A world-renowned lupus expert at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation will lead a study aimed at detecting the disease sooner and preventing the resulting damage.
OMRF is accepting study volunteers for the Autoimmune Drivers and Protectants (ADAPTS) study, which is funded through a $6.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, said OMRF Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Judith James, M.D., Ph.D.
James’ team is seeking volunteers at high risk of developing systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE, because of a family history or a positive autoantibody test.
“Some people have blood markers for lupus but never get sick,” said James, who is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. “Others have the markers and develop some symptoms but never get the full-blown disease, while in others, it ravages the body. We want to better understand why and ideally how to prevent the transitions.”
Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system becomes unbalanced and attacks the body’s own tissues. It can result in damage to the joints, skin, kidneys, heart and lungs and is a leading medical cause of death among women of childbearing age. Although only about 400,000 individuals in the U.S. have the most severe form of the disease, perhaps up to 1 in 10 individuals will have blood markers that look like lupus.
The cause of lupus is unknown, but studies have identified links to genes, immune and inflammatory influences and exposure to environmental factors.
James, who leads OMRF’s Arthritis and Clinical Immunology Research Program and holds the Lou C. Kerr Endowed Chair in Biomedical Research at OMRF, will collaborate with scientists and clinicians from Vanderbilt University and New York University.
“Finding people at high risk of developing lupus before they get sick is a challenge,” James said. “It will require a team approach, using the expertise and the patient samples that each of our three institutions brings.”
Jill Buyon, M.D., director of the NYU Langone Health Lupus Center, will provide samples from study volunteers who, despite being asymptomatic, receive what Buyon called “a double-whammy” diagnosis during pregnancy: they have autoantibodies found in people who have lupus, and these autoantibodies have caused their infants to have lifelong heart damage.
Some of these mothers ultimately develop severe lupus or another autoimmune disorder called Sjögren’s disease, while others develop only mild symptoms or none at all, Buyon said.
“If we can unlock the secrets of what makes someone progress from benign autoimmunity to clinical autoimmunity, that would be revolutionary,” she said. “Then we could tell a woman, ‘You have these factors, so we might want to put you on preventive therapy,’ and in others, we could avoid putting them on medicine unnecessarily.”
By analyzing thousands of patient samples, James said she hopes to discover genetic or environmental protections against lupus.
To volunteer for the study or receive more information, call 405-271-7221. OMRF will enroll individuals for autoantibody testing and potential follow-up into the Oklahoma Cohort of Rheumatic Diseases, a collection of tens of thousands of blood, urine, saliva and tissue samples donated since 2001 by patients in OMRF’s Rheumatology Center of Excellence.

By Nick Thomas

First screened in movie theaters during the early 1920s, the “Our Gang” film series was produced for another two decades and featured an ever-changing cast of children, showcasing their comedic neighborhood antics.
Throughout the series of some 220 short films created by producer Hal Roach, about 40 child actors appeared regularly beginning in 1922’s silent era and continuing through 1944. Sidney Kibrick is one of the last surviving “Our Gang” cast regulars.
Kibrick, 95, appeared in more than 2-dozen ‘Gang’ shorts, initially as an unnamed character but eventually anointed with the nickname ‘Woim,’ the exaggerated Brooklyn pronunciation of ‘worm.’ Other well-known members of the gang included Spanky (George McFarland), Butch (Tommy Bond), Buckwheat (Billie Thomas), and Alfalfa (Carl Switzer).
“We’d have 2 hours of schooling in the morning and then work anywhere from 6 to 16 hours until we finished,” recalled Kibrick from his home in Los Angeles. “There was a lot of work, no question about it, but our director Gordon Douglas was a terrific guy and he was really able to get a lot out of each kid.”
Despite the long hours, there was occasionally time to relax and be a kid off-camera.
“There was a big pond at the studio, so Spanky and I would go fishing a lot,” said Kibrick. “We developed a lifelong friendship and although he moved to Dallas while I lived in Beverly Hills, we used to visit and stay at each other’s homes time and time again over the years.”
Despite dozens of kids running around on set, Kibrick remembers things never getting out of control.
“We had scripts and had to rehearse before shooting so it was very structured,” he recalled. “Parents had to be on the set at all times.”
And while most of the young actors got along, Kibrick remembers one troublemaker.
“Alfalfa (Switzer) was a very difficult kid and created a lot of problems on the set. He was not nice – not only to the gang, but to the boys and girls who were extras in the movies. It was just his nature. Years later, he was killed in a fight, so he was basically a tough kid.”
So too was Kibrick’s character, Woim.
“I was Butch’s sidekick and we were the bad guys always taking on Spanky, Alfalfa, and Darla (Hood),” he explained.
Born in Minneapolis, young Sid was just an infant when the family moved to Los Angeles so his dad could find better work and was later ‘discovered’ after turning five.
“My mother took us to Grauman’s Chinese theater and after the movie, a man came over to us, pointed at me, and said he could ‘use that little kid in the movies,’” Kibrick recalled. His parents really pushed him and his brother, Leonard, into acting.
“I was earning $750 a week in ‘Our Gang’ which was a lot in those days, especially during the Depression,” he said. “But by the time I was 15, I’d had enough. My parents wanted me to continue but finally my mother went along with my wishes. I later attended college and became a real estate developer. So I had a very successful post-Hollywood career.”
Last year, Kibrick attended the opening of an exhibit at the Hollywood Museum honoring the 100th anniversary of the “Our Gang” series. “It’s nice to be remembered!” he said.
Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery, in Alabama, and has written features, columns, and interviews for numerous magazines and newspapers. See https://www.getnickt.org/.

Dear Savvy Senior,

I spend a lot of time online and love the convenience of paying bills, shopping, and keeping up with my grandkids on Facebook and Instagram. But a few months ago, my computer was infected with malware, and I just found out some cyber crook opened up a credit card using my identity and went on a shopping spree. Do you have some simple tips to help me stay safe while online? Paranoid Patty

Dear Patty, Unfortunately, cybercrimes against seniors continue to be a big problem in the U.S. According to the FBI 2022 Elder Fraud Report, cybercrime cost Americans over age 60 more than $3 billion last year, a whopping 84 percent increase from 2021.
While anyone can be subject to cybercrimes, seniors are frequent targets because they tend to be more trusting and have more money than their younger counterparts. But there are a number of things you can do to protect yourself from online fraud, hacking and scams. Here are a few tips to get you started.
Strengthen your passwords: A strong password should contain at least 12 characters and include numbers and a special character, like an exclamation point or asterisk. Be sure to change up your password across different sites to ensure a hacker would not gain access to all accounts through one password. And keep a written list of all your passwords stored in a safe secure place.
On your smartphone or tablet, be sure to set up a four or six-digit PIN to protect your device.
Opt out of pop-ups: To protect yourself from computer viruses and other forms of malware, make it a habit to avoid any pop-up style message when you’re on the web. Sometimes hackers disguise their malware as pop-up advertisements or “special offers” when you’re shopping or reading online. Clicking on these pop-ups can lead to viruses or data breaches.
If you encounter a suspicious pop-up message, don’t click on anything in the window. Simply leave the site or close out of your web browser.
When in doubt, throw it out: Sometimes online hackers will send you an email or text message and pretend to be someone they’re not in order to convince you to share valuable information with them, such as your Social Security Number, address or credit card information. This is called phishing.
If you receive a message from an unknown sender, do not respond or click on any links or attachments. Instead, either ignore the message or delete it.
Share with care: There is such a thing as oversharing, and it definitely applies to online profiles. On social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, online hackers can easily gather information about you from what you post – like where you live.
Ensure that your privacy settings are up to date so that only people who follow you or are your Facebook friend can see your posts.
Verify websites: Before you shop or access your bank online, double check the validity of the website you’re using. Reputable sites use technologies such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer) that encrypt data during transmission. You will see a little padlock icon in your browser and usually “https” at the front of your address bar to confirm it’s a secure connection. If you don’t see it in the web address that you’re on, you should not trust that website with your passwords, payment or banking information.
Have some back-up: Practicing safe habits will protect you and your information, but you don’t have to rely on just yourself to stay safe. Anti-virus software works in the background to protect your computer from a variety of malware and helps to make it easier for you to avoid threats while surfing the web.
For more information on how to safeguard your personal technology devices and information, visit Consumer.ftc.gov and search “Protect Your Personal Information and Data.” And to report fraud and identity theft go to https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ and IdentityTheft.gov.

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.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reminds the Medicare community of the Jimmo Settlement Agreement (January 2013), which clarified that the Medicare program covers skilled nursing care and skilled therapy services under Medicare’s skilled nursing facility, home health, and outpatient therapy benefits when a beneficiary needs skilled care to maintain function or to prevent or slow decline or deterioration (provided all other coverage criteria are met). Specifically, the Jimmo Settlement Agreement required manual revisions to restate a “maintenance coverage standard” for both skilled nursing and therapy services under these benefits:
Skilled nursing services would be covered where such skilled nursing services are necessary to maintain the patient’s current condition or prevent or slow further deterioration so long as the beneficiary requires skilled care for the services to be safely and effectively provided.
Skilled therapy services are covered when an individualized assessment of the patient’s clinical condition demonstrates that the specialized judgment, knowledge, and skills of a qualified therapist (“skilled care”) are necessary for the performance of a safe and effective maintenance program. Such a maintenance program to maintain the patient’s current condition or to prevent or slow further deterioration is covered so long as the beneficiary requires skilled care for the safe and effective performance of the program.
The Jimmo Settlement Agreement may reflect a change in practice for those providers, adjudicators, and contractors who may have erroneously believed that the Medicare program covers nursing and therapy services under these benefits only when a beneficiary is expected to improve. The Jimmo Settlement Agreement is consistent with the Medicare program’s regulations governing maintenance nursing and therapy in skilled nursing facilities, home health services, and outpatient therapy (physical, occupational, and speech) and nursing and therapy in inpatient rehabilitation hospitals for beneficiaries who need the level of care that such hospitals provide.
The Jimmo Settlement Agreement included language specifying that nothing in the settlement agreement modified, contracted, or expanded the existing eligibility requirements for receiving Medicare coverage. While the Jimmo Settlement Agreement resulted in clarifications of the coverage criteria for skilled nursing and therapy services in the SNF, HH, OPT, and IRF care settings, it did not affect other existing aspects of Medicare coverage and eligibility for these settings. A few examples of such other requirements would include that the services be reasonable and necessary, comply with therapy caps in the OPT setting, and not exceed the 100-day limit for Part A SNF benefits during a benefit period.
If you have a loved one in a Long-Term Care facility and have any questions regarding care or concerns you may have, you can contact an Ombudsman to assist you.
Areawide Aging Agency’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program advocates for the needs of residents in LTC facilities serving Canadian, Cleveland, Logan, and Oklahoma Counties. You may contact us at (405) 942-8500 and ask to speak with an Ombudsman or visit our website at https://www.areawideaging.org.

Seniors from Oklahoma participating in the National Senior Games which was held recently in Pittsburgh, PA represented the state well, finishing with a balanced number of medals, 22 Gold, 23 Silver and 24 Bronze for a total medal count of 69, this number does not include the number of ribbons that were won for fourth through seventh place finishers. While the Oklahoma athletes finished in the lower tier of the medal count, they faired well. The state with the highest number of total medals was Florida with 586 with 19 states gathering at least 100 total medals. View the final results at https://nsga.com/results-2023/.
The next National Senior Games will be in Des Moines, Iowa in 2025. Oklahoma seniors can begin preparing for that competition this September through October. While not a qualifying year, preparing this year will get you headed to qualifying in 2024. Check out the list of events and dates the OSG Facebook page or on the website, at https://okseniorgames.com.

On Saturday, September 9, from 1-4 p.m., the Oklahoma History Center with host an introduction to cross-stitch workshop. Participants will learn the process of cross-stitching and create a cross-stitch bookmark to take home.
The cost of the class is $20 for Oklahoma Historical Society members and $25 for nonmembers. The deadline to register is Saturday, September 2. All materials and instruction will be provided, along with light refreshments.
The Oklahoma History Center is located at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Dr. in Oklahoma City. It is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Please call 405-522-0765 or visit
https://www.okhistory.org/historycenter for admission costs and group rates.

Story and photo by Van Mitchell. Staff Writer

teve Gentling likes being involved and engaged in the community.
He has served in that capacity as both a private citizen, and as Mayor of Guthrie since 2015.
“When we moved to Guthrie, I got pretty involved with a lot of different community activities,” he said. “I joined the Lions Club right off the bat. I became a member of the ‘89er Day Parade Committee and ultimately chaired it for four or five years. I was chairman of the Logan County United Way for three years, and as a board member of American Legion Post 58. I got involved with a lot of local community activities. making a (good) community even better.”
After Gentling retired as the director of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Oklahoma City, his desire to serve continued.
“When I retired, I still wanted to continue to be engaged and involved,” Gentling said. “Some people came and said, “You might want to think about running for mayor. I hadn’t really thought of it too much. I had been, again, engaged with a lot of community activities, but not with governmental activities. I thought about what I had to contribute, and thought about wanting to make the community even better. So, I decided to run.”
Born in Rochester, Minn., Gentling said early on in his life he decided he wanted to be a hospital administrator.
He went to graduate school at University of Missouri at Columbia, Missouri in Health Administration. “They had a VA hospital there in Columbia and I did a residency there, and liked it,” he said. “They offered me a job out of graduate school, and so I joined the VA healthcare system. And then moved around, went from Columbia, to Albuquerque, to Minneapolis, to Madison, to Omaha, to Dallas, to Oklahoma City. I spent 36 years in the VA healthcare system. The last 20 years as as the Director of the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
Gentling and his wife Sue have three adult children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, all who live in Oklahoma.
“When we originally came to Oklahoma City, we lived in Edmond,” he said. “Then as I got closer to looking at retirement, again, having lived in Minnesota, we always liked to live on, be on the water. I started looking around for some property that was on water and just happened to find a lot on Lake Guthrie. We built a home and moved from Edmond to Guthrie.”
Gentling said his leadership and communication skills have helped him as mayor
“I think I have some skill sets that facilitate bringing people together, focusing on where we are and where we want to be,” he said.”
Gentling said he campaigned on the need to generate more revenue for the Guthrie community and to increase the city’s sales tax.
“In the next year, 2016, we went to the people with a three-quarters of a cent sales tax increase, and it passed,” he said. “It was for 15 years, and will generate about $19 million over those 15 years. From my perspective, I think that was really one of the things that really helped us start to move ahead, start to do some things.”
Gentling said it takes a team effort to build community success, and has high praise for Guthrie’s leadership team that includes new City Manager Eddie Faulkner, and former City Manager Leroy Alsup, the city administration staff, and members of the city council maximizing the resources that are available to the city.
“Leroy and Eddie, I think, are just quality people that have contributed significantly to our community in their administration of the city and of the resources,” he said. “The council, seven different people, sometimes seven different views. I think we’ve been able to come together to do what is best for Guthrie. I think we’ve listened to citizens. And, I think generally we have been pretty much a close-knit council.”
Gentling said Guthrie is tackling its biggest project with a new $20 million wastewater treatment plant.
“That’s the biggest financial project that this community has ever undertaken, and it should be finished in 2025,” he said. “A large project that we just got the go ahead on, which actually was one of my visions back in 2016, was a youth sports complex. We’ve got a $1 million grant, we’ve matched that with $1 million for phase one, $2 million phase one to enhance our youth sports complex. I see it as an economic engine for the community. I see it as it being one of the go-to places for youth and adult softball, baseball tournaments. I see it as a significant revenue generator for our community down the road.”
Gentling said Guthrie is growing with at least 800 new homes being built in the next few years.
“We’ve got four new community developments, housing developments that when they’re all finished will add about 800 rooftops to our community, that’s significant,” he said.
Gentling said he is a positive person, and tries to relay that in everything he does.
“I’m a cheerleader. I am a very optimistic person, so I see the very positives in everything and everybody,” Gentling said. “That’s why I don’t call them problems, I call them opportunities. And some would say, “Well, he’s got his rose colored-glasses on.” Well, if that’s the testament on my tombstone, I’ll be happy with that. Because I much prefer to see the goodness and the positivity rather than the negativity.”

The Oklahoma City Skydance Bridge will join other nationwide landmark bridges as part of a news stamp series by the U.S. Postal Service beginning August 24th. famous OKC landmark will soon grace collectors’ books and the corners of envelopes nationwide. The Skydance Bridge will be featured in a new stamp series (one of four) by the U.S. Postal Service starting Aug. 24.
Inspired by Oklahoma’s state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, Skydance bridge soars over Interstate 40. The bridge is a 380-foot-long pedestrian bridge with a 197-foot-tall sculpture.
The bridge opened in 2012 and connects Upper and Lower Scissortail Park. The bridge was built at a total cost of $5.8 million for the pedestrian use, designed and structurally engineered by S-X-L, a local business. Visit your local post office or shop the USPS online at: https://store.usps.com/store/product/stamp-collectors to purchase these iconic stamps.

The Pioneer Woman Museum is excited to host its annual Prairie to Palate fundraising dinner on Thursday, September 21, from 6-9 p.m. The event will be held on the beautiful lawn of the Pioneer Woman Museum in Ponca City.
Prairie to Palate is an outdoor, farm-to-table dining experience. Enjoy a night of delicious food, wine, live music, and a silent auction. Dinner will be provided by Stagecoach BBQ & Catering, dessert by Banana Crate, drinks by Vortex Alley Brewing and El Patio, and live music by Ryan Burkett. All proceeds support the Pioneer Woman Museum and Statue’s operating costs throughout the year.
Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased online at the PWM website. Bottomless drinks with a souvenir-etched Pioneer Woman Museum pint or wine glass can be purchased for an additional $12.50. Please RSVP by Friday, September 15.
Corporate sponsorships are available for $1,000 each. This covers eight dinners with bottomless drinks and souvenir glasses.
The Pioneer Woman Museum is located at 701 Monument Rd. in Ponca City. For more information, please call 580-765-6108 or visit their website, https://www.pioneerwomanmuseum.com/.
The Pioneer Woman Museum and Statue is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The mission of the Oklahoma Historical Society is to collect, preserve and share the history and culture of the state of Oklahoma and its people. Founded in 1893 by members of the Territorial Press Association, the OHS maintains museums, historic sites and affiliates across the state. Through its research archives, exhibits, educational programs and publications the OHS chronicles the rich history of Oklahoma. For more information about the OHS, please visit https://www.okhistory.org/.