Photography and Text by Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn [email protected]

March 21, M.J.Van Deventer will be the guest speaker for a noon “Brown Bag Luncheon” at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. She will speak on “Jerome Tiger ~ The Enduring Legend.” Her talk, which is open to the public free of charge, is one of several activities about the late artist’s life and influence, complementing a retrospective of Jerome’s influence and art, which hangs through May, 2018.
Jerome Tiger began to paint in “Indian Style” in 1962. Nettie Wheeler of Muskogee, Oklahoma, recognized Jerome’s talent and encouraged him in his artistic endeavors. Jerome submitted his early work to the 1962 Philbrook Art Center’s Annual Indian Art Exhibition and later was invited to have his first major exhibition where nearly all of his images sold out. A full blood Muscogee Creek-Seminole, Tiger’s style is said to be a combination of “spiritual vision, humane understanding, and technical virtuosity” but with traditional subject matter and composition.
Speaker, M.J. Van Deventer-Shelton says, “I grew up in Muskogee and became acquainted with Jerome Tiger through an English class at Muskogee Central High School in the late 1950s. Sitting next to Jerome in that class, I often watched him draw while the rest of the class labored over diagramming complex sentences.”
Fast forward to 1967 and the untimely accidental death of Jerome Tiger. By the late 1970s, M. J. embarked on a research journey to piece together the fragments of Jerome’s life, visit the artists and collectors he influenced and research the enduring quality of his art ~ paintings that changed the face of Native American art.
While serving as the Director of Publications and editor of Persimmon Hill for the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for 18 years, Van Deventer had the opportunity to study Jerome’s art and become friends with Arthur and Shifra Silberman, whose gift of Jerome’s art has made this museum’s Jerome Tiger paintings, the largest archive of his art.
Van Deventer is a graduate of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah and received a Master’s Degree in Communications from Oklahoma State University. She did post graduate work in the pre-law program at Tulsa Junior College and also studied at Syracuse University in New York on a Wall Street Journal Fellowship.
For 25 years, she was a newspaper reporter/editor for the Stillwater News Press, Tulsa World, the Daily Oklahoman, Fort Worth Star Telegram and the Tulsa Tribune, which nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting. During that time, she also was an adjunct professor of journalism at OSU and the University of Central Oklahoma.
An award-winning journalist, her articles have appeared in Southwest Art, Oklahoma Today, Tulsa People, Oklahoma Magazine, Traditional Home, Art Gallery International, Cowboys & Indians and Triple AAA’s Home & Away. She is the author or co-author of 10 books and is currently completing a biography on Jerome Tiger and the well-known Oklahoma sculptor, Harold T. Holden.
Her passions are writing, cooking, gardening and traveling, especially to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a past chairman of the Muskogee Area Master Gardeners, and current President of the Muskogee Area Arts Council. She is a board member of the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, which has the second largest holding of Jerome’s art, including his only sculpture and his last work, The Stickballer.
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is America’s premier institution of Western history, art, and culture. Founded in 1955, the Museum, located in Oklahoma City, collects, preserves, and exhibits an internationally renowned collection of Western art and artifacts while sponsoring dynamic educational programs to stimulate interest in the enduring legacy of the American West. More than 10 million visitors from around the world have sought out this unique museum to gain better understanding of the West: a region and a history that permeates our national culture.
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum features a superb collection of classic and contemporary Western art, including works by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, as well as sculptor James Earle Fraser’s magnificent work, The End of the Trail. The exhibition wing houses a turn-of-the-century town and interactive history galleries that focus on the American cowboy, rodeos, Native American culture, Victorian firearms, frontier military, and Western performers. Outside, beautifully landscaped gardens flank the Children’s Cowboy Corral and interactive children’s space.
Additional information about the Brown Bag Luncheon Series is available by contacting Tara Carr at the National Cowboy Museum, (405) 478-2250.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

When it comes to the health of family members, you can’t always know what’s ahead.
Patti Abercrombie, RN, knows this better than most.
It was a few years ago while living overseas that Abercrombie got the dreaded call.
Dad has cancer.
With a husband who was finance director for a large global company, Abercrombie had the luxury of hopping onto a plane and coming back to Chickasha to be with her family.
She put her nursing skills to work, pouring into her family for her father’s remaining few months.
After the dust had settled she realized that virtually every family gets one or two of those phone calls at some point.
But how many are able to hop on a plane and rush right home?
“I came back to take care of him. Most people just aren’t able to do that,” she said. “I was very fortunate.
“I thought ‘what if I hadn’t been able to get here.’”
Abercrombie came back to take care of her father, a Marine of 42 years, while he was battling bone cancer.
Out of that situation eventually led to Around the Clock Home Care in Chickasha.
“That was one thing that really bothered me. What about the people that don’t have anybody?” Abercrombie said.
“We’re there to stay,” Abercrombie says. “We’re not popping in and out every two or three days and moving on to the next patient. We really get attached and we see what’s going on.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
“I think it brings comfort for the families,” Abercrombie says of her company. “If they live in New York and have a loved one here that wants to stay in their house and they need someone to help them … I would be much more comfortable knowing there was a nurse there to oversee what is going on.”
Around the Clock Provides a fully customized care plan for families. With services ranging from three-hour visits to to 24/7 around-the-clock care, the company can meet most needs.
All care plans are customized specifically for family needs and visits can be planned for any time of the day or night and designed with daily or weekly visits.
Abercrombie is a dedicated RN with nearly 30 years supervisory experience in Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplant, Pain Management, Hematology, Home Health, and Hospice. She’s provided quality patient care, as a supervisor at a 700 bed hospital and brings her commitment to clinical excellence into the home setting.
She offers free in-home consultation with her or one of her nurses.
Long Term Care Insurance accepted as well as all major credit cards. Assistance with VA Aid and Attendance is also provided.
Around the Clock services Central Oklahoma and south.
One thing that makes Abercrombie’s staff very unique is their combined life history.
“I would say nearly every one of our staff members have gone through this with their own family member,” Abercrombie said. “They’ve taken care of their grandmother or were the only caregiver for their mother or father. They’ll tell me the stories.”
It’s one of the qualities she looks for when hiring staff. Those life experiences translate into the type of care she ensures.
Abercrombie utilizes RNs, LPNs, certified nursing assistants and sitters to accomplish the mission of helping people not only stay but thrive in their homes.
Coming back to Chickasha from Saudi Arabia Abercrombie felt at peace.
“Chickasha is so comforting. It was like Chickasha had stood still in time,” she said.
Those family values were still there.
Around the Clock is moving into its fifth year serving the surrounding counties and Abercrombie says the need grows every passing day.
GROWING NEED
About 1 in 3 people caring for someone at home (as opposed to a nursing home), said they had hired paid help in the past year, according to a survey by the AARP Public Policy Institute and National Alliance for Caregiving. The median cost nationwide for either homemaker or home health aide services is upward of $125 a day, assuming 44 hours of care per week.
When someone calls with questions Abercrombie will not let them off the phone without a solution – whether it be Around the Clock or another resource.
“All of these scenarios could be me and I’m not going to do anything to anyone I would not do to myself or my parents,” she said. “I’m not a bottom line person.”

http://www.aroundtheclockhc.com/

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Several decades ago Gary Owens and his family were grazing Angus cattle on the hundred acres near SW 17th and Czech Hall Road.
Little did the future home builder know that that patch of Oklahoma prairie would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for seniors searching for affordable living.
“It’s just a good deal for someone that’s a working class person and just doesn’t have tons of income,” he said of his current home building project.
For the last 39 years the Owens name has been synonymous with quality homes in the Mustang area.
Now it’s also becoming known for truly affordable senior living with the opening of Belmont Cove.
That grazing land has given way to beautifully appointed homes seniors can afford to lease at $1 a square foot.
AMENITIES ABOUND
The luxury two-bedroom homes are 1,000 square feet of handicap-accessible living space. Baths are adorned with granite vanity and ceramic tile flooring.
Granite countertops and beautiful wood flooring spill into the kitchen with a host of stainless steel appliances.
Enclosed washer and dryer connections and a one-car garage add to the residence.
Fenced backyards and a covered porch allow for easy pet-friendly outdoor living.
There’s no costly buy-in to get into Belmont Cove either.
A deposit and first month’s rent allows residents to move in.
Belmont Cove is two miles away from Wal-Mart, Target, Homeland and other shopping venues.
Integris Canadian Valley Hospital is three miles away and the senior center is five miles down the road.
“You can be just about anywhere in Oklahoma City in 15 minutes,” Owens said.
Owens made sure that all leases included a buyout clause in the case that someone’s circumstances changed and they needed to move into an assisted living facility.
For the cost of a month’s rent residents are able to make that needed move.
It’s personal for Owens, who made sure he built the type of residence he would want his mother to live in. That’s because his mother did live in one of those homes until she was in her 90s.
Owens built a similar community in the 1990s and it was quickly purchased by a California investor.
Then Owens and his three brothers had to pool their resources when their mother required around-the-clock care.
“We wished we hadn’t sold it,” Owens said of the 47-home project.
That was an inspiration for Belmont Cove which is opening in three phases with a 2,500-square-foot clubhouse.
“The biggest thing is we do all the maintenance,” Owens said. “They can even take off for two or three months and we’ll watch after it for them.”
Mowing the yard, changing the light bulbs or air filters – it’s all included.
And it’s all markedly cheaper than any comparable property.
It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“It’s pretty hard for anybody to compete with us on price because we’ve owned the land so long,” Owens explained.
Owens also passes along deep discounts to residents at Galleria Furniture, which he also owns.
LOCAL HISTORY
Owens built his first house in 1978, while still in high school. Overcoming many obstacles due to beginning at such a young age, he has now built some 2,000 homes and 135 commercial buildings. He has also developed 26 housing additions in the Yukon/Mustang area.
Creating a fully integrated construction company, Owens performs a lot of work that would normally be contracted out by other builders, including carpeting, dirt work and sand and gravel delivery. This keeps costs low, allowing savings to be passed on to customers.
It’s always been about family for Owens, who has taught son Justin to carry on the legacy he’s built. Justin serves as construction superintendent, overseeing day-to-day operations and working with his dad since 1996.
His mother-in-law is expecting to move into Belmont Cove in the coming months.
Spend a few minutes with Owens and a couple things become obvious.
The elder Owens is relational and foundational. A handshake with Owens is a promise that he’ll deliver exactly what he says he will, even if it costs him more.
Many of Owens’ contractors have been working with him since the late 1970s. Most grew up with him in the Mustang area.
That shared foundation was carried over into the home building process and attention poured into the details.
For instance, everyone knows that a prefab cabinet will never enter an Owens home.
All wood cabinets are built from scratch with raw wood, stained and then finished.
It’s just another example of how every home is unique.
And he takes great pride in developing land that sustained his family into affordable homes that will be a blessing for more Oklahoma families.

The Oklahoma Insurance Department (OID) recovered more than $3 million for policyholders in 2017. The money was paid out to Oklahomans who had claim disputes with their insurance company.
“Oklahomans have the right to expect their insurance company to uphold the agreement made in their policy,” Insurance Commissioner John D. Doak said. “I am very proud of our Consumer Assistance Division for its work to recover this money and their daily dedication to educate and help all Oklahomans with insurance issues.”
OID’s Consumer Assistance/Claims Division processes and investigates all complaints lodged by the public against insurance companies. The division opened 6,220 files in 2017. In that year, employees also answered more than 16,000 phone calls. The money recovered for last year totaled $3,326,828.16.
“Our department’s mission is to protect consumers by making sure insurance companies are following all laws and regulations,” said Lydia Shirley, Assistant Commissioner of the Consumer Assistance/Claims Division. “We are here to make sure Oklahomans are getting the coverage they were promised.”
Oklahomans who believe their insurance claim has not been handled properly are encouraged to call the Consumer Assistance Division at 800-522-0071.
The Oklahoma Insurance Department, an agency of the State of Oklahoma, is responsible for the education and protection of the insurance-buying public and for oversight of the insurance industry in the state.

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist Rizwan Qaisar has been awarded an Irene Diamond Fund/AFAR Postdoctoral Transition Award in Aging.
The award, presented by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) with support from the Irene Diamond Fund, will provide $120,000 in flexible transitional funding to Qaisar, who is researching age-related muscle loss called sarcopenia at OMRF. Postdocs are individuals conducting research after finishing their doctoral studies and are pursuing further training and a well-defined career path.
AFAR is a leading nonprofit dedicated to advancing healthy aging through biomedical research. The goal of this program, according to AFAR, is to provide portable and flexible transitional funding for senior postdoctoral fellows as they develop and negotiate for faculty positions and research programs. The award provides full-time research training and grant support.
Founded in 1981, AFAR has awarded more than $175 million in grants to investigators and students across the U.S., Ireland, Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom.
“By giving these postdoctoral fellows this extra boost at a critical moment in their career path, AFAR is helping create a research pipeline that is essential to advancing better therapies for age-related diseases and discoveries that will help us all live healthier and longer,” said Jeremy Walston, M.D., Chair of the 2017 Selection Committee for the Irene Diamond Fund/AFAR Postdoctoral Transition Awards in Aging.
At OMRF, Qaisar works in the Aging and Metabolism Research Program with under the guidance of Program Chair Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D. looking specifically at the role of oxidative stress, or free radicals, in the long-term deterioration of muscle. Qaisar researches potential interventions for the disease pathways for sarcopenia, specifically the activation of the SERCA ATPase.
Qaisar earned his Ph.D. at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. His academic focus was looking at the mechanisms of muscle aging, and evaluating potential therapies to counter age-related weakness and muscle loss.
“I am extremely grateful and honored to receive this award,” said Qaisar. “This funding will provide me with a real opportunity to push my research forward and make a difference for our aging population.”

by Kaylee Snow

When Clara Wichert fell in love with a farmer by the name of Lloyd Wichert, she did not realize what she was getting herself into.
“I was very naïve,” Wichert said. “I was barely 19, and we went over to his parents to talk about the wedding. I remember Lloyd’s father saying, ‘We cannot have the wedding until after the wheat is planted and it is up a couple of inches.’ I thought, ‘really?’”
The two married in 1959, and Wichert began farming with him immediately. The operation consisted of 600 acres of canola, alfalfa, wheat and cattle. Wichert had grown up on a farm, but her father thought women belonged inside the house. Because of this, Wichert didn’t have much farm experience.
“He told me my job was in the house to iron and starch his shirts, to cook and to clean,” she said. “My job was to learn how to do things in the house.”
However, Lloyd didn’t think so. Wichert laughs about it now, but she recalls how difficult the transition was for her.
“I always got yelled at, so that was very difficult for me,” Wichert said.
She described herself as a “tender soul” and often just “went in the house and cried.”
“One time, he needed me so bad when we were planting wheat that … I had to drive the tractor home because we had four or five plots of land that were at a distance,” Wichert recalled. “I cried so hard all the way home that when I got out of the tractor, he said, ‘I didn’t know. I won’t ever make you drive the tractor again.’”
Wichert was “scared to death” and recalls rolling backwards at a stop sign while in front of another tractor.
“It was not a pleasant experience for me,” she said.
Dust Bowl Days
Wichert was born in 1940 in Fairview, Okla., at the end of the Dust Bowl and in the middle of World War II. Her father grew wheat and had a few chickens and cattle.
I was born on the farm in a bedroom, in the southwest bedroom,” Wichert laughed. “I was born in a home. I don’t know if they had a doctor or not.”
While the family did have water and electricity, they didn’t have all luxuries.
“We had an outdoor toilet, and I remember that very well, and it was a long way out there,” Wichert said.
While Wichert has sweet memories of playing on the farm, it was hard back then.
“I watched my father with tears in his eyes stand by the window,” she said, “and it was very imprinted on my mind that the wind was blowing and the sand hills were blowing too, and he had resowed his wheat at least three or four times. Farming is a lot different now.”
Tough Times, New Beginnings
When Lloyd passed away in 1998, Wichert surprised everyone, including herself, and continued farming.
“I had to keep track of all the expenses, and I had to go and sell wheat,” she said. “I had never done that before. I had to learn to watch the wheat prices.”
Wichert sought help from the Oklahoma Farm Bureau (OFB) and Oklahoma State University on when to sell her wheat.
“I even asked the top wheat guy at OSU, and he told me you’ll never go wrong when you sell the wheat at three different times: at harvest, right after the first of the year, and then you might keep some a little bit later. I thought, this is complicated,” she laughed.
Wichert’s sons, Jeff and Rex, pushed her to continue farming.
“My son [Jeff] said, ‘You will learn how to do this,’” Wichert said.
She took classes to learn how to use a computer and type so she could keep better track of the expenses.
“I felt pretty good about myself that my son Jeff made me do it all,” Wichert said.
For the next 15 years, Wichert would farm alongside her sons and was fully responsible for the farm.
“The day I had to write a check for $15,000 for spray and fertilizer,” she said, “I could hardly make myself write that check.”
During this time after her husband’s death, Wichert found new beginnings with the OFB and Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom (AITC). She served on the OFB Women’s Committee for 15 years and chaired the committee for nine years.
“I never thought I would do that in my life,” she said.
Wichert gained immense knowledge about agriculture during her time as chair. Her involvement with AITC began at Fairview Public Schools (FPS) before there was an organization.
“I would come in every month and do a class about agriculture,” she said. “Some of those kids are in high school now, and they said, ‘Oh, we remember you Mrs. Clara. You always came to our classroom and did Ag in the Classroom.’ I always enjoyed that very much. That was very much a part of my life after my husband died.”
Wichert said she loves teaching agriculture because it’s fun for both her and the children, and it became her “heart.” The kids still know her as “Mrs. Agriculture” and the “Ag Lady.”
“I remember in 1981 going to the first Ag in the Classroom event, and I’ve been very involved with that ever since,” she said. “Even now, last week I went to a couple schools and read some books that Ag in the Classroom sponsors. I have learned so much.”
Living and working on the farm helped Wichert become a better agricultural educator. She said AITC is important because there are many children who don’t know much about where their food comes from.
“There’s not very many of us left that live on a farm,” she said. “Oh, they would be eager to tell me they live in the country, but they knew nothing about agriculture, and the kids today don’t. It’s just a foreign word.”
Wichert was recognized as the 2012 National AITC Ag Advocate for her efforts in creating agricultural curriculum and increasing agricultural literacy at FPS. She was awarded the 2017 Volunteer of the Year by the Fairview Chamber of Commerce and the 2012 Distinguished Service to OFB award winner. She was also recently recognized as Mentor of the Year through Mission Mentors at FPS for continuing to serve as a one-on-one mentor to students.
Wichert continues to stay active with Major County Farm Bureau and keeps herself up-to-date on AITC events. She still mentors a little girl at Fairview Elementary School once a week.
She’s a breast cancer survivor since 1982 and “not because of the two years of chemo, but it’s through God.”
She’s watched her husband lose his battle with colon cancer and her barn burn to the ground a couple years ago. Still, she keeps her faith.
When asked what keeps her going, she said, “Definitely my faith in God and realizing that he has a plan for my life. As I look at my life, I think, ‘Who would’ve dreamed I’d get a national award for Ag in the Classroom?’ I just have to believe that God had a plan.”
Now in her late ’70s, she gave the farm to her sons a couple years ago.
“That’s what Lloyd made me promise to do before he died,” she said.
Her sons still say she owns the land until she dies. Jeff lives on the farm and is a crop adjuster, and Rex works for Syngenta in Tennessee. Wichert has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. When it comes time for harvest, everyone comes home to help. They think it’s fun, which makes Wichert smile as she recalls the hard times.
“I know my two sons, they wouldn’t sell an inch of their land that my husband and I farmed, oh no,” she said. “They are men of the soil, and I know that doesn’t happen very often today … [Agriculture] is very important. It keeps us alive. If you’re alive, you use agriculture from the minute you get up to the minute you go to sleep.”
When asked about Wichert’s transition from someone who nearly hated agriculture to someone who is heavily involved and an agricultural advocate, she simply said, “It happened gradually.”
“I often think my husband is laughing in heaven because I have turned out such a neat agricultural person,” she said, because agriculture became so important to her, particularly after he died.

What does volunteering do for you? Norman Regional Health System Volunteers

It fills my soul. I’ve been doing it for a year-and-a-half.  Dana Cantwell

It truly gives me an opportunity to give back to a community that’s given me so much. Hailey Dycus

It’s a community and it’s giving back to that community and interacting with a wonderful set of people.  Jonnina Benson

It gives me something to do on Wednesdays and it’s something to look forward to that’s fun. Dixie Hurd

Eleven Oklahoma skilled nursing care centers, their nurses and other staff members were recently recognized by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.
The centers, located throughout the state, were recognized through AHCA/NCAL’s Quality Initiative Recognition Program for quality and service improvements. Facilities honored were:
*Cedar Creek Nursing Center – Norman
*Claremore Nursing Home – Claremore
*Forrest Manor Nursing Center – Dewey
*Grace Living Center – Edmond
* Grace Living Center-Southwest – Oklahoma City
*Emerald Care-Southwest – Oklahoma City
*Medicalodge of Dewey – Dewey
*Montevista Rehabilitation and Skilled Care – Lawton
*Rainbow Health Care Community – Bristow
*Shanoan Springs Residence – Chickasha
*The Village at Southern Hills – Tulsa
AHCA’s Quality Initiative Recognition Program recognizes association members who attain at least four of eight quality initiative goals, President/CEO Mark Parkinson said. Those objectives include:
*Reducing hospitalizations – Facilities are assessed either for their safe reduction of long-stay resident hospital stays of at least 15 percent from December 2014 or for achieving or maintaining a 10 percent or lower rate.
*Minimizing nursing staff turnover – Centers that either accomplish a 15 percent decrease from 2015 levels or maintain less than 40 percent total nursing turnover rates meet this criteria.
*Cutting hospital readmissions – This goal aims at safely reducing hospital readmissions, within 30 days of first admission, by 30 percent, compared to December 2011 levels or maintaining a 10 percent readmission rate overall.
*Decreasing off-label antipsychotics use – Long-stay nursing resident use of off-label antipsychotics must be reduced by 30 percent from December 2011 levels to qualify for this particular achievement.
*Reducing unintended health care outcomes – Accomplishing this goal “improves the lives of the patients, residents and families skilled nursing care providers serve,” the Office of Inspector General found, according to a 2014 report.
*Improving discharge rates – Facilities are tasked with maintaining a 70 percent rate, or 10 percent improvement since December 2014, of patient discharges back to the community.
*Boosting functional outcomes – Centers must improve functional outcomes by 10 percent since December 2015 or maintain a 75 percent improvement rate to attain this goal.
*Adopting Core-Q questionnaire – AHCA developed the Core-Q questionnaire specifically for use by post-acute and long-term care providers, Parkinson said. Adopting the practices outlined, measuring and uploading results may satisfy this particular program aspect.
“Improving quality care as a profession requires dedication from many organizations,” Parkinson said. “The program provides an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the progress that our members have made by achieving the quality initiative goals and improving care for individuals living in their communities, and I commend their hard work.”
Oklahoma Association of Health Care Providers is the AHCA state affiliate. More information about AHCA may be found on its website, located at https://www.ahcancal.org/Pages/Default.aspx; OAHCP’s site is http://www.oahcp.org/index.php.