Easter Seals Oklahoma Occupational Therapists are utilizing the popular phone app game Pokemon Go with patients to help with hand-eye coordination when looking for and catching Pokemon. It also helps with spatial awareness, visual perception skills, following directions and instructional cues, fine motor skills, impulse control and social skills in taking turns with peers.
Easter Seals Oklahoma invites Pokemon Go players to consider scheduling a tour of its facility while playing the game. Easter Seals Oklahoma is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. -5:30 p.m.
For more than 90 years, Easter Seals Oklahoma has provided services to children and adults with disabilities and other special needs and support to their families. Services include an early learning and inclusion academy, adult day health center, therapy services, screenings and financial assistance. For more information, please visit www.eastersealsoklahoma.org.

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

Many seniors find that a packaged tour offers the best in time and treasure management. A package tour is pre designed to offer the ease of small group travel and the expert knowledge offering the highlights of a particular itinerary. Package tours take the worry out of exploration, as the operators know the area offered and the fastest way to experience the survey of an area. For first time visitors, it gives an over view of the best of the area, and if the traveler finds that time at an attraction is not enough, it is a good reference point for a follow up visit. As you can tell, I find an expert package tour is a convenient holiday experience.
Adventures By Disney is a relatively new group tour operation. Disney does it right, whether it’s movies, theme parks or group tours. Recently I experienced Nashville the Disney way, with many insider and backstage visits not available to other tours and certainly not by solo travelers. Several years ago I visited Nashville, but after my tour with Adventures By Disney, I have a complete Nashville experience with many Disney extras that are memorable, educational and fun. Every day our energized and informative tour guides, Kelley and Paola, offered extras and surprises that got us spoiled as we visited from venue to venue. Just when we thought the venue or day was complete we’d hear our guides say, “And then there’s more!”
The Hermitage, located near Nashville, was the home of President Andrew Jackson. Adventures By Disney arranged for Andrew and his wife to greet our bus, and welcome us at the traditional entry to the homestead, which is not offered for other visitors. We had an after-hours visit, complete with a guided grounds and house tour, and then there was more. We had a period dance instruction with Andrew and his wife joining in, as others in the group enjoyed wine and vintage Andrew Jackson bourbon. And then there was more. We had a hands on instruction in simple biscuit making by expert, Maryann Byrd, and then enjoyed our creations baked just for us at a catered sit down dinner in an a joining air conditioned venue. Walking back in the dark to the bus we were all more than satisfied as our departure was enhanced with a spectacle of fireflies.
Recently Nashville has added notoriety with the popular ABC television drama of the same name. Disney enhanced our Nashville adventure with a bus tour of filming locations, and a very special private concert luncheon at the famed Blue Bird Cafe. The essence of Nashville’s established and rising performers was exhibited by the intimate hour long plus performances by Leslie Satcher and Walker Hayes. We were all moved by the stories they told that inspired the creation of the songs they sang for us. This example of sincerity and the universal experiences of life, is the real Nashville sound. The clear voices and rhythmic songs were true examples of craft being raised to the level of performance art. Beyond the flash and country glamour of Nashville, the Blue Bird Cafe experience reaffirms the essence of America’s indigenous music.
A visit to Music City would not be complete without a tour of the historical Ryman auditorium and of course Disney gave us a special private tour and a chance to stand on that stage which was inhabited by the founders of country music. We entered through the stage door entrance in an alley adjacent to a bar/lounge famous as a haunt of music pioneers. And while the Ryman is a must, the new Grand Ole Opry venue is as impressive when you are able to visit the famous back stage dressing rooms, and wall of fame. But there was more!
We had a pre-show dinner in the broadcast studio where many Nashville shows were filmed which included the sound stage where the popular Hee Haw show was once produced. A catered sit down meal with wine was only briefly interrupted when instruction in line dancing was included. And to top off all of this VIP experience, we had VIP seating at that night’s Grand Ole Opry show, with a special treat for me, hearing a couple of songs by Vince Gill, a fellow Oklahoman.
The more continued with hands on poster making at Hatch Show Print, a mock station ID recording at the legendary WSM 650 AM radio station, admission to the expansive Country Music Hall of Fame, and a private visit to Music Row’s RCA Studio B recording studio where Elvis along with other legendary artists, recorded their songs beginning in 1957. We were entertained with insider stories, and with many rehearsals under our belts, we recorded our own group singing a well-known Elvis favorite, and was later presented with our own special CD of our performance.
All along our days of adventures all admission charges were taken care of by our hosts as were most meal times. We ate at Merchants’ Restaurant where we customized our own BBQ sauce, and had breakfast at popular Puckett’s Grocery. There was even a little free time for us to explore downtown Nashville sights on our own. I took this opportunity to reserve my spot for lunch at the Southern Steak and Oyster restaurant, and then took a stroll up to the historic Hermitage Hotel and the Capitol Grille, where I took in a beverage and tales of this famous watering hole.
If you couldn’t tell I was impressed with the services and thoughtfulness of the Adventures By Disney experience. Some Disney tours are for adults only while most welcome the whole family. Documents and itineraries are sent to you well in advance of your departure and should you have added questions they are easily answered by phone from your personal travel concierge. Besides state-side destinations, the company offers tours overseas and cruises as well. Tempt your travel lust by exploring: www.adventuresbydisney.com

Mr. Terry Zinn – Travel Editor
Past President: International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association
http://realtraveladventures.com/author/zinn/
http://www.examiner.com/travel-in-oklahoma-city/terry-zinn
www.new.okveterannews.com – www.martinitravels.com

By Bobby Anderson, staff writer

Growing up on the family farm, Brandon Steffens, RN, never saw a contractor’s truck pull up in the driveway.
No plumber, no electrician, no drywall guy and no painter ever set foot inside the house.
“I just grew up always working on the house with my dad. We never hired anything out,” Steffens said. “We did all the electrical, all the plumbing – whatever it was we did it ourselves.”
That work ethic carried the eventual float pool nurse through a seven-year stint with Home Depot and now to his current side business, Brandon’s Home Improvement.
Before he was working in the ICU and the ER, Steffens was plying the knowledge bestowed on him by his dad.
Elbow grease and a passion to make things better would make his dad proud.
Then nursing school and working with his hands took on a new meaning.
“People come to you in nursing in their worst states and it’s an emergency,” Steffens said, taking a break from an apartment remodel in Midwest City. “They’re dilapidated, sick or injured and we get the opportunity to put our hands on them and fix them and make things new again.”
Working nights four to five days a week for the past five years brought Steffens to a crossroads.
“Everyone told me to watch out, you’ll get burned out,” Steffens recalled. “I said ‘No, I wouldn’t’ but you get burned out.”
So Steffens decided to pour more of his time and talents into something else.
Being a contractor was a vocation he held before nursing. That took him into Home Depot, where he oversaw the entire local install business for the big box company.
Whether it be a sink or a door, a microwave or a dishwasher, Steffens was in charge of the contractors who carried out the work under Home Depot’s name.
It taught him even more about the business.
“I realized there is a huge need out there for people who just don’t know how to do home improvements or they didn’t have the time,” he said.
Or too often, they didn’t have a ton of money.
Home improvements are expensive. Steffens knows all too well the retail costs associated with a remodel.
And he knows the sizeable markup that goes with it.
Figuring things out and finding ways to save people a dollar are a challenge for him. Sometimes he challenges himself right out of a bigger check.
He showed up for a recent garage door opener install job one night. The customer had the new opener waiting for him in the box.
Steffens went up to unplug the old wire and noticed an electrical short.
“I saved him $400,” Steffens said. “I like that sense of accomplishment.”
For some reason Steffens’ specialty has always been tile. Projects that most contractors avoid like the plague, Steffens has a certain affinity.
“Most contractors shy away from it because it’s hard, lot of up and down and on your knees. That never bothered me,” he said. “I like the perfection of it, just to lay each piece of tile in a certain way. It’s kind of like art because you can do different things with tile that really finishes a house off.”
For Steffens, the business venture has been a source of freedom. It’s not a straight 12-hour gig, meeting sometimes unreasonable expectations with limited resources.
“I like the sense of accomplishment,” Steffens said. “In nursing, I talk to people all day long and doing home improvement I get a lot of alone time. I get to just lose myself in work for some time and get to be creative.”
“You go in and see something nasty and absolutely turn it around and make it new,” says Steffens, who has remodeled two of his own homes. “I like to touch every surface. I like when people come in to a house I’ve remodeled and every surface in that house has been touched by me.”
He admits he really hasn’t advertised since taking on more work.
He hasn’t had time.
“You do a good job and people tell people,” explained Steffens, who can be found on Facebook under Brandon’s Home Improvement. “People are always asking if you know anybody. It just snowballs from there.”
With four kids, age five, 10, 15 and 22 – Steffens has a full plate at home. But he’s already taken a couple of his kids along to start learning the trade.
“My 10-year-old has shown interest,” Steffens beamed. “He helped with carpentry on a door frame. He had all these wonderful better ideas how to fix it. There’s no science behind it.”
But there’s definitely an art.
And for now, the combination of science and art suits this nurse just fine.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

A new chapter is unfolding in the Tealridge retirement community history.
Oklahoma Christian University recently sold its Tealridge retirement community located at 2100 NE 140th Street in Edmond to a local group with big plans for this well-known senior living community on the university campus.
The new group owns and manages the Tealridge Assisted Living & Memory Care Community in Edmond as well as the University Village Retirement Community in Tulsa among other communities.
However, leadership is based locally in Edmond.
“With the addition of the Tealridge independent living community, we are now able to offer our residents a full care campus with housing options ranging from independent living apartments to assisted living and even memory care services – all in one location,” said Jon Paden, who leads the new group.
The sale took almost two years to complete given Oklahoma Christian’s desire to find the right buyer and ensure the community continued to be managed and owned by a group with integrity as well as shared values and beliefs.
The new owners are already starting to reinvest in the community with over $1 million funded for building improvements which will include updating all resident apartments, dining and social areas.
“We are excited to build on the great Tealridge reputation for quality in the Edmond community and we are blessed to be able to invest the money and resources needed to really create a special, yet affordable retirement option.” added Paden.
Daily operations will be managed by Melissa Mahaffey the new Executive Director at Tealridge Retirement Community.
While she has extensive senior living management experience, Mahaffey credits her success from a genuine passion for improving the lives of her senior residents.
She also serves on the Oklahoma Assisted Living Federation.
“I am so excited to be a part of the next chapter at Tealridge.” shared Mahaffey. “We have the resources and vision to really create a place that builds on Tealridge’s great reputation while updating things to be on par with the best rental communities in Edmond.”
In addition to the great residents that already call Tealridge home, Mahaffey is building a team focused on placing a strong emphasis on customer service, hospitality and convenience for retirees regardless of what phase of life they are in, Paden added.
To find out more about Tealridge you can go online at tealridge.com.

by Betty Thompson

JAY—There’s no place like home.
Mattie Jeffries grew up on beans, cornbread, and hard work.
The second to youngest of eight children and raised by a single father, Jeffries was familiar with gender equality in their home. She chopped firewood, helped with outside chores, cooked, and cleaned alongside her four brothers and three sisters.
Though her mother was not around when she was growing up, Jeffries said she looked to her older sisters as an example of how to be a lady. Over the years, she changed from the little girl who just threw a cap and boots on.
“Just because I work like a man doesn’t mean I have to look like one,” Jeffries said. “My hands might be rough and calloused but at least my fingernails are pretty in pink. The old saying is true, ‘Even an old barn looks better with a new coat of paint.’”
Her father, Leslie Currey, was a welder by trade and taught Jeffries and her siblings to weld as well. Her four brothers are all welders today, and all eight children own their own businesses.
“Dad raised us to be independent,” Jeffries said. “I’ve heard the more you know the more you’ll have to do, but my philosophy is, the more you know the more you can do yourself.”
As a little girl, Jeffries dreamed of owning her own horse ranch.
“When I was little we didn’t have much, so we went to ride our neighbor’s horse,” Jeffries recalled. “I fell in love with horses and the freedom you feel when riding them.”
Eventually, she did get her own horse, and Dolly played a bigger role in Jeffries’ life than just being part of her horse farm dream.
She did not know Navada Jeffries well at the time, but she remembered the former athlete and fellow graduate of Jay High School who sold hay. And she needed hay for Dolly.
“I didn’t even pay attention to him in high school,” Jeffries laughed. “I was the country girl, and he was the preppy sports guy. He might have played football, but I never saw.”
The two hit it off after that hay delivery, and less than a year later, they were married.
While she did not wind up with the horse ranch she once dreamed of, Jeffries said she has something even better—a cattle ranch, with a few horses sprinkled in.
She and Navada built N & M Farms (named for Navada and Mattie) from the 100 cows Navada had when they began dating. When they first started the farm, they leased all of the land to run the cattle on.
“Together, with God, we grew what we have,” Jeffries said. “Neither my husband or I were given anything, we’ve had to work for everything.”
In the early years of their marriage, Jeffries was working at the bank in town and helping Navada with the farm in her spare time.
“I tagged along with him after hours and on the weekend,” Jeffries said. “He had a hired hand at the time to help him bale hay and work cattle and I told him, ‘Well I can do that!’ He told me I couldn’t, but I proved him wrong.”
Jeffries began working side-by-side with her husband on the tractor, mowing, raking, baling and hauling hay. She even helped him clean out chicken houses for fertilizer.
“I love being outside,” Jeffries said. “We work hard, and I don’t mind working hard.”
She worked at Navada’s side right up to the night before she had their first child, a daughter they named Dakota. She was back on the tractor just a little over a week later, loading up Dakota’s car seat and taking her anywhere from feeding stockers and baling hay, to working cattle and building fence.
Not much changed when their second daughter River came 13 months later, she just took both of them along in the cab of the tractor.
“I’ve raised two daughters in the tractor,” Jeffries said. “It was like having twins, the girls are 13 months apart.”
At the end of those long summer days in the hay field, Jeffries still made time to cook dinner for the family, and keep up with the other household chores, even if it was at 10 p.m.
“I’m a full-time farmer, full-time wife, and full-time mother,” Jeffries said.
While she admits those three jobs are very exhausting, she would not trade it for anything.
In 2003, eight years after beginning their farm, they were able to buy their first piece of property. Since then, they have continued to purchase more land and cattle.
“We think the same, and we have the same goal,” Jeffries said of working with her husband. “I believe it has strengthened our marriage being able to work together like this.”
Their third child came in 2009, a son named Navada Baler, who Jeffries describes as a “100% total farm boy.”
“He’s being raised in the tractor too,” Jeffries said. “He can already drive it.”
Over the years, hard manual labor took a toll on Jeffries back. In October 2015, an MRI revealed she had four ruptured discs and was on bed rest for an entire month. Friends and family told her she needed to quit working on the farm because they feared she would end up paralyzed.
“I didn’t want to have surgery but if that was what it was going to take for me to continue working on the farm then I was determined to do it.”
A friend told her about a spine specialist about an hour away in Owasso, and desperate for relief, Jeffries scheduled the first available appointment.
“I hadn’t been able to walk because of the pain,” Jeffries said. “He adjusted me and asked me to walk around the room. It was like flipping a switch on the pain. I’m not a crier, but I just started crying right then.”
It has been three years since that first doctor’s visit and Jeffries is back on her feet doing what she loves—working side-by-side with her husband and children. She said she cannot imagine doing anything else with her life.
“Owning a piece of our great nation is truly the American dream,” Jeffries said. “There is no place I’d rather be than in the tractor seat on a smooth piece of ground, on horseback gathering cattle, or being with my family on the farm making great memories. There isn’t any place like home.”

story and photos by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

The state of Guerrero, Mexico is a juxtaposition of two worlds.
The resort city of Acapulco, backed by the Sierra Madre Del Sur mountains spills into the Pacific Ocean.
Cliff divers entertain throngs of sunbathing tourists daily plunging some 136 feet into the crashing waves below.
But travel a few miles in any direction and you run the risk of becoming entangled in the violence and death associated with what you might expect from Mexico’s heroin capital.
Oklahoma Heart Hospital RN Shawn Watts walked that fine line a few weeks ago, going on a medical mission trip that provided help and hope for hundreds of families.
Watts realized the world is a very different place outside the walls of Oklahoma Heart Hospital South.
An outdoor covered basketball court served as the mission trip’s staging ground surrounded by a dense urban population eager to seek medical care.
Watts served as triage nurse sending patients to either a dentist, optometrist, pharmacist, family practice doctor or pediatrician based on their needs.
“They’re so worry about their kids staying healthy they wanted their kids to get vitamin shots and even antibiotics when it wasn’t appropriate,” Watts said.
At OHH all Watts has to do is walk into a supply room to get whatever he needs to take care of patients.
“They gave me a box of IV catheters, tubing and medication,” Watts said. “It’s field medicine. That’s exactly what it is.”
Fifteen minutes away was storied Acapulco.
“You hear that and think ‘Oh, how nice.’ It’s not,” Watts said. “In Mexico they develop a resort community and you go two miles beyond and it’s gone. That whole culture is gone. You have true Mexico. They have chickens hanging for sale gutted in the streets. They burn their trash in the streets at night.
“Fish are laying out all day long for sale not even iced in the market. You drive whatever direction you want to. It’s just the culture.”
So Watts assumed when he arrived he’d bunk up in a corner in someone’s house on the floor.
Little did he know he would find a resort hotel room for $43 a night.
People from all over would line up early in the morning to catch the clinic as it opened. Some rushed out the door without even taking their morning medication.
“I would check their blood pressure and it would be 180/110,” said Watts, who traveled with the medical-based Fishers of Men. “We couldn’t tell if their medicine was working for them.”
Multivitamin IV solutions, or banana bags, flowed freely for most of the day as the group did what it could for whomever showed up.
Despite residents not always having access to medical care or the medicines they needed, Watts said the culture had a few things working for it.
“You have no choice but cardiac health there because everything was uphill and you walk to everything,” Watts said. “These little old ladies their blood pressure was well controlled just on basic medicines. They didn’t use medications like we do. They used medicines that were more basic, been around for years and didn’t require monitoring afterwards. Long-term they weren’t the best but they were the most practical for that area.”
Diabetes, malnourishment and dehydration were all issues.
In the hot Mexico sunshine, Watts would go through 6-7 bottles of water daily with no access to a restroom.
“We left there at 6 p.m. and we all went to the restroom after that,” Watts said.
The days flowed for Watts.
“I triaged them so fast that I made the doctors and the dentists mad because I set up extra lines,” Watts laughed. “I had a couple CNAs with me and we did blood pressure, scales, temperatures, measurement. I started slotting them so fast the director of the mission board said ‘You come back. You organize. You’re good. You get everything done. You come back.’”
That’s no surprise. ER, ICU and now CCU at Oklahoma Heart Hospital have been Watts’ sandbox for the past 17 years.
His first calling was in applied ministry as a youth minister in an inner city.
He started doing home health on the side.
“It flowed,” Watts said. “I became an aide and did home health for four years and went to nursing school and worked three jobs during that.”
He would go to class for three hours and see patients on his lunch break before repeating the cycle in the afternoon.
“I love it. It just fits,” Watts said. “I’ve tried to slow down and thought about an office job since I’m 50. I just don’t have the gears for it.”
That’s a good thing not only for the people of Oklahoma City but the residents of Guerrero as well.

Jobs. Kids. Commutes. Spouses.
With wall-to-wall daily schedules, it’s tough to carve out time for healthy habits. Too often, packed days claim two victims: adequate sleep and exercise. But if you’re forced to choose between the two, should you hit the gym or the pillow?
“That’s like asking whether food or water is more important,” said Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation President Stephen Prescott, M.D. “Both are cornerstones of good health.”
Still, he said, “If we could get everyone exercising regularly, we would be better off as a society than if everyone was getting eight hours of sleep nightly.” Working out helps stave off the effects of aging, fights heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and controls obesity, which has reached epidemic levels.
That certainly doesn’t make sleep less important, though, said Prescott. Adequate sleep helps maintain a healthy immune system and, like exercise, plays a role in maintaining healthy weight. “Most of all, it keeps us alert and allows us to concentrate, whether at our jobs or while driving,” he said.
Indeed, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that drowsy driving is responsible for 72,000 accidents in the U.S. each year. An analysis found that those who’d had 5 to 6 hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours were twice as likely to get in an accident as drivers who’d slept for 7 hours or more.
“Sleep needs vary by individual, but most of us fall somewhere between 7 and 9 hours a night to get all the health benefits needed,” said Prescott. Hitting that 7-hour mark, he said, is crucial. But, perhaps, he suggested, once you reach that mark, if you have to choose between an extra hour of sleep and exercising, getting up to hit the gym could be worthwhile.
“If you can do this and not suffer any consequences from it—falling asleep during the day, disrupted metabolism, reduced energy—then I believe it’s a worthwhile pursuit,” said Prescott.
“Still, I don’t like the having to pick between the two,” he said. “And if we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. We can find the time if we make it a priority.”
“I would encourage anyone with a 15-minute window to get up and do something,” said Prescott. “Even if you can’t make it to the gym, take a quick walk. Go up and down the stairs. Do something that gets your heart rate up and makes you work.”
These quick bursts of exercise aren’t optimal, said Prescott, but they’re preferable to inactivity.
“Once you start any type of regular exercise, you’ll sleep better,” he said. “And better sleep means more energy. It’s a wonderful cycle of positive effects; you just have to commit to finding the time.”