by Vickie Jenkins, Staff Writer

Welcome to Healthy Living and Fitness, (Healthy Living OKC) where their vision is to provide state-of-the-art health and wellness services, empowering adults to become avid health consumers responsible for their well-being and fulfillment of their personal goals.
I spoke with Claire Dowers-Nichols, Executive Director. Claire spent her career developing programs to better service older Oklahomans. Most recently, she spent seven years at the University Of Oklahoma Department Of Geriatrics Medicine; she co-founded the Community Relations Director for the Oklahoman Department of Human Services, Aging Services. Claire serves in a variety of leadership and advisory roles for state and national organizations and is devoted to making her community an ideal place for active adults.
“We are the first Healthy Living and Fitness Center in Oklahoma City as far as being a MAPS 3 project. We have been here at this location for about 18 months,” Claire said. “The next location to build one will be in south Oklahoma City. OK. We actually have about 5,275 members now and about 630 of them visit our center every day. The growth in numbers of people has grown so fast. It is amazing! It was an answered need for seniors to have a place like this. We couldn’t be more thrilled!”
I was curious to know why Claire left her job to come work here. She replied with a positive answer. “This is definitely where I want to be. Love it! I have always been interested in the aging process. Now, it seems like aging is such an important part of life. One goal is to make aging sexy! Everyone wants to stay healthy with their diet and exercise. This is just a way of helping things along. Aging is such a wonderful process; it’s a form of self-expression now. Why, we have a member that is 100 years old and she is in better shape than me,” Claire said with a laugh.
The mission at Healthy Fitness and Living is to provide a facility and programming that will improve the physical and emotional wellness of northwest Oklahoma City adults with programs that help adults connect and provide a community through social wellness activities and initiatives, to provide access to professional and recreational physical fitness activities, to provide education and support on current adult related issues, to offer wellness coaching and social programming that will nurture emotional health and to reverse current poor health statistics.
“Let me tell you a little more about Healthy Living and Fitness,” Claire said. “Members are accepted if they are 50 years and older. We offer a variety of classes; the latest and greatest exercise equipment, fitness classes, water aerobics, guitar lessons, ukulele lessons, line dancing, arts and crafts, jewelry making, ballet, belly dancing, Tai Chi, yoga, Zumba, creative writing, drama class…we have just about anything you would want! We also have pool tables, and large rooms that can be rented out for special occasions. There’s even a group that meets each week with someone explaining how to keep up with your grandchildren by learning to use an iPhone. There are 9 different fitness instructors that rotate their schedules. The hours for Healthy Fitness and Living, Inc. are Monday through Thursday 5:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m., Friday, 5:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m. and Saturday 7:30a.m.-4:00 p.m. We are closed on Sundays. Membership cost is $30.00 a month single, $50.00 a month for couples. No annual contract. Payment can be made month to month. Most of our members really like that part,” Claire said.
What is your favorite part of your job? I ask Claire. “I really enjoy the art programs that we have here. When I see the members doing their art work, it is very special. It’s also very therapeutic too. It doesn’t matter if you are with a group of old friends, or a group of new friends, it is good for all; it’s just another way of socializing.”
Claire does a little bit of everything at work. One of her challenges is keeping up with the growing number of members. “It’s a good challenge though, definitely not a problem,” she said with a smile. We try to have at least 4 special events throughout the year.” (Car shows, special events). “Our members come here for several different reasons. Diet and exercise, socializing with others, to lose weight and learn how to eat the right way, to relieve stress, and just to have FUN,” Claire comments.
Who knows…maybe it’s time for ME to take those guitar lessons.

“Honor Your Living Legend” designed to showcase seniors and impressive contributions to loved ones and communities

story and photos submitted

Home Care Assistance, Edmond/Oklahoma City’s premier provider of in-home care for seniors, is pleased to introduce a campaign that recognizes the lifetime accomplishments of seniors. Family members and friends submit stories and photographs, which are shared publicly on HonorYourLivingLegend.com and through Home Care Assistance’s social media pages. The goal of the campaign is to give people a platform to express their admiration for aging loved ones and in doing so, remind the community that older adults should be respected for their contributions.
With a mission to change the way the world ages, Home Care Assistance fosters a positive view of aging and honors each client’s lifetime legacy by providing compassionate and dignified care that enables older adults to maintain their independence at home.
“Honor Your Living Legend is our way to celebrate the legendary lives of our clients and seniors at large,” said Melissa Hill, Co-Owner of Home Care Assistance of Oklahoma. “Our mission is to change the way the world ages by promoting aging as a rich and meaningful stage of life, and this campaign is just one of the many ways we accomplish this. Older adults boast many years’ worth of accomplishments, relationships, experiences and memories. We seek to respect and honor them by shifting the focus away from their care needs and towards the legacies they’ve created.”
Candidates for Honor Your Living Legend are dynamic individuals who have given a lifetime of service and love to their communities and families. Living Legends can be publicly acclaimed or individuals who have influenced others’ lives in less high-profile ways such as a mother who taught her children to read or a well-known entrepreneur whose real passion was volunteering and helping those less privileged.
For more information about Honor Your Living Legend or to submit a story, please visit www.HonorYourLivingLegend.com.
Home Care Assistance is the leading provider of home care for seniors across the United States, Canada and Australia. Our mission is to change the way the world ages. We provide older adults with quality care that enables them to live happier, healthier lives at home. Our services are distinguished by the caliber of our caregivers, the responsiveness of our staff and our expertise in home care. We embrace a positive, balanced approach to aging centered on the evolving needs of older adults. For more information on Home Care Assistance of Oklahoma, visit www.homecareassistanceoklahoma.com.

Lewis Perkins, RN, BSN, MSN, DNP is named Chief Nursing Officer for INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center and it’s affiliated entities.
Lewis is currently the System Vice President of Nursing at Norton Healthcare in Louisville, Kentucky where he has worked since 2011.
Lewis has an incredible career in nursing leadership with significant MAGNET experience, he serves on the APRN Practice Committee for the Kentucky Board of Nursing and brings a wealth of nursing leadership experiences and innovative ideas to the table.
Lewis will begin his duties at INTEGRIS on Oct. 1. He and his wife (also a nurse) have a son in college and a son in high school who will be re-locating to Oklahoma City at the end of the school year.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Lisa Sydnor’s family has a pool going.
As her third retirement begins this month, many of her family members are betting this one will last about as long as the others have.
“I think I was not meant to ever stop … I can’t do nothing,” Sydnor laughed. “I don’t do that well. I’m not a big TV person and I definitely don’t do daytime soaps and game shows. I like to read and I like movies but that gets boring. You can only rearrange your drawers and closets so many times.”
For the past 50 years Sydnor, most recently the senior programs manager for the Salvation Army Central Oklahoma Area command, has been helping people put their lives together.
Whether it’s raising funds or raising families up when they have no place to go, Sydnor has devoted her life to helping others.
“It’s really not about me but about God providing the opportunity to be the conduit,” Sydnor said in her final week. “It hurts my heart and I’m going to miss it terribly but I am tired and it takes lots of energy to do that job. I just don’t have it every day.”
“I’m looking for great things to happen … and I know they’ll take great care of our seniors.”
More than 50 years of Sydnor’s life have been spent in the non-profit world.
She started with the Oklahoma Museums Association in the mid 1970s doing a little bit of everything.
“I was the secretary/bookkeeper/go-to-gal,” Sydnor said.
Her boss gave her the ideas and she was expected to run with them. It was rewarding and Sydnor embraced her autonomy and her mistakes.
“I learned a lot about what not to do and how to do it better,” she said. “I had a really great experience so I thought I was going to stick with this and see where it goes.”
Fortune smiled on her and she began 10 years with the YMCA in fundraising. From there, Oklahoma City University was her new home under Dr. Jerald C. Walker.
“He was convinced we could raise money for anything and because he was convinced that we could we did,” said Sydnor, who managed the many of the university campaigns.
From there the American Red Cross came calling. She was there nearly another decade.
She started out as a chapter solutions manager. It was a title she wasn’t quite sure of.
“My boss said it was a brand new position and this is what we want the end result to be but we don’t quite know how to get there,” she said.
There were another 25 employees just like her across the country in the late 1990s.
Helping mom and pop Red Cross Chapters consolidate and work together was part of her job. She met resistance but still had fun.
She took her skills to Montana and Wyoming and worked her magic again, helping the Red Cross become efficient.
“That was an amazing five years,” Sydnor said. “I had some amazing experiences and we also did disaster fundraising. It was a really crazy time but we had some amazing fundraisers and we always met our goal.”
Sydnor found her herself getting all the credit for the successful fundraisers after disasters.
“It was one of those things were you picked the people and sent them to do what they did best,” she said. “That was one of the most amazing times.”
A year in Dallas and three years at another company and one month of retirement bridged her gap to Salvation Army.
“The Salvation Army has given me … the icing on the cake,” Sydnor said. “I got to help so many people and it was just blessed by God. It seemed like every time we wanted to do something we were able to do it because we got the money and we could serve people.
“I couldn’t have imagined six years ago that I would have the incredible experience I’ve had there.”
Co-workers say she’ll be missed.
“Lisa is soft spoken yet strong willed,” said Keri Griffin, Salvation Army food services manager. “She is a woman of integrity who stands firm on her word. She will confront any and every situation or hardship until the job is finished and everyone around her is satisfied.
“She will definitely be missed here at The Salvation Army but I know her job is not yet done.”
Her tireless effort will be remembered.
“My first impression of Lisa was her heart for the senior population,” said Diane Maguire, senior center coordinator for the North District. “I saw first-hand how that played out every day in her life…she loved them and everything she did was motivated by this love and care.”

Financial scams continue to target seniors due to scammers thinking that seniors have a significant amount of money just sitting in their accounts. Unfortunately, financial scams go unreported due to embarrassment and can be difficult to prosecute which leave seniors vulnerable with little time to recoup their losses.
To help prevent you from getting tricked into a scam, we have outlined below what a scammer is and what to do to avoid being scammed.

A scammer is the ultimate salesperson with a tempting offer or a skilled liar with a plausible story
* Easily pinpoints a victim’s vulnerabilities and appeals to emotions: sympathy, fear, loneliness * Quickly gains trust * Insist on secrecy * Shows no mercy, e.g., doesn’t take “no” for an answer

Know the Red Flags of a Scam
* Immediate action required * Insistence on secrecy * Money needed up front * Hard-to-track payment methods

Build Your Scam Defenses
* Do not be rushed into any financial decision * Assume that insistence on secrecy is a ploy to deceive you * Be suspicious of any situation that requires you to send money up front * Confirm all stories, offers or charities independently * Be very cautious about clicking on email links

Block Those Scammers
* Register with National Do Not Call Registry at www.donotcall.gov to limit legitimate telemarketing phone calls, making phone scams easier to detect * Register with www.DMAchoice.org to limit legitimate advertising mail, making mail scams easier to detect * Limit personal information on social media and choose the strictest privacy settings on social media accounts * Use antivirus software on your computer

What to Do If You Are Scammed
* Don’t be embarrassed or afraid * Tell someone you trust * Report the scam to your bank immediately to limit losses * Contact your local police and federal agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission
For more information, visit aba.com/Seniors

Bobby Anderson
Staff Writer

A piece of national history right here in Oklahoma City will soon be repurposed as the 23rd Street Armory is brought to life once again.
The home to Oklahoma’s National Guard for decades, the building will soon be revitalized by new owners COOP Ale Works.
The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) recently accepted the company’s proposal to acquire and redevelop the armory, which includes restoring the building and creating a unique experience.
“Oklahoma City is our home and we always wanted to return to the core of the city. In planning for a final home for the brewery, we wanted to find a place that is meaningful to our town and state, and gives us an opportunity to create an incredible experience,” said Daniel Mercer, co-founder of COOP Ale Works. “The Armory, with its unique history, structure and space, is the perfect fit and we believe it will become a venue that attracts visitors from across the state, country and world.”
Under COOP’s proposal, the 87,000-plus-square-foot building will be purchased from the state for $600,000 and returned to its former glory with updates to the interior functionality. The exterior will be maintained to honor its unique history with modern refreshes, including updated windows, while the inside will be transformed into a bustling brewery production floor, full-service restaurant, 22-room boutique hotel, multiple event spaces, offices and meeting rooms.
In total, COOP plans to dedicate $20 million to the overall project.
A 60-barrel, state-of-the-art brewhouse on the first floor will be the heart of the operation. Fermentation, conditioning, packaging and other production equipment will occupy the remainder of the 22,000-square-foot drill hall floor. More than 30,000 square feet of perimeter space surrounding the production floor will house brewery storage, offices, barrel aging, cold storage, shipping, receiving and more.
On the second floor, the east wing will become an 8,000-square-foot restaurant and taproom, with indoor and patio seating for more than 160 patrons. The full-service restaurant will serve a diverse collection of food and beverages. On the third floor of the east wing, dedicated event spaces will be available for community and private events.
Sean Mossman is the director of sales and marketing for COOP Aleworks. The need for expansion for COOP started two years ago, just two years after moving into a second venue.
“We began to start looking for places that could house a much bigger operation for us,” Mossman said. “Among the things we really wanted along with space was to create a brewery Oklahoma City could be proud of. To accomplish that we needed to move back into the urban core which is in the process of being revitalized.”
“When we saw the Armory and it became available it was a real no-brainer. It checked every box.”
COOP Ale Works is a craft brewery based in Oklahoma City, dedicated to brewing full-flavored beers. Since 2009, COOP has created a core lineup of six year-round canned beers in addition to four seasonal canned beers.
A 22-room boutique hotel will tie the experience together. Hotel rooms will occupy the second and third floors of the west wing of the building with a refined lobby located on the west side of first floor to welcome guests.
The proposal also includes five acres surrounding the armory building as well as leases for two adjacent properties. The additional properties will provide substantial parking, opportunities for retail and downtown living, and green space.
A new building would have been easier but Mossman said COOP wanted to strengthen ties in OKC.
“We focused early on for something on the Register of Historic Places or just meant something to the community through time,” Mossman said.
The 23rd Street Armory, constructed in 1938, was designed by architect and Oklahoma Army National Guard Major Bryan Nolen and was built as part of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration. At the time of its original construction, it was promoted as the only armory in Oklahoma funded entirely by state funds generated from oil wells located on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds. The three-story building served as the state’s hub for the Oklahoma National Guard and the storied 45th Infantry Division.
“Our commitment to preserving the building is really important from our perspective as is doing honor to the 45th Infantry,” Mossman said. “We’ve gotten testimony from dozens of people who have went through that building and it means so much to them and they’re excited somebody is doing something with it that’s meaningful and it’s not being knocked down and forgotten.”
Mossman said COOP will invest $20 million into renovations with projected annual economic activity of $26 million to OKC.

by Kaylee Snow

HOLLIS – It only took 21 years for Jane Testerman to land her dream job.
She only wishes it could have happened sooner.
Testerman, who now helps her husband Charlie full time with his three businesses – Testerman Farms, Circle T Trucking, and Testerman and Son Harvesting – says her lengthy career in teaching was only holding her back.
While she spent her days impacting children at school, she was running herself in circles between keeping farm records and working at school.
Testerman was anxious to be outside if it was a nice day. She loved being outdoors.
Testerman’s husband is a fourth-generation custom harvester of wheat and corn. With a partnership between him and his father Doug, Testerman Farms consists of about 2,000 acres of cotton and 3,000 acres of wheat. Additionally, the Testermans have a small herd of cattle and the trucking business, where they haul grain, fertilizer and cotton modules.
Testerman recalls the challenges she faced trying to juggle teaching and agriculture.
“They’d start cutting wheat in May before school was ever out,” she said, “but I was ready to go with them.”
With her husband often gone on harvest, she kept things afloat back home, managing paperwork and directing trucks. The record keeping kept her busy.
“Plus then we had our livestock in the barn, our show stock,” she said.
The Testermans’ three daughters, Blair, 25, Mylah, 20, and Hadie, 14, who are “quite the characters,” all exhibited sheep and pigs, but cattle was their main focus.
“When we got a little more involved in the stock shows, I had to take off work to go, and so that was hard for me,” Testerman said.
A Farming Family
The Testerman daughters have been farming since they were babies, literally.
“Blair had been around the harvesting since she was a little over a year old,” Testerman said. “Mylah was about 9 months old when we started harvesting, and Hadie was a week. I had her, and a week later we left on wheat harvest.”
Rhonda Ellison, who has known Testerman for many years through Harmon County OSU Extension, said, “Jane was expecting their second child during one harvest season, but it didn’t slow her down. As each of their three daughters came along they were each taught the value of hard work, following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents.”
Testerman says the reason she loves agriculture is because of the next generation.
Since the girls have traveled and have grown up around the hired help, they have learned valuable life skills. Testerman is convinced agriculture was the best place for her children.
“They lay down at night and they say their prayers, and they’ll be praying for the hired hands, listing their names off,” she said. “So we taught them a lot of right from wrong by working on the farm and being around the hired help.”
All the girls can run the equipment – combines, tractors and grain carts.
“I mean it’s definitely a family business,” Testerman said.
The girls often get frustrated with boyfriends who do not understand farming.
Testerman will tease the girls, asking, “Why get a boyfriend if you know more than the boy does?”
She knows without a doubt her kids know how to work because of their experiences with agriculture. It has exposed her children to outstanding people as well.
“Agriculture – whether it’s farming, harvesting or livestock showing – all of that puts the kids around good people that are hardworking,” she said.
Her kids understand the need to pray for rain – to keep livestock alive.
“Everybody prays for rain, and it’s not just so our yard will grow,” Testerman said. “They all know where it comes from and that it takes hard work to get those things.”
“We’ve been to every swimming pool from here to Colorado,” she laughed, “and I cook during harvest. Sometimes I’d run a tractor grain cart, and then it got to where we had so many hired hands you can’t afford to eat out all the time, or somebody would have to get off equipment and run to town to get food.”
Life After Teaching
On top of keeping records and directing trucks, Testerman now keeps all computer software up-to-date for accounting purposes for all three businesses. As technology has advanced, she now enters the amount of fertilizer and water used by each sprayer into a computer system. She picks up parts and runs the hired hands around – who say they would rather have Charlie in charge because Jane works them too hard.
“Since I quit teaching, my role has quadrupled,” Testerman said, who describes herself as farm hand and secretary.
She is busier now than she was when she was teaching.
“I learned early on that learning all of those things was not necessarily a good thing,” Testerman laughed, because the more she learned, the more she was put to work.
Because the Testermans have “lots of different irons in the fire,” they have had to cut back.
“We’ve gotten more involved in local farming and trying to stay home more,” she said. “We figured out it was harder to travel so much doing custom harvesting and then tend to your own farming at home.”
Currently, the Testermans still custom harvest 10,000 to 12,000 acres, all within a 60-mile radius of home and the Texas Panhandle. This past year, the crops overlapped.
“We were still picking corn in Texas, picking our cotton here, and hauling the cotton modules,” she said. “So we were spread very thin.”
With 2017’s cotton harvest being the largest since 1933, Testerman said it feels like “the longest cotton harvest ever.”
“We haul cotton round bales for three or four different gins locally,” she said. “We start that in October, and that usually ends in February. We’ve had a couple of years that it ended in March, but this year it lasted until the end of April.”
Memories
Testerman’s earliest memories of agriculture come from two places: her dad and 4-H. Her dad, Larry Odom, was the district conservationist for the Harmon County Natural Resources Conservation Service from 1972 to 2008. She exhibited sheep through 4-H, which is where she first fell in love with agriculture.
Now her kids have shown livestock for 16 years, and by the time her youngest graduates, she will have attended 20 Oklahoma Youth Expos.
She laughed and said, “I expect a plaque.”
Some of her fondest memories include her daughters’ stock show success. Blair had two breed champions with her steers.
“In 2013, Mylah won the youth expo with a steer, all her sheep made the sale, and she had the third Chester in the sale,” she said. “In 2018, Hadie exhibited the bronze medallion steer.”
FFA and 4-H are very important to the Testermans, who are currently working with the superintendent to build a multi-purpose facility. Martin Lewis, Doug’s first cousin, passed away this past year and left money to be donated to a good cause, which involved youth and/or animals. The Testermans chose to use that money for the facility, and this enabled the school to start building.
“The school can use it for their activities,” Testerman said. “The community will be able to use it, and then it will be for livestock shows. That way they can host some jackpot shows if they want.”
She also organizes the Keaton Owens Memorial Scholarship in honor of her nephew. She gathers funds each year, which are then awarded to FFA and 4-H students to help fund next year’s show project.
“Agriculture has kind of consumed our household and everything that we do,” she said.
Like all farmers, the Testermans face challenges every day, from drought and erosion to the rising costs of equipment and chemicals.
“The people that think farmers just set their own hours and throw a little fertilizer and water down and the crop grows, it’s not like that at all,” she said. “It’s a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of prayer in farming. Please let it rain. Please don’t let it hail. It seems like I probably count on the Lord above in farming more than any other thing I’ve been involved in … You’re not just doing it for yourself. You’re counting on it for other people.”

Photography and Text by Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn t4z@aol.com

A road trip guarantees a real senior travel adventure. A week’s driving through the glacier formed Finger Lakes of West Central New York State, is barely enough time to explore this sampling of Americana.
Flying in and out of Rochester gives you the opportunity to tour the Eastman House (www.eastmanhouse.org) with its photography research center, and the unique Strong National Museum of Play (www.strongmuseum.org).
On your way to your overnight in Canandaigua you’ll see the Erie Canal with a quick stop in Pittsford, and see how the canal is adapted today to leisure activities. Also on the way in Mumford is the Genesse Country Village and Museum (www.gcv.org).
And what would a road trip be without getting slightly lost, or thinking you are lost? A correctly programmed GPS system in your car will become invaluable and a real comfort while traveling the many back roads of the expansive Finger Lakes. This was my first time with a talking map, and after we came to an “understanding” the device was an asset to the road trip adventure. Continuing on you may want to drive the twisting wooded roads of Letchworth State Park, which is listed as the grand canyon of the east, and does have some surprisingly nice scenic turnouts.
Over night at the comfortable Bristol Harbor Resort in Canandaigua is highly recommended and a brief home base for touring the Canandaigua Lake area. The town itself has quaint architecture and a stop off at the finger lakes visitor bureau at 25 Gorham street, can be helpful for last minute directions and touring advice. The office encourages visitors to contact them for information on the area and what sights a first time visitor might like to see. It was invaluable to me, as I picked from their extensive catalog the areas I found interesting and they were able to offer a suggested itinerary.
Jump in your car and drove south on Rt 21 towards Naples. Let your intuition choose which of the road side offerings to sample gifts, wines and foods. There are so many it would be hard to see them all but I enjoyed the small but packed Monica’s pies (www.monicapies.com). A most original and indigenous treat are the grape pies, a sweet treat with a homemade goodness, which has won many awards.
Grapes in New York state of course are made into wines and the Imagine Moore Winery (www.imaginemoorewinery.com) has a congenial wine tasting house right next to a vineyard. I found their wine good enough to buy and take home. Other notable wineries in the neck of the Finger Lakes is Arbor Hill Grapery (www.thegrapery.com) and the Widmer Wine Cellars (www.widmerwine.com).
Being an art glass collector I was tempted to purchase at the local artist gallery, Artisan’s – Gifts from the Finger Lakes, (www.artzanns.com) with their well priced local art, including paintings, pottery and a few pieces of art glass.
Back to Canandaigu’s New York Wine and culinary Center (www.nywcc.com) where I was privileged to sit in on an evening Wine and Pasta pairing demonstration. My dinner in Tuscany exhibition with Chef Lorenzo Boni gave me a new appreciation of Barilla Pasta and their sauces. Now I relive a little bit of my Finger Lakes experience every time I go to my local supermarket.
Be sure and take time to relax by strolling Canandaigua’s lake shore drive and city pier with its historic boat houses. Also be aware that the Ontario county courthouse is where Susan B. Anthony was convicted and fined one hundred dollars for voting.
Another famous Finger Lakes town is Watkins Glenn, know for its race track, where it is possible with an appointment for you to drive your own car around the track. I chose to take a relaxing (and can be romantic) evening boat ride on Captain Bill’s Seneca lake dinner Cruise (www.senecaharborstation.com). An over night at the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel (www.watkinsglenharborhotel.com) is a convenient and luxurious oasis with gorgeous views of lake Seneca.
Allow plenty of time if you wish to venture into the Watkins Glenn State Park, where waterfalls and nature combine. My time was brief as I was off to Hammonsport to be introduced to the Glenn Curtis’s Museum centering on aviation, motorcycles and other firsts. The firsts continue with a tour of the Pleasant Valley Wine company established in 1867. Forty-Five minute guided tours are offered to explain the complicated process of wine, sherry and champagne making in their expansive facility.
Next month Part Two of Touring the Finger Lakes of New York.

Mr. Terry Zinn – Travel Editor
Past President: International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association
http://realtraveladventures.com/author/zin

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the University of Oklahoma Norman campus opens its 2018 fall exhibition Ticket to Ride: Artists, Designers, and Western Railways, on Oct. 5. The exhibition features more than five dozen works by artists and commercial designers created between 1880 and the 1930s, the height of western railway travel.
A public opening reception will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, with a presentation by the exhibition curator and Adkins Associate Curator, Hadley Jerman. Following the talk, attendees will enjoy live music, food and a chance to win two free, roundtrip tickets on the Heartland Flyer.
The exhibition highlights how artists and railway companies together influenced lasting perceptions of the American West, particularly the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Coast and the Northwest. “Designers and artists sought railway patronage to achieve their own ends as much as railways courted image-makers for wanderlust-inducing imagery,” says Jerman. “This exhibition brings together, often for the first time, artists and designers who were engaged in parallel projects promoting western travel but also making use of railway patronage to promote their own careers and interests.”
Some, like celebrated American landscape painter Thomas Moran, sought an opportunity to camp and paint in dramatic western landscapes. Maynard Dixon, best known today for his easel paintings of the Southwest, produced many poster and billboard designs for multiple western railways which he exchanged for free transportation via “artist passes.” Women, including the Tacoma-based painter and activist Abby Williams Hill and St. Paul muralist Elsa Jemne, found in railway patronage an escape from turn-of-the-century social constraints. Other artists like W. Langdon Kihn and his teacher, Winold Reiss, bought into misguided period notions that Native populations were on the brink of “vanishing” as victims of modernity. In railway patronage, they found an entre into the indigenous communities they aimed to record.
The images in this exhibit, then, simultaneously reflect corporate railway concerns along with their creators’ enthusiasm for dramatic landscapes and Native communities, particularly in the American Southwest, Montana and western Canada. This exhibition features paintings, studies, posters and graphics that emerged from the parallel relationships between artists and commercial designers with rail companies in the transnational American West.
Guest speaker Cliff Bragdon, nephew of Langdon Kihn, whose portraits are featured in the exhibition, will give a presentation prior to the opening at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, in the Mary Eddy and Fred Jones Auditorium at the museum. Exhibition curator Hadley Jerman, author of the Ticket to Ride catalogue, which will be on sale when the exhibition opens, will give a gallery talk at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13.
The museum also will use use the exhibition as a jumping-off point for its new holiday train event, All Aboard, from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13. Model trains resembling Route 66 will take over the entire Sandy Bell Gallery in the museum. Included in this new family holiday event will be Santa Claus pictures, banjo lessons, a cookie and hot cocoa bar and much more. This family-friendly event starts at 6 p.m. with a train-lighting ceremony beginning at 7 p.m.
More information about this exhibition and related programs is available on the
museum’s website at www.ou.edu/fjjma.
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is located in the OU Arts District on the corner of Elm Avenue and Boyd Street, at 555 Elm Ave., on the OU Norman campus. Admission to the museum is complimentary to all visitors, thanks to the generosity of the OU Office of the President and the OU Athletics Department.
The museum is closed on Mondays. Information and accommodations are available by calling (405) 325-4938 or visiting www.ou.edu/fjjma.

What are you looking forward to this Fall? Integris Canadian Valley Hospital volunteers

I’m looking forward to being alive, being happy, successful and volunteering at this hospital.

Eugene Johnson

What I like about fall is football. We have five sons so we are a sports family.

Nancy McKinney

Being warm and helping people. If I’m warm I want them to be warm so I donate a lot of coats.

Zola Johnson

Not mowing my grass and it not being as hot. But I’m not looking forward to winter.

Nam Huynh