Dick of Frontier Chevrolet.
The dealer reductions promise to funnel continued service and maintenance spending into the surviving
dealerships, promising to boost what has traditionally been a profit center.
If the Oldsmobile experience holds, these analysts suggested the phase-out of Pontiac may have little, if any,
impact on sales. Jones suspects Buick may simply inherit some lines distinct to Pontiac, broadening its market
appeal. Ferguson said GM and the Obama administration have said they would stand behind long-term
warranties, although a possible bankruptcy could impact that.
Dealers also could be deterred from fighting the loss of their franchises, although the National Automotive
Dealers Association has made that offer.
“Some franchise protection laws that have to do with termination, and certainly some of that impact rural
areas, may come into play,” said Roy Dockum, executive director of the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Commission and
a former Oklahoma City Pontiac dealer. “However, if it’s done under bankruptcy or reorganization bankruptcy, it
may or may not. … Bankruptcy judges have authority to invalidate some of those franchise laws.”
‘Self-fulfilling prophesy’
Since the Pontiac closure will happen in a much faster time frame than the four-year Oldsmobile effort,
Kenderdine said it could have an adverse impact on immediate sales, perhaps even to speed up a dealer’s
closure.
“I think that’s why they held off mentioning this and they’ve tried to put that GM security plan in effect,” he
said, referring to the ad sales campaign vowing one-year sales support. “Perception is reality. If consumers get
afraid and their expectations are that something is on its way out, they may kill the thing off. It may be a self-
fulfilling prophesy.”
Kenderdine said that could impact even dealers that continue with other lines.
“Even if you have a Pontiac GMC dealer and half of the dealership is going away, people are going to wonder
if GMC is next,” he said. “It’s going to have an effect. The variable, I don’t know how to read yet.”
Jones said he could understand that, his 40-employee dealership having fielded 15 to 20 phone calls Monday
morning from concerned consumers.
“The government has said that warranty’s going to be taken care of, but who’s going to take care of it if that
Dodge dealer’s out of business?” he said.
Jones said his sales, which dropped 50 percent over the last six months, reclaimed about 20 percent last
month to inch back into profitability.
“This month I’ve seen another 10 percent come back on top of that,” he said.
Ferguson reported an April sales hike, although he wondered what impact the Pontiac closure would have.
“I don’t know if it can hurt sales much more than just the constant news about General Motors, day in and day
out,” said Ferguson. “Maybe it has to get a little bit worse before it gets a little better.”

Kenderdine said those sales improvements parallel other signs of returning consumer confidence.
“There’s some evidence out there that people are not as panicked as they were last October,” he said. “That
something’s being done. They feel like the government’s working on the problem. They may not like what’s
happening, they may not be sure that what we’re doing right now is the right thing to do. But at least something’s
being done.”
Rankin said many dealers took stringent cuts to stay in business over the last seven months. By tightening
belts, cutting expenses, making fewer community donations and reducing advertising in the community
newspaper and radio, Jones said, his firm had managed to survive with only cutting two jobs.
“We started cutting our inventory back a year ago,” said Ferguson, whose dealership employs 65, about 15
less than mid-2008. “Looking back, I’m glad I did. I wish I had done so even more.”
Keeping their language alive
Tribe pursues heritage, business of its native tongue
Posted on February 21, 2014
TULSA – Don Lionetti picked up his tablet computer and typed random text in its Microsoft Word window. With
a single menu switch, he then changed the screen’s working language to Cherokee.
“This is the only Native American language that is supported today,” he said, noting its free download for both
Windows and Microsoft Office. “It was a huge task to get that approved. The language team normally will only
look at doing this if the language has 2 million native speakers.”
That reflects global scales. Microsoft presents its software in 106 different languages, a tiny fraction of the
6,000-plus used around the world.
“It was the dedication of the Cherokee Nation that we were able to bend that rule,” said Lionetti, the Bellevue,
Wash., company’s account manager for tribal government and gaming accounts. “I don’t know of another tribe
that has such a dedication to the language as the Cherokee.”
This builds on the efforts of people like Microsoft software engineer Tracy Monteith, an Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians descendant who has sought this language translation since 1989. But even more, the move
reflects Cherokee Nation goals to preserve and expand usage of its native tongue among its 230,200 citizens.
“This is seen as the beginning,” said Neil Morton, the nation’s senior adviser of education services. “For the
first time we have the tools, the knowledge base and the resource base at our disposal where we can do the
things that we dreamed about doing but didn’t have the capabilities of doing.”
Armed with a $1 million-plus annual budget, Roy Boney Jr. oversees multiple developments as the head of
the Cherokee Nation’s Language Technology Education Services department. Over the last six years his growing
11-member staff has tapped numerous freelance contractors while adapting the complex, descriptive tongue to
Google, Apple and other communications platforms. The Microsoft Office work alone required 500,000
terminology translations.
“Learning all the different ways to conjugate the words can be a task in itself,” Boney said with a smile. “You
can have a big, long sentence and use little words.”
Although they have no trusted data, the need to act seems urgent. Half a century ago, researchers estimated
that only 38,000 Cherokees still spoke in their 86-letter native language. Some analysts fear that today’s active
users may represent a 10th of that, spurring preparation for a one-year study of just how Cherokees
communicate.
Modern applications for the Cherokee tongue seem limited. Tribal educators teach in the language from
kindergarten to eighth grade at Tahlequah’s Immersion School. Several tribal clinics and social services offices
also employ translators, and some museums tap these skills.
But Boney, Morton and others see much wider usage developing as more students master the tongue. They
hope to spread it across the tribe.
“Whether talking about religion, or whether you’re talking about new modes of spreading knowledge,
revolution always starts with young people,” Morton said. “The young people will perpetuate the language in
honor of the elders because it’s new. To use the teenage vernacular, it’s hot. Because of technology, it’s like a
secret language.”
The Cherokee Nation’s long-term goal involves growing applications from education and historical
preservation purposes to social communication, entertainment and business communication. Those steps took a
big leap forward in 2009 with the Cherokee version of Facebook. Other platforms soon followed.
As Microsoft’s work demonstrates, the small Cherokee user base could stilt commercial product launches
even by entrepreneurs. But Morton anticipates the language’s adoption by the youth could propel things forward.
“I see a day when it will be very popular for Cherokee students to be reading novels printed in Cherokee,” he
said. “In fact, I see the language being used more in the publishing business than it has ever been used in
business.”
Boney told of students asking if they could design video games in the Cherokee tongue.
“They’re already thinking along those lines,” he said.

Several observers speculated that new academic and professional specialties could develop around the
world’s archive of historic, still-untranslated Cherokee documents dating back to 1821, when the legendary
Sequoyah developed his language syllabary. Bringing those lost tales, poems, songs and histories to life could
inspire revisions in everything from American history books and museum displays to plays and film.
“Now we have the tool set that we can use to access the first-person voices of our forefathers,” Monteith said.
“We actually have our own version of history. It’s just
locked up in these documents. And now, with the technology at hand, we can unlock a lot of those voices.”
Morton said the academic world could absorb some interesting changes simply from translating the
thousands of Cherokee documents held by Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum. Monteith hopes it helps bring to light a
native character.
“I want to see Cherokee college graduates taking Cherokee historical documents and writing history from a
Cherokee perspective,” Monteith said. “That’s what I’m interested in most.”
And the children shall lead them?
Editorial published on November 19, 2007
More than a month later, many Tulsans still wonder how the Arkansas River tax proposal failed.
To which I offer this simple answer: not enough nudity.
You scoff, but tell me one person who wouldn’t have preferred that, or just about anything else, to the insulting
cascade of mini-sermons bestowed upon county voters by a bunch of children telling us why it was so important
to adopt this program? Whatever marketing genius thought up that condescending TV ad campaign spent way
too much time watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, for only in George Lucas’ infantile mind do tax-paying
adults let their children govern their lives.
Well, there and Toys “R” Us. And McDonald’s. Perhaps the mall. But that’s another subject.
If this whole issue was about creating an environment to attract and keep today’s young workers, then
nudity’s the key. Or at least semi-nudity, like young, attractive, sweaty people in clingy shirts and shorts, all drawn
by the hundreds daily to the Tulsa River Parks. I’m told a great number of people cruise Riverside Drive just to
watch those swinging arms and pumping legs, and whatever else.
I’m told that. You wouldn’t see me doing that, of course. That’s why I bought a bike. Plus you can’t see the
volleyball courts that well from the road. The bike trail’s closer. But that’s another subject.
Why didn’t anyone think to film all those hot, steamy young professionals jogging the trails, speaking their
peace on why we need river improvements? Wouldn’t that have made a much more effective message? Wouldn’t
that have reminded so many of us about just what we have to build with here – a really cool magnet for all those
young, bold, beautiful and buff up-and-comers?
At least that would open your eyes to all the wonderful attractions this rolling urban forest we call Tulsa
already has to offer, including a world-class golf course, two of the nation’s finest Western museums and a vibrant
night life with more class than anything else in this region. Too many people just take it all for granted.
Developing the river would have helped this, to be sure. Tremendously. Even more, it would have given Tulsa
the chance to lure more outside spenders and make vital improvements to its tax base. But no one needs a bunch
of children to tell us that, do we? Aren’t we smart enough to figure that out for ourselves?
Yes, not enough nudity. That’s the ticket. That’s why the river tax failed. That, and the fact that Mayor Kathy
Taylor didn’t wait until after the election to rehire the police chief. That one controversial, polarizing move
galvanized opposition at just the wrong time and spelled the doom of the river tax. But that’s another subject.
Behind the sparkle
Cherokee Nation’s Career Services help workers find jobs
Posted December 11, 2015
TULSA – People often credit casinos and hotels for the Cherokee Nation's robust growth over the last
decade. Overlooked in the bright sparkle of those venues is the influence of Cherokee Nation Career Services, a
40-year-old branch of the tribal government responsible for helping its members find and keep their jobs.
"It's a very integral part of all of it," said Principal Chief Bill John Baker, who greatly ramped up the agency's
employment and training operations since taking office four years ago. "Because of some of those things, we've
literally helped thousands of more Cherokees in either getting employable or getting employed."
At Baker's direction, Career Services expanded its job fairs and other employment services for both Cherokee
Nation Businesses, the tribe's commercial arm, and employers outside the tribe. The agency also enhanced its
ongoing worker training and certification efforts, and its ability to provide customized classes for individual
business needs.
"What we're doing is getting people's foot in the door," said Career Services Executive Director S. Diane
Kelley. "We think we are the hope of the Cherokee Nation."

The number of Cherokee citizens enrolled with the agency jumped 75.1 percent over the last four years to
7,134 in fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30.
"There's no telling how many people we've assisted in finding jobs," said Kelley. "I suppose if we captured all
the numbers, that would be 30,000 or more."
Job fairs now comprise about 50 percent of Career Services' work, said Daryl Legg, director of tribal
economic development. The agency held 30 such fairs in fiscal 2015, along with 10 new culinary training
programs, four welding classes, and five commercial truck-driving training programs. All of that came on top of
Career Services' 28 existing year-round employment and vocational training programs for workers, former
inmates, and other Cherokees.
"By the time they graduate, most of them have actual jobs," said Kelley.
Career Services may have gained its highest visibility in helping staff Macy's 1.3 million square-foot Tulsa
County Fulfillment Center. That Owasso facility opened in September with more than 450 fulltime jobs filled and
another 1,000 in process. The Cherokees also are helping fill 1,000 seasonal jobs at the distribution center, said
Brenda Fitzgerald, Career Services' director of vocational rehabilitation and dislocated worker programs.
Kelley said several other outside companies, unions, and vocational training schools have tapped her
department's job placement and training services. Recent activities include welding classes, culinary instruction,
and trucking programs, both within the Cherokee's 14-county area and in northwest Arkansas.
"I think we're clicking on all eight cylinders," said Baker. "We're only going to get bigger and better at getting
folks trained and employed."
To accomplish all this, the budget for Career Services has grown $8 million since fiscal 2011. Career Services
added three offices and expanded two others since fiscal 2011. Its staff increased 18.6 percent through those
years to 178.
About 72 percent of its budget draws from federal funds. The department landed 19 different accounts or
grants for fiscal 2015, totaling almost $7 million. That marks one reason why Career Services remains under the
government and not CNB.
"We can get federal programs to do what's needed," said Kelley. "The business side is there to generate
dollars and make money.
"A lot of people do not know what we do and how it correlates with the business side," she said. "We like it
that way.”
Carrying the torch
Kyle leads Oneok to historic heights, following his best friend's path
Published on October 9, 2006
TULSA – If any executive has the right to crow over his achievements, it’s David Kyle.
“He has represented Oneok as good as it can be done, in my opinion,” said Tom Maxwell, the chairman and
chief executive of The Flintco Companies Inc.
Preparing for Oneok’s centennial celebration on Thursday, Kyle presides as chairman and CEO of
Oklahoma’s largest public company – and the nation’s 176th largest, according to Fortune Magazine. That
publication also ranks the $12.8 billion natural gas giant as not only the nation’s 55th fastest-growing firm, but one
of its most admired.
That marks a remarkable transition from what little more than a decade ago had been shrugged off by many
investors as a rather simple natural gas utility, one that often flirted with bankruptcy through its first hundred years.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” said C.C. “Charles” Ingram, the firm’s chairman emeritus who himself led the
company for two decades. “The most historic highlights have been the last few years. The company has almost
tripled its size and even more so. This is the most exciting time, at least for stockholders.”
But while Kyle shares in that joy, taking pride in what Oneok and its employees have accomplished, he
doesn’t cite it among his personal highlights.
For those most cherished of memories, he falls back to his first day on the job – June 3, 1974 – when the shy
Oklahoma State University graduate gathered with other new hires in a downtown Oklahoma City training room to
begin learning the ropes as engineers for Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. There he met Larry Brummett, forging a
lifelong friendship with the outgoing, take-charge University of Oklahoma Sooner, something of Kyle’s opposite in
many ways, and yet not always so.
“When we showed up to work the next day in our best outfits, we looked so much the same,” Kyle said,
chuckling. “It looked like we’d shopped at the same store.”
Kyle still smiles recalling that day the two best friends both received promotions to vice president, and later to
executive vice president. He nods with approval when telling how, 20 years ago, the duo agreed to marshal their
careers and advance together, not standing in the other’s way.
Topping all those memories is the day in January 1994 when he watched his chum receive the chairman and
CEO’s seat of Oneok, ONG’s parent company. It started four years of advancement and growth through which
they charted the path Oneok should take as the marketplace emerged from deregulation.

Kyle also recalls standing beside Brummett’s hospital bed as his friend first learned of the cancer. Speaking of
that two-year battle that ended Aug. 24, 2000, still scars Kyle’s brow and dims his vibrant eyes, and yet he draws
continued strength from the relationship.
“Larry started us down this path,” said Kyle. “When he passed on, I tried to pick up the torch and carry on.”
Quiet reserve
While Kyle will lead the cheers as the 4,500 employees of Oneok and Oneok Partners gather via satellite
Thursday, he will share that center stage with a great number of fellow employees, just as he does at investor
presentations and corporate meetings.
It marks leadership strengths many other Tulsa executives draw from Kyle.
“He has a solid, quiet thoughtfulness that makes people feel very secure just being around him,” said
Kathleen Coan, the president and CEO of the Tulsa Area United Way.
Dismissing the influences of his early education and his “average Joe” childhood, Kyle said he learned his
“collaborative player-coach” leadership style while rising through the ranks of ONG and Oneok. He cited the
lessons taught by past executives like Ingram, J.D. Scott, Elmer H. Kamphaus, Jack Mosteller, Elmer Cuphorse
and Charlie Hughes.
“And Larry (Brummett) had a lot of influence on me,” admitted Kyle.
“Earlier in my career I tended to be a lot more oriented to the nuts and bolts,” he said. “I’m more trusting
today, better at dialogue.”
He believes his workers make better decisions that way, seeking a collective wisdom by working together
instead of apart.
“He’s got a quiet yet effective style of probing issues,” said Steve Turnbo, chairman of the Tulsa Metro
Chamber and the public relations consulting firm Schnake Turnbo Frank. “He really asks good questions. I find
him easy to chat with and I admire that. He’ll give you a good hearing and listen to different points of view before
he weighs in on his thoughts.”
Maxwell said that Kyle doesn’t look for praise.
“He’s as smart as can be and is a very tactical person,” said Maxwell. “When he does make a move, it’s well
thought out and well supported.”
Muskogee Sis
Kyle credits his first lessons in leadership to the young engineer training program taught by Kamphaus.
“I spent that first year learning the ropes,” he said, doing everything from reading meters and digging ditches
to making customer service calls. He believed in those exercises so strongly, Kyle later reinstituted the program.
“I tell those kids, those young adults, don’t worry about what job you want – just do a good job at the one you
have,” he said. “The next job will take care of itself.
“There’s no such thing as a dead-end job,” he said. “We as individuals have control of our lives. We have a
choice. We have a lot of input in our success. And opportunities will present themselves in a growing
organization.”
Kyle’s career proved that. In 1975 ONG sent him to manage the Muskogee office, where he learned another
key management tool: humor.
“My hair was a lot longer then, and darker,” to the point where even Kyle admitted to being something of a
spectacle. His first day in Muskogee, the site of that young engineer with the long strands bulging from beneath
his hard hat spurred one co-worker to call him “Sis” – despite Kyle’s prominent mustache.
The name stuck.
“There are people working in Muskogee who will still call me Sis,” he said with a laugh.
Three years later, the 26-year-old faced another challenge in taking over the Ardmore office – and its staff of
five with more than 150 years total experience.
“I was pretty scared,” he said. “They averaged more years with the company than I was old.”
So Kyle assured them that he was there to help them do their jobs and not make a lot of changes.
“You could just sense a calm settle in the room,” he said. “We hit it off, and the team performed admirably.”
Teamwork
Even when their careers split them apart, Brummett and Kyle met regularly to compare notes and rekindle
their friendship. ONG officials also monitored their progress.
“One of management’s most important decisions is that you have to have them trained to succeed,” said
Ingram. “It was very obvious that Larry Brummett and David Kyle would be the future leaders of the company.
They made a fantastic team.”
So it was no accident that – as ONG entered the turbulent 1980s under its new holding company Oneok,
soon to face tremors from the collapse of Penn Square Bank, plunging energy prices, the weight of the Forest Oil
lawsuit and its damaging take-or-pay crisis – Brummett and Kyle ended up at the Tulsa headquarters together.
That 1982 reunion started with a little anguish.
“Larry got the job I’d aspired to,” Kyle said of the Tulsa district post, while he had been moved into gas supply.
“I was a little disappointed, but later I realized he was suited better for the job than I was. And I was very suited for
gas supply.”
Kyle may not have known this, but Ingram favored those in the gas supply division – which he’d helped start.

“He gained an outstanding ability to negotiate and do contracts,” said Ingram, “skills that are very important to
any CEO.”
The two friends soon made their bargain to help each other’s career track. In 1986, both became vice
presidents.
“Part of his job was to be out there in the community,” Kyle said of the demonstrative Brummett. “He was very
good at that. He made a lot of friends.”
Kyle recalls how he once drove his buddy to Shawnee to deliver a speech, all the way watching Brummett,
the son (and brother) of a preacher, jot down what he would say on 3-by-5 cards – only to abandon his notes and
wing the whole thing when they arrived.
“And he did a wonderful job,” Kyle marveled. “He could speak to a crowd of 500 people and he could hold the
whole audience in his hand.”
Transition
In 1990, both Kyle and Brummett received promotions to ONG executive vice presidencies. But the highlight
for Kyle came four years later, when Brummett succeeded Scott as chairman and CEO.
“We were like brothers,” said Kyle. “I was so excited for him.”
The move seemed to trigger a chain reaction of retirements, with four of Oneok’s six top leaders deciding to
step down over the next six months. Kyle found himself president of ONG in 1994 and president of Oneok three
years later.
About a year later Brummett started complaining of digestive problems and stomach pains. Kyle was there
when Brummett emerged from the hospital tests, only to learn what they’d thought was a blocked small intestine
was instead something far more sinister.
Maxwell, a lifelong friend of Brummett, recalled the CEO’s unfailing optimism even in the face of death.
“He was not afraid to step into anything,” said Maxwell. “He always thought there would be a cure.”
But Brummett was a realist as well.
“The next two years he came to work when he could,” said Kyle. The duo talked regularly and continued
developing strategy on Oneok issues, such as the developing Western Resources headache that culminated in
the Westar transaction. Electronic communications also proved their advantages during Brummett’s illness.
“In today’s modern world,” said Kyle, “you can sure do a lot that you don’t have to be present to get done.”
Even so, Kyle slowly accepted and shouldered the huge responsibility of shepherding the company and its
employees in Brummett’s absence. That brought to the forefront their different styles, which took some adjustment
both in the company and the community.
“I didn’t really step into those shoes,” Kyle said of his friend. “I did not try to do what Larry did, because,
number one, that’s not what I’m about, number two, that’s not what the employees needed. I never really tried to
follow in his shoes, but what I did try to do was carrying on the things we’d decided on.”
Through that example, many in the Tulsa business world came to recognize the qualities Brummett
appreciated in Kyle. Maxwell began to draw a close friendship with Kyle.
“I think David understood the situation and Larry understood the situation,” he said. “And I think their team
approach and their respect for each other through that ordeal was tremendous.”
Through the introspection that followed Brummett’s death and Kyle’s official elevation to his friend’s post, Kyle
noted how many of his promotions had come through the leaving of mentors or some other such absence.
“I can’t remember any time when I moved into a job that wasn’t due to a negative,” he said.
But Turnbo and Coan witnessed a quiet dignity in the transition.
“It was with the utmost respect for Larry” that Kyle took over Brummett’s office, said Maxwell, “and really, what
it appeared was that they implemented a plan that he and Larry had already prepared. That made it a little easier
for David. It was still like they were looking forward.”
Easier, perhaps, but not easy.
“For six weeks I was very angry,” Kyle admitted. “It wasn’t a lot of fun. I harbored a lot of anger about him not
making it. I suppose that was typical, the four stages of grief.”
But in the end, it was the love of his friend that triumphed. He clings to that friendship through Brummett’s
family.
“I think he’d be very proud of where we are,” said Kyle. “His children call me Uncle Dave.”
Powerhouse
“He’s guided the company to new heights without a lot of fanfare,” Turnbo said of Kyle’s efforts. “They have
made a number of correct moves. The shareholders are enjoying the fruits of Mr. Kyle and his associates.”
Barring a natural gas market implosion, Wall Street analysts expect Oneok’s good times to roll on. Since
becoming CEO in August 2000, Kyle and his cohorts successfully led the company through the energy trading
morass that plagued Enron and Williams, foiled the coup that ended with two Westar executives in prison, and
pulled off two huge acquisitions that not only blossomed under Kyle’s guidance but promise a golden future for the
general partner of Oneok Partners LP.
“They transformed Oneok from a staid, predictable utility, one many investors would consider boring, and
turned it into a well-respected, integrated energy powerhouse,” said M. Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of
Longbow Asset Management Co.

“If changes need to be made in the future,” Dollarhide said of market uncertainties, “I think they have the
leadership in place, the experienced people, that investors know such changes can be made without fear.”
With Oneok earnings per share averaging a 57-percent annual increase over the past three years, and
revenue growth of 118 percent, such fears may be groundless.
“It’s a whole lot more fun to work for a company that’s growing than one that’s not,” said Kyle, who foresees
many more years at Oneok. “I’m just very excited about the company’s future.”
Bound for savings
Equipment to recycle shipping material can pay for itself
Posted on April 21, 2014
TULSA – A stable of three cardboard balers lets Mathis Brothers’ Tulsa store fill a 53-foot tractor trailer with
discarded furniture shipping cartons every one to two weeks. That allows the 300,000-square-foot operation to
recycle all of its used cardboard while saving from $95 to $300 for each waste transport trip.
“We used to pull over the Tulsa streets probably 25 times a month,” said store manager Chris Mefford. “Now
it’s down to three. So the savings is tremendous.”
But their efforts to recycle styrofoam from shipping containers has struggled to deliver the same return on
investment. Despite installing a compressor alongside the balers in May 2013, the giant furniture store has only
now filled its first tractor with recycled styrofoam logs, binding them with plastic sheets to make pallets.
Mefford, disappointed with commodity price trends, is waiting to send that truck out.
“It will probably be two to three years before that machine’s paid off,” he said of that $46,000 compactor,
compared to an 18-month ROI for each cardboard baler.
That demonstrates some of the challenges Oklahoma manufacturers, distributors and retailers face when
recycling shipping materials. Firms require sizable volumes to generate substantial savings over traditional
disposal methods, and even then the investments may struggle to prove themselves.
“It takes some space to do it,” said Mefford. “It takes the equipment to do it, which is an upfront expense. It
takes the money to do it. It takes the manpower to do it.”
Investments in recycling also face long-term concerns as shipping materials adapt to contain rising freight
costs. Space and weight concerns, for example, have led makers of canned and bottled products to replace
cardboard boxes with shrink wrap. Products that once demanded wooden pallets may now use a corrugated
frame inside a box.
“They’re trying to make the packaging lighter so they can get as much or more product on the truck,” said
Robert Pickens, manager of American Waste Control’s Tulsa recycling center. “It’s a matter of controlling costs
and controlling profit margins.”
Such changes have spurred many firms to track developing shipping technologies with their recycling
strategies, said Chris Evans, an extension agent with the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance.
“All companies, big and small, are constantly looking for a smarter technology,” said Sean Mossman, vice
president of sales and marketing with M-D Building Products. “All are constantly out looking for new and
interesting technologies that will help us achieve a zero-waste goal while remaining cost-competitive.”
Recycling issues start with availability. While multiple third-party vendors may serve metropolitan areas, many
cities and towns may have few or no outside options beyond city services or costly landfills.
“Most cities are not set up to recycle these materials,” said Braum’s Inc. Marketing Director Terry Holden.
“They may be to recycle homes, but they’re not set up to recycle businesses.”
Third-party vendors allow clients to earn potentially higher rebates no matter their trash volume, said Dean
Scocos, head of sales and marketing for National Waste and Disposal. Such rebates may range around $20 to
$60 a ton. But higher volumes can garner better results, because they reduce transportation costs.
“The true savings is the reduction in waste pulls,” Pickens said.
As Mathis Brothers demonstrates, realizing the gains may require a sizable upfront investment in recycling
equipment and manpower, plus the space to operate them. But commodity prices determine if it was worthwhile.
“The price for cardboard is OK,” said Pickens. “If you do a lot of volume, like a Mathis Brothers would, you can
pay for a baler.”
Some manufacturers escape this cycle by employing reusable shipping equipment, achieving transport
savings while saving their retailers from some recycling hassle.
Braum’s ships its dairy and bakery items on wheeled carts, which its employees refer to as bunkers.
Customers see such carts when they grab milk jugs from store coolers. When employees empty those carts, they
roll them back to the manufacturing site for reloading.
“A lot of the things we do literally cycle like that,” said Holden.
As for potato chips and other consumables made for Braum’s, many are shipped to the stores in reusable
containers. Despite advancing technologies, he said a surprising number still rely on cardboard.
“The cardboard that’s used nowadays is totally different than what was used 20 years ago,” said Holden.
Pickens said cardboard remains the primary shipping material for most products because of its durability,

strength and recyclable qualities. M-D, which employs a 100-percent-recycled policy on its shipping materials,
relies on cardboard for most of its products.
“It’s much better to use recycled-content cardboard, and make sure it’s recycled after it’s used, than to try to
reuse a shipping container,” said Mossman. “We try to eliminate as much plastic as we possibly can.”
Having supplied giant retailers such as Lowe’s or Home Depot, as well as small community stores, Mossman
said any company can achieve a zero-waste policy.
“Resources are available, and third parties are often willing to work even at small levels,” he said.
With its 3,000-square-foot recycling center, the next step forward for Mathis Brothers could be acquiring a
$150,000-plus downstroke baler. It reduces manpower by automatically cutting, compressing and binding
discarded boxes into the giant cardboard bricks it then loads on trucks for recycling.
“I think you’ll see more of this in the future as more people learn about it,” Mefford said. “I think it’s a great
deal for the environment, a great deal for retailers. It’s just an upfront expense. People need to realize what the
rebate is and how well it helps everybody.”

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