The Strange Love of Dr. Billy James Hargis
Based in Tulsa, The Christian Crusade was the public name of Hargis' media empire, one that included a magazine, the daily radio program, Christian Crusade Publications, and a pioneering direct mail operation that expertly distributed Hargis' propaganda throughout the world. By 1960, Hargis had the ability to martial sizeable crowds and stir them with his incendiary speeches. In the eyes of the FBI, he was a serious threat; in the minds of many Cold War Americans, though, Hargis was a new kind of patriot.
The Last of Kenton
Until the accident, there were four children here. Now, there are three. Ranchers remain bitter about a man branded as a land rustler who reportedly busted up some ranches then high-tailed it out of Cimarron County with the IRS mounting a posse. People hesitate to talk for too long about the bad times, the prolonged drought, and some of the saddest days a community has ever known.
Horror in the Ouatchita Mountains
The closest Paul Bowman ever came to killing Bigfoot was in 2011: “I was kicking around camp around two, three in the afternoon when there was a rock impact from the west, a large one—he couldn’t have been far—so I get suited up and grab my camo and rifle and go out."
Grace in Broken Arrow
The first two recommendations of what became known as the “do not fondle” agreement were prayer and “building relationships with young men and women of your age group in Sunday School and Singles group activities” at Grace Church, which ran the school.
Private Manning and the Making of Wikileaks
The Inside Story of the Oklahoman Behind the Biggest Military Intelligence Leak Ever by Denver Nicks. Editor's note: Since it was first published in September of 2010, "Private Manning and the Making of Wikileaks" has been widely considered the definitive article on the life of Bradley Manning. It is the first article to correlate Manning's whistleblowing with that of the Silkwood/Kerr-Mcgee scandal, the first to extensively mine his social network for clues about his upbringing, and the first to debunk the common (and still pervasive) media myth that Manning was a troubled child with emotional problems. The reporting below, by...
Highs and Lows in Brady Heights
Miss Anne moved to Brady Heights in 1964. She's raised three children in the neighborhood. She's suffered the loss of her husband. She's watched the neighborhood transform from a safe, family-oriented neighborhood to a hotbed of racial strife; she's experienced the exodus of neighbors to south Tulsa, watched as empty houses became dilapidated, hoped as new neighbors moved in to revitalize the historic homes. Through it all, Miss Anne lived in the same house, sat on the same porch, watched the neighborhood bloom, wither and re-grow.
Broadway's Forgotten Man
It’s 1945, and our setting is a Christmas party in Manhattan. The celebrants are show-business professionals affiliated with the Theatre Guild, a company enjoying tremendous prosperity due to the phenomenal success of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s stage musical Oklahoma!, which the Guild produced.
Watts and Clary
Words by Steve Gerkin. *** Dressed only in his boxers, Wade Watts, a black civil rights activist, reclined on the sofa. He read the morning paper while bacon, eggs, and pork sausage sizzled in the kitchen. The cook leaned into the living room doorway. “Do you think your friend Martin Luther King, who dreamt that one day blacks and whites could come together, ever imagined it might include us?” Johnny Lee Clary, former Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, returned to the stove. From the other room, Watts, an evangelist and longtime leader of the...
Who's Afraid of Elohim City?
Bad men are drawn to the City of God. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it the meeting ground for America’s most sinister extremists. Many Oklahomans regard it as the most dangerous and mysterious place in the state.
Subterranean Psychonaut
He stood naked by the roadside with a blanket draped around his hips, feebly reaching out for the glimmering cars as they passed in the morning light. He was almost too hideous to look at: Purple and black tracks streaked across his frail limbs, and his hollow eyes peered out from a pale, gray head shaved bald, eyebrows and all. Brandon Andres Green was not from hell, not exactly. He was from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Brave New Park
It’s one of those steam baths of a late August night. Cicadas are revving up their engines in the post oaks and sycamores. Stealthy mosquitoes are feasting on my ankles. The corner of 33rd Street and Riverside Drive is officially closed to traffic, but there’s a desire line through the front yard of a house on the corner. The cicadas are the only sound on this once-bustling section of the scenic boulevard that winds its way alongside the Arkansas River through Tulsa. The river smells like dead fish.