Chapter Meeting
October 25

On Saturday October 25 we'll meet to go over our Bylaws. We'll meet at our usual time 2 p.m., at the Museum.
Also, we'd like to talk about what we want to do next year.
And finally, we're hoping you have some good ideas on how to increase our membership.
If there's anything you'd like to add to our agenda, please send it to gscoas@gmail.com

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
at the Museum of the Great Plains
601 NW Ferris Avenue
Lawton, Oklahoma

In August the Oklahoma Museum Network was launched.  Funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the Network is a statewide collaboration of five partner museums working together to provide hands-on discovery learning and science education resources to families, students and educators across the state.  

Over the summer Tom Noddy, the “Bubble Guy”, toured all five Network museums (Science Museum Oklahoma, Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum, Leonardo’s Discovery Warehouse, Museum of the Great Plains and the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium) finishing his tour at the Museum of the Great Plains on August 22-24.  Following his final show, Tom spent some time talking to the Museum’s Curator of Education, Jana Brown.


Tom Noddy’s Bubble Magic
Oklahoma Museum Network

Music by
Jonathan Coulton

Events include International Sports Day and Free Concerts with Featured Performers

The 2008 International Festival in Lawton, OK will be held September 26, 27, and 28. The hours are Friday, 5-10 pm, Saturday, 11 am-10 pm, and Sunday, 12-5 pm.

It continues to celebrate and highlight our area’s diverse cultures.  The festival is a project of the Lawton Arts and Humanities Council’s International Festival Committee and the City of Lawton.

The festival opens 5 pm, Friday and the Opening Ceremony follows at 6 pm on the 2nd Street Stage.  The highlight of this event is the Naturalization Oath Ceremony where many will take the Oath of Allegiance to become US citizens receiving their Certificates of Naturalization.

What is new this year?
The festival will be held in Elmer Thomas Park located at 3rd and Ferris Avenue.  We are so excited to launch the festival in this new location.  Some of the added amenities for the festival include, room for more attractions, parking adjacent to festival grounds, vendor parking on site, additional electrical and water sources, tour bus parking, shuttle bus transportation, completely handicap accessible, restroom facilities, and more!

In addition to our traditional events, International Sports Festival Day is set for Saturday, September 27 at Lawton High School and in Elmer Thomas Park.  Events include NFL Punt, Pass, & Kick, Disc Golf, Tennis, Fishing, and Basketball Tournaments, Football Jamboree, and Track & Field. Click here for more information.   

Everyone can participate in this citywide celebration by becoming a volunteer. It is a great way to meet new people in the community, get work experience for your resume, gain visibility for your organization or business, family or group activity, and just have FUN!!                                                                    

Throughout the three-day event, festivalgoers will have an opportunity to see multi-national entertainment, taste cuisine from more than 25 vendors, and browse the markets of the international vendors.

Free Concerts with Featured Performers
Friday Night
Needfire (Celtic Rock) www.needfire.com (Texas & Scottish artists)
Polka Kings (German & Polka) (Oklahoma artist)

Saturday
Arabesque World Music & Puppets (Arabic & Irish) www.ourarabesque.com (Oklahoma artist)

Saturday Evening
Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers (Oklahoma Folk/Rock) www.myspace.com/samanthacrain (Oklahoma artist)

Saturday Night
Beyond the Pale (World Music) www.beyond-the-pale.com (Texas artist)
Under the Influence (Texas country with the Red Dirt flavor) www.undertheinfluenceband.com (Texas artist)

Sunday Afternoon
LAAND (Greek) www.laand.com (Texas artist)
Blood Washed Blues Band (Blues & Southern Rock)
www.myspace.com/bwbb1 (Oklahoma artist)
Mariachi Orgullo de America (Mexico) www.mariachiorgullo.com (Oklahoma artist)

Visit www.cityof.lawton.ok.us/lahc for schedules (Note lineup and schedule may be subject to change beyond our control) or call 580-581-3470 or 581-3471, or email us at lahc@cityof.lawton.ok.us.

For more information about the International Sports Festival Day, contact Reginald Seaton, at 580-581-3400 or email Rseaton@cityof.lawton.ok.us  For all events and locations, No pets are allowed, only service animals, please.

Poster (pdf)

In June, Barry Hardin presented "Comanche Men's and Women's Clothing: 1800s to Present" at our monthly Chapter meeting. His emphasis was on Comanche styles with distinctions between Comanche, Kiowa, and other Southern Plains tribal styles.  Jana Brown talked to him followig his presentation.

Crazy Crow Trading Post

Music by Blue Ridge Highballers

Synopsis:  Between 12,000 and 10,500 years ago, 33 major species of  mammals became extinct in North America.  Among them such large forms as horses, camels, ground sloths, cave bears, lion, mastodons, and mammoths.  Because the period of extinction overlaps with archaeological evidence for the arrival of humans, particular those carrying the Clovis material culture, it has been argued that Clovis people were responsible for the die-off.  Such an explanation is increasingly in question as new evidence is available about the arrival, and point of arrival, of Clovis groups as well as significant climatic changes occurring around 10,900 years ago. Dr. Wyckoff's talk will delve into these questions and some of the new findings that bear on the interaction of people spreading across the North American continent.

Biography:  Dr. Don Wyckoff's PH.D. is from Washington State University; graduated in 1980 when Mt. St. Helens erupted!  He has worked as an archeologist in Oklahoma for 47 years, first for the Oklahoma River Basin Surveys here at the University of Oklahoma, then as Oklahoma's first State Archaeologist.  From 1968 to 1996 he was Director of the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey.  From 1996 to present: teaching half time for the Department of Anthropology at OU and half time curator of archaeology for the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at OU.  In April of  2008, O.U. President David Boren announced Dr. Wyckoff as the recipient of a David Ross Boyd Presidential professorship.  Dr. Wyckoff is involved with research on ice-age environments in Oklahoma, with hunter-gatherer societies here between 10,000 and 2,000 years ago, and with the sources of knappable stone favored by hunting and gathering people throughout prehistory on the Southern Plains.

Other interesting links where you'll find out more about Dr. Wycoff and his work include this interview with the History Detectives,  and this one at OU faculty pages.

In March, Debra Baker and Jana Brown talked to Dr. Leland Bement from the Oklahoma Archeological Survey.

Music by Brad Sucks

Gerald Franklin, an artist-blacksmith who works outof Black Bull Forge near Duncan will be our guest this Saturday. Gerald accepts private commissions and has work in homes all over Oklahoma and Texas.  He has studied under several nationally known artist-blacksmiths to include Robert Patrick of Everton, Arkansas, and Tal Harris, of Waxhaw, North Carolina.  Gerald's work includes historic reproductions and contemporary style pieces.

Gerald is a member of the Saltfork Craftsmen Artist-Blacksmith Association and has served on the Board of Directors of that organization since 2004.  He also serves as the Education Coordinator for Saltfork.
 
Gerald does several public demonstrations a year around Oklahoma and North Texas.  He specializes in educational demonstrations for young people and has brought the magic of metal art to numerous school groups across the region.

Chapter member Randy Clark discusses, among other things, the history and importance of southwest Oklahoma's Big Pasture.

Music by
Josh Woodward

GSC-OAS Monthly Meeting

Saturday March 22

2 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Guest Leland Bement

From Mammoth Hunters to Bison Hunters: Culture Change During The Younger Dryas

As the glaciers began to melt 12,000 years ago an abrupt climate change cast the world back into ice age conditions.  This event is known as the Younger Dryas.  During this time in North America people of the Clovis culture were hunting mammoths and other large animals.  At the start of the Younger Dryas the mammoths went extinct, forcing the hunters to shift to hunting other animals.  Archaeology in Oklahoma adds to this research.  A look at the changing climate and cultures during this period will be presented from the perspective of excavations in Oklahoma. 

Dr. Bement is an archaeologist with the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, OU.  He has been with the Survey for 16 years and specializes in Paleoindian cultures, animal bones, and environmental reconstructions.

 Museum of the Great Plains

601 NW Ferris Avenue

Lawton, Oklahoma 

Randy presently serves as City Manager of Grandfield, and Trustor of the local Historic Preservation Commission, within the Grandfield community and Big Pasture area. He has worked with the Oklahoma Historical Society toward the preservation of local historic properties, and the downtown area, that have recently been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, in an effort to preserve various aspects of the past culture and history of the Big Pasture. As Chairman of the Tillman County Water Development Authority, and appointee as a Stake Holder to the Economic Development of Tillman County, he is a part of the present day effort toward the betterment of communities and organizations within Tillman and western Cotton County. He is a third generation Farmer & Rancher in the Big Pasture Area and a member of the Oklahoma Brangus Breeders Association.

A great, great grandson of John Wesley James, who was a first cousin to Frank and Jessie James, he grew up along the banks of Brush Creek in the Big Pasture area, where he discovered the renowned Brush Creek Flint Cache in1968. He has since discovered other prehistoric and historic era artifacts.
Having an interest in the anthropology and history of the Big Pasture, he was entrusted with the organization of the Big Pasture Centennial Celebration and the historic KCA Powwow that was held in September 2007. Randy said, "It was important that all participants and aspects of the Celebration were tangible links to the history and anthropology of the Big Pasture."

Randy will discuss the history of the Big Pasture, beginning with the days of the Spanish explorer Coronado to the establishment of the Big Pasture. He will also talk about present day culture and economy, as well as the significance of the Centennial Celebration.