VillagesOKC has announced a collaboration with Navigating Medicare to offer that agency’s services to provide answers to individual Medicare questions in the VillagesOKC office during business hours – 10 am-3 pm on Mondays through Thursdays. The consultations are free.
“For six years, Navigating Medicare has been the trusted Medicare educator for VillagesOKC members,” said Executive Director Marilyn Olson. “Now we are able to make it even easier by providing space for them in our Bethany office.”
Olson said local hospitals such as Mercy Health and Integris also trust the agents at Navigating Medicare to provide the truth about Medicare Supplements, Advantage plans, and the impact of financial, healthcare, and specific physician selections.
“Because of the experience and integrity of Ginny Curtis-Gillespie, founder and owner of Navigating Medicare, many VillagesOKC members have found solutions that matched their unique health, dental, travel, financial, and location needs – even when they first purchased from another Medicare agent,” Olson said.
Curtis-Gillespie said, “So much of insurance these days is made to seem complex, difficult, and tricky. At Navigating Medicare, we strive to make insurance decisions simple. Our agency is built on our family values which are a commitment to honesty, integrity, togetherness, and support.”
Olson explained that since questions come at age 57- 65, it is important to have honest advice that is easily accessible. Medicare plans change every year, and 2025 has more changes than typically. Doctors and dentists also change plans – even mid-year.
“Staying informed is essential for everyone as they age,” Olson said. “Empowering adults to make good decisions about their lives is a key component of our mission to help everyone age with vitality and purpose.”
In addition the onsite availability of Navigating Medicare agents, VillagesOKC and Navigating Medicare are holding free information meetings to address the many changes coming next year.
“Navigating Medicare: Truth and Changes for 2025” will be presented at VillagesOKC, 3908 N. Peniel Ave, Suite 400, on the following dates June 8: 10-11 am, June 15: 10-11 am, June 18: 6-7 pm, June 29: 10-11 am, July 13: 10-11 am, July 16: 6-7 pm and July 27: 10-11 am.

The sessions are free with RSVP at [email protected] or (405) 990-6637.

More than 100 Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation donors now have a better understanding of the scientific discoveries their gifts make possible.
This week’s annual gathering of OMRF’s Loyal Donors Society included tours of the foundation’s Multiple Sclerosis Center of Excellence and demonstrations of current research projects ranging from Alzheimer’s to cell regeneration to blood clotting.
OMRF’s loyal donors are those who’ve contributed for at least five straight years. Using that criteria, the foundation currently has 989 loyal donors, including 111 who met the five-year threshold for the first time this past year.
Combined, they have given nearly $80 million. The longest active streak belongs to the Oklahoma Association of Mothers Clubs, whose contributions date to 1956 – a decade after OMRF’s founding.
“Thanks to your generosity, our scientists make a worldwide impact on human health,” Vice President of Research Courtney Griffin, Ph.D., told the group. “We take great pride in being Oklahoma’s medical research foundation,”
Tuesday’s event was the first visit to OMRF for Peggy and Richard Geib, who’ve been giving to OMRF since 2019. “I can tell that everyone here is passionate about what they do,” said Peggy Geib, “and that they feel like they’re making a difference.”
The Geibs make an annual year-end contribution to the foundation, and they also make memorial gifts to OMRF following the death of a friend or relative. “Flowers are fine, but to us, the memorials are more meaningful,” Richard Geib said.
Sylvia Zimmerman, a donor since 2005, described the event as “an eye opener. I love that OMRF focuses not only the cause of illness, but also on the treatment of it.”
Robert Tilghman enjoyed learning about cardiovascular health and OMRF’s cardiovascular biology research at the event. “I love the dedication of the scientists here and the constant effort to explore every avenue to solve a problem,” said Tilghman, who’s donated to OMRF for 12 straight years.
The consistent generosity of donors like those who attended Tuesday’s event has fueled OMRF’s research since its founding in 1946, said Vice President of Philanthropy & Community Relations Penny Voss.
“These donors are essential to our mission, which aims to help people lead longer, healthier lives,” Voss said. “If we can show our appreciation while giving them a better understanding of the research they make possible, this event is a success.”

As Paula Poundstone continues her 2024 U.S. tour, audiences can be assured of an evening of hilarity as the comedian launches into a string of humorous stories typical of most observational stand-up comics. But at some point into her routine, the sharp-witted Poundstone will seamlessly morph into her trademark banter with audience members – a part of the show fans have come to expect and adore. It’s a style that evolved out of necessity.
“I’ve been doing stand-up for over 40 years, but have a terrible memory,” said Poundstone by phone from Florida recently, while preparing for an evening event. “I started out doing the five-minute open mic thing and spent years trying to memorize an act. Then I just began talking with the audience. My first thought was that it might be a liability, but one night I realized it was kind of the heart and soul of the whole show. Now it’s my favorite part of the evening.”
How she selects audience members to engage varies from venue to venue as the blinding house lights will often obscure distant individual faces. Sometimes she’ll spot a guest arriving late, or perhaps someone getting up to leave temporarily, while others grab her attention by yelling out answers to her rhetorical questions – and Poundstone pounces.
“I’ll often start with the time-honored question of asking what they do for a living,” she explained. “In this way, little biographies of audience members come up and I use that to set my sails! Their profession might remind me of a piece of material I have stored away in my mind and I’ll run with it.”
A memorable interaction occurred in 2006 during a show recorded for the Bravo cable network. About a half-hour into her performance, Poundstone began questioning an engaged couple who revealed the woman worked for an insurance company and the man was in banking. A seemingly innocuous inquiry about who proposed to whom brought a response from the gentleman, “What kind of a question is that?” prompting immediate gasps from the audience – an opening for the comedian to fire off her frequently heard laugh-inducing response to the crowd’s reaction: “I’ll handle it!”
And she did, brilliantly, with lightning-fast improvisational skills during a sidesplitting 6-minute interaction with the pair.
“People still come up to me and ask about that one and to this day I wonder whatever happened to the couple and if they did get married,” said Poundstone. “And every now and then, someone will ask me if it’s all planned – that the people somehow know they will be picked. That always makes me laugh and my response is how would that even be possible? It would require a lot of effort and I wouldn’t even know how to begin. This is why my shows are never exactly the same wherever I go.”
Like many entertainers with a busy tour schedule, Poundstone has little time for sightseeing (see www.paulapoundstone.com for cities and tour dates).
“I don’t get a chance to look around much since the touring only allows me to fly in for a show and then I’m off again,” she says. “But I still think it’s the best job in the world.”
Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama and writes features, columns, and interviews for newspapers and magazines around the country. See https://www.getnickt.org.

Early American poet Anne Bradstreet once wrote, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” This quote applies to almost every aspect of life, including insurance markets. Unfortunately, we’re experiencing a winter, or the effects of a hard insurance market. However, just like with winter, fairer weather will eventually return. Let’s look at what a hard market means, what’s happened historically, and what the next few years will look like.
What is a hard market?
A hard insurance market is a period marked by rising rates and coverage becoming more difficult to obtain, in contrast to a soft market, where conditions are favorable to stable or falling prices and plenty of coverage options. Multiple factors influence market conditions, including the economy, the number of natural disasters across the country, and regulatory pressures, to name a few. Often, it takes years before we see the effects of these types of events, which is what is happening right now. The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt, including inflation and high interest rates, and we’ve seen an increasing number of natural disasters over the past few years, all culminating in the current market conditions.
Have there been hard markets before?
Hard markets are a part of the property and casualty insurance cycle – meaning this is not the first time we’ve been here. According to the Insurance Information Institute (III), during the last three hard markets, inflation-adjusted net premiums written grew 7.7% annually (1975 to 1978), 10.0% (1984 to 1987) and 6.3% (2001 to 2004). When markets toughen, insurance companies raise rates to remain financially solvent, or able to pay claims. However, competition creates pressure for insurers to offer lower rates. This, along with reduced economic challenges and periods of fewer claims, helps to bring those rates down and soften the market.
What can we expect over the next few years?
Hard markets do stabilize, and prices remain flat or come down. Because of severe weather events and other impacts on the insurance industry, the road to a softer market won’t be an easy one traveled overnight. We may see the current market for the next few years, at least. It will take time for the insurance industry to react to any positive changes occurring right now. What’s important is that consumers have plenty of options when it comes to insurance and that the market remains robust.
The insurance industry is marked by periods of hard and soft markets. One thing that will remain constant, though, is the Oklahoma Insurance Department’s dedication to the people of our state. Consumers can find helpful resources about insurance and what they can do to weather the hard market on our website at https://www.oid.ok.gov/. If you have questions about your insurance coverage or need to file a complaint, you can reach us at 800-522-0071.

Oklahomans and visitors from surrounding states joined thousands of Veterans May 14-17 at the Mitch Park Display in Edmond to experience The Wall That Heals. The three-quarter-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., patriotically honors the men and women who gave their lives in Vietnam or later died as a result of their service.
At Mitch Park viewing the Wall installation, the highly decorated Vietnam Veteran and motivational speaker, Eddie R. Beesley, 80, explained he was also an author. The Oklahoman from near Beggs handed this
writer a book filled with his harrowing experiences in the Vietnam
War. The book details his journey of resilience, which inspired his powerful memoir, “Lucky Enough,” published in 2005.
Corporal Beesley enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1963 at
just 17 years old. In May 1965, he was deployed to Vietnam with
Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Brigade.
In August 1965, while serving as the point man on a
patrol near Chu Lai, Beesley’s platoon discovered an enemy minefield under construction. While maneuvering to assess
the situation, a squad leader stepped past him; as Beesley stepped back, he triggered a hidden landmine. The blast
killed two Marines and severely wounded four others.
The explosion resulted in the traumatic amputation of both
of Beesley’s legs, making him one of the first above-the-knee double amputees of the war.
Beesley wrote “Lucky Enough” to recount his life journey, his first emotional visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and his resilience in the face of tragedy.
“I am attracted to attend every offering of the Wall as I write about my visits often in my book,” Beesley said. “I pay solemn reverence to the men and women whose names are etched on the walls while paying particular attention to those I served with early in the war.”
Today, he lives with his wife Connie in Edmond, Oklahoma. He is active in the veteran community, serving as the Native American Chairman for the Department of Oklahoma Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in organizing tribal recognition ceremonies for fellow Veterans.
Community members and visitors engaged with the The Wall That
Heals over its four-day run at specific times for the exhibit’s major
events. This included the opening Native American Vietnam Service Recognition Ceremony, a heavily attended Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Ceremony, and the poignant “Light Up the Night” Oklahoma County MIA Tribute.
That powerful evening tribute honored the more than 100 Missing in Action service members from Oklahoma County during the Vietnam War. The special illumination of the Wall offered a moment of solemn remembrance for those still missing.
A HMONG SGU Recognition Ceremony honored the Hmong Special Guerrilla Units who served alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
Busloads of public-school students, local youth groups, and civic organizations toured the site during daylight hours. They found the accompanying Mobile Education Center on-site informative in learning about the history of the Vietnam War.
The 375-foot-long synthetic granite structure was equipped with LED lighting, allowing round-the-clock viewing. This meant many Veterans, families, and residents could visit during late-night and early-morning hours for private, quiet reflection away from the daytime crowds.
The Wall That Heals’ 140 panels contain the names of more than 58,000 Vietnam service members, 990 of whom are Oklahomans, ensuring accuracy and consistency with the original Memorial.
Edmond was chosen as one of only 31 host communities nationwide for the 2026 tour. The Mitch Park Display served visitors who otherwise would not be able to travel to the permanent memorial in Washington, D.C. Its mission was Honoring Service. Remembering Sacrifice. Healing Together.
The Edmond VFW Post 4938 coordinated the display with the help of the City of Edmond Parks and Recreation Department. The post recruited volunteers to assemble and dismantle it. They offered a six-day community partnership of public engagement, inviting everyone to take part in this shared act of patriotic remembrance.
Volunteers assisted the steady flow of people with finding specific names among the 58,000 etched into the The Wall That Heals. A large contingent of community volunteers worked around the clock, facilitating name rubbings and guiding visitors through the mobile museum.
Vietnam Veterans have been the focus of a groundswell of recognition over the past 14 years as the U.S. government has executed a sustained, multi-administration effort to provide “overdue recognition” to Vietnam-era Veterans.

• story and photos by Darl DeVault, contributing editor

Collective Arts Productions, a Norman-based performing arts group dedicated to the incubation of emerging Oklahoma theater artists, presents its fourth season of new plays. The season of five plays spans June through October. Tickets for each play are priced on a sliding scale, allowing theater lovers to pay at a level that makes sense for them.
To purchase tickets, visit coartsproductions.com/tickets
First up is Where the Rabbits Roam No More by playwright Olivia Akers and directed by S M Boyer. “When Vel is knocked out by an unknown disaster, he awakes to find himself trapped underground and surrounded by four strangers. Facing the constant threat of starvation, Vel must soon decide who he is, who he loves, and, most importantly, who will help him escape.“ June 7-9 at The University of Oklahoma’s Old Science Hall.
Then, Co.Arts presents staged readings of two cutting-edge plays-in-development. First, The Fading People by playwright Lilia Ruiz Cruz and directed by Elise Bear explores a dystopic reality where loss of language separates us from our ancestors. Then, Influenced by playwright Anna Sofia McGuire, directed by Jenna Rowell, questions fame and consent in a coming-of-age story about an elite boarding school for creating online starlets. June 28-29 at The University of Oklahoma’s Old Science Hall.
Next is playwright Avery Ann Wolfe’s new play Lascaux, a historical fiction directed by Co.Arts Artistic Manager Morgan Simon. “In September of 1940 in Nazi-occupied France, just outside a rural village, two teenage boys discover a cave filled with the mark of early humanity; wall to wall, it brims with paleolithic art. Moved by what they find inside, two of these boys decide to return to guard the cave’s entrance. Lascaux imagines what those nights in the December cold might have looked like, at the confluence of pre-history and history.“ August 23-25 at Resonator Institute in Norman.
Finally, Co.Arts presents its sophomore creation from The Co.Hort, a form and genre-bending new play collaboratively written and performed by OKC’s most innovative emerging performance artists. Following last year’s inaugural Co.Hort creation, The Co.llective Arts Puppet Circus for Oklahoma, the 2024 Co.Hort promises to deliver an exciting, experimental creation. Stay tuned for more details!
To learn more about Co.llective Arts Productions, visit
https://coartsproductions.com/, follow on social media @coartspro, or email [email protected]

Mark Cope, Community Relations for Nerve Renewal gave an interesting and understandable explanation of neuropathy and the unique Nerve Renewal protocol.

“Neuropathy is a tingling, numbness or pain in your hands and feet, basically your peripheral nervous system, it is everything that is not your brain or spinal cord,” he began.

“Our treatment is unique in that it is drug free. We aren’t adding any medicines to the medicine cabinet. It’s non-invasive, non-surgical and it’s covered by insurance. Medicare, Medicaid, VA and most private insurances will pay for our treatment. Mainly because what they really like to see is fall prevention. So they are willing to do some kind of preventative treatment,” he continued.

Jamie Crowe, Membership Director for South OKC Chamber, asked “How do you actually treat this without surgical or invasive procedures?”

“Our specialized equipment modulates the nerves on a deeper level. The muscles don’t contract with our therapy. We are going right to the nerves themselves. So we are able to depolarize the nerve cells – we turn the nerve signal off completely while they are in therapy,” Cope replied.

“At the same time we are injecting a vitamin solution at the area of the neuropathy. So that is a dual benefit. You have the pain signal being shut off and at the same time the nerve cell is allowing nutrients in from the blood stream. So it’s really creating conditions for nerve cells to improve functionality,” he continued.

“We are naturally helping the body into a state that is reducing the nerve signaling from whatever disorder has caused the pain.”

How many treatments do you typically go through if you were to need your services?” Crowe asked.

“Most get prescribe 24 treatments, coming in twice a week for 30 minutes. So the biggest commitment on a patient’s side is time. But about half way through the treatment they are feeling so much better that the time is no longer a factor,” Cope concluded.

Call today to schedule an evaluation:

OKC – South

9821 S May Ave.

(405) 655-5856

Longtime Oklahoma City resident Patty Kelly Stevens faithfully displays the U.S. flag outside her Nichols Hills home for most holidays. But Flag Day, June 14, is extra special to the 99-year-old American patriot, who at an early age lived through shattering experiences that bonded her with her country’s flag.
Watching recent televised reports of students protesting on U.S. college campuses and taking down the American flag has shocked and upset her. “Yeah, that flag means a lot to me,” she says. “For me, it’s mostly about freedom.” As for those protesting students taking down U.S. flags and replacing them with other flags: “They need to ship ‘em out.”
Her impatience with the protesters’ lack of respect for the U.S. flag is better understood in context with her experiences in 1941 as a 17-year-old American high school senior in the Philippine Islands. Abruptly arrested by Japanese soldiers when World War II began, she was classified as an “enemy alien” and sent to the infamous Santo Tomás Internment Camp in Manila. After three years at Santo Tomás with thousands of other American civilian prisoners and suffering badly from malnutrition, she and her mother volunteered to transfer to another internment camp, Los Baños, thirty miles south of Manila.
Patty and her mother had hoped for better conditions at the new camp, but by January 1945 they and the Los Baños camp’s 2,150 other prisoners were on the verge of starvation and a possible mass execution. To their surprise and delight, the captives awakened one morning to find their Japanese guards gone. Thinking the Japanese soldiers had fled from approaching American troops, the prisoners began a celebration.
“We broke into the guards’ food warehouses-we called them bodegas-and started eating like kings and queens,” Patty recalled. “Then someone asked if anyone had an American flag to put up. I was shocked when my mother pulled out the large American flag that had been presented to my father by Philippine Governor-General Leonard Wood around 1921. It had been a family heirloom since way before the war. I didn’t even know my mother had smuggled it into our camp and was hiding it.”
As someone played a recording of the “Star Spangled Banner” over the camp’s loudspeakers, the captives sang along while saluting the raised 48-star flag, many weeping openly. They renamed their former prison “Camp Freedom.”
The gorging and celebrating went on for several days-until the Japanese guards unexpectedly returned one night. “They were furious when they found out someone had put up an American flag,” Patty said.
Fortunately for Patty and her mother, their flag had been taken down as a precaution and hidden before the Japanese returned. “The guards searched our barracks three or four times trying to find it,” Patty recalled. “I remember sitting outside the barracks when they searched and getting so upset. My mother kept telling me, ‘Don’t get all worked up, Patty, don’t get all worked up. They won’t find it.’ They would have killed us if they found that American flag.”
She never learned where her mother had hidden the flag. With conditions worsening in the camp, in the early morning hours of February 23, 1945, Patty and the prisoners were stunned to see a company of U.S. paratroopers from the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment drifting down just outside their camp. The troopers had been ordered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to rescue the suffering civilians in a special operation. MacArthur and other officials worried the captives would be executed by their Japanese guards in the closing months of the war.
“God, those parachutes falling were a wonderful sight,” Patty says nearly 80 years later. “I’ll never forget it. Whenever I’m a little down or depressed, I just think about that sight.”
The famous airborne rescue of these 2,150 civilians behind enemy lines at Los Baños was described in 1993 by Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell as “the textbook airborne operation for all ages and all armies.” The complex operation was the subject of a 2004 documentary, Rescue at Dawn-The Los Baños Raid, which aired as recently as last summer on the television network History (formerly The History Channel).
Barely 20 years old when freed by U.S. troops, Patty was soon to meet her future husband, Paul J. Kelly, a 22-year-old first lieutenant from Oklahoma City who had dropped out of the University of Oklahoma to join the war effort. Paul was serving with the First Cavalry Division, which had liberated Santo Tomás Internment Camp in early February 1945 and was stationed in Manila in the closing months of the war. After a whirlwind courtship following the war, the two were wed in Oklahoma City on February 24, 1946, one year and a day after Patty’s liberation from Los Baños.
Long after the war, Paul Kelly founded Guaranty Bank and Trust in Oklahoma City. The couple had two children who grew up in the city, Paul Jr. and Carole. At her husband’s funeral in 1971, Patty had his coffin covered with the U.S. flag that had flown at “Camp Freedom” in January 1945.
With the storied flag nearing 100 years old in 2018, Patty and Paul Jr. found a permanent home for the flag at the U.S. Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, N. Carolina. Patty and her family delivered the flag to the museum where it was honored in a ceremony around a special display in the museum’s front lobby.
Reciting the flag’s proud history, museum director Jim Bartlinski said at the ceremony, “We have an obligation to care for that flag until the end of time.”
Still active and regularly driving herself to an exercise class in north Oklahoma City, Patty finally decided to put in book format the story of her family’s famous flag, her early fraught years as a Japanese prisoner, and her dramatic rescue by U.S. airborne troops. She worked with a local historian and author to complete Waiting for America: A Civilian Prisoner of Japan in the Philippines, published in late February.
As one of the last living witnesses to these historic events, she has recounted parts of her story at several local book signings and is excited about several more planned around the state. And she gets a special thrill displaying her American flag outside her home.
“Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, the Fourth of July-these are all holidays I take special pride in flying my Stars and Stripes,” Patty says. “Those few of us still around who lived through those hard war years have a special connection with that flag. I wish more Americans did. But most have never lost their freedom for more than three years and been denied the right to fly that flag.”