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Ada,Oklahoma, Queen City of the Chickasaw Nation: A Pictorial History

by Marvin E. Kroker and Guy William Logsdon

August 09

Contents Publisher Marketing Consultant Art Direction Graphic Designer Guest Writers Cover Photo

Jason Bolitho David Elliott (580) 235-5722 Layers Media, Inc. www.layersmedia.com Guillermo Martinez Roy Deering Mindy Wood Eugene Wilmeth

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features 9 the Football Official 13 He’s Sleeping in the Dorm

departments 6 Events 15 Books 19 Classifieds

17 Man of Opportunity

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■ 12 “What’s Your Brand” Free Workshop, Pontotoc Technology Center 11:30-1pm 580.310.2235 ■ 13 How to Write a Business Plan, Pontotoc Technology Center 9-3pm 580.310.2235 ■ 14 Insure Oklahoma, Pontotoc Technology Center 11:30-1pm 580.310.2235 ■ 16 ECU Block Party, ECU Plaza, 6-9pm alumni@ecok.edu ■ 21-22 Southern Oklahoma Cutting Horse, Agri Plex 9am 580.421.6511 ■ Sept 1-5 Pontotoc County Free Fair, Agri Plex 9am-9pm 580.399.8661

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the football official

by Mindy Wood

“That was interference!

Come on, ref!”

(Heard that one before?)

Arbiter of Oklahoma Friday Nights

F

Ross’ new position on the field meant making sure everyone abided by the rules. But what are the rules anyway?

According to officials, most people and even some coaches and their players do not understand the rule differences in each league, which can lead to some tense moments on the field and in the stands.

“It’s true that a lot of them don’t study the rules and don’t pay enough attention to them,” Ross said. “The rules can be very complicated and hard to understand at the different levels.”

The vision of Norman Rockwell’s umpire and coach, standing nose to nose over the baseball mound, comes to mind. It’s definitely a decadesold rivalry but one that Ross joked about.

“I think it would be a good idea to maybe even have a coach officiate just to see what its like,” he said.

According to Ross, officiating rules for NFL and collegiate football are very similar. However, in high school football the rules of the game are different, and even differ from state to state. >

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Football is an almost holy thing in American culture.

Every year high school, college and professional players make their pilgrimage to locker rooms across the country and prepare for football season with fervent anticipation. The smell of popcorn and nachos, the brightly lit green field and the band playing its home team fight song bring out the kid in fans and parents alike.

As everyone takes to the stands and gamers gear up for fantasy football, game officials are preparing too. Lovers of the game themselves, officiating is often their way of staying on the field. Lee Ross, former owner of Lee’s Pharmacy and manager of Halo Rx, is prepared for all the season holds.

Ross has been officiating football for 20 years and currently works games at the collegiate and semi-pro levels. He previously worked 20 years as a high school official and three years in Arena League football.

“I played for Southeastern and when I graduated my body was worn out from the game, but my mind wasn’t,” he said. “I’m a sports junkie and I got into officiating to keep me in the game.”

Ross also explored coaching and although he turned to pharmacy, he never forgot the game he loved so well.

“I think it would be a good idea to maybe even have a coach officiate just to see what its like.”

9

continued from pg. 9

Misconceptions are often based on watching the big game on TV and then seeing a different picture on the high school field.

“Basically collegiate conferences are run by NFL officials so at the collegiate level everyone is officiating the same way,” Ross said. “The rule differences between the NFL and high school are a lot different, especially in Oklahoma.

“In college rules, the quarterback can throw the ball away to save a sack if he is outside the tackle box, he only has to get the ball back to the line of scrimmage. In high school, the quarterback cannot throw the ball away to save a sack, even if he is outside the tackle box and gets the ball back to the line of scrimmage.

For pass interference in college, you have to have contact and the defense can face guard in college. In high school you cannot. In college the defense is not offsides until the ball is snapped, or he draws an opponent across from him out of his stance. In high school if the defense is lined up in the neutral zone, it’s a foul, the ball does not have to be snapped.”

In spite of consistent abuse from the stands and the field, Ross keeps his cool and his integrity.

“Fans are biased on what they choose to see and I understand that,” he said. “We try to be as fair as possible, black and white. One team’s in red and one teams in white and that’s the way we have to see it.”

One challenge to remain impartial was especially tough.

“I was calling a junior high game at Ada and it was a holding call on my good friend’s son,” he said.

“We’re really good friends, people I sit with at the

ball game on Friday nights. After the game we were talking and I said, ‘Hey I’m sorry but I had to call that.’ He said, ‘No I’d be mad at you if you didn’t call it. He tackled the guy.’ So we do have people who really see the game like that. The only reason we have officials is to make sure the game is played fairly and if we haven’t done that, then we haven’t done our job.”

With the gradual erosion of good sportsmanship, Ross has observed how that affects a team.

“You have to be a little bit mad to play football but it shouldn’t control you,” he said. “Football is a game of eleven players working as a team and if they’re so mad they can’t see straight because the calls are not going the way they would like or they’re out of control, they can’t even run a play. We’ve been fortunate in Ada to have some good coaches over the years. I’ve seen current Coach Matt Weber ask an official for an explanation but he’s not out of control and in turn you don’t see the team going crazy or making fools of themselves.

If they don’t win they don’t complain about every little call that’s made. They take what’s dealt to them and make the most of it. It really makes me proud of our local coaches and teams to see that.”

In addition to his love of the game, he enjoys the kids and the camaraderie among fellow officials. “I love being around the kids, especially in Ada when you know the kids who are there and their parents,” Ross said. “The camaraderie with the crew members is great and I’ve gotten to know people all over the country I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t officiate.”

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he’s

sleeping in the

Dorm!

by Mindy Wood

The Life and Times of ECU’s New President

and city infrastructure.

Hargrave comes from a long line of public servants and comes by his career in law honestly.

“Most of my family has either been involved in education, elected office or the judicial branch,” he said.

His father, fellow ECU alumnus Rudolf Hargrave, was an attorney and district judge. He’s now the senior member of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and has twice served as the state’s Chief Justice.

John Hargrave is an admitted member of the Western, Eastern, and Northern Districts of the Federal Court of Oklahoma and of the Tenth, Fifth, and Eight Circuits of the United States Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.

He said his father never forced him to follow in his footsteps and it was at East Central University where he realized he had a talent for debate.

“My father put absolutely no pressure on me whatsoever to do that,” he said. “He very much is a believer in letting your kids grow up and make their own decisions. I had a lot of success in debate at ECU and the thought occurred to me that it would be a waste of the talent I seemed to have if I didn’t pursue a career to utilize that.”

He also grew up appreciating parents who were concerned about their community in Wewoka. >

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East Central University’s new president is a man who values the things that matter most in life.

Highly successful people are often thought to be unapproachable as they appear in suit and tie, decorated with titles, awards and accomplishments.

In spite of his success, John R. Hargrave is quite the contrary. Born and raised in Wewoka and a graduate of ECU, he has never forgotten where he comes from.

The post at ECU is an exciting career change for Hargrave and one that he considers meaningful.

“The business I was in takes its toll on you,” he said. “The legal work I do is very different than the legal work most people think about. I worked for very big companies doing litigation only. It’s an adversarial procedure so there’s always someone against you. After 30 years of combat I decided to get into something that was more constructive, more rewarding in terms of working with young people. I wanted to put myself in a position to try to make the world a better place.”

Hargrave is a founder and managing partner of Edmonds Cole Law Firm, one of the most respected litigation law firms in Oklahoma City. He serves on numerous boards in Wewoka, Seminole, Oklahoma City and Ada, involved in everything from economic development to youth programs

13

continued from pg. 13

“All of my family have been very involved in their community whether that be professional women’s organizations, Lions Clubs, the Masonic Lodge and my parents are still very active in their community,” he said.

He and his wife have been named Citizen of the Year and Volunteer Parents of the Year in Wewoka and recently were awarded the statewide Oklahoma Community Service Award.

Hargrave hopes to be just as involved in the Ada community and he’s off to a good start. He is chairman of the Ada Art District and has already addressed the Lions Club, Kiwanis Clubs, and the Ada Area Chamber of Commerce.

“One of my roles as president of the university is to reach out to the community to see how East Central can work more closely with the citizens of Ada,” he said.

Hargrave has personal convictions about helping in the community.

“Not just on behalf of the institution but it’s me personally getting involved…if I have to sell hotdogs, sell tickets or drive the choo choo train, that’s really not East Central doing that,” he said.

“The welcome my wife and I have received from the faculty, staff and citizens of Ada has been absolutely overwhelming. It’s been unbelievable how many friends and new acquaintances have come forward and offered to help us. ” In spite of being acquainted with the glitz and glamour of big city life, Hargrave and his wife prefer the charms of small town living.

“One of the greatest joys of living back in your hometown is living in a family atmosphere,” he said.

“When I deal with people [in Wewoka] sometimes it might be my third grade teacher or my high school English teacher. It’s just such a joy to go to church with the same people you grew up around. My mother reads the Boxcar Children and she’s read to third graders whose parents she taught when they were in third grade. When I was in Scouting I Power had boys Buy in my group whose of the Week S parents I was in $

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Scouting with. You get those bonds and that’s the stuff you get in a small town. I wouldn’t give it up for the world.”

As to his plans at ECU, he’s taking the job very seriously. This summer he lived in the dorms.

“I wanted to experience campus life firsthand,” he said. “I thought it was appropriate for me to understand student residential housing and the correlation between there and their classrooms.”

Hargrave said that he was impressed with the things that make ECU stand out from other universities, such as a more accessible campus, the close involvement between faculty and students, and the fact that 68% of their teaching staff holds Ph.Ds. “I’ve been very pleased with the talent, dedication and professionalism of the faculty and staff at ECU,” he said. “They care about the students to a level that surprised me.”

Family man, public servant, and accomplished attorney, John R. Hargrave seems to be the perfect fit for Ada’s prestigious university and a complement to the values and way of life its citizens enjoy.

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books Life Without Summer

Peak

Written by Lynne Griffin

Written by Roland Smith

Life without Summer opens with the death of four-year-old Abby in a hit-and-run accident at her preschool. As part of Tessa Gray’s therapy to help her work through her daughter’s death, she begins to keep a journal. Her journal begins in the fall with day 13 without Abby.

“There’s a thud as her little body collides with the steel fender. No scream. Just a soft sigh, a surprised breath inhaled as she’s lifted from the ground only to be returned here. I hear it happen. I see it happen. And I wasn’t even there.”

The book explores the relationship between the two women and their efforts to accept loss, connect with their families, and find strength, support, forgiveness and love.

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of the month

When Peak, a 14-year-old thrill-seeking boy, is arrested for scaling skyscrapers in New York City his future looks bleak. The authorities agree to let Peak’s, nearly absent, father take him away from the city in hopes of squelching media coverage of his climb. Peak soon finds himself traveling with his father’s Himalayan expedition company to Mount Everest. His father encourages him to attempt the often-deadly climb and become the youngest climber to reach the summit. Along the way Peak is forced to make decisions that reflect his growth and maturity.

Roland Smith has written a novel filled with high adventure thrills, stories of base camps and dangers of climbing. Survival adventure fans will find this fast-paced story an exciting read filled with facts of mountaineering and the realities of Everest.

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to me, because I remember just a few years ago I used to come here to hear other people sing, and now there are people standing outside in the 100degree heat waiting to see me.

“That’s still something that’s really hard for me to grasp,” he said. “People standing in line to see me sing is something I’d have never thought I’d see.”

Professionally, life has been a whirlwind for David since his American Idol victory. Within days, he had a dozen songs listed on the Billboard charts, the most at one time by one artist since the Beatles in 1964. With his songs like “Light On,” “Come Back to Me,” and “Time of My Life,” David’s musical future holds tremendous promise.

As thrilling as the professional ride has been, the past year has also held heartache for David, who lost his oldest brother, Adam, to brain cancer this spring. The loss was devastating for David, who cancelled a number of shows to spend time with his family as they mourned the loss together.

“It’s been a year of growth,” David said, working to keep his emotions in check. “Watching what happened to my brother was awful, but he was an amazing person. He never let it get to him, even in the end, and I learned so much from him.

“But it was the kind of year I don’t think anyone can imagine,” David said. “To have things musically going so great, and at the same time to

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Finding time to laugh with friends or to play a round of golf isn’t easy for David Cook these days.

But he manages to make time.

David, 26, was the winner of American Idol’s Season Seven, and released a multi-platinum album in November 2008. During his current Declaration Tour, he played in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, where he spent a few moments answering questions for Ada Hub. “It’s been a wild ride, that’s for sure,” said the Missouri native who was living in Tulsa in 2007 when he began his American Idol quest.

“If you had asked me two years ago if I ever thought it would end up like this, I’d have told you not in a million years. It’s fun -- a lot of fun -- but it still doesn’t seem real sometimes. I get up every morning thankful for the opportunities that have been handed to me, and I don’t want to ever take any of it for granted.”

On the morning of his Ada Hub interview, David had played a round of golf at a Tulsa area course and was “taking it easy” in the early afternoon a few hours before his show at the legendary Cain’s Ballroom. David said Tulsa, of all the cities he has played in, holds a special place in his heart.

“Tulsa is where I came to make it in the music business,” he said. “Tulsa is where I found myself musically, and where this whole ride really started.

And to play at Cain’s is really something special

17

continued from pg. 17

have my brother dying in front of my eyes ... It was a year I will never forget, for the good and the bad.�

After spending the summer of 2008 on the American Idol Tour, David released his solo album in November. Sang for U.S. troops at several USO stops and then kicked into high gear for his Declaration Tour which has taken him to small, intimate venues all across the country. It’s been a hectic schedule, but David said he works hard to keep his life as “normal� as possible.

As much as David enjoys performing live and recording albums, he has a true passion for music videos and hopes to get into acting in the near future. “I love the music video part of the industry,� he said. “On the ‘Come Back to Me’ video, it was my idea to sing the song backwards all the way through and then reverse it. It sounded like a great idea to me when we started, and then I found out how much work it was going to be,� he laughed.

“And I love acting, I always have. I’ve thrown my hat into the ring and we’re kind of looking around right now to see if we can find the perfect opportunity for me to move into that arena,� he said.

Although he has definitely become a “big name� celebrity, David said he works hard to not let the attention change his dreams or affect how he sees the world around him. “There are a lot of appearances you have to make, because it’s just part of the job,� he said. “But I’m not the kind of person who got into this just so I could be on the A-List for all the big parties and things. I don’t ever want my life to get to that point.� “That’s why I do things like I did today, going out to play golf and blow off some steam, and then tonight after the show I’m going out with some old friends from Tulsa to just laugh and have a good time,� David said. “I’m still the same David Cook I was before American Idol, and I want to always be that same David Cook. That is something I don’t ever want to change.�

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