The Robert Glenn Rapp Foundation has awarded the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation a four-year, $400,000 grant.
The grant will help two new scientists establish laboratories at OMRF. In their labs, they will study the cellular processes that lead to cancer, as well as diseases of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
“Our family is pleased to play a small role in the important work underway in OMRF’s cancer research laboratories,” said Jilene Boghetich, managing trustee of the Rapp Foundation. “Cancer seems to strike almost every family in some way, and our goal is to help OMRF’s scientists discover new methods to detect and treat the disease.”
Founded in 1951, the Rapp Foundation distributes funds to a wide variety of charitable projects throughout the U.S. This new grant to OMRF represents the latest in a long line of gifts that have helped the Oklahoma City-based nonprofit strengthen its scientific infrastructure.
The new funds will help support the recruitment of a pair of new scientists, Wan Hee Yoon, Ph.D., and Jiang Li, Ph.D.
Yoon joins OMRF from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and his research uses fruit flies to understand the processes of cellular decline that lead to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. Li also studies the basic cellular mechanisms underlying cancer and neurodegeneration, and he comes to OMRF from Northwestern University in Chicago.
The grant will provide funding for the purchase of sophisticated laboratory equipment and supplies for the new researchers. It will also help support salaries of personnel working in their labs.
“It’s hard to imagine OMRF as it is today without the enduring generosity of the Rapp Foundation through the years,” said OMRF Vice President of Development Penny Voss. “They’ve been true friends to OMRF and to medical research in Oklahoma, and they’ve invested in visionary projects that will benefit us all.”

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Heritage Assisted Living has been in Curtis Aduddell’s family for 17 years.
The director realizes when he comes to work every day he’s walking into someone’s home.
He’s proud of that. And walk the halls of the Yukon residence for a few minutes and you’ll quickly see he’s not the only one.
“More laughter going on here than any other facility around, I’ll bet you,” said resident Jane Carter.
“We do have fun,” resident Ron Kirby chimed in. “It’s the reason to live. That’s what it’s all about. When you’re happy you live longer.”
There’s life in these hallways.
The sound of people laughing.
The smell of chicken enchilada soup simmering on the stove in preparation for dinner.
FAMILY DIFFERENCE
Aduddell became a nursing home administrator in 1993 in Texas. When the opportunity arose to move back to Oklahoma he jumped on it.
His brother and father approached him with a plan to open several assisted living facilities. The family built Heritage Assisted Living from the ground up and Aduddell has been at 9025 Northwest Expressway ever since.
Joan Dark’s residence is just 10 feet down the hall from Aduddell’s office.
His door is alway open, usually with Chief Canine Officer Cotton’s head poking out. Aduddell’s affectionate, gentle and patient Great Pyrenees knows every resident by sight and visits with them on a daily basis.
In 2015, Dark sold her house and moved into independent living. Less than a year later she realized the move didn’t solve the day-to-day chores of cleaning, cooking and shopping.
A friend suggested Heritage Assisted Living.
“I love it here,” Dark said.
And one of the things she loves is the access she has to the man in charge.
She’s used that access on a couple occasions but mostly she pops in just to say hello.
“A lot of people like the fact they can go to somebody that can at least give them an answer. Whether the answer is yes, no, this that or the other you don’t have to run it up a corporate chain of command,” Aduddell said.
“We do it because we love the seniors and we love what we do. That’s my goal. Open door – absolutely.”
SMOOTH TRANSITION
The open door policy is just one of the amenities new residents are offered when Director of Admissions Kimberly Brinner begins the discussion of moving in.
“We get a lot of information before people come in and find out their likes and dislikes,” Brinner said. “We try to pair them up with someone here who is very similar.”
From that information a myriad of things begin to fall into place.
“They feel comfortable. They know there are people they can go to talk to over and over again,” Brinner said. “We know this is going to be hard. The first six weeks are always bumpy, no matter wherever they go.”
“But it’s bumpy because their entire world has just turned upside down. We want to make sure during that time we’re here for them 100 percent.”
That’s where the hospitality committee comes in. Sharing stories, memories, tips and feelings of their own personal transitions oftentimes brings it home to people that they don’t have to go through this phase alone.
Residents are encouraged to take ownership at Heritage. Whether it be serving on resident committees or leading in other ways the message is clear: Heritage is your home.
“We work here. You live here,” Brinner said. “We’re working in your home. We want to know what you want us to do in your home. We don’t want to cross that line when we’re in your home. You tell us what you need us to do to make your life better.”
“The thing I always stress is that we’re a family-owned facility but we’re a family here. My mom lives here.”
Dinnertime is a special time at Heritage – largely because it’s driven by what residents want.
The food council meets monthly with Chef Felipe Castillo to help craft the menu.
Special requests are made and family recipes are shared with Castillo so he can share with everyone.
A few years back, residents even opted to restructure dining times and implement reserved seating.
“They wanted that. It’s not for our benefit,” Aduddell laughed. “They wanted it to get to know the people at their table.”
Remodeling has already begun at Heritage. A bistro will open along with a workout facility. More open reading areas will be offered.
Granite countertops and new flooring are also being installed.
Staff longevity reigns at Heritage. Director of Nursing Jodie Spradlin has several night staff that have worked at Heritage for 17 years.
Many others are reaching a decade of service to residents.
“People come and stay,” Aduddell said. “We just try to hire caring and compassionate people. I think we’ve done a good job in that.”
They’ve also done a good job of making a home.
To find out more information you can call Brinner at 405-470-4249 or go online to
www.heritageokc.com.

story and photos by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

For the last four decades Eddie Sims has kept a watchful eye on the citizens of Cleveland County.
You’ll probably never meet him but if you or a loved one ever requires emergency medical attention it will come as a result of the work put in by Sims and his staff.
The EMSSTAT manager and paramedic has around 100 employees who staff the emergency medical services for Norman, Moore, and adjacent rural areas of Cleveland County along with the northern half of the township of Goldsby.
That means Sims’ crew operates 13-14 ambulances on most days and is responsible for the lives of some 200,000 people at any given time.
Then there’s the athletic events.
“Luckily they’re planned,” Sims smiled. “It’s not a summer concert to benefit the tornado victims in the middle of July which I never want to see again.
“We cover the vast majority of OU athletics and a lot of community events in both cities. I live my life around OU. I don’t leave town for OU game days, graduation or medieval fair. There’s things you have anchored and live your life around those.”
When the football season begins and nearly 90,000 people descend on Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium for a daytime game a medical call for assistance comes in every 90 seconds.
Sims grew up in Miami, Florida with older parents. His father was diagnosed with cancer on his spine when Sims was 11.
He took care of his parents from then on.
Growing up in the early 1970s watching firefighters John and Roy man Squad 51 on the hit TV drama Emergency, Sims was hooked.
“During that time was when EMS was born. That’s what I wanted to do,” Sims said. “We used to sit around and watch it. I was used to being up 24 hours a day taking care of (my father) and responding to stuff. My mom had issues to where she really couldn’t do it and I was an only child.”
“I got involved with medicine and helping people before I really had a choice and it was really what I wanted to do.”
When he was old enough to get a job he found the local market tough to break into without a military or minority background.
“They wouldn’t even accept applications so when I was 14 or 15 I started chasing hurricanes,” he said. “In that process I met the director of the severe storms lab (in Norman) who invited us to come chase tornadoes.”
That began a routine where every spring he would fly to Oklahoma to chase storms.
He eventually settled in Norman and was among the first group to establish medical services under the Norman Police Department.
“When we started Norman probably had 50,000 or 60,000 people in it,” Sims said. “The culture in Oklahoma was ‘take me to the hospital now, you people don’t need to be doing anything to me.”
“There was a lot of public education. Being in a police system it was kind of a unique opportunity that a lot of us that had concerns how the police would integrate into an emergency medical system, it turned out to be an absolutely wonderful fit.”
In 1995, the City of Norman shuffled its emergency services and put them under the umbrella of the Norman Regional Health System.
“Again, that was a great opportunity because the resources the health system had were much greater than the city was willing to contribute,” said Sims, whose agency boasts higher than national average survival rates for patients experiencing cardiac arrest. “Medically, in 1978 if you had a heart attack we tried to get you to a hospital. If you had a second heart attack man you were lucky but you didn’t have much heart left and your quality of life went down.”
“If you had a stroke it really wasn’t an emergency because there wasn’t anything anybody was going to do for you.”
Within the last 10 years that all changed.
“We can get you to a hospital and the people in the cath lab can remove the blockage and you can walk out three days later healthier than when you started,” Sims said. “If you have a stroke and .. we take you to a stroke center and two days later you may have no residual effects at all.”
“The difference that EMS and emergency medicine has made over the four decades I’ve been doing this is amazing.”

by Bobby Anderson,
Staff Writer

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for criminals looking to cash in on those just trying to spread a little holiday cheer.
In November, Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Officer Corporal Kim Lopez celebrated 31 years in law enforcement.
And for the past several years she has served as the coordinator of the TRIAD program which pairs law enforcement and seniors together in an effort to reduce victimization of the elderly.
She sat down with Senior News and Living to share what criminals are looking for and how you can avoid being a target.
PARK AND RUN
Lopez says the parking lot and the cash register are the two most vulnerable spots for seniors.
“I didn’t get what I have from cop school,” Lopez said. “I went to the professionals and career criminals are very quick to brag about how they selected their victims. Seniors have this vague knowledge of why we always say parking lots are fertile ground. But they need to know which ones and why.
“What I always say is the parking lots you feel the most comfortable in – not good.”
Lopez explained that cops aren’t the only ones who watch people’s body language. When people lower their guard in places where they feel more comfortable their body language eases.
Contrary to what you might believe, parking lots that serve 24-hour businesses are hot spots.
“Career criminals tell me when the drug deal goes bad, the fight is on and the police are in pursuit they want to ditch a car by getting to a parking lot and steal a car,” Lopez said. “They understand something we don’t. Crossing many different jurisdictions in a wide variety of vehicles makes it impossible for us to catch them.”
So consider that the next time you go to a casino, gas station or big box grocery store open 24 hours.
But the No. 1 place to be on your guard, according to Lopez, is the hospital parking lot.
Someone who commits a crime in a small town wants to get to a bigger location as soon as possible.
“People at hospitals are the worst for awareness,” Lopez said. “You’ll see people zoned out of their mind. They’ve been sleeping in a chair, eating out of a vending machine and haven’t showered for two days. They’ve had it. They’re worn out, care worn, and have a laundry list of things of things they are worried about and they’re not paying a bit of attention.
“It’s easier to get someone’s car keys and steal their car in a hospital than anywhere else.”
SCENE OF THE CRIME
Wherever you checkout and pay for your purchases is another favorite spot for criminals.
Getting a shopping cart, even if you’re shopping for something small is a great way to put distance between you and someone looking to gain access to your checks or credit/debit cards.
Cell phones are able to take multiple pictures of the checking account information in seconds. Checks that are written and returned to be thrown away are favorite targets.
If you’re going to continue to write checks Lopez suggests using gel, liquid ink to write with. A criminal can use fingernail polish remover on a previously used check to “wash” it and reuse.
And criminals love to follow around senior men.
“Right there at the register, senior adult men are targeted because they carry way too much cash,” Lopez said.
Lopez has noticed an increase in criminals following senior men around and then using a razor blade to slice a hole in the bottom of the back pocket. The wallet falls, the criminal picks it up and is already several purchases down the road before anyone is the wiser.
Lopez also suggests:
· Getting your form of payment out in the “unmentionables section” of the store and not at the register is ideal.
· Carrying your purse in front of you, with your arm over.
· Use a lanyard wallet you can slip under your shirt.
· Turn your rings around at the register. Don’t advertise what you have so someone can target you.
· Use a pen when punching in your debit card number to prevent the use of criminals using clip-on, heat-sensitive cameras.
· Have your monthly Social Security check direct deposited to one account and set-up an auto transfer to an account linked to your debit card that you use to pay your bills. That way if the card and/or PIN is compromised thieves don’t have access to your entire account balance.

by Bobby Anderson
Staff Writer

Weeks of political wrangling at the Oklahoma Legislature in November put the immediate future of 20,000 Oklahoma seniors in jeopardy with only a temporary fix agreed upon as the year draws to a close.
In mid-November the ADvantage Waiver program, designed to help them live at home instead of a nursing home faced elimination. By the end of the month a temporary reprieve was granted with the program’s future still uncertain in 2018.
Melissa Holland serves as the executive director of the Oklahoma Assisted Living Association.
She says her phone rang off the hook throughout the legislature’s special session.
“It shouldn’t have come to this point,” Holland said of the 11th-hour reprieve the waiver program received from Gov. Mary Fallin.
ADVANTAGE WAIVER
Financially, the ADvantage Waiver requires that applicants qualify for Oklahoma’s Institutional Medicaid known as SoonerCare.
The SoonerCare income limit for long term care services for a single applicant is $2,205 per month. The countable resources limit is $2,000.
Holland points out the program is actually a federal one through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Which means it was funded through taxes paid into Social Security.
“So Oklahoma receives funds for that and they should be disbursing accordingly,” Holland said. “The funds come from CMS.”
After learning of the Oklahoma Legislature’s intent to short the Oklahoma Department of Human Services $69 million in funding for the next fiscal year, DHS sent out a letter in October announcing that the ADvantage Waiver program would end Nov. 30.
The move would cover $39.44 million of the department’s $69 million funding shortfall.
State Rep. Pat Ownbey, chairman of the House Human Services Committee, said he believes the program will survive.
“The intent of the Legislature is not to allow the ADvantage Waiver program to be cut,” he said. “It’s not going to happen. … We will get that (budget) hole filled.”
Even though DHS was required by law to notify recipients of the impending cut it was criticized by legislators for fear mongering.
“What’s interesting was I started fielding calls from seniors that needed to go into communities that were looking for long-term care options and they had nowhere to go,” Holland said.
One of Holland’s members had to send out 26 eviction notices in one day. A pharmacy service called and said it would be forced to lay off employees.
“The thing is these residents, these seniors, have paid that to society,” Holland said. “Some are veterans. Most have worked hard and they deserve this. They’ve paid into the system and this is basically their money that should be coming back to them from the government from the taxes they’ve paid.”
“They’re not people who have never worked or are trying to live off the system.”
The program faced elimination in the new budget sent to Fallin’s desk.
But Fallin struck down all but five of the 170 sections of the budget plan. The measure did ensure the ADvantage program would be funded until January.
“House Bill 1019X does not provide a long-term solution to the re-occurring budget deficits, and within three months we will come back facing an estimated $600 million shortfall,” she said.
“This will preserve a safety net for core health and human services until legislators come back for a second special session, which I intend to call in the near future,” said Fallin.
Fallin said she vetoed most of HB 1019X because it came perilously close to using most of the state’s available one-time funds in various accounts and drawing down on available savings in the Rainy Day Fund. Signing the measure would have left the state with few available funds to deal with an estimated shortfall of more than $600 million in the next regular legislative session, which begins in February.
Senior Joan Dark is an ADvantage program member who lives in a Yukon assisted living facility.
She was one of thousands of Oklahoma seniors who spent an anxious November waiting for news.
“I turn the news on and turn it back off. It’s not pleasant but I pray a lot,” Dark said. “I honestly don’t know. I just don’t know. I love it here. I just don’t want the legislature to close us down. I like the people, both the residents and the staff. They are so good to us.”

Dear Savvy Senior,

What’s the best way to distribute my personal possessions to my kids after I’m gone without causing hard feelings or conflict? I have a lot of jewelry, art, family heirlooms and antique furniture, and three grown kids that don’t always see eye-to-eye on things. Planning Ahead

Dear Planning,
Divvying up personal possessions among adult children or other loved ones can often be a difficult task. Deciding who should get what without showing favoritism, hurting someone’s feeling or causing a feud can be difficult, even for close-knit families who enter the process with the best of intentions. Here are a few tips to consider that can help you divide your stuff with minimal conflict.
Problem Areas
For starters, you need to be aware that it’s usually the small, simple items of little monetary value that cause the most conflicts. This is because the value we attach to the small personal possessions is usually sentimental or emotional, and because the simple items are the things that most families fail to talk about.
Family battles can also escalate over whether things are being divided fairly by monetary value. So for items of higher value like your jewelry, antiques and art, consider getting an appraisal to assure fair distribution. To locate an appraiser, see Appraisers.org or AppraisersAssociation.org.
Ways to Divvy
The best solution for passing along your personal possessions is for you to go through your house with your kids or other heirs either separately or all at once. Open up cabinets, drawers and closets, and go through boxes in the attic and/or basement to find out which items they would like to inherit and why. They may have some emotional attachment to something you’re not aware of. If more than one child wants the same thing, you will have the ultimate say.
Then you need to sit down and make a list of who gets what on paper, signed, dated and referenced in your will. You can revise it anytime you want. You may also want to consider writing an additional letter or create an audio or video recording that further explains your intentions.
You can also specify a strategy for divvying up the rest of your property. Here are some methods that are fair and reasonable:
· Take turns choosing: Use a round-robin process where your kids take turns choosing the items they would like to have. If who goes first becomes an issue, they can always flip a coin, draw straws or roll dice. Also, to help simplify things, break down the dividing process room-by-room, versus tackling the entire house. To keep track of who gets what, either make a list or use adhesive dots with a color assigned to each person to tag the item.
· Have a family auction: Give each person involved the same amount of play money, or use virtual points or poker chips to bid on the items they want.
For more ideas, see “Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate?” at YellowPiePlate.umn.edu. This is a resource created by the University of Minnesota Extension Service that offers a detailed workbook or interactive CD for $12.50, and DVD for $30 that gives pointers to help families discuss property distribution and lists important factors to keep in mind that can help avoid conflict.
It’s also very important that you discuss your plans in advance with your kids so they can know ahead what to expect. Or, you may even want to start distributing some of your items now, while you can still alive.
Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.