by Mike Lee
Staff Writer

Billie Upshaw, RN, has spent the bulk of her career serving residents in long-term care facilities in Kansas. She traveled from border to border to different facilities each week and then did it all again on Monday morning.
Even though former employers may have operated in a different way, Upshaw has always prescribed to the philosophy that every patient is unique.
That’s why she’s so excited about her new role as wellness director with the soon-to-be opened Heritage Point OKC in northwest Oklahoma City.
“It’s not cookie cutter. You meet where that resident is,” she said. “I read a quote somewhere that said that if you’ve met one person with dementia you’ve met one person with dementia. You can’t say ‘this is the way they are, this is what we do.’ There’s not a perfect answer unless you make it that way for them.”
Upshaw is excited about getting in on the ground floor at Heritage Pointe – which is designed after a similar facility in Overland Park, Kansas and will be a sister to a similar residence to open next year in Tulsa.
When owner Kip Pammenter talks about the residents at his Heritage of Overland Park memory care residence he uses their first names.
The president of a company that specializes in Alzheimer’s and memory care knows that’s the only way you can truly make a difference in someone’s life. Getting to know each and every client and meeting them where they are is the hallmark of Pammenter’s successful approach to person-centered care.
Upshaw likes working for someone with that philosophy. She also believes in tailoring care to the individual.
It’s a unique concept in today’s take-it-or-leave it memory care market.
“Each family comes in with their our circumstance and their own issues and that’s their focus,” Pammenter said. “The relationship blossoms and they tie into other families. There’s a lot of empathy. Families are going through the same issue and families lend support to each other.
“They help each other and they help us.”
David Thompson serves as Pammenter’s vice president of operations.
“Really what we’re trying to do – big picture – is the person-centered care approach,” Thompson said. “We want to know what their routines are, what their interests are and how do we give them meaning and purpose and relationships and enjoyment each day in a lifestyle.”
Dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and trying to understand available care options can be extremely challenging for families.That’s why Pammenter designed Heritage Point to work with families to envision a better way to live with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia related impairments.
Pammenter wants to truly reinvent Alzheimer’s care and what life should be like for seniors with cognitive challenges. The focus is on each individual resident; knowing who they are and what they love to do…and then finding activities that have meaning and purpose.
Heritage Point will offer a smaller, home environment that promotes dignity, respect and love. A dedicated team of experienced and caring staff understands the importance of developing close personal relationships with residents and becomes an extended part of your family.
Professionally trained care staff, along with the expert guidance of the medical director, offer an unmatched array of services and life activities to create a home that supports each individual person.
“People trust you to take care of their loved ones and sometimes it’s easier for you to take care of them because you’re taking them where they’re at,” Upshaw said. “We want to remember those things that are good and positive in their life but dementia is a robbing disease. It takes away the person and the things that have always been important to them but sometimes you can circle around and get back to that and those are the moments you live for.
“It’s a horrible disease. I hope we can cure it. I would be glad to be put out of a job. I’ll go find something else to do.”

by Mike Lee Staff Writer

Pam Spanbauer, RN, BSN, MEd, may be retired from her nursing practice but her impact on healthcare in Oklahoma will be felt for generations to come.
As the governor’s appointee to the Physician Manpower & Training Commission, Spanbauer is the only nurse on the board that helps ensure healthcare for thousands of rural Oklahomans.
Now the board chair, Spanbauer helps make sure that small communities in Oklahoma get the competent and professional physicians they so desperately need.
Spanbauer also currently serves as the vice president of the Oklahoma Nurses Association.
The commission is a task-force established in the 1970s.
“They have funding to help fund physicians in training to go out into the rural areas in Oklahoma,” Spanbauer said. “In Oklahoma we have so much rural area. In these farming communities the last thing they can do is take a day and drive to the city to get healthcare and drive back.
“It’s really important especially with the fact we don’t have many hospitals in the rural area.”
Spanbauer was raised in a small town in North Carolina. She had a single doctor growing up who took care of her entire family.
“If we had to have gone to the city we probably wouldn’t have gotten healthcare,” said Spanbauer, whose family lived 50 miles from the nearest hospital. “I’ve always had that small-town respect.”
She says the reality is that most doctors are going into specialty practices. Those who head to family medicine will stick closer to more populated areas.
The commission will cover a significant portion of a doctor’s tuition for a commitment to be the physician in a rural area.
“Many of the physicians actually wind up staying in that area after their commitment is done,” Spanbauer said. “If it weren’t for that a lot of doctors wouldn’t even know there are these opportunities and how great healthcare can be in a small community.”
Spanbauer and the commission review each applicant and decide the best place to match each doctor. Communities routinely send in requests for physicians to cover their population.
The mission of the Physician Manpower Training Commission is to enhance medical care in rural and underserved areas of the state by administering residency, internship and scholarship incentive programs that encourage medical and nursing personnel to practice in rural and underserved areas. Further, PMTC is to upgrade the availability of health care services by increasing the number of practicing physicians, nurses and physician assistants in rural and underserved areas of Oklahoma.
Subsequently the Oklahoma Legislature has added the responsibility of a Physician Placement Program, Nursing Student Assistance Program, the FP Resident Rural Program, the Physician Community Match Program and the Physician Assistant Scholarship Program. Spanbauer says the commission is guided in all the programs by a sense of stewardship which requires that maximum effort, both individual and organizational, be utilized to increase the number of practicing physicians, nurses and physician assistants in Oklahoma and, particularly, in rural and underserved areas of the state.
“I’ve always had a strong desire to give back in some way which is why I love being retired,” Spanbauer said. “I loved what I did when I was working but now it’s like I can give back. When I was working I didn’t have as much time.”
During her career, Spanbauer served as an EMT and drove an ambulance for Children’s Hospital. She also helped start the MediFlight program and later spent nearly her entire nursing career at Mercy.
“I had an opportunity at that time to see how spread out everything in Oklahoma is,” she said. “We would drive to pick up a baby and see how some of those hospitals barely had enough to get by. They didn’t have all the equipment we had in the city to take care of these premature babies.
“I’ve always been very passionate about wanting everybody to be able to have access to care. It’s a fact that people don’t.”
Spanbauer says the commission is charged with five high-priority goals:
1. Work to improve the balance of physician manpower distribution in the State of Oklahoma, both by type of practice and by geographic location;
2. Aid accredited physician training facilities in the establishment of additional primary medical care and family practice internship and residency training programs by sharing in the cost of these programs;
3. Assist Oklahoma communities in selecting and financing qualified medical and osteopathic interns/residents to participate in the Physician Community Match Program;
4. Assist Oklahoma communities, in any manner possible, in contacting medical and osteopathic students, interns and residents, or other physicians (inside and outside Oklahoma) who might wish to practice in Oklahoma;
5. Work with Oklahoma communities and the leadership of Oklahoma’s nurse training institutions to provide nurses for underserved areas of the state.
“It gets back to what medicine is all about and that’s the relationship the doctor has with the patient and the community,” Spanbauer said.
And that’s how Spanbauer makes a difference for future generations to come.

Artist Harold Stevenson  honored at Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art

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

Idabel, Oklahoma native artist Harold Stevenson was recently reunited with friends and a selection of his artwork dating back to 1953 at the University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art. “The Nature of Man: Paintings and Drawings by Harold Stevenson,” will be on exhibit through May 2015, and was generously donated to the Museum by childhood friend and art collector, Ross Dugan.
The museum has previous works of Stevenson in its collection including his monumental series, “The Great Society” of a hundred larger than life portraits of his neighbors, friends and acquaintances generated in Idabel, Oklahoma in 1966.  Besides being in many private collections, Stevenson works are in the collection of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
As descried in the gallery brochure, “The Nature of Man, explores Harold Stevenson’s investigation of masculinity from his early career in 1960’s to more recent works from the 1990’s. The male body in Stevenson’s works represents variously an expression of eroticism or memory of a reference to art history…. he produced naturalistic yet simplified depiction of the human body, frequently using a monumental scale and unconventional or unusual perspectives.”  This style was rejected by the critics of the 1950s who were more interested in non-objective abstraction.  But Harold’s creative artistic lust would not be quelled and his prolific painting continued to great heights.
A self-taught artist, at an early age in Idabel, Oklahoma, he moved away from his home’s kitchen table and set up his own gallery/studio in a second story of a main street Idabel building.  From then on, his art took him to the University of Oklahoma, on to Paris, with homes there, in Key West, Wainscott Long Island, Long Island City and a cabin in the woods in Idabel.  This energetic octogenarian now lives in an apartment in his beloved Idabel.
It was a fitting honor to have Stevenson and his childhood friend and benefactor Ross Dugan at the intimate gallery event, where his longtime friend Mary Jane Rutherford and the Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art Interim Director Dr. Mark White, commemorate this reunion and celebrate of Stevenson’s approaching 86th birthday.
It is not often that an artist and his friends have the opportunity to celebrate the man and his art near the end of a career, as does the Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art with this exhibition.  The museum is open to the public free of charge and as always presents and celebrates an eclectic exhibition of fine art.  Harold Stevenson is as original as his art, and the Nature of Man exhibition could be called the Nature of Harold, as it depicts his personality as well as artistic expression.

Authors Note:  I first met Harold at an impromptu Luncheon in Oklahoma City in 1995, hosted by Dr.  Duane Moore.   From this first meeting I knew I was in the presence of a celebrity with an extraordinary talent of telling tales of his worldly experiences with such notables as Andy Warhol and Peggy Guggenheim, among others.  His love of a luncheon ~ or anytime ~ martini reintroduced me to that cocktail of elegance and joy, resulting in my own photographic interpretation of the Martini through my worldwide travels.  www.martinitravels.com    Since 1995 I have visited Harold in New York, Dallas and of course Idabel, documenting his life and creativity in photographs and recorded interviews.
For Fred Jones Junior Museum of Art, times and more information visit, http://www.ou.edu/fjjma.html

by Mike Lee, Staff Writer

What started as an idea to benefit a handful of seniors has blossomed into an annual event impacting the lives of hundreds in our community.
The Salvation Army 4th Annual Senior Living Fair will be held on Thursday, April 30 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Salvation Army Chesapeake Energy Center of Hope, 1001 N. Pennsylvania, Oklahoma City.
The Senior Living Fair, presented by Well Preserved Advisory Group and Senior News & Living, strives to spread hope by providing resources that empower older Americans to be more positive, active and physically fit.
“We’re excited to be able to showcase so many organizations in one place that can be a resource to senior citizens,” said Lisa Sydnor, senior programs manager at The Salvation Army Central Oklahoma. “We have nearly 60 exhibitors for this year’s fair who can enhance and empower our seniors to live fuller lives.”
Sydnor had the idea of inviting local service providers to come and show her seniors what they could offer them.
“I thought I could bring eight people in,” Sydnor said.
The idea was a hit from the very beginning with 12 exhibitors showing up that first year. The event has grown to be worthy of the the 18,000-seat Chesapeake Energy Arena.
The Senior Living Fair is free to the public, thanks to sponsors like Brookdale Senior Living, and includes exhibits for health and wellness, housing, Medicare information, insurance, aging-in-place, and fun ways to stay active.
Exhibitors for this year include the Oklahoma State Attorney General, Legal Aid of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Police Department, Oklahoma City Fire Department, Valir, Sunbeam Family Services, RSVP of Central Oklahoma, AARP, Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, Seniors on the Move and many more.
“We are doing this with no budget,” Sydnor noted. “Quite frankly I think it’s so popular because it’s a God thing. This was never supposed to be more than six people talking to seniors at one location. Now we have 60 vendors and expect more than 300 people.”
The event has continued to grow because seniors are finding value in it.
With everything from Zumba, to Tai Chi to line dancing almost everyone can find something to entertain them.
“I think because they know they’re going to have fun and we have staff floating through and inviting people to come to our centers,” Sydnor said, noting lunch is provided.
The Salvation Army Central Oklahoma operates five senior centers throughout the Oklahoma City metro. The centers are open every weekday to seniors ages 55 and older. Seniors have the opportunity to socialize, enjoy lunch and participate in numerous activities that include Bible study, exercise classes, crafts, dancing and much more.
“Our goal is for anyone who comes to the center to feel like they’re in their own home, relaxed and have good friends and company,” Sydnor said.

by Mike Lee, Staff Writer

Head down to Bricktown on any given night and you’ll see families riding on a water taxi along the Riverwalk.
You’ll probably see people coming and going from any number of restaurants that have moved into the revitalized area within the past 15 years.
Head a little farther north along West Reno and you’ll hear the chants from more than 18,000 screaming fans inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena pulling for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.
It wasn’t always this way and it wasn’t always this good for Oklahoma’s capital.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett wants people to never forget that. That’s the reason behind Cornett’s nearly four-year labor of love Oklahoma City: The Boom, the Bust and the Bomb which opened at Harkins Theater on April 10 with four showings daily.
“When I was elected mayor over 10 years now I knew about and was proud of Oklahoma City’s history but I think I also assumed every city had a history that wasn’t all that unique from Oklahoma City,” Cornett said. “As I spoke more and  more about Oklahoma City’s life experience of the 70s, 80s and early 90s I realized over time our city’s history was unique.”
“The highs of the the 70s and the lows of the 80s added on with the emotional burden of the Oklahoma City bombing those are significant elements on a city’s timeline and we saw them all in a relatively short period of time.”
Cornett holds that the good times the city is experiencing right now are a direct result of the trying times.
“I want them to understand how we got to where we are today,” Cornett says.
Cornett parallels his movie with the story telling style of the late Paul Harvey, who was born in Tulsa in 1918 and made a career telling people “the rest of the story.”
“He would tell you some things that went on before that that had a significant relevance that you probably never knew about. That was the rest of the story,” Cornett says. “That’s kind of what this movie is. You look at Oklahoma City today and see the city we have … well, this is the rest of the story. This is the story of the city that didn’t have any of these things and what it went through and how it never gave up.”
Cornett’s full-length feature film tells the story of Oklahoma City’s rise and fall from 1970 to 1995.
In Cornett’s eyes, no other city has a story like this. From being formed in a single day, to playing for the NBA Championship, Oklahoma City has ridden the triumph-to-heartbreak roller coaster for a good part of its historic life.
Oklahoma City:The Boom, the Bust and the Bomb, examines the most critical time in our city’s history. It centers on a pivotal 25-year period.
From the oil boom of the 1970’s to the failure of Penn Square Bank in 1982 to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995, this inspiring film sheds light on the darkest days of Oklahoma City – and the people who refused to give up.
“Just like people are shaped by their life experiences, cities are as well. And the city we have today is a direct result of some incredibly tumultuous times,” Cornett says. “I want the next generation and those who have moved to the city since 1995 to understand the events that have shaped Oklahoma City in the 21st century.”
Cornett says he interviewed 20-25 people in piecing the story together. “It’s an amazing story and I think people will leave the theater inspired.”
Cornett interviewed people from all walks of life
“I saw the emotions of the camera crew, young people that didn’t know anything about these things and I saw their reaction and I thought this was just as powerful of a story as a I hope it would be,” Cornett said. “I don’t think the next generation has any idea what we went through.”
Cornett said he’s received “incredible feedback” from people his age and older.
Running a city and working, Cornett spent the better part of three years working on the movie. It took him a single year just to write the script.
To rent the movie instantly on any device or purchase the DVD, go to www.okcmovie.com.
“I think it’s a better story than people realize and there’s an emotional aspect to it as well,” Cornett said. “I think people are really going to enjoy it.”
When it seemed like things couldn’t get worse – things got worse. This is the inspiring story of Oklahoma City.
And if things go well Hollywood could be calling. Cornett already has his eye on recutting the film for a major motion picture audience.

Growing up, what did you want to be? Salvation Army Senior Center – Warr Acres

I wanted to always work in an office. I always liked typing. Norma Bellamy

I leaned more towards office work because in high school I took shorthand, typing and bookkeeping. Alie Faye Johnson

When I was little I wanted to be a beauty operator. I did all my cousins’ hair. Cheryl Wilson

I think I wanted to be a nurse and I was, working in oncology and chemotherapy. Lynn McKinnon

Mercy Ranks 122 on Forbes List of Top American Employers

Mercy ranks 122 on Forbes’ inaugural “America’s Best Employers” list.
The list of 500 employers spans 25 industries in the U.S. Forbes partnered with Statista.com in asking more than 20,000 American workers one question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend your employer to someone else?
Mercy, one of only 25 in the health care category, is in good company; Mayo Clinic ranks 74th overall, followed closely by Kaiser Permanente at 81. Google leads the list, with Facebook coming in at 15 and Apple at 55.
“It’s truly an amazing time to be with Mercy,” said Lynn Britton, president and CEO of Mercy, the fifth largest Catholic health care system in the U.S. “Earlier this spring, we fulfilled a promise to thousands of co-workers in Joplin with a newly rebuilt hospital. Later this year, Mercy will open the world’s first virtual care center, powered by hundreds of the nation’s best telehealth professionals.”