Bigfoot sighting in Stillwater

But how exactly did these gargantuan forest dwellers come to roam nearby Stillwater locations?

A book club and a bit of booze.

special spots.”

For centuries, people have aimed to capture the legendary creature known as Bigfoot.

However, what people do not know is that there are multiple Bigfoots - and they’re all ladies in Oklahoma.

The Stilly Bigfoot project is an activity geared around introducing new and visiting faces of Stillwater toward familiar sights across the city, as well as to get college students and families off the couch and into the community. Clues are posted to www. stillybigfoot.com, each of them leading to a different spot in Stillwater. At the end of these clues, lie one-foot-tall statues of a lady Bigfoot. There are 11 total lady Bigfoots to find, adding for much variety in the search to track down the beasts.

“So, there we were drinking wine because that’s what book clubs do, and somebody was like, ‘Let’s go hunt for Bigfoot,’” said Kristine Waits, one of the founders of the Stilly Bigfoot project. “And they were like, ‘Remember when we used to geocache?’ It just started coming together.”

Through the “Vibrant Stillwater Grant” this wine wish soon became a reality, and the Stilly Bigfoot project was on its way.

Each of the lady Bigfoot creatures has its own personality, loosely modeled after a few of the members of the book club. Also, each member of the nine-woman book club chose a spot they found special to them, creating a little preview to life between the pages of “Women with Spines.”

“We just kind of went around the room and found what meant something to us,” Waits said. “Like, what we would want to show off if there were visitors in town and get them all spread out. We all kind of have these

North American settlers started reporting sightings of Bigfoot during the late 1800s and into the 1900s with the occasional finding of footprints, sporadic encounters and even a few grainy photos and videos adding to the mystery.

Court date set for former OSU wrestler

A.J. Ferrari

Former Oklahoma State University wrestler

A.J. Ferrari is set to appear before a Payne County jury Sept. 26 on a sexual battery charge.

Ferrari, 21, pleaded not guilty during his initial appearance on Aug. 11.

He was released from the OSU wrestling team in July after a protective order was filed against him. The protective order was dismissed on Aug. 3.

The sexual battery charge was filed Aug. 3.

Ferrari is accused of touching a Stillwater woman’s breasts “under her clothing, attempting to pull down her shorts and underwear, forcibly kissing her mouth,” exposing her breasts and then ejaculating onto her chest, according to the charges and arrest warrant affidavit.

Ferrari faces up to 10 years in state prison if convicted.

Ferrari won a national championship at 197 pounds as an OSU freshman in 2021. He became OSU’s third true freshman to win a title and first since 1990. His 2022 season ended in late January when Ferrari was injured in a traffic accident. He later pleaded nolo contendere to passing in a no passing zone. The Cowboys finished the season without its lone returning national champion fourth in the Big 12, snapping their nineyear win streak. The Cowboys later finished 14th at the NCAA Championships. OSU finished 18th at last month’s NCAA Championships, the program’s worst finish.

His younger brother, Anthony Ferrari, 19, received a deferred one-year sentence on April 11 after pleading nolo contendere to two counts of assault and battery stemming from an incident on July 21.

Anthony won a state wrestling title for Stillwater High School during the 2021 season. He originally committed to OSU and was projected to start but never joined the team. Anthony, who MatScouts ranked the No. 23 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class, recently committed to Iowa.

The biggest emphasis the women wanted to have on the project is to not take it all too seriously. Life is full of the rush of competition, with people striving to climb up the ladder. But with these Bigfoots?

Nope. Rather, the lady Bigfoots strive for the adventure to be the ultimate goal, not necessarily the destination.

“That’s what makes this fun,” Waits said. “It’s a hodgepodge of silliness. It’s a reason to stop being serious and just have some fun.”

Perhaps the biggest factor of all, especially in a college town, is the challenge is free to partake in. Visitors can give it a Google search, hop in a car and go cruising for the creatures.

What started out as a joking idea amongst friends turned into a city-wide hunt for the mythical creatures. Whether people are looking for a way to kill time, land the perfect first date, or get the kids out of the house, the Stilly Bigfoot project is looking to meet those ends.

For more information, visit stillybigfoot.com to join the hunt, or follow them on Instagram @stillybigfoot, as they are always looking for new hunters to join in and post on social media.

“We absolutely want people to post whenever they find them because that generates more interest and fun,” Waits said.

Just be sure to get hunting quickly. These sassy women hit hiber- nation soon in the summer.

NeoTalks...

Continued from 1A

During the first five episodes of season one, the creator did not have professional equipment, so he improvised.

“We recorded the show using voice memos from an iPhone,” Kalungu-Banda said. “All of it was just extremely raw at the beginning. It was very basic, we used as minimal money needed to start the project as we could.”

After a couple months, Kalungu-Banda shared his project idea with peers who joined his team and were able to contribute to the show’s progress. He got in contact with photography students who helped him improve the video quality and give the show a professional feeling.

“It’s incredible to see the progress,” Kalungu-Banda said. “To know we started really simple and now there is a production behind it is really cool.”

Kalungu-Banda did his research on OSU athletes and walked around campus trying to locate one. When he did, the show creator would approach them and explain the project he was working on.

Kalungu-Banda put time and effort behind the scenes, waiting at sports events so he could speak to the right people and put himself in an advantageous position.

“It was difficult to get ahold of them,” Kalungu-Banda said. “Their schedules change all the time and it was hard to get a response from them.”

Despite the busy schedule, Mason Cobb, a former player for OSU’s football team, found time to work with Kalungu-Banda. The athlete allowed the creator to tell his story and left a mark on the show.

For Kulunga-Banda, it was a privilege to have Cobb on the show and he said they created a friendship.

“Neo gave me an opportunity to share my story outstide of football,” Cobb said. “He does a great job of getting to know athletes on the show and our hobbies outside our sport. He is a great interviewer.”

For Pelekamoyo, who is the co-creator, executive producer and editor of “NeoTalks,” it’s not easy to help the show come to life when he is not physically there since he does all the work from Banbury Town, in the South East of England. Pelekamoyo said he would not change this experience for anything else and “NeoTalks” is the project he is most proud of.

“Sometimes it’s hard to pass my point of view, some things get delayed, sometimes it’s hard to tell someone exactly how you want things to be unless physically being there,” Pelekamoyo said. “But even though I am not there I am really connected to the show and watching what everyone involved is doing is really special, it’s worth it.”

With his co-creator in a different country, Kalungu-Banda started talking to his international friends at Iba Hall about the project and shared the goals he had for the show with Raquel Ferreira Ribeiro. An exchange student from Portugal who attends Loughborough University in England, Ribeiro chose to spend a year in the U.S. like Kalungu-Banda.

Ribeiro was struggling to adapt to the U.S. and make good use of her time. At home, she is involved with mental health projects and focuses on helping people in her free time, but during her first few months in the U.S., she felt like she had no purpose and wasn’t truly making use of her time the way she wanted.

“When Neo said I could be a part of the team, I thought, ‘I finally have something to hang on to and something productive to do with my life here,’” Ribeiro said.

“Instead of existing for myself, I could do something for others too.”

Ribeiro and Kalungu-Banda bonded over their passion for inspiring others. Kalungu-Banda wrote a book called “Inspired: The stories within and around us,” which focuses on inspiring people to live a fulfilled life through the personal stories of other people. The book impressed Ribeiro and the two knew they could work well together.

“I felt aimless and the project inspired me,” Ribeiro said. “I like to show people that the great also go through difficult times, and they too had to overcome them because it’s very easy to put people on a pedestal and think that they’re not human.”

Kalungu-Banda and Ribeiro go back to their universities in May, but the two don’t rule out the idea of continuing the show with a different angle. The team is recording new episodes as much as they can before leaving, and the last episode of the show is airing at the end of July.

“There are a lot of athletes in my university, one of them went to the Olympics,” Ribeiro said. “I can get Neo in touch with a few people.”

Kalungu-Banda said he is proud of the work done and the impact he hopes to leave behind.

Season one and two of “NeoTalks” is available on Youtube.

“I want to leave OSU and feel like I’ve done something,” KalunguBanda said. “Everyone will have their own perceptions and views of how they see me, but hopefully just to be viewed as somebody who tried to bring something different and tried to contribute to the school and in any way that I can as well as my team, you know, just somebody that tried to uplift the school and bring something to contribute.”