Dec. 2-3, 2023

Roughers claim first state title since ‘86

By Bryce McKinnis Phoenix Correspondent

EDMOND

— For the first time in 37 years, the Gold Ball will return to Muskogee High School.

Junior quarterback Jamarian Ficklin accounted for four touchdowns to lead the Roughers (11-2) to their 10th state championship in school history and first since 1986 in a 28-26 decision over Stillwater in the 6A II title game Friday afternoon at Chad Richison Stadium.

Third-year Roughers coach Travis Hill was elated after the win.

“I have a weird way of explaining it. I get to be high for the next couple of days, because I get to see the pictures of them [players] smiling. ... It’s a natural high,” Hill said. “I’m just so ecstatic for them.”

The teams traded scores until Stillwater missed an extra point after Kendrick Talon’s third touchdown run, cutting the Roughers’ lead to 21-20.

“We knew we weren’t going to come in here and have anything besides a dog fight with Stillwater. They were here last year. They’re champions,” Hill said. “To overthrow a champ, I don’t care what level, that’s always hard to do.”

Muskogee surrendered a fumble to the Pioneers with 3:41 remaining in the game. The Pioneers gave the ball to Holden Thompson, who finished the game with a game-high 199 rushing yards on 35 carries, on

five consecutive plays to start the possession.

“Muskogee’s a football town. Always has been, always will be.”

— Travis Hill

Stillwater meticulously drove down the field. On a third-and-5 pass attempt from the 22-yard line that fell incomplete, the Pioneers benefitted from a pass interference call and inherited a fresh set of downs. Five plays later, with 20 seconds remaining, Thompson took his final touch of the game 2 yards for a touchdown.

Stillwater dialed up a direct snap to Kendrick for the potential score-ty-

ing 2-point conversion, but a hoard of Roughers defensive linemen stunted his progression a few feet short of the goal line.

“All I saw was 20 seconds on the clock,” Hill said. “After you settle down and get your coaching down, your emotions start creeping in. You say, ‘all we’ve gotta do is take care of this ...

thing,’ which we had struggled with the last two weeks.

“Two weeks in a row, we’re fortunate to come up with it. ... That’s when the emotions come out,” Hill said. “You don’t take it for granted until there’s 0:00 on that clock and make sure there’s no yellow on the field.”

Ficklin finished the game rushing for 86 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries. He was 10 of 11 for 149 yards with no interceptions and one touchdown to Ondraye Beasley in the second quarter. Senior receiver and UNLV commit Kayden McGee caught three passes for 63 yards.

About 6,300 total spectators made it to Edmond for the game.

“Muskogee’s a football town. Always has been, always will be,” Hill said. “To see them all come together, and football’s a tool, that’s a great thing. It’s a tough community. They always say there’s nothing tougher than a Rougher.”

Ficklin carries, passes Roughers to state title

By Bryce McKinnis Phoenix Correspondent

EDMOND — Muskogee

High School Junior quarterback Jamarian Ficklin accounted for more than 280 combined rushing and passing yards one week ago in a 36-35 win over Deer Creek in the Class 6A II state semifinals. After the victory, which launched the Roughers into Friday’s championship game, Muskogee coach Travis Hill made a bold statement:

“I’m a good coach because [Ficklin is] our quarterback. ... When he’s gone, I’ll have to find out if I can coach again. He’s that good of a football player.”

After Muskogee’s 28-26 win over Stillwater to win the 6A II state championship Friday afternoon in Edmond, Hill doubled-down.

“I’ll say it again. He can run. He can throw. He’s one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around. One of the best kids I’ve ever been around. and now, he’s a championship quarterback,” Hill said.

“He’s hell on wheels. Makes me a good football coach and makes all of us good coaches.”

Ficklin put together one of his best performances in his first state championship game, passing 10-11 for one touchdown and no interceptions and rushing for 86 yards and three touchdowns against a resilient Stillwater defense. Ficklin accounted for every point the Roughers scored, save four Valente Espinosa extra points.

“Starting off with my freshman year, you know, we went 2-8, turned around went 10-2. It’s just all a matter of being behind coach Hill,” Ficklin said, reciprocating the praise to his coach. “He’s able to put us in the right position to do it.”

For the second consecutive week, the pair embraced each other on the field in an apparent display of mutual respect moments after winning a playoff game. To the observant eye, it’s easy to understand why Hill trusts, not only Ficklin’s talent, but his

poise and why Ficklin trusts, not only Hill’s play-calling, but his greater plan.

A number that stuck out in Friday’s state championship win: Ficklin carried the ball 21 times, more than any other Rougher.

“It feels good, you know,

they put all their trust into my hands for me to be able to take over the game, for coach to be able to believe in me like that,” Ficklin said.

Muskogee fans have one more year to find out if Hill can coach. Minutes after the game’s end Ficklin boasted

plans to bring a second consecutive title back to Muskogee a year from now.

“For us to be able to be behind coach Hill just means a lot,” Ficklin said. “He puts all of his trust into us, so we put all of our trust into him.”

Muskogee defense rides roller coaster in title game

By Ronn Rowland rrowland@muskogeephoenix.com

Charles Dickens wrote

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The opening line from Dickens’ classic novel “A Tale of Two Cities” could not be more appropriate in describing the Muskogee defense during the Roughers’ 28-26 win in Friday’s Class 6A II state championship game.

The Roughers surrendered 368 yards of total offense to defending champion Stillwater, a team that MHS had fallen to twice in the last two

years. Pioneers running back Holden Thompson busted through the Muskogee line for 199 yards on 35 carries and one touchdown. However, when Muskogee’s defense needed a stop at the most important time, it answered the call. With 20 seconds remaining in the game, Thompson took a handoff and ran around the left side for a 2-yard touchdown to cut the Roughers’ lead to 28-26, forcing Stillwater to go for two to tie the score. Looked like the worst

of times. But, on the snap, Talon Hendrick ran up the middle and was stopped, but he headed to his right and had his legs taken out from under him by Deyonn Bowler. Hendricks reached for the goal line with the ball but came up onehalf yard short. For the second consecutive week Muskogee had stopped a potential two-point try in the final 30 seconds to preserve a playoff win.

The Roughers recovered the ensuing onside kick. Jamarian Ficklin knelt down and then pan-

demonium began.

The best of times.

MHS defensive coordinator Steve Craver was like a proud papa.

“I’m just proud of them,” he said. “It’s a testament to the leadership that we have on this football team. It wasn’t a call that we made, it was just our players leading up the other players.”

Senior defensive lineman Vernon Pepiakitah, one of 21 Roughers finishing his time in Roughers green with a state title, finished with seven tackles, two for loss, and played just as hard as his

WAY TO GO ROUGHERS! STATECHAMPS

name is to pronounce.

It’s Pep-pee-YAH-kihtah.

“This means everything to me,” Pep, as he’s know to his teammates, said while celebrating on the field with fans, students coaches and teammates. “All the blood, sweat and tears, the hard work — everything.”

The best of times.

Before Stillwater’s final drive, which began at its 35-yard line, Pepiakitah said the defense got together and knew what needed to be done.

“It boiled down to last game, most defensive se-

niors want a gold ball for the city, for us and for the team,” he said.

On several occasions the Roughers defense had the Pioneers in long-yardage situations only to let them slip away, either by big plays or penalties. The worst of times.

But Pepiakitah said the coaches told the team to “stay patient and the plays will come yo you.”

And for the city of Muskogee, students in Muskogee Public Schools and the Roughers players and coaches — the best of times.

Scenes from a title game

AI alters how first responders handle emergencies

Machine learning outperforms gold standard for detecting heart attacks

By Eric Scicchitano CNHI News Service

Pa. — Noth-

SUNBURY,

ing kills more people in the U.S. than heart disease, and researchers within the UPMC health enterprise are using machine learning to advance the breadth and efficiency of

electrocardiogram (ECG) readings to better identify patients potentially experiencing a heart attack that healthcare providers might otherwise miss.

The developmental algorithm’s results outperformed current gold standards for detecting heart attacks, according to a novel study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Nature Medicine.

Work is underway to incorporate the algorithm into a digital

dashboard for ambulance providers and emergency department staff to more quickly tri-

State champions return home

age patients suffering the most severe heart attacks caused by total blockage of coronary arteries — the type most difficult to detect from an ECG and in immediate need of cardiac catheterization.

“We’re doing things with this technology that human beings cannot do,” said Dr. Christian Martin-Gill, UPMC’s Chief of the Division of Emergency Medical Services (EMS).

The machine-learning tool us-

Fans cheer as team arrives at Rougher Village

By Wendy Burton Phoenix Correspondent

Friday’s popular catchphrase, “There’s nothing tougher than a Rougher,” definitely applied to the Roughers’ biggest fans, too. Many waited in the chilly, drizzly weather for hours for a chance to cheer for the champion team as they arrived home. Others lined up in their cars along

Quick5

What are some requirements to become an eligible candidate for a school board seat?

“A person must have resided in the district or, if the board seat is in an independent district, have resided in that district for at least six months preceding the first day of the filing period, and have been a registered voter registered with the

both sides of Rougher Road.

All erupted into contagious shouts, roars, whistles, and excitement as the team buses rolled into Rougher Village. After all, the Muskogee Roughers won the state football championship for the first time since 1986 — as many of the waiting fans witnessed when they were in

grade school.

Miea Harvey, mother of Wesley Harvey, a left tackle for the Roughers, said she was very young when the Roughers last took state.

“So, I don’t remember that, but I’m so happy these boys brought it home,” she said. “It was super exciting, and it was time.”

Perhaps the proudest fan

county election board at an address located within the geographical boundaries of the district for six months preceding the first day of the filing period. In school districts that are divided into election districts, a candidate must have resided in the district for at least six months preceding the first day of the filing period and have been a registered voter registered with the county election board at an address located within the geographical boundaries of the election district for six months preceding the first day of the filing period.”

2

with the biggest smile on Friday night was Albert Parish. His two sons, Ayrion and Ayrius, play for the state championship team. Parish said he was the coach for the Paul Young Saints — a youth football team his sons and many of their teammates played on since second grade.

See ARRIVAL, Page 7

What degree level is required to be on a school board?

“A person must have received a high school diploma or certificate of high school equivalency to be eligible as a school board candidate.”

3 Does a candidate need to be registered to vote in the district?

“Yes, with the county election board at an address in the geographical boundaries of the election district.”

4 What disqualifies someone from being a candidate?

es advanced math, computation and computer engineering to identify more than 700 different features on an ECG, he said.

“When a human is looking at an (ECG) tracing, we’re probably looking at several dozen different things we may recognize. … A computer is able to look at hundreds and it’s able to do that within minutes,” Martin-Gill said.

Historic homes featured on Wagoner tour

Rose Garden Club’s annual Christmas tour showcases part of town’s history

By Cathy Spaulding cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com

Historic homes are part of the Wagoner Rose Garden Club’s annual Christmas home tour this weekend.

The tour runs from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and will feature six homes:

• Cagney and Sydnie Roberson home, 302. S. McQuarrie Ave.

• Valina Enslen home, 402 S. McQuarrie.

• Darrell and Joy Morgan Home, 1306. S. McKinley.

• Roy and Kathy Nichols home, 1507 S.E. 13th.

• Darvin and Nita McClellan home, 704 S.W. 21st St. Rory and Deborah Robertson home, 1103 S.W. 24th St. Tickets are $15 and are available at any of the houses, said tour organizer Paula Templeton.

Two houses date to the early 20th Century.

“They are just unique because they are part of Wagoner history,” she said.

The Enslen home was built in 1896 by cattleman and rancher John Gibson. It is on the National Register of Historic places. Templeton said it has its original ornate woodwork and staircase.

“If the person is employed by the school district governed by that board or is related within the second degree by affinity or consanguinity to any other member of the board or to any employee of the school district. But the prohibitions shall not apply if:

• The person related to the board member is employed as a substitute teacher by the school district pursuant to the provisions of Section 6-105 of this title or as a temporary substitute support employee if the school district has an Average Daily Membership (ADM) of less than five

thousand (5,000);

• The school district has an ADM of less than four hundred (400), the board of education has adopted a policy providing for such candidate eligibility and the board member who is related to any employee of the school district complies with the provisions of subsection E of Section 5-113.1 of this title.”

5 How should school boards fill an unexpired term?

“Vacancies shall be filled by appointment by the board.” — McAlester

FLORENCE CAROLINE EGAN BOWLES WAYLAND 1930 - 2023

Caroline died peacefully on Nov. 17, 2023, from congestive heart failure at the age of 93. She was born on April 3, 1930, in Muskogee, Oklahoma to Jim and Violet Egan. She attended Oklahoma City University where she was the first person to receive a Bachelors Degree in Sacred Music. Her major was in voice. While attending college she met ministerial student, Bill Bowles, and they married in 1950. They had three children, Bob Bowles, Carol Bowles, and Beth Bowles. After spending 17 years in the Methodist ministry in Oklahoma, they left the ministry and moved to Boulder. Caroline became active in volunteer work at Boulder Community Hospital, Boulder Civic Opera, and Boulder Chorale. The Chorale’s director moved from Boulder and the group asked Caroline to take over the directing responsibilities. The Chorale at the time had only 15 members and when Caroline left 16 years later the membership had grown to 60 members. Caroline looked at directing the Chorale as one of the most joyful experiences of her life.

In 1982, Bill and Caroline divorced and in 1987 Caroline married Vince Wayland. Vince’s work was in the field of supercomputing and they spent many enjoyable years working in England and Germany plus several cities in the United States. During this time, they traveled extensively in Europe which was a great joy to both of them and they continued to travel after Vince retired. For 27 years they went each April to their timeshare in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. This was one of the

DEATHS

highlights of their year. Caroline volunteered at Boulder County Hospice for 17 years. She felt the loving care Hospice offered the community was very important and much needed. She loved to play bridge and spent many happy hours at the bridge table. Her music was very important to her and she was quite fortunate to be able to sing in her church choir until she was 87. Reading brought her great pleasure and she enjoyed reading all kinds of literature.

Caroline was predeceased by her parents, her brother, James Albert Egan, and her grandson, Kelly McCabe. She is survived by her husband, Vince, her son Bob Bowles (Leslie), her daughter Carol Jensen (Paul), daughter Beth Bowles (Paul Sessum), stepdaughter Kirsten Wayland, stepson Sean Wayland, granddaughters Amy Jensen and Christine Wayland, and 3 wonderful nieces. Contributions can be sent in Caroline’s name to: Tru Hospice, 2594 Trailridge Dr. E., Lafayette, CO 80026, or to Music Program, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 4515 Grinnell Ave., Boulder, CO 80305.

A Celebration of her life is being planned sometime in the spring around her birthday in April. If interested, please send an email to Caroline@theWaylands.com with the Subject Line: Celebration.

Online health care organization recognizes NSU

Submitted by NSU

Northeastern State University has been listed as one of the top bachelor’s in health care administration online for 2023-’24 by EduMed.

The online health care organization administration program was rated as one of the top programs in the nation, listed as 15 out of 50 top schools recognized. It was also the only program ranked in Oklahoma. The programs are ranked on a combination of factors like affordability, accessibility, and commitment to student success.

NSU offers three emphasis options for the HOA program: healthcare administration, health informatics, and long-term care. Courses are offered in

an eight-week format, and the program can be completed 100% online.

“We are thrilled to receive this acknowledgment for our programs,” NSU President Rodney Hanley said. “This ranking is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our faculty and staff who are committed to providing students with the best possible education.”

Students can begin the program in January, March, August, or October. The online and flexible scheduling format allows working adults and health care professionals the option to work full-time while pursuing higher education. Additionally, health care professionals working in the field can further their

education, move into leadership positions, or shift to a non-direct patient care setting.

“For the past few years, the NSU HOA Program faculty has worked diligently to reform this program to meet the needs of both current and future students,” Dr. Courtney Hamby, NSU assistant professor of management and program coordinator, said. “It is our ultimate hope that passionate healthcare leaders will emerge from this program. We hope that our students have a hand in improving the quality of the health care delivery system across Oklahoma and beyond.”

The rankings were recently published by EduMed, a leader in supporting student’s

pursuits of an online or hybrid education in allied health, nursing, and medical fields.

“Receiving recognition and ranking nationally is an honor for the HOA program,” Hamby said. “It signifies quality and productivity within the academic area compared with peer institutions.”

Hamby emphasized the importance that rankings play in shaping the opinion of potential and current students alike. She said many potential students make decisions based on the recognition and ranking of the program.

For more information about NSU’s HOA program, visit nsuok. edu/hoa.aspx or email Hamby at healthcaremgt@nsuok.edu.

AI: Facial recognition tech alerts civil liberty advocates

Continued from Page 1

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its subsets like machine learning are changing how first responders do their jobs, through robotics, speech recognition and advanced algorithms.

Firefighters in California partnered with the University of California San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia program, using artificial intelligence to scan a network of 1,032 cameras to detect fires and other abnormalities and notify first responders for further investigation.

A video analytics system powered by artificial intelligence is now in use at the Michigan State Capitol to detect whether someone is smuggling a gun into the building, with images shared instantly to trained staff to determine if there’s a legitimate threat. The software can share detailed alerts including imagery and suspect location with internal and external law enforcement in as little as 3 seconds.

Facial recognition technology is increasingly used within law enforcement, a development raising concerns among civil liberty and privacy advocates.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The applications of artificial intelligence — AI — are growing exponentially and will continue to do so as the technology advances even more.

Today, CNHI and The Muskogee Phoenix continue an ongoing series looking at AI and its potential benefits and concerns in various parts of everyday life. This latest part revisits AI and its use in emergency response. Previous parts of the series have looked at AI’s use in education, health care, business, social media and the military. An upcoming part will look at journalism.

was conducting applied research on the relationship between skin tone and false match rates.

‘CALL AFTER CALL’

“911 is now a tech industry,” said Anthony Mignogna, Chief of Communications at Delaware County Emergency Services in southeast Pennsylvania.

Artificial intelligence is incorporated into the county’s 911 center, helping dispatchers handle about 800,000 emergency calls placed to the center.

The center uses Prepared AI to transcribe the calls, having rolled out the technology in mid-October. It serves to verify what a caller is saying, Mignogna said, allowing dispatchers to marry what they hear with what they’re reading.

trators. Programs like that used in Delaware County are becoming increasingly more common. As explained by the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory of the Department of Homeland Security, AI technology picks up on direct conversations and background noise. It compares call information to thousands of past data points, according to the federal agency, and can suggest relevant questions for the dispatcher to improve call efficiency and emergency response.

text, Generative AI can help.”

Generative AI can analyze information about past incidents alongside incoming data about a current emergency to quickly determine where specific resources would best be dispatched, he said, adding that it would be particularly helpful to boost emergency response as volunteerism in fire and emergency medical services continues to shrink. “A huge problem is listening to people, translating, identifying what are the important variables that would increase the need for intervention immediately so you can do better resource allocation leading to better outcomes,” Kumara said.

Danny Joe Chaffin, 66, of Muskogee, Retired Muskogee Public Schools electrician, passed away Wednesday, November 29, 2023. Memorial service: 1PM, Tuesday, December 5, 2023 @ Cornerstone Funeral Home Chapel, Muskogee

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report last year that found that in 2020, 18 of 24 federal agencies with law enforcement officers used AI largely for building surveillance and computer access. In a separate survey, 14 of 42 such agencies said the technology was being used in criminal investigations.

On GAO’s recommendation, three of the agencies have since implemented tracking systems. Ten others were conducting research on facial recognition technology including the Department of Justice, which

“We want to know when someone says ‘gun,’ ‘shot,’ ‘not breathing,’ ‘car.’ It flags that,” said Mignogna, who sits on the Prepared company’s inaugural customer advisory board along with other first responders. “It helps us expedite our call processing time.”

It also helps, he said, when the center is short-staffed and experiencing heavy call volume.

More than half of 911 centers in the U.S. are facing staffing emergencies, according to a study released in February by the International Academies of Dispatch and the National Association of State 911 Adminis-

Mignogna said a year-end analysis will determine just how well AI is functioning in the Delaware County 911 Center. He’s already looking toward broadening the use of the technology including foreign language translation, imaging, video and GPS.

“We’re looking for tools like this to help and take some stress off (dispatchers). It’s call after call after call for 12 hours. It makes life a little easier,” Mignogna said.

HELPFUL TECH, BE CAUTIOUS

Professor Soundar Kumara, director, Penn State University’s Center for Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Industry, said Generative AI is becoming more commonplace within emergency response.

“Computers are not good at understanding context,” Kumara said. “To understand con-

The use of Predictive AI in law enforcement does present ethical challenges, Kumara said. He likened its use to the “pre-crime” police program in the Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report.”

The technology can build off of historic data to determine geographic areas that tend to be more violent than others, he said, perhaps leading to increased police patrols. But, such technology can also lead to dangerous stereotypes and unintended consequences when data is limited to certain ethnic groups or races, Kumara warned.

“In order to avoid this, you need to sample the population properly. When you do that you have better understanding of the nuances of how these patterns among people are changing,” Kumara said. “For all this, you need a lot of data from the past. When you don’t have the data your guess is as good as an algorithm’s guess.” Eric Scicchitano is a writer for the Sunbury (Pa.) Daily Item.

Tour: Proceeds to help veterans, dogs

Continued from Page 1

“It’s just a beautiful home,” Templeton said.

The Roberson’s brick home dates to 1914. The brick home at 302 S. McQuarrie dates to 1914. “There’s just a lot of history in them.” The home tour supports two charities. Wagoner Community Outreach is a faithbased ministry that offers monthly meals and groceries. Wagoner Area Neighbors is a cooperative community effort to offer charitable

services.

Templeton said proceeds also will help veterans and a program that helps find homes for dogs. “We would not have the funds to support anybody without the homeowners and the people coming to view the homes,” she said. “We need to make sure the money goes to good causes in support of the community, and it takes an army to keep it successful. Wagoner people have been so giving.”

West was last captain of Indian police

The United States Indian Police (USIP) was established in 1880 in an effort to curb the lawlessness that had invaded Indian Territory following the Civil War. Each of the Five Tribes had a police force, usually referred to as Lighthorsemen, but these officers only had jurisdiction within their own tribe. They could not arrest anyone who was not a member of their own nation.

To overcome this jurisdictional issue, John Q. Tufts, the Indian Commissioner serving the Five Tribes in Muskogee, organized the U.S. Indian Police. This unit would enforce federal law and assist the tribal police in enforcing tribal law. Most of the officers who served as Indian Police were recruited from the various Lighthorse organizations.

The USIP were under the direction and authority of the Indian Agent to the Five Tribes who worked from the Union Agency in Muskogee. Many of the Indian Police were also commissioned as U.S. Deputy Marshals, giving them the authority to arrest non-Indians. The USIP, like the Union Agent, was headquartered in Muskogee.

The first captain of the U.S. Indian Police was Sam Sixkiller, a Cherokee officer and a Deputy Marshal. Sixkiller was shot to death by outlaws on Christmas Eve in 1886. The last captain to serve the Indian Police before Oklahoma statehood was another Cherokee named John C. West.

Jonita Mullins

Three Forks History

West was a large man standing over six feet tall with the typical bushy mustache that was a popular style of the day. A Civil War veteran, West served under General Stand Watie during the war. He was called the City Marshal of Muskogee, serving during the years between 1889 and 1892. Since the town didn’t have a municipal government in this time frame, West most like was an Indian Police officer paid by the Union Agency. Being headquartered in Muskogee, he would have kept a lid on lawlessness for the town.

From 1894 to 1896, West was also the Sheriff of the Canadian District of the Cherokee Nation. This district had the distinction of being the location of Youngers Bend where Belle and Sam Starr had their home. West was the nemesis to the Starrs and it is likely that he arrested the outlaw couple on more than one occasion.

John’s brother Frank West also served as an Indian policeman and marshal. He had run-ins with the Starrs as well and once shot the horse Sam Starr was riding. The bad blood between these two lawmen and the Starrs eventually led to Sam and Frank shooting and killing one another.

John West was Cap-

tain of the Indian Police in 1905 when a permit fee imposed by the Muscogee Nation on businesses owned by non-tribal individuals caused a major dispute. Most of the businesses in Muskogee refused to pay the fee even after Union Agent Leo Bennett and federal judge John Thomas ruled that the fee was legal.

On June 2, 1905, Indian inspector George Wright authorized the Indian Police to shut down any business that had not paid the tax, which was virtually every business on Main Street. As the police proceeded to close these businesses, it created quite a stir in Muskogee. At the Patterson Mercantile, customers trying to enter the store were physically restrained by the police.

A.W. Robb, Patterson’s manager, then swore out warrants for the arrest of John West and seven of his officers for assault and battery! The Muskogee police arrested the Indian police and took them to mayor F.B. Fite for a judgment. Despite strong pressure from Muskogee businessmen, Fite ruled that he had no authority over tribal matters and dismissed the charge.

At Oklahoma statehood law enforcement efforts changed significantly. John West retired from USIP and spent his last years living in Porum. It was here that he died in 1929 and was buried in a family cemetery nearby.

Reach Jonita Mullins at jonita.mullins@ gmail.com

Send us your news or photos

The Muskogee Phoenix encourage civic clubs, school organizations and area residents to submit photos and news items. Send items by email at yournews@ muskogeephoenix.com.

Story of Sugar Plum Fairy

It’s a mixture of excitement and sadness as I decorated the Christmas tree with real (breakable) ornaments for the first time in 17 years.

As soon as the first grandbaby arrived, I put everything breakable away for another time and had only plastic ornaments without hooks (everything tied with ribbon or twine). With the youngest now in kindergarten, and none of them interested in helping me decorate any longer, I dusted off the real deal and broke two ornaments in the process.

I had the day to myself to decorate the house and tree and had a twinge of excitement thinking of what I could accomplish without grandkids dictating multiple ornaments on one limb or everything decorated except the top limbs. I knew it was time to let go of this tradition as they no longer wanted to come over and decorate another tree. It’s sad to think those days are over and I hope I can hold onto the monthly cousin overnight for a couple more years with the younger ones.

The two oldest grands are running at full speed,

City receives $2 million grant for system improvements

Submitted by Oklahoma Water Resource Board

OKLAHOMA CITY — The City of Muskogee received approval for $2,000,000 in funding Thursday from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) to improve the City’s water infrastructure. Construction of upgrades and improvements to the water system will be financed by the Oklahoma American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant program along with $2,000,000

in local funds. The City has a raw water line that is past its life expectancy and needs to be replaced. These proceeds will be used to complete an assessment and survey on the raw waterline, construct a booster station, and add a back up generator at the water plant.

Joe Freeman, chief of the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division, calculated that the City’s customers will save an estimated

$3,278,200 compared to traditional financing.

The ARPA grant program is administered by the OWRB with funding from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and appropriated through the Water and Wastewater American Rescue Plan Act grants program. This OWRB program has been structured to provide communities and other eligible entities financial resources necessary to address water and

wastewater infrastructure needs within their systems. Since 1983 the Water Resources Board has approved over $7.0 billion in loans and grants for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements throughout Oklahoma.

“We are grateful to State Legislators from the Muskogee area for their continued support of our financial assistance programs,” said Julie Cunningham, Executive Director of the OWRB.

OMRF scientist to investigate immune cells

Submitted by Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation

OKLAHOMA CITY

— Fifty years ago, immunologists were just beginning to understand a newly discovered type of white blood cell that would come to be known as the T cell. Decades of research have since shown these protective cells to be so crucial, we couldn’t survive without them.

Fast-forward to today, and research stands at a similar infancy with a closely related immune cell called innate lymphoid cells, or ILCs, says Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist Xiao-Hong Sun, Ph.D.

The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Sun a $3.4 million grant to continue unraveling mysteries about these cells, including whether they may offer clues about the differences in immune reactions between children and

OMRF/Submitted

OMRF scientist Xiao-Hong Sun has been granted a $3.4

adults.

“It’s far too soon to say whether we will someday discover ILCs play a role as profound as T cells,” said Sun, who holds the Lew and Myra Ward Chair in Biomedical Research at OMRF. “But I hope this research will begin to answer that question.”

Sun joined OMRF in 1999 and studied T cells until pivoting her research to ILCs when scientists discovered them about a decade

ago.

Initially, researchers believed ILCs originated only in bone marrow. In 2019, Sun discovered the thymus, a gland near the heart, can also produce them. The thymus trains the immune system to distinguish friendly cells from invaders. It tends to shrink and become less active as we age.

“Our previous discovery was important because it may shed light on why immune reac-

tions differ between children and adults,” Sun said. “Childhood onset of asthma and food allergies are just two examples. This new study may help explain the underlying causes and suggest new therapeutic approaches.”

“It took a half-century of painstaking work by scientists around the world to get to our current understanding of T cells,” said OMRF Executive Vice President & Chief Medical Officer Judith James, M.D., Ph.D. “That’s often how science works. Dr. Sun is applying similar approaches to understand ILCs in an accelerated way. I’m excited to see where her research leads.”

Sun’s grant, No. 1R01AI178947-01, was awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH. Oklahoma City’s Presbyterian Health Foundation provided funding for Sun to collect preliminary data for this research.

Sandy Turner

living their best lives. Papa gets his feelings hurt they don’t come over as often and I must remind him they will come back around, hopefully sooner than later. My granddaughter will be a senior next year and anytime I even think about it I feel the tears ready to spill over at every “last” event.

I was lucky to have grandparents who lived just up the street and understood when to take a step back and wait. They were so important to me as a child and even more so when I was an adult. I was fortunate to have their time for life lessons and opinions, whether I agreed with them or not, they were always there. Cards have taken a back seat to texting, for everything from get well wishes to birthdays. I was mailing cards to all the grands until my daughter told me to save the stamps, they weren’t impressed. I’m trying really hard to adapt to their

way of thinking, so I didn’t send out my usual Thanksgiving Day cards and won’t be doing the Christmas ones either. I did, however, receive a text from my 17-yearold granddaughter on my birthday. It simply said, “Happy Birthday. Thanks for always being there.” This text sent me over the moon as even though we don’t play babies anymore for hours on end and I barely get two words out of her on holidays, it confirms she knows I’m always going to show up when she’s performing, when she needs me and even when she doesn’t. We will be going to her performance in the Nutcracker this weekend. I’m tearing up now just writing about it. She’s beautiful, graceful, talented and will be going away to college sooner than I am ready for. Time does go by so fast. It seems like just yesterday we were lining up dolls, pretending they were in dance class. She will always be my Sugar Plum Fairy and I will always be there for her.

Sandy Turner writes about family and lives in the Midwest.

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Efforts to criminalize homelessness growing in Oklahoma

By Mindy Ragan Wood Oklahoma Voice OKLAHOMA CITY

— A national push to criminalize homelessness is impacting the state as cities and lawmakers introduce policies aimed at regulating encampments and other support for unhoused Oklahomans, legal experts say.

Efforts to criminalize homelessness through tickets, fines or arrests aren’t new, but have increased in the last few years partly as a result of the issue becoming more visible due to the COVID-19 pandemic,

according to an analysis from the National Homeless Law Center. According to the center, which has tracked legislation across the country since the 1990s, Oklahoma’s push to punish homelessness is moderate compared to other state legislatures which have passed laws forcing homeless people to get mental health treatment or attempted

to ban camping on state-owned land or criminalize sleeping on sidewalks. Still in the past few years, there’s been growing efforts across Oklahoma to regulate everything from homeless encampments to panhandling to feeding unhoused residents.

“Criminalization doesn’t work,” said Eric Tars, senior policy director for the cen-

ter. “If it did, there would be no homeless people.”

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Oklahoma’s unsheltered homeless population has increased by 15% over a decade. It has steadily risen since 2015. Estimates show 1,317 people were living on the streets in 2022.

Politicians said they’re feeling increasing pressure from constituents to address homelessness in their communities.

In the past two years, two GOP state lawmakers have led unsuccessful legislative efforts to address homeless encampments. Two Senate bills would have effectively banned the encampments by requiring them to comply with building codes. One of them also required cities to monitor encampments for possible contamination of city water supplies.

Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman, who ran one of the measures, said in an email that his Norman constituents are concerned with crime and sanitation.

“This is very difficult as we have court decisions that seek to prevent mistreatment of all citizens, including homeless, and this is not necessarily bad, but makes addressing the issue difficult,” Standridge said.

CITIES’ TAKE STEPS TO BAN HOMELESSNESS

City leaders in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Shawnee and Norman have also tried to tackle the issue by passing local ordinances.

A poll in Tulsa, by the Cicero Institute, found its residents favor tougher policies like forced treatment for mentally ill homeless people and prioritized funding for those services over subsidized housing. Nearly half of Tulsans also disapproved of the city council’s handling of the issue.

people suffering from “chronic and untreated mental illness.”

Cicero officials did not return a message seeking comment.

State Rep. Monroe Nichols, D-Tulsa, who is also running for mayor, said his city’s homeless population is growing and residents are frustrated. The most recent data for Tulsa County shows homelessness grew by 6.6% in 2022.

The issue needs more attention from city and state leaders, Nichols said.

“I think one of the biggest challenges we continue to face is this balancing between having services that are widely and immediately available and matching that with anything we might do on the enforcement side.”

— State Rep. Monroe Nichols, D-Tulsa

“I think one of the biggest challenges we continue to face is this balancing between having services that are widely and immediately available and matching that with anything we might do on the enforcement side,” he said.

The state should be a partner with cities to help fund housing solutions and treatment services that address the underlying causes of homelessness, Nichols said.

Norman business owners have urged city leaders to crack down on homelessness amid complaints about panhandling, encampments and violent crimes in the wake of two recent stabbings and one shooting that police said involved homeless people. The city’s homeless population is up by 16 people from the previous year.

Norman Mayor Larry Heikkila said there is often little the city can do to address some of those complaints, such as panhandling.

passed an ordinance that limits feeding four or more homeless people without a permit in the downtown area. Tars, with the homeless law center, believes it’s unconstitutional because the restriction violates the right to free assembly, freedom of speech and when performed as part of religious beliefs, also violates religious expression. Shawnee City Manager Andrea Weckmueller-Behringer did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. Efforts to criminalize homelessness in Oklahoma City have failed in recent years, including a panhandling ban on public easement like medians. It was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The city has since pledged to invest millions of dollars in affordable housing initiatives to end homelessness. City leaders declined to approve camping bans on public and private property last year. Some cities’ policies overlook long-term solutions that could lead to far better outcomes, said Dan Straughan, executive director of the Homeless Alliance. The nonprofit assists people out of homelessness through partnerships with housing advocacy groups.

The institute presses for what it calls “system-wide accountability and real solutions” to homelessness. It calls for banning unauthorized street camping, paying nonprofits based on performance, and amending civil commitment laws for homeless

“Constituents have complained to me about panhandling, but the Supreme Court has said panhandling is freedom of speech, ” Heikkila said.

It can also be difficult to evict encampments because it’s not against the law to be homeless, he said.

Shawnee recently

“City councils view themselves as having relatively few tools in their tool belt,” Straughan said. “Their kind of knee-jerk response is, ‘Well, we’ll just pass an ordinance to outlaw that’ when there may be more constructive ways to address that.” He suggested city leaders partner with nonprofit organizations to boost affordable housing supply rather than filling up jails at taxpayer expense.

Okie

Well,

I’m proud to be ...

‘True’ or ‘transplant,’ Okies celebrate Muskogee

and

Wiseman carries on family traditions

Third-generation tire-shop owner Mike Wiseman was born with automotive blood.

He said his grandfather, Bill Wiseman, had a tire shop at 24th Street and Okmulgee Avenue. His father and uncle sold tires. Now he and his brother own shops on opposite sides of Muskogee. Mark Wiseman owns Discount Tire on North York Street, while Mike owns Discount Tires on North 32nd Street

“I was destined to be here,” Mike Wiseman said. “That’s what I like to do I enjoy the tire business.” Wiseman recalled getting into the business early.

“Changing tires when we started, washing white walls,” he said. “We started out at a dollar a day. That’s what we made. I was probably 7 at the time. I’m sure they were doing more babysitting than us working. But that kind of taught us the right way to be. We learned how to do a job and do it right.”

Wiseman also followed his father into auto racing.

“He used to race in the early 1970s,” Wiseman said. “We used to watch him, and we got a chance to race motorcycles back when I was younger.” That was when the family lived in the Oswego/Parsons area of southeast Kansas. He said his father raced at Thunderbird Speedway after the family moved to Muskogee.

“It was just an awesome time” Wiseman said. “I got to stand up and take pictures with him when he won trophies.

Wiseman said he was about 10 when he started helping his dad at the races.

“Helping him work on the car, build motors, changing tires,” Wiseman recalled. “He was pretty strict on trying to get stuff done right, do it the right way, and the way he wanted it done.”

He said his father raced within 100 miles. He won the championship at Tri-State Speedway in Pocola.

“Then I started racing when I was 14 or 15,” Wiseman said. “Dad helped me get a car.”

Wiseman said he stopped racing a while to raise a family and get established in the tire business. He started back up around 2013.

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?

“Family. My grandpas kids were all going different directions in their employment. He had a farm in Kansas and he wanted to try to keep his boys together if he could, so they ended up selling the farm and moving here.”

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT MUSKOGEE?

“It’s a nice hometown. Not too big, not too small. I love it here.”

WHAT WOULD MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?

MEET MIKE WISEMAN

gan, Carleigh and Mitchel; two grandchildren.

RETURNING TO FORM TOOK SOME TIME

Mike Wiseman said it took a few years to get back into car racing.

“It’s a lot of work,” he said, adding that he usually finished fifth or sixth during races.

“Then I started getting a little bit better and a little bit better,” he said. “When we got a little better we started venturing out a little bit.”

He won the Oklahoma State Championship two years in a row — 2015 and 2016.

“That was a thrill, it was the whole state of Oklahoma,” he said. “It was racing for IMCA (International Motor Contest Association). You just race at different tracks around the state and gather points. Whoever got the most points is how you placed in the state.”

He recalled racing at Tri-State, Southern Speedway near Ada, Longdale Speedway near Enid, as well as Outlaw and Thunderbird at Muskogee.

Wiseman said he races about one or two nights a week, mainly locally.

“I’ve been racing at Salina lately, up at Salina Highbanks,” he said. “It’s a big banked curve.”

Tri-State is his favorite track, he said.

“When you race there, you know what the track is going to be like,” he said. “If you go to some of the other places, it’s a guessing game whether it’s going to be real rough or muddy or whatever. TriState is always nice and slick and smooth. It’s a dirt track, too.”

STAY CLEAN GETS YOU UP FRONT

Wiseman placed first in the Spooker race, held at Tri-State in October. He said the biggest challenge was trying to get two cars ready to race.

“There were about 26 that entered that race,” he said. “You race heat races, and there’s about six cars in a heat. I ended up winning the heat. That’s what qualifies you for the A feature, and I qualified third, but they had a redraw and inverted the field and I started ninth.”

That’s not an easy start.

“You have to pass a lot of cars to get to the front,” Wiseman said. “It took me about 12 laps to get to the lead. I was leading the rest of the way.”

He said his secret was “not to touch anybody, not to tear anything up, just get through there.” At the end he was three car lengths ahead.

“You’re just thinking, you gotta keep your head together, you’re going to pull this off and win,” he said.

Although he’s excited about winning, Wiseman said car racing is mostly a friendly competition.

“A competition among friends,” he said.

PROPER PROTECTION IS KEY TO SURVIVAL

Wiseman now races with a 1980 Malibu with a Terminator chassis, which he has had for three years.

“It’s a brand of who made the car: Terminator,” he said. “I bought this car used.”

He said the Chevy had already been prepped to be a stock car.

“I just had to put a motor and transmission in it,” he said. “I have to put a new body on it every year.”

The biggest challenge is the work and expense that go into preparing the car, he said.

Accidents on the racetrack can take a toll on a car, he said.

AGE: 59.

HOMETOWN: Muskogee.

EDUCATION: Sequoyah and Grant Foreman Elementaries, Hilldale High School, Indian Capital Technology Center.

PROFESSION: Owner of Discount Tires.

FAMILY: Wife, Rena; three children, Mea-

“I liked being around friends that enjoyed being in the competition,” he said. “I didn’t have much to do, Get a car put it together, get it ready to go.”

“If we could grow and have something more for the kids to do, and not get too big.”

WHAT PERSON IN MUSKOGEE DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION: Christian.

HOBBIES: “It’s always something to do with cars. Racing now, at the moment, with me and my son. Mess with hot rods or street rods. I like to travel whenever I get the chance. Fishing.”

He said he races factory stock.

“It’s a stock suspension car, A stripped car down the body, motor chassis and roll cage,” he said.

“My grandpa, Bill Wiseman. Always be honest and do a hard day’s work. He was in World War II, a scout.”

WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE THING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN MUSKOGEE?

“Birth of my kids.”

WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

“It seems to be racing now. Dirt track.”

HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?

“It’s a warm, friendly town. Not too big. Neighbors helping neighbors.”

“Somebody just can’t drive or run over you,” he said. “Or driving over their head, which I’ve done some of that myself. Going too fast that you can’t control a car. Throttle control and steering, just try to drive to your abilities.”

Wiseman said he protects himself by wearing a fire suit, fire resistant gloves, fire resistant shoes and a fire resistant helmet. The roll bar also is crucial.

He recalled one accident in 2013.

“Friday the 13, 2013, I rolled the car seven times at Thunderbird,” he said. “Then the car caught on fire. “ Fortunately, he did not have to go to the hospital.

“I got in the ambulance, everything was OK,” he said. “It’s on YouTube, too. A friend of mine, his wife had caught the whole accident.”

He said that whenever he recalls that wreck, he thinks of how lucky he is.

“The outcome could have been a lot worse,” he said.

Positive outcomes depend on innovative approaches to conservation

The Great Shearwater, an Atlantic species, can conceivably be seen in the same California area as the local Pink-footed Shearwater, which nests in Chile, and Bulwer’s Shearwater that nests in New Zealand, and the same scenario occurs in the Atlantic with a Shorttailed Shearwater photographed at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Short-tails are normally a New Zealand breeder that goes to Arctic Canada or Alaska in the Pacific basin, so they know travel.

Puffins and murrelets routinely make passage from one ocean basin to another, and they have been within the Atlantic basin for the last two decades.

Northern Gannet is another vagrant species traveling across the North Atlantic and has breeding/wintering grounds along the Gulf coast, but in 2011, three were seen on the northwest coast of Alaska. By 2012, one became established on the islands of California and was still observed this past September. They have the advantage of a long lifespan, so they can exist for decades in a new location waiting for another member of their species to begin a new population. That has happened assorted times, when a bird can find new habitat in remote places where they were initially vagrants. Manx Shearwater, a North Atlantic breeder, can be found in British Columbia, as we find them up and down the Pacific. Swinhoe’s Storm-petrel, a North Asian breeder, is

Believing

You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.

— James 2:19

Demons are theists. They not only believe in God, but they believe that there is only one God. They believe it so intently that they tremble at the thought.

What does their theism get them? They believe in God intently, yet they are still doomed to eternal destruction.

Pexels.com

now found in the Selvagens Islands of Portugal in the North Atlantic. The Elegant Tern, from our west coast, is now an established breeder in Spain. Considering conservation action for seabirds, we need to protect not just extant

places, where we know seabirds breed, but possible locations from introduced predators and sea level rise. Fences can be built in the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Rescue in Kauai, Hawaii, a multi-partner project, initiated more than a decade ago, with the goal to bring Hawaiian Petrel and Newell’s Shearwater, two endangered species, to nest in this protected area, which is successful. Those birds are breeding and returning as new regional adults, and oth-

er birds started colonizing, like Bulwer’s Petrel breeding there, sometimes nesting in Hawaii, and the Southern Hemispheric breeding Kermadec Petrel, yet they can be seen ground nesting in Nihoku in this protected space. That could be the first record southern species breeding in Nihoku.

Work is being done in Mokio Preserve on Molokai, and there is a chance that not just one species, but an entire community of seabirds might be introduced, a

true ecosystem restoration. Partners are working on terrestrial vegetation and even pollinators, like the endangered yellow-faced bee. These ecosystem connections are a vital part of understanding how seabirds play a role in larger terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. The true tropical island does not have the introduced coconut palm. If native vegetation is returned, we can have islands more suited to seabird habitat. Seabird forests would bring back seabirds in great numbers, not always rare birds, like terns or boobies, and they are important in unusual ways that we are beginning to understand. They deposit marine nutrients on islands, and that low infusion of nutrients from the land into nearshore systems increases plankton numbers, coral reef growth, and harvestable fisheries.

Seabirds are in cataclysmic declines, yet capable of tremendous movement in response to change. Some of those opportunistic events result in successful colonization, but the process depends upon area breeding, and historic and new habitation. Seabird restoration has benefits to both ecosystems and human economics, like fisheries.

As wandering seabirds begin a new chapter, positive outcomes depend on innovative approaches to conservation.

Deb Hirt is a wild bird rehabilitator and professional photographer living in Stillwater.

means more than believing God exists

Stephen Parker

Likewise, there will be many that stand before God at judgment, who have been ardent believers, who will receive the same condemnation from the very God they claimed to have known their whole lives. They were not believers at all, but rather, practical atheists.

Atheists believe that there is no God, but atheism is more than a mere philosophy or thought process. If a belief in God impacts every thought and action of the believer, so will atheism impact the lifestyle of the non-believer.

To live as if there is no

God produces a lifestyle that is radically different than the life of the believer. That is why the Bible has so many teachings about attitudes and behaviors: fallen humanity does not know how to think and act correctly. To be a believer (theist) means so much more than to agree with the demons that God exists. One cannot be a believer without striving to be a disciple (follower).

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but

whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it (Luke 9:23-25).”

A true theist not only believes that there is a God, but he believes everything that God teaches. The atheist does not believe the words of God, because he does not believe that there is a God.

There is a third type of person, the one who believes in God but does not believe the teachings of God. That is a practical atheist. That means that such a person is an atheist in practice, regardless of what he claims.

He is a hypocrite. The demons believe in God but do not obey God. They tremble in part because they know God, know his power, and also know that they are doomed to destruction.

Thinking about God causes them to tremble. They are practical atheists. It does not matter what they “believe” or espouse because what they live for, stand for, and die for is not God-focused.

Jesus said, If you love me you will keep my commandments (John 14:15). Walk the streets

of your town and ask each person that you meet if they believe in God.

In the Bible Belt you will find that a majority will affirm a belief in God. Then ask them about teachings from God that he expects of his disciples: sexual purity outside of marriage, refraining from using the Lord’s name in vain, attending worship assemblies, etc.

Now ask if they do those things religiously. You will find that the majority of people who claim to be believers (theists) are actually functional atheists.

Like the demons they hold God in very high esteem, but not so much that they will change their lifestyle to receive approval from him. If they do not seek approval, they will be disapproved and will eventually end up in the same realm as the demons, who are also theists.

This discussion hinges on the dual definition of “belief.” One is mental assent and the other is active faith (faith and belief have the same root word in the original).

Charles Blondin

walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls on July 15, 1859. Before one trip he asked the crowd if they believed he could push a wheelbarrow across the tightrope. Having witnessed him making several trips back and forth, the audience cheered its belief that he could do so. One fellow at the front of the crowd was over the top in his excitement at Blondin’s prowess. Yet when Blondin asked him to get into the wheelbarrow he turned white as a sheet. He believed that Blondin could do it but he did not trust him to do it. A theist who believes in God but who puts no trust in what God teaches in not a theist. He is living exactly the way an atheist does. How many folks who claim to believe in God would you estimate to be practical atheists? They believe in God but they do not believe his teachings. What do they hope to gain from their practical atheism, because unlike the demons, they don’t even tremble?

Reach Stephen Parker at fam4evr@sbcglobal. net

Report shows uptick in state’s prison population

By Keaton Ross Oklahoma Watch

Oklahoma’s prison population is growing after years of steady decline, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report released Thursday. On Dec. 31, 2022, Oklahoma incarcerated 22,745 people, a 2.3% increase from 22,235 in December 2021. Oklahoma had the nation’s fourth-highest incarceration rate at the end of last year, trailing Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. Oklahoma was one of four states where more than 1% of male residents were serving a prison sentence of one year or longer.

State prison admissions increased 6% during the survey period, from 5,799

in 2021 to 6,145 in 2022. Conditional supervision violations, parolees sent back to prison for breaking the terms of their early release, rose 14.2%.

The rise in admissions reflects a justice system recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. In late March 2020, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered courthouses statewide to close. Most counties did not resume jury trials until the late summer.

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia saw their prison populations rise between 2021 and 2022, according to the report.

The voter-approved passage of State Question 780, which reclassified some drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, helped Oklahoma reduce its prison population by nearly 20% from 2018 to 2020. Lawmakers made the state question retroactive in 2019, prompting the early release of 462 prisoners in the largest single-day mass commutation in U.S. history.

While lawmakers have taken up some criminal justice reform bills in recent sessions, including a measure that will expedite the criminal

record expungement progress, efforts to overhaul Oklahoma’s criminal sentencing code have stalled.

House Bill 1792, which aims to organize 1,100 felonies while reducing or maintaining the state prison population, could be reconsidered when the Legislature reconvenes in February.

State corrections officials reported an inmate population of 23,007 on Nov. 27, including 1,029 prisoners awaiting transport from county jails to Department of Corrections facilities.

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch. org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

Arrival: Community gathers to support players

“(After the game)

Ayrion and Ayrius just hugged us, so overwhelmed,” he said.

“They all played excellent, and I’m proud of all these boys.”

Terri Brossett was also on hand to welcome home the state champs.

Brossett is a teacher at the high school and student life council sponsor. She and a group of students decorated the locker rooms before they headed to Edmond on Friday to watch the game.

“We knew they were going to win,” she said.

“Then we came flying

home to make sure we got here before they did.”

The Perez family showed up hours before the team’s arrival and decorated their car with black, green, and white streamers. Their two grade school children have played football and been a cheerleader in the youth leagues, and the whole family are big sports fans, Joe Perez said. “I came out here straight after work in my work clothes,” he said. “We’re big fans. We come to all their games.”

Former Rougher

Skyleer OneBear also showed up to greet the returning players and coaches. OneBear said he played for the team two years ago, and the Muskogee graduate listened to the game in his ear while at work and school Friday afternoon. “I had a huge smile on my face,” he said.

Jennifer Harkin and family were there to wait for the team to arrive. They, too, drove to Edmond to watch the game. Her son Kaden, a 10th-grader on special teams, played in the game Friday, she said, and Muskogee

really turned out for the game. “The entire home side was a ton of Rougher fans,” she said.

Another family of a teammate, Jay Roberts, was eagerly waiting for the bus to arrive. Roberts usually plays with the team, but is injured, so the family went to Edmond to watch the game.

They said they couldn’t be more excited for the Roughers. “I think it’s great for the city,” said Leandra Roberts, Jay’s mother. “It brings the city together. And they deserve the attention.”

MUSKOGEE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS — AGENDA

WHAT: Muskogee Board of County Commissioners regular meeting.

WHEN: 9 a.m. Monday. WHERE: Muskogee County Services Building, 400 W. Broadway, Suite 010.

Oklahoma 529 gifts can last lifetime, provide tax benefits

Submitted content Oklahoma families looking for gifts this holiday season beyond the latest fads have a chance to give a gift that can last a lifetime with Oklahoma 529.

“In a world filled with tech gadgets and trendy toys, Oklahoma 529 offers families a unique holiday gift option that can grow with a child rather than being something a child outgrows by season’s end,” said State Treasurer Todd Russ. “Even better, the funds from Oklahoma 529 accounts can be used for nearly any education path chosen.”

Russ said opening a new account from now through Dec. 15 also offers another advantage. New accounts can receive a $100 bonus when opened with $500 or more and recurring contributions of $100 or more per month are set up until June 30, 2024. New accounts can get a $50 bonus when opened with $250 and recurring contributions of $50 or more per month are set up until June 30, 2024.1

Parents, grandparents, relatives or friends may open an Oklahoma 529 account on behalf of a beneficiary or contribute to an existing account using OK529

Ugift®. With the average American planning to spend $9232 on gifts this holiday season, it’s a good way to potentially give long-term benefits. “Aside from being a great way to save for higher education, account contributions also can provide tax benefits to Oklahoma families,” Russ said. “An Oklahoma 529 account can be a smart choice for Oklahomans that can help students and their families now and in the future.” Oklahoma taxpayers can reduce their state taxable income by up to $20,000 if married filing jointly ($10,000 filing single), from contributions made into Oklahoma 529. Plus, taxpayers can carry forward larger gifts into future years. Any earnings are tax-free if used for qualified higher education expenses such as tuition and living expenses.

Oklahoma 529 funds can also be used to help pay for CareerTech, professional and graduate school, K-12 tuition up to $10,000 annually per student and apprenticeship costs for programs registered and certified with the Secretary of Labor under the National Apprenticeship Act.

OUR VIEW

Roughers state title unites

Muskogee

What Muskogee High School accomplished Friday transcends the football field.

The euphoria of the Roughers’ Class 6A II state championship is something an entire city can share. And it has the ability to bring our city together in a way few events possibly can achieve.

Muskogee’s 28-26 victory over the Stillwater Pioneers makes the 2023 Roughers champions forever.

And Muskogee — as highway signs are soon to say — is the proud home of champions.

It’s human nature to want to belong to something or some group. We want to be linked by some common bond. We want to close the gaps between each other.

Sports — in magical moments like this — can do just that.

The Roughers victory achieved on the field will be a part of our hearts and lives forever.

We will remember the way our hearts jumped as Muskogee recovered an onside kick attempt to clinch the state championship.

We will remember what it felt like to cheer our Roughers as they arrived home.

We will smile for days at anyone who walks by, high-five strangers, cheer loudly at anyone wearing Roughers T-shirts or hoodies.

This victory makes us all one tribe today — truly Roughers Nation.

Sports makes you feel. Sports makes you realize you are alive.

It is the only thing not scripted in most of our daily lives. If you listened to the game or watched it at local watch parties, you did not know what was going to happen next. You lived with every exciting play and wilted a little at every penalty flag.

The Roughers are champions. And we got to experience it.

And we are forever grateful to our forever champions.

Publisher Ed Choate publisher@muskogeephoenix.com News news@muskogeephoenix.com

Editorials in “Our View” are the institutional opinions of the Muskogee Phoenix’s Editorial Board. Columns, commentaries, letters and cartoons on the Opinion Page are the views of their respective writers and artists and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editorial Board.

“We pledge to you,” Donald Trump told a New Hampshire rally, “that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

In a radio interview, he charged that terrorists and criminals are breaching our borders and “poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.”

Trump’s words echo the hate-filled language of history’s worst tyrants. “Calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian, told the Washington Post. John F. Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, said to CNN that his former boss “admires autocrats and murderous dictators.”

Anxiety, pessimism, meet vitality

Victory in World War II filled some economists with foreboding. Today, many people on the left, including some who insist that they are on the right, proclaim an urgent need for government to supplant markets in allocating capital to rescue the economy from doldrums. So, remember the postwar calamity that did not happen.

Anticipating the dismantling of the government’s encompassing direction of the wartime economy, and restoration of a market-driven economy, Cassandras thought that vast reductions of military spending, coinciding with millions of demobilized soldiers flooding the job market, might mean a 1940s depression worse than that of the 1930s.

MIT’s Paul Samuelson, who in 1970 would become the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics, and whose textbook educated several generations of college students, worried that there could be “the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced.” Instead, there was the postwar boom.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute relishes reminding us of this in his new book “The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised.” The year now ending is, he notes, the 50th anniversary of 1973,

is rooted in the fear of infection — both the infection of ideas and the infection of disease. The first virus, goes this deranged and dangerous argument, poisons the nation’s political bloodstream; the second corrupts the physical bloodstream. But both maladies have the same goal — to degrade our national character, to weaken our defenses against our enemies.

Trump fits this pattern perfectly. His rant against “radical left thugs” is classic political demagoguery. His alarm over germ-ridden immigrants plucks the second chord of conspiracy.

when slowing rates of growth of the population, the economy and labor productivity signaled the end of the boom, and the beginning of rational pessimism. The pessimists underestimated what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called (in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail”) Americans’ “bottomless vitality.”

King coined this phrase eight years after the Salk polio vaccine was announced on the 10th anniversary (April 12, 1955) of the death of the nation’s most famous polio patient, Franklin D. Roosevelt. King cited national vitality five years after Pan American World Airways (remember that casualty of others’ superior vitality?) began regular service to Europe. Until 1958, more people crossed the Atlantic by ships than by airplanes. (Interestingly, it is estimated that 80 percent of the world’s population today still has never taken a flight.) Also in 1958, the integrated circuit, a.k.a. the computer microchip, arrived.

Two years after King’s celebration of Americans’ national vitality, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, propounded Moore’s Law: The number of tran-

movements of suspicious discontent.”

In 1753, Benjamin Franklin denounced the German immigrants flocking to Pennsylvania as “generally the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation.” In the mid-19th century, virulent anti-Catholicism flourished; Hofstadter quotes an 1855 Texas newspaper: “It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions.” Even the president, the paper alleged, “is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.”

sistors on a microchip would double every year (later changed to every two years). Pethokoukis notes that by 2019 a typical Intel chip contained 5 billion transistors at a cost of a penny per 100,000. Moore once wrote that if cars improved at the pace of computers, “they would get 100,000 miles to the gallon and it would be cheaper to buy a Rolls-Royce than park it.”

A threat to national vitality is what Pethokoukis calls “the precautionary principle.” It holds that significant undertakings should not begin until threats of damage from them are fully understood. Due caution is, of course, wise, but much of the exhilaration of life comes from not knowing — not being able to know — what is over the horizon. Undue anxiety about possible consequences of innovations breeds what Brink Lindsey of the Niskanen Center calls “the anti-Promethean backlash.” Technology — e.g., the internet — can be injurious and abused, but it is, on balance, mightily beneficial, and not to be blamed for human abuses of it.

Many of today’s anticipatory anxieties about artificial intelligence might be well-founded, but not its threat to cause enormous joblessness. Until the middle of the last century, many women were telephone operators. Displaced by mechanical switching technology, they moved on

the civil rights bills of the mid-1960s to fully protect Black voting rights a century after the Civil War.

Trump launched his political career by appealing directly to this paranoid tradition, vowing to build a wall across the southern border and declaring, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

to other jobs. Pethokoukis says ATMs led to increased bank teller jobs as it became cheaper to open bank branches.

He imagines finding ways to employ the energy around and beneath us.

The Earth’s molten core is about as hot as the sun’s surface (11,000 degrees Fahrenheit), and will generate heat for billions of years as radioactive elements decay. “The continuous energy flow is roughly thirty terawatts” — trillions of watts — “almost double all current human energy consumption.” And: “There are no theoretical obstacles to placing tech in low-Earth orbit that would convert some of the 173,000 terawatts of solar energy continuously striking Earth, an amount ten thousand times annual global energy consumption.”

Vitality that translates into economic growth can be transformative. “The difference between an economy growing at 2 percent for the next fifty years and growing at 4 percent over that span is,” Pethokoukis notes, “massive — a $60 trillion economy in 2076 versus $160 trillion.” A prudent society does not assume that such things are achievable. However, a dynamic society does not allow anxieties about the future to constrict is horizons, or to seek security in the embrace of the state.

Reach George Will at georgewill@washpost.com.

com. Will

companies from owning vital U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and agriculture,” reports the Associated Press.

The final piece of the paranoid style, notes Hofstadter, is the leader who proclaims himself a savior, the only one who can redeem the country’s honor. And at a Texas rally, Trump did just that, declaring that the next election is “our final battle” and vowing, “I am your warrior. I am your justice.”

But Trump is also a very American figure who reflects and exploits nativist impulses that have always polluted American life. That xenophobia, or hatred of foreigners,

Sixty years ago, the great political historian Richard Hofstadter called this strain the “paranoid style” in American politics, and wrote in the November 1964 issue of Harper’s magazine, “The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with

In 1882, Congress banned new Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. and barred those already here from becoming citizens. During World War II, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly evacuated from their homes and businesses on the West Coast as “security risks.” After the war, survivors of Nazi persecution were prevented from entering the U.S. and denounced for harboring two pernicious “isms”: Judaism and communism. It took

As president, he kept returning to the same ugly themes: banning travelers from Muslim countries, denouncing immigrants from “s—-hole countries” like Haiti, praising white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville as “very fine people,” blaming China for the COVID-19 pandemic and using a racist slur to refer to the disease, etc.

In his campaign for a second term, he’s doubling down on his nativist appeals. He promised “the largest deportation operation in history” to loud applause in Waterloo, Iowa. More than 140 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act, he’s vowing to crack down on trade with Beijing and “ban Chinese

“The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms,” writes Hofstadter. “He traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point.”

This time, Trump is right. We are at a turning point. He fully represents the paranoid tradition, our worst impulses and deepest flaws. Will we embrace or reject them?

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at

December 5

Wilma Mankiller Barbie Celebration: Join the Wilma Mankiller Foundation, the Wilma Mankiller family and the Cherokee Nation as they celebrate the legacy of Wilma Mankiller and her presence in Barbie’s Inspiring Women Series. This event, which is open to the public, will take place from 10 a.m. to noon at the Chota Event Center, 3307 Seven Clans Ave., in Tahlequah. Because of a backlog and high demand for the dolls, there will not be Barbies available to purchase at the celebration — but there will be lots of celebration!

Looking for a job with the Cherokee Nation? Cherokee Nation Human Resources will be conducting open job interviews from 2 to 4 p.m. at 17723

S. Muskogee Ave. in Tahlequah.

Receive one-on-one assistance with your application and an interview with a Human Resources representative. While a résumé is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged to bring one along. For more information, please contact Human Resources by calling 918-772-4278 or by emailing hr-recruitment@ cherokee.org.

December 6

Looking for a job with the Cherokee Nation? Cherokee Nation Human Resources will be conducting open job interviews from 10 a.m. to noon at Will Rogers Health Center, 1020 Lenape Drive, in Nowata, Okla.

Receive one-on-one assistance with your application and an interview with a Human Resources representative. While a résumé is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged to bring one along. For more information, please contact Human Resources by calling 918-772-4278 or by emailing hr-recruitment@ cherokee.org.

December 7

Sequoyah Invitational Basketball Tournament: Come get rowdy and root on your favorite teams at this year’s tournament hosted by Sequoyah High School at the Place Where They Play gymnasium on Dec. 7, 8 and 9. Games will start each day at 10 a.m., and the last game each evening will be played at 8 p.m. For more information, please contact Justin Brown at 918-453-5179 or justin-brown@ cherokee.org. Children under 5 get in free; $5 for all other ages. Cherokee Nation Emergency Medical Services will hold a Stuff the Ambulance event Dec. 7, 8 and 9 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Walmart in Tahlequah.

The EMS crews will be collecting toys that Cherokee Nation’s Indian Child Welfare office will hand out to children. Bring a happy holiday to children by stopping by and donating any of the following items: blankets (small throw blankets), diapers and wipes (all sizes needed), shampoo and conditioner, toothbrushes and toothpaste, toys for all ages, puzzles, board games, clothing for all ages,

winter coats, shoes, gloves, hats, scarfs, sports equipment and balls. For questions, please contact Jodie Rainwater at 918207-3830 and jodie-rainwater@ cherokee.org.

December 11

Get into the holiday spirit by stopping by the W.W. Keeler Tribal Complex in Tahlequah from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for a Christmas Open House. Take photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus, learn about Cherokee Nation programs, enjoy refreshments and possibly win a door prize. For more information, please contact Channing Rogers at 918-500-2197.

December 12

The Council of the Cherokee Nation is holding their Christmas Social and Open House from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Tribal Council Committee Meeting Room at the W.W. Keeler Tribal Complex in Tahlequah. Christmas dinner will be served. For questions, please contact gayle-miller@cherokee.org.

The Cherokee National Youth Choir will perform a Christmas concert at Elm Tree Baptist in Tahlequah at 6:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Elm Tree Baptist is located at 1390 E. Crafton St. in Tahlequah.

Looking for a job with the Cherokee Nation? Cherokee Nation Human Resources will be conducting open job interviews from 2 to 4 p.m. at 17723 S. Muskogee Ave. in Tahlequah.

Receive one-on-one assistance with your application and an interview with a Human Resources representative. While a résumé is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged to bring one along. For more information, please contact Human Resources by calling 918-772-4278 or by emailing hr-recruitment@ cherokee.org.

December 14

All fluent Cherokee speakers are invited to this free monthly luncheon held from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. every second Thursday of the month and hosted by the Cherokee Nation Language Department at the Durbin Feeling Language Center in Tahlequah. For more information, please call 918207-4901 or email language@ cherokee.org.

Cherokee Nation and the Oklahoma Blood Institute will be holding a blood drive at the W.W. Keeler Tribal Complex in Tahlequah. This event is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Tsa-La-Gi Community Room. Donors will receive a long-sleeve holiday T-shirt and a copy of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” by Dr. Seuss. For more information, please contact OBI at 877-340-8777 Cherokee Nation Community Health Nursing at 539-234-1816.

December 15

Sean Stemaly is set to perform a free show at Track 5, located inside Hard Rock Tulsa, at 9 p.m. Stemaly has

rapidly become a prominent figure in the country music industry. His transition from a heavy equipment operator to a Nashville-based artist reflects a distinct blend of country and rock influences, drawing inspiration from industry legends like Brooks & Dunn, Waylon Jennings, Van Halen and more. Learn more at www.hardrockcasinotulsa.com or by calling 918-384-ROCK. The Hard Rock Live box office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

December 15 & 16

Deana Carter is putting on a show at SEVEN Bar located inside Cherokee Casino & Hotel West Siloam Springs on Friday, Dec. 15, at 9 p.m. and Lee Creek Tavern located in Cherokee Casino & Hotel Roland on Saturday, Dec. 16, at 9 p.m. The shows are free to the public ages 21 and up. Deana Carter is the renowned artist behind her debut album, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” and the mega hits “Strawberry Wine” and “How Do I Get There.” For more information on Cherokee Casino & Hotel West Siloam Springs, call 800-754-4111 or visit www. cherokeecasino.com/west-siloam-springs. For more information on Cherokee Casino & Hotel Roland, call 800-256-2338 or visit www.cherokeecasino. com/roland.

December 16

mothers. The Wilma P. Mankiller Health Center is located at 471688 Hwy. 51 in Stilwell, Okla. Snacks will be provided. For questions, please contact Bailey Waldrop at 918-696-8846.

Ongoing

Cherokee Nation citizen and acclaimed mezzo-soprano singer Barbara McAlister will highlight her latest set of youth vocal students at a recital beginning at 2 p.m. at Sequoyah Chapel in Tahlequah.

December 22 & 25

Cherokee Nation’s W.W. Keeler Tribal Complex, satellite offices and health centers will be closed to observe Christmas. Cherokee Nation W.W. Hastings Hospital urgent care and emergency department and other emergency services will remain open.

December 28

The Wilma P. Mankiller Health Center in Stilwell will be holding a breastfeeding class for pregnant and new mothers from 5:30 to 7 p.m. This class, which is free and open to the public, will review the benefits of breastfeeding and techniques for new

Explore the “Bill Rabbit: Variations on a Rainbow” exhibit at the Cherokee Nation Anna Mitchell Cultural & Welcome Center in Vinita, Okla. Named a Cherokee National Treasure for Painting in 2011, the late Bill Rabbit was renowned for his works depicting Cherokee history and culture. This exhibit looks at such works while exploring art from throughout his career, including Southwest-inspired jewelry, pottery, sculpture and stone carving. It also examines Rabbit’s experimentation with paint, technique and color throughout his life. The exhibit, which runs through May 12, 2024, includes some 40 works loaned by his daughter — artist and Cherokee National Treasure Traci Rabbit — from her personal collection. The Anna Mitchell Cultural & Welcome Center is located at 953 E. Illinois Ave. in Vinita. For more information, email info@visitcherokee.com, call 877-779-6977 or go to VisitCherokeeNation. com. The Cherokee National History Museum in Tahlequah presents “Cherokee Delegate: An Unalterable Promise.” Know the history behind Cherokee Nation’s pivotal call to Congress to seat its delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives. The exhibit, which runs through June 1, 2024, looks at a story hundreds of years in the making. Visitors will learn about the treaties between the Cherokee Nation and the United States

go to VisitCherokeeNation.com.

Muskogee Phoenix

Watch party goers cheer Roughers

By Cathy Spaulding cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com

As the Muskogee Roughers

clinched the Class 6A II state championship Friday, some of the loudest cheers came from 133 miles away.

“They’ve been saying they were going to win state before the season even started and they made it happen,” said Gabby Rosson, who joined a table of fans at Maxine’s Gastropub, which showed a live-streaming of the 28-26 Roughers’ victory.

Fans who filled the restaurant, and a live-streaming at the Roxy Theater, cheered nearly every Rougher play.

Earnie Asbill, who watched the game with his son at Maxine’s, called it a “well-played game.”

“We partially blocked that extra point attempt, and that was the margin of the game right there,” Asbill said. “They made it a two-pointer. Those can come back to haunt you. It was a well-played game on both sides.”

Asbill said he didn’t graduate from Muskogee, but lived here for 45 years.

“We’re doing good,” he said. “I’ve been a Rougher fan for a long time.”

Unity made this year’s Roughers a great team, he said.

“They’ve played together since they were freshmen,” he said. “A lot of them are seniors now. Plus, we’ve got a new stadium, new facility. That can’t do anything but help.” People at Rosson’s table also listened to the game on the radio, which was six minutes ahead of the live-streaming. They kept their cheering to a minimum so the other fans could watch the game on their own.

At the Roxy, long-time Tony Goetz kindergarten teacher Jennifer Hunter cheered nearly every positive play.

“I have many kids I taught out there on that field,” Hunter said.

Muskogee Public Schools was dismissed Friday, allowing Hunter, and other Muskogee Public Schools staff and students to watch the game.

Cherokee Elementary third-grader Xzavier Franklin joined his grandmother, Dee Vann to watch the game at the Roxy.

“I’m here to watch the Roughers win,” the boy said.

Early Friday morning, dozens of fans and family members gathered in front of Rougher Village to send the team off.

Several fans carried signs supporting individual players. A sign cheered the “Dynamic Duo 1 and 8,” quarterback Jamarian “Bird” Ficklin and wide receiver Kayden McGee. Kim Jones, whose daughter is on the MHS dance team, joined in the cheering. She said she planned to attend the game.

“We’ve been watching them play since they were in the second grade,” Jones said.

“Watching their confidence grow each year, being humble. It makes a mama’s heart proud.”

FRIDAY’S PREP ROUNDUP, SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE

Phoenix staff reports

FORT GIBSON 54, HILLDALE 49

(B) — In a back and forth game Fort Gibson was able to hold on for the win. Cooper Wicks paced the Tigers (1-1) with 16 points while Ky Murrell and Blane Scott both finished with 10. Hilldale (0-2) was led by Ty Wilson, Cole Leach and Mason Forhan all with 14 points.

OKTAHA 75, CANADIAN 43 (B) — Tyler Roby had 32 points to power Oktaha (4-0) while Alfred Taylor added 18. BRAGGS 61, WEBBERS FALLS 23

(B) — Braggs (5-1) had a dominate showing as it led 35-10 at halftime and was powered by Sam Hensley who finished with 16 points. Stryker Chappell had 11 points for Webbers

Falls (1-1).

EUFAULA 62, MORRIS 34 (B) — Maddox Bridges scored 14 of his 23 points in the second half as the Ironheads earned the win. Eufaula (1-1) led 31-15 at the break.

PORUM 46, ARKOMA 37 (B) Michael Wright scored 23 points to help Porum (1-3) to the win. MOUNDS 66, HASKELL 60 OT (B) — After trailing the entire game and down 50-30 after three quarters, Haskell mounted a monumental comeback outscoring the Eagles 288 in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime. The Haymakers (0-2) were led by Dylan Ozinga and Brady Neal with 25 and 20 points, respectively. SUMMIT CHRISTIAN 50, PORTER

24 (G) — Lauren Lindell and Kassidy Pickard both had seven points in leading Porter. The Lady Pirates (0-1) trailed 41-17 after three periods.

FORT GIBSON 48, HILLDALE 20 (G) — Fort Gibson had little trouble in defeating its rival Hilldale as it turned a 21-11 halftime lead into a 37-15 advantage after three periods. Addy Whiteley led the Lady Tigers (20) with 17 points while Darian Diles had seven for the Lady Hornets (1-1).

MCCURTAIN 67, GORE 41 (G) The Lady Pirates found themselves down early 17-4 in the first period and saw the deficit grow to 30-19 after the second. Natalie Casteel finished with 18 points for Gore (0-2). OKTAHA 65, CANADIAN 37 (G) — Ava Scott was on fire for Oktaha

as she had 24 points followed by Mileigh Needham with 12. The Lady Tigers (5-0) were tied at the end of the first period, 15-15 but then went on a 23-5 run in the second quarter to go into the break with the 38-20 advantage.

WEBBERS FALLS 53, BRAGGS 29 (G) — Braggs dug itself into a deep hole in the first period as it fell behind 26-3 and could not recover as the deficit widened to 38-8 at intermission. Bridgette Baer led Webbers Falls (2-0) with 16 points and Teralynn Colston added 11. For the Lady Wildcats (0-6) Kaylee Ashley registered 15 points and Katelyn Chandler had 10. EUFAULA 51, MORRIS 28 (G) Eufaula led 20-18 at halftime, but a 22-3 run in the third quarter was the

difference stretching the Lady Ironheads’ lead to 42-21. Maddie Ballard finished with 13 points for Eufaula (1-1).

PORUM 61, ARKOMA 20 (G) — Courtney Pease had 19 points, Mesa Coulston added 12 and Adisen Dishman finished with 11 to lead Porum (4-0).

HASKELL 46, MOUNDS 35 (G) — Riley Westmoreland had a triple-double in the Lady Haymakers’ win as she had 12 points, 10 rebounds and 13 steals. Hayden Ward led all scorers with 13 points. Haskell improved to 1-1.

Saturday schedule

BASKETBALL Porter at Gore, 3/4:30 p.m.

FISHING REPORT

Fort Gibson: November 25. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 58°F and clear. (USACE Lake Level) Crappie fair on hair jigs, minnows, and tube jigs around brush structure, docks, and main lake. Blue catfish good on shad around channels, main lake, and points. Paddlefish fair snagging around channels and main lake. Report submitted by Cody Morris, game warden stationed in Wagoner County.

Grand : November 26. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 55°F and stained. (USACE Lake Level) Largemouth bass fair on Alabama rigs and crankbaits around brush structure, coves, and shorelines. Blue catfish fair on chicken liver, cut bait, and hot dogs below the dam, docks, and main lake. Crappie fair on hair jigs and jigs around brush structure and docks. Report submitted by Riley Willman, game warden stationed in Delaware County.

Greenleaf: November 26. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 58°F and stained. Largemouth bass good on Alabama rigs, crankbaits, plastic baits, and spinnerbaits around brush structure, docks, main lake, and points. Crappie fair on minnows, slabs, and small lures around brush structure and docks. Channel catfish slow on chicken liver, cut bait, and worms around channels, main lake, and points. Report submitted by Dylan Langford, game warden stationed in Muskogee County.

Keystone: November 28. Elevation is 3 ft. below normal and stable, water temperature 62°F and stained. (USACE Lake Level) Largemouth bass slow on hair jigs, jigs, and plastic baits around brush structure, coves, and rocks. Crappie fair on jigs, minnows, and plastic baits around brush structure, docks, and standing timber. Blue and channel catfish slow on chicken liver and cut bait. Report submitted by Bradley Magby, game warden stationed in Creek County.

Lower Illinois : November 25. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 58°F and stained. Rainbow trout fair on caddis flies, in-line spinnerbaits, midges, and PowerBait below the dam. Comments: Best times are early morning and late evening, and best areas are below the dam and at the Watts area. Report submitted by Brek Henry, game warden stationed in Sequoyah County.

Tenkiller: November 26. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 60°F and clear. (USACE Lake Level) Crappie good on minnows, tube jigs, and worms around brush structure, docks, and main lake. Largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass fair on crankbaits, jigs, and plastic baits around brush structure, channels, and docks. Report submitted by Cody Youngblood, game warden stationed in Cherokee County.

Webbers Falls : November 26. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 58°F and stained. (USACE Lake Level) Largemouth and spotted bass fair on Alabama rigs, crankbaits, jigs, and plastic baits around brush structure, coves, main lake, and shorelines. Crappie fair on jigs and minnows around brush structure and main lake. Blue catfish fair on chicken liver and cut bait below the dam, river channel, and river mouth. Report submitted by Dylan Langford, game warden stationed in Muskogee County.

Eufaula: November 24. Elevation is 1.5 ft. below normal and stable, water temperature 55°F and stained. (USACE Lake Level) Largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass fair on crankbaits, jigs, lipless baits, and plastic baits around main lake, points, riprap, and rocks. Blue, channel, and flathead catfish fair on chicken liver, cut bait, dough bait, live bait, live shad, and shad around channels, river channel, and river mouth. Crappie good on crankbaits, hair jigs, spoons, and worms around channels, docks, riprap, and rocks. Report submitted by Jake Rowland, game warden stationed in McIntosh County.

Robert S. Kerr: November 24. Elevation is normal and stable, water temperature 50°F and murky. (USACE Lake Level) White bass good on hair jigs, jigs, and minnows below the dam. Blue, channel, and flathead catfish good on chicken liver, minnows, shad, and worms below the dam, river channel, river mouth, and tailwater. Crappie good on hair jigs, jigs, and minnows below the dam, creek channels, river channel, and tailwater. Report submitted by Logan Shimp, game warden stationed in Haskell County.

Tips for quail hunters

If quail hunting is your bag of oats, there’s no better time than the present to pick up your shotgun, grab a box or two of shells and, by all means, if you have a good bird dog, bring it along as well.

While I no longer pursue this delectable tasting upland game bird as often as I’d like, it does bring me back to a time in my early teenage years and my first honest to goodness “organized” quail hunt which turned out to be a humbling experience to say the least.

Two gentlemen from our neighborhood in Bixby were excellent bird hunters and they both had bird dogs.

I had a spot to hunt over in the steep hollers of Westville and they took me, as I couldn’t drive just yet.

Their dogs pointed, and we located a lot of quail. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a good wing shot. For the novice quail hunter, be

QUAIL

JOHN

Kilgore’s Corner

prepared to burn up the calories and wear tread off the sole of your boots.

While hunting, I was struck with a bad case of cramps in my legs like I’d never experienced at any time.

I was in great shape since I was playing football and wrestling for Bixby.

However, these two older gentlemen had to almost carry me out of a holler or two that day.

In retrospect, I appreciate them taking the time to take me afield.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conser-

HUNTING RULES AND REGULATIONS

Season Nov 11, 2023 - Feb 15, 2024 Statewide.

Daily Limit 10 daily, 20 in possession after the first day.

Legal Means of Taking Shotgun (conventional or muzzleloading), longbow, legal raptors and as otherwise provided under General Hunting Regulations.

vation, there are two species of quail found in Oklahoma.

The northern bobwhite’s range is nearly statewide, while the scaled quail is restricted to the western edge, including the Panhandle.

Both species are ground-dwellers, primarily foraging on seeds and insects. Areas with high amounts of forbs can act as a food source in two ways – providing nutritious seeds, and attracting protein-rich insects.

Though insects are seasonal in nature, forb seeds are long-lasting and can be utilized into fall and winter.

Prime foraging or “bugging” areas have a wide diversity of forbs, including ragweed, crotons, sunflowers and legumes.

In addition to a reliable food source, quail require adequate nesting, protective and loafing cover.

Though able to nest in a variety of places, quail prefer building nests in mature, native

bunchgrasses 12 inches in diameter and eight inches in height.

Once chicks hatch, they are immediately moved to “weedy” areas with high insect activity.

Morning and afternoon feeding sessions are separated by time spent resting and digesting while in loafing cover.

The ideal cover is at least three feet tall with a closed canopy and relatively open ground conditions.

You can chase quail from Nov. 11 through Feb. 15 statewide.

Daily limit is 10, with 20 in possession after the first day. One regulation is that no covey of quail can be shot while resting on the ground which is commonly called “pot shooting.”

Please consult the full ODWC hunting regulations.

Be sure of your target.

Gun safety is top priority.

Contact Kilgore at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com.

Pot Shooting At no time may any quail or covey be shot while resting on the ground, commonly called “pot shooting.”

Public Lands Seasons on public lands may vary from statewide seasons. Consult public hunting lands special regulations.

Shooting Hours Official sunrise to official sunset.

Former Colorado players were told they weren’t ready for Prime Time

Associated Press

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Luke Eckardt recalled the excitement of finding out that Deion Sanders would be his new head coach at Colorado. After all, who wouldn’t want to play for the charismatic Pro Football Hall of Fame member and ex-major leaguer known as “Prime Time” during his playing days and now just “Coach Prime?”

“It was a feeling of awe because it’s Deion Sanders, and you play video games like ‘Madden’ and he’s on there,” Eckardt said in an interview with The Associated Press. “You’re playing with a

controller. Now it’s different. It’s a real dude. That’s what I thought at first. But then it was like a seeping feeling of fear.”

At his first meeting with his new charges, Sanders told them no job was safe and there were transfers on the way. Video of his talk went viral. Eckardt chose to take it as a challenge and work even harder during winter conditioning and spring practice. Eckardt practiced with the Nos. 2 and 3 offensive lines, got positive feedback from his position coach and thought he performed well at right tackle in the spring game. In his mind, he had done enough to stick around.

He was cut the next day after a meeting that lasted less than five minutes. By the end of the spring, Sanders had cut more than 50 players and another 20 left on their own in what is believed to be the biggest roster overhaul ever seen in college football. Sanders ended up with 86 newcomers on the 114-player roster, kicking off a season where the Buffaloes started 3-0 and were the talk of the nation for weeks before fading to a 4-8 finish, three wins better than last year but without a bowl trip. Most of the displaced players entered the transfer portal.

Some walked away from football. And some more will leave the Buffaloes soon enough because Sanders has been adamant that there are more holes to fill. He promised to bring in more talented players after watching his quarterbacks, including son Shedeur, get sacked 56 times; only Old Dominion was worse across the 133 teams in the Bowl Subdivision.

Some coaches criticized Sanders for leaning so hard on the transfer portal to revamp his roster. Coach Prime offers no apologies, though he indicated he and his staff will be more targeted in filling needs this time around.

If you want to save money the next time you shop for organic, all-natural, gluten-free or just healthier products at the store, one way to save is with coupons. But searching through circulars and websites can be a huge waste of time. The website mambosprouts. com makes it easy. They curate coupons targeted for health-conscious consumers, with items sold at stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts. It’s free to use, and you can download lots of free printable coupons.

— Danny Seo

Student daydreams about ex

Dear Harriette: I have not dated in a year, and due to lack of closure, I cannot stop thinking about my ex. I have not thought about him as frequently as I did when we first ended things, but now that I have become sort of a recluse and do not go out very much, I have been daydreaming about it more. I know I need to get out of the house. Last year, I would go out every weekend and meet new people, which may be because I was a college freshman in a new city, but it was also nice to meet people from different backgrounds and have a lot of options of people to start talking to. However, this year, I barely go out, and if I do, it is to see my friends. I want to get back on the horse, so to speak. I am past what happened last year, but I am not sure

Sense and Sensitivity

Harriette Cole

that I am ready for a relationship again. Do you think that I should start talking to people again? How do I do that? — Turning the Page Dear Turning The Page: It is time to change your patterns. Being a recluse and spending time with only a small group of friends will not help you shake this melancholy. It is time for a radical change. While you may not need to go out every weekend like you did last year, it could be wise to make a strategy for going out much more frequently. Look around to learn what’s going on in your town that inter-

ests you. Plan to go to openings of art events, films, holiday bazaars — whatever you can do out and about. Join a club that does something you find interesting. It could be skating, drawing, coding. Who knows? Whatever looks interesting when you research activities in your area. Push yourself to get out of your house and open your eyes to new friends. It will be hard at first, but you are worth it. Dear Harriette: I’m fervently dedicated to a cause and am currently spearheading a donation drive for the holiday season. The charity I support aids a population in dire need, yet I lack experience in donor relations. How can I effectively approach potential donors or secure resources for this cause during the holidays?

— Supporting a Great

One loser fine; two losers fatal

Our friend A.N. Other said, “An anonymous person once said, ‘What he doesn’t know would make a library anybody would be proud of.’”

Well, anyone who knows everything in my bridge library would make a partner everybody would be proud of. For sure he would know the correct way to play today’s four-spade contract.

West guesses well, leading a club. After East has played three rounds of the suit, how should South continue?

East opened with a weak notrump (12-14 points), which is popular in those parts of the world that used to be known as the British Commonwealth. When South overcalled in his major, North had an automatic raise to game.

South must assume the trumps are breaking 3-2, but he must avoid walking into a trump promotion.

The wrong play is a spade to dummy’s king. If East can win that and lead the 13th club, the defenders must get a trump

Bridge

Phil Alder

promotion. If East has only two spades, declarer can succeed by leading a spade honor from his hand at trick four, but with the given distribution, East wins with the ace and leads the last club. West’s ruff effects a trump promotion. The correct play is to cross to dummy with a diamond before leading a low trump to the queen. (The diamonds must be 3-2. If West had a singleton, surely he would have led it at trick one.) Finally, play the spade jack from hand. Now the contract is assured. You can ruff the 13th club low in hand, overruffing in the dummy if necessary.

Cause Dear Supporting A Great Cause: What will help you the most now is your dedication to your charity of choice. Learn as much as you can about it and the people it serves. Make a list of people you know and businesses in your community that might care about the work the charity does. Then visit the businesses and speak from the heart about the need that they can help fill. Call or visit with your friends and tell them what you know about this great cause. Remind everyone that they can potentially get a tax write-off by being generous, so now is a perfect moment to give. If you have data on how the money gets spent, be prepared to share that as well. People want to know that their money will be used responsibly.

Look for a line of play that will work whatever the lie of the cards.

HOROSCOPE — D ECEMBER 2 CROSSWORD DO JUST ONE THING

Take a leap forward and follow your dreams. Use your imagination and drive to get where you want to go. Refuse to let others interfere with your plans. Be true to yourself and make this a year to remember. Altering your lifestyle or living arrangements will allow you to focus on what’s important. Don’t stand still when movement is necessary.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) — Speed up the process, do your research and make things happen. Focus on saving, security and stabilizing your situation. Know what you want and leave nothing to chance.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — Share your feelings and desires. Do whatever it takes to bring about change if you aren’t happy. Formulate a plan, share your intentions and finish what you start. Take a concise approach.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb.

19) — Observation is your best bet. Size up what’s happening and figure out how you fit into the mix. You can stabilize your life and current situation if you are firm about your plans.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) — Discipline and patience will help you advance. Trust your instincts and follow your heart.

Astrograph

Eugenia Last

Kindness and understanding will help you avoid getting into an argument or no-win situation.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

— Put more time and effort into money management. Look for a learning opportunity that will increase your awareness about something that concerns you. Participation will give you an inside view.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

— Stick to the basics and don’t let emotional matters spin out of control. Consider what you want and how you can make your dreams come true. Take an energetic approach and have some fun.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — Put more thought and interest into your relationships with others. A trendy new look will boost your confidence and encourage you to take a leadership role.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — Trust your instincts; you

DATEBOOK — D ECEMBER 2

Today is the 336th day of 2023 and the 71st day of autumn.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1823, President James Monroe announced a policy aimed at preventing further European colonization of the Americas, later known as the Monroe Doctrine.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader of an Islamic nation.

In 2001, the energy trading company Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In 2015, terrorists shot and killed 14 people and wounded 22 in San Bernardino, California.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Georges Seurat (1859-1891), painter; Maria Callas (19231977), opera singer; Gianni Versace (1946-1997), fashion designer; Stone Phillips (1954), journalist; Ann Patchett (1963- ), author; Lucy Liu (1968- ), actress; Britney Spears (1981- ), singer; Aaron Rodgers (1983- ), football player; Charlie Puth (1991- ), singer-songwriter.

TODAY’S FACT: In 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi engineered the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction under the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1967, Hall of Fame center Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia

won’t be disappointed. Keep an eye on what others do, but don’t let anyone convince you to do something that benefits them more than you. Protect your well-being.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Follow through with your plans. Don’t dismiss something you want to do because someone is interfering or coaxing you to take a different path. Do what suits you and let others do as they please.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — If you get upset, implement the changes necessary to flip your mood around. It’s up to you to follow the path that makes you happy. Change begins with you. Trust and believe in yourself.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) — Don’t get discouraged; take charge and turn your dream into a reality. Trust and believe in who you are and what you have to offer. Personal gain is apparent, and travel and learning are favored.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) — Keep an open mind, but question whatever sounds farfetched. A change will lead to a unique opportunity. Put your energy where it counts and refuse to let outside influences stifle your achievements.

76ers missed 22 free throws in a single game, setting an NBA record that stood until Jan. 20, 2016, when the Detroit Pistons’ Andre Drummond missed 23. TODAY’S QUOTE: “We look back through the lens of what we

Asking for help sign of weakness

Dear Annie: My brother has a chronic mental illness. For all his life up until two years ago, he lived in the same city as my long-divorced parents, and there he received support from them as well as from community mental health services. Two years ago, he moved to another city, one he has long felt strongly drawn to and that is far from our parents, me and any other family members.

My parents have continued to provide him with financial support, but neither of them can continue doing this, at the rate they have been, for much longer. My father told my brother that he needs to get connected to mental health/ life skills services in the new city or my father will gradually decrease the monthly amounts he sends. The main goal is to find a professional who will help my brother manage the money he receives from my parents.

My brother does not seem to remember the mental health and life skills services he’s had in the past. He says that he doesn’t need them now. He is incredibly resistant to any discussion about this.

My father has indeed started decreasing my brother’s monthly stipend. My brother already

Dear Annie

Annie Lane

lives below the poverty level and, if he doesn’t comply with my father’s contingencies, it’s likely that he’ll soon be homeless. My brother has social security benefits and housing assistance, but that alone is not enough to live on. He believes he can’t work. He needs my parents’ stipends for basic necessities. He is scornful of suggestions we offer regarding budgeting, using local food banks, washing his clothes by hand (his laundry expenses are unusually high) and the like. He does not spend the money my parents send him wisely, and he continually asks for more. We are just hoping that there are services that will help him budget and conserve his money, and that he will use them. We have provided him with all the information we have found about services local to him and have offered to call them with him. He responds with belligerence. Annie, my questions are: One, do you think my dad is doing the right thing by making his financial support to my

brother contingent on him seeking services? And two, can you think of anything we haven’t yet tried to support him in gaining those services?

— Worried Sister

Dear Worried Sister: It’s difficult to watch someone you love struggle in the way your brother has, but your father’s approach has purpose. There’s a difference between supporting your brother in a way that’s beneficial and enabling his dependence. Your brother needs people in his corner, and he has that. He must also be willing to help himself, especially if he’s set on living alone. The suggestions you’ve all made to him are good ones. I also wonder if seeing a doctor wouldn’t be the best next step. He feels he cannot work — is that purely due to his mental health, or is there a physical issue that needs to be addressed, too? Continue to be a shoulder he can lean on while vehemently insisting that he utilize local resources and take steps to better his situation — before homelessness becomes not a possibility, but a reality. Ultimately, asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness: It’s the greatest sign of strength. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.

Employee nervous about work speech

Dear Harriette: I have a big work conference coming up, and I am worried about my public speaking skills. Normally, I am pretty calm in social situations and I get along with everybody well, but whenever it comes to presentations or big meetings, I get really anxious. I just got promoted, so I had to prepare a speech at the last minute, and I do not want to mess up in front of my peers and higher-ups. The conference is in a few days, and I am struggling to keep my cool. I am distracting myself so I do not panic, but I also want to go over the speech as much as possible so that I am prepared. Do you have any advice for how I should prepare to go into this conference or how to keep my composure when I deliver the speech in front of hundreds of people from my company? — Speech

Stress

Dear Speech Stress: You are doing the right thing by practicing your speech and becoming familiar with what you have written. On the

Sense and Sensitivity

Harriette Cole

day of the speech, you should be able to “own” it — meaning you should know what you are saying and merely refer to text infrequently rather than needing to read from the page. To get your nerves together, take three cleansing breaths before you go into the room. Consciously tell yourself that you are in control and that you are ready. Think about who will be in the room; your colleagues will want you to do a good job. Remember that you are presenting to a supportive audience. Look out at your peers and make eye contact with one of your personal confidants. That will give you positive energy as you begin. Then go for it! Send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

HOROSCOPE — D ECEM b ER 3

Don’t stop focusing until you are satisfied with the results.

Don’t trust anyone to take care of your responsibilities for you. Avoid those who have inconsistent and unsupportive opinions of your plans. Put your energy where it counts, and let your intelligence help you maintain balance and integrity. Everything will fall into place.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec.

21) — Don’t let an emotional situation push you in the wrong direction. be honest about how you feel and what you want. Don’t let anyone exploit or mislead you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan.

19) — Set your sights on what you want and make personal adjustments that protect you from anyone who doesn’t respect or share your values. Look at the big picture for the best perspective.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb.

19) — Get the lowdown before you decide to part with your money or possessions. Evaluate what’s worthwhile and decide how to invest in your future. Look for a simple solution that eliminates drama.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20)

— Engage in what’s new and exciting, be helpful and let go of what’s no longer valid. A practical plan and a desire for positive change will lead to more opportunities. bide your time.

ARIES (March 21-April

19) — Consider making yourself more marketable. An open-minded approach to technology and what’s trending will help you decide what direction is best for you. Discuss your intentions with a loved one.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

— Look at your life and decide what you want to keep and what you can do without. Distance yourself from situations that bring you down or cost

DO JUST ONE THING

It’s important to take efforts to make sure our feathered friends avoid colliding with windows at our home. There are many things you can do, but one key thing when placing a birdbath or a bird feeder outside is to keep it at least 30 feet away from windows. This

Astrograph

Eugenia Last

you. be wise regarding money matters.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

— Pay attention to your surroundings. Fix what is not working for you and make personal improvements that lift your spirits. Do the work yourself, and you’ll feel pride in what you accomplish.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

— An unexpected emotional response will prompt you to rethink your next move. Protect yourself from gossip and those trying to use you to their advantage. Rely on your intelligence.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — You’ll find pleasure in playtime or being with a loved one. brighten up your surroundings or host an event that gives you a chance to share what you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — Confusion will occur if you let others interfere. Make decisions that promote peace of mind and a friendly atmosphere. Don’t feel like you must participate in something dreary.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) — Refuse to let someone dictate what you can do or say. Go the distance, get the truth and press forward in a direction that leads you to like-minded people and projects you care about.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) — Live, learn and experience life. Study your options, form your opinions and do what’s best for you. When opportunity knocks, open the door and take advantage of whatever comes your way.

is the minimum distance to prevent confusing reflections in the window. You can also cover the outside of the window with one-way transparent film; it lets you see outside, but it creates an opaque finish on the outside.

— Danny Seo

Mother, 54, wants a third child

Dear Annie: At 54, my mother, already blessed with two academically accomplished children in the 8th and 12th grades, yearns for a third child. I am nearly 18 years old and will soon leave for college. My father, 57, is adamant that he doesn’t want another baby. With retirement as a middle-school teacher within a decade’s grasp, the idea of raising another child weighs heavily on him, having managed students his whole life.

Nobody except my mother wants another child. To facilitate this wish without enduring another pregnancy, she’s exploring surrogacy, encouraged by medical professionals who believe her fertility levels can produce a new life.

I’m concerned about my mother’s demanding work schedule, as she works from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., yet she still strongly desires to add another child to our family. Would a 12-year-old want a father in his 70s? Am I selfish in ques-

CROSSWORD

Dear Annie Annie Lane

tioning the allocation of resources, as my mother contemplates funding a new lifetime while lamenting her inability to pay full tuition for a private college? Is it OK for my mother to divide our family, countering everyone’s wishes but her own? — Parenting at 70

Dear Parenting at 70: Your mom would be parenting at 54 at first. A 12-year-old wants a loving father, and it doesn’t matter what age he is. If your mom really wants a child, that is up to her and your father. Try not to place your own judgement on her and focus instead on how exciting college will be for you.

Dear Annie: I’m a newly married 32-yearold woman, and my husband is 31. We’ve been married for three months, and we’re both

really excited to share the holiday season together for the first time as husband and wife. My childhood family is very small. I only have my mom and sister nearby and a brother who lives 2,000 miles away. My sister has been married to her husband for three years, and every year we have been celebrating holidays with my sister, her husband, his parents and my mom. Things have been fine up until last year. My brother, who lives across the country, came out here for a month during the holidays. My brother is the different one in a family of conservative Christians. He is a homosexual liberal; he is still very loved nonetheless. My brother-in-law’s parents have never met him before. Knowing how they feel about gay people, he has never come out and told them that he’s gay. But they must have discussed him and figured it out on their own, because two days before Christmas last year, they told us

they were not coming because they couldn’t be around someone with “his views and lifestyle.” Of course, we were hurt and very offended because he is a member of our family. Anyway, my husband is not religious, but he is a wonderful, sweet man and the most incredible husband. He and I have decided to host Christmas this year at our new house, and my brotherin-law’s parents will be there. I’m worried they will be rude to my husband once they discover his lack of religion.

I’m truly expecting the worst. Any advice on how to handle the situation if that does in fact happen? — Worried Wife in Mississippi Dear Worried Wife: Try not to anticipate a fight before it even happens. Everyone might love that you are hosting and all get along. It is Christmas, for goodness’ sake. One rule of thumb to avoid arguments during the holidays is to agree not to discuss religion or politics.

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Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26 & December 3, 2023 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA

IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF PATSYVERLAINE BURWELL, Deceased.

Case No.

PB-2023-142

COMBINED NOTICE: NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE OF HEARING UPON PETITION FOR SUMMARY ADMINISTRATION, AND FOR FINAL ACCOUNTING, DETERMINATION OF HEIRSHIP, AND DISTRIBUTION AND DISCHARGE

Notice is hereby given to all persons interested in the Estate of Patsy Verlaine Burwell, also known as Patsy Verlaine Whiteside, 3800 Eufaula Avenue, Muskogee, OK 74403, Deceased, on the 17th day of November, 2023, that the purported Last Will and Testament of Patsy Verlaine Burwell, dated February 2, 2016, has been produced and filed in the District Court of Muskogee County, Oklahoma.

Petitioner is Margaret E. Bates, 3800 Eufaula Avenue, Muskogee, OK 74403. The names and addresses of the heirs, legatees, and devisees of the deceased are: Kelleye D. Pfeiffer, formerly Kelleye D. Hutchinson, 19008 Windy Pine Cove, Jonestown, TX 78645, and Margaret E. Bates, 3800 Eufaula Avenue, Muskogee, OK 74403. The probable value of Decedent’s Oklahoma probate estate is believed to be less than $200,000.00.

All persons receiving notice or any interested party may file objections to the Petition at any time before the final hearing and send a copy to the Petitioner, Margaret E. Bates, c/o Wallis Law Group, 1019F Waterwood Parkway, Edmond, OK 73034 or that person will be deemed to have waived any objections to the Petition.

If an objection is filed before the hearing, the court will determine at the hearing whether the Will filed with the Court shall be admitted to probate, whether summary proceedings are appropriate and, if so, whether the estate will be distributed and to whom the estate will be distributed.

The claim of any creditor, not shown in the Petition, will be barred, unless the claim is presented to the Special Administrator, through her attorney, no more than thirty (30) days following the granting of the Order admitting the Petition and Combined Notice.

The hearing on the Petition is set in the courtroom of Judge Orvil Loge on the 4th day of January, 2024, at 9:00 a. m. in the County Courthouse, Muskogee County, State of Oklahoma, when Summary Administration and the final accounting may be approved, final orders made determining heirship,

distribution, discharge of the Special Administrator, and closing said Estate. Witness, the undersigned, Judge of the District Court of Muskogee County, State of Oklahoma, this 17th day of November, 2023.

s/s Orvil Loge JUDGE OF THE DISTRICTCOURT

KATHYE. WALLIS, OBA#18485 ADRIENNE M. MARTINEZ, OBA#33961 WALLIS LAW GROUP 1019F Waterwood Parkway Edmond, OK 73034 405-726-9888; fax 405-437-1321 kwallis@wallislawgroup.com Attorneys for Petitioner

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix December 3, 2023

NOTICE

Muskogee County Commissioners are now accepting 6month bids until 9:30am 12/18/2023. For full bid sheets contact Muskogee County Clerk’s office @ 918-682-2169 or visit website https://muskogee.okc ounties.org/offices/co unty-clerk

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26, December 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31, 2023, January 7 & 14, 2024

LEGALNOTICE

The Town of Webbers Falls is accepting bids for the demolition and clean up of Garden Walk apartments located at 100 W. Oak Street. Bids will be accepted till 4pm on January 15, 2024. Please mail all bids to PO Box 179 Webbers Falls, Oklahoma 74470. For more information please call City Hall at 918464-2920.

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26, December 3, 10 & 17, 2023

LEGALNOTICE

The Town of Webbers Falls is accepting bids for the repair of a roof located at 105 E. Commercial Street. Bids will be accepted till 4pm on December 18, 2023. Please mail all bids to PO Box 179 Webbers Falls, Ok 74470.

For more information please call City Hall at 918-464-2920.

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix December 3 & 10, 2023

IN THE DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA

In the Matter of the Estate of WILLIAM L. DESILVEY, JR., Deceased and BARBARAJOANN DESILVEY, Deceased.

Case No. PB-2023-131

ALIAS NOTICE TO CREDITORS

All creditors having claims against William L. DeSilvey, Jr., and Barbara Joann DeSilvey, deceased, are required to present the same, with a description of all security interests and other collateral (if

any) held by each creditor with respect to such claim, to Erin Blythe Watson and Jared DeSilvey, Co-

Personal Representatives, at 321 Court Street, Muskogee, OK 74401, on or before the following presentment date: February 8, 2024, or the same will be forever barred.

DATED this 20 day of November, 2023.

Erin Blythe Watson

Co-Personal Representative for the Estates of William L. DeSilvey, Jr., and Barbara Joann DeSilvey, deceased

Jared DeSilvey Co-Personal Representative for the Estates of William L. DeSilvey, Jr., and Barbara Joann DeSilvey, deceased

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix December 3, 10 & 17, 2023

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA

In the Matter of the State of Oklahoma in the Interest of A.L., DOB: 03/05/2021

Alleged DEPRIVED Juvenile(s) as defined by the Laws of the State of Oklahoma.

Case No. JD-2023-30 NOTICE BY PUBLICATION THE STATE OF OKLAHOMATO:

FATHER, UNKNOWN FATHER, of the above child(ren)

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED pursuant to Okla. Stat. tit. 10, §7006-1.2 that the State of Oklahoma, by and through the District Attorney in and for the 15th Judicial District for the State of Oklahoma, has filed a petition, stating with particularity the facts which bring the children under and within the purview of the Statutes of the State of Oklahoma, specifically, Okla. Stat. tit. 10, §7001-1.1 et seq. together with the relief requested, specifically praying for termination of the parental rights and that control and custody of said juvenile(s) be vested in such person, state agency, or institution as the Court may seem to be in the best interest of said juvenile(s), for the reason that: the parent(s) have failed to correct the condition in which the child(ren) were found to be deprived, the parent(s) have failed to support the child(ren) and the parent(s) have failed to exercise parental duties and responsibilities and therefore adjudicated such and that at least three months has passed since given the opportunity to correct the condition.

FURTHER, that the above named parent(s), guardian(s), and interested persons must appear before the District Court in and for Muskogee County, in the District Courtroom at Muskogee, Oklahoma, at the hour of 9:00 a.m., on the 9TH day of JANUARY, 2024, when and where the Court will proceed to hear the merits of said Petition or grant such relief or make such

orders that the Court deem necessary and proper in these premises.

You are advised that the respondents, parents, guardians, custodians or other interested parties, and each respondent juvenile is/are entitled to be represented by an attorney at each and every stage of these proceedings and if a state of indigence exists, such parties are entitled to a Court appointed attorney, all of which at public expense.

FURTHER THATIN THE EVENT(other than the person(s) of the child(ren) concerned) the parents, guardians, or interested persons fail to appear as summoned herein, the Court will receive the testimony and evidence produced by the State on the date and at the time so indicated and will proceed to grant such relief and make such orders as the Court deem to be necessary and proper in said cause as may be supported by the findings on the merits of said cause of action.

FAILURE TO APPEAR AT THIS HEARING SHALL CONSTITUTE A DENIALOF INTEREST IN THE CHILD(REN), WHICH DENIALMAY RESULT, WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE OF THIS PROCEEDING OR ANYSUBSEQUENT PROCEEDING, IN THE GRANTING OF THE PETITION FOR THE TERMINATION OF PARENTALRIGHTS FOR ANYAND ALL TIME AND IN THE CHILD(REN)’S ADOPTION.

DATED this 29 day of NOVEMBER, 2023

Orvil Loge JUDGE OF THE DISTRICTCOURT

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix December 3, 10 & 17, 2023

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA JUVENILE DIVISION

In The Matter Of A. L. Alleged DEPRIVED CHILDREN

Case No. JD-2023-30

NOTICE OF PUBLICATION TO CODYLEE, FATHER COMES NOW LARRYEDWARDS, the District Attorney, of Muskogee County, State of Oklahoma, by and through LARRYEDWARDS, District Attorney, and gives notice to the FATHER of the alleged DEPRIVED juvenile(s) A.L. that the State’s Petition will be heard on the 9TH day of JANUARY, 2024, at the Muskogee County Court House, State of Oklahoma, at 9:00 a.m., you have a right to have an attorney present to represent your legal rights as the FATHER of the alleged DEPRIVED child(ren). Hereby take notice that said hearing could materially affect your parental rights in relation to said minor child(ren), and the Court may order that you provide child support for said minor child(ren) in the event that the child(ren) are taken into legal custody and made a ward of the Court. No

further notice of said hearing will be given. ROBYN BOSWELL, COURTCLERK MUSKOGEE COUNTY

By Jeanett Seabolt Deputy

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix December 3, 10 & 17, 2023

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA

CREDIT ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v.

BARBARAFLEMING & MICHAELFLEMING, Defendants. Case No. CS-23-590 NOTICE BY PUBLICATION

Barbara Fleming & Michael Fleming you are hereby noticed that you have been sued by Credit Acceptance Corporation and you must answer Plaintiff’s Petition on or before January 29, 2024 or a money judgment in the sum of $8,171.53 plus interest will be rendered accordingly.

Dated this day November 17, 2023

By: Aspen Sumpter Deputy Court Clerk For Muskogee District Court Clerk (seal)

APPROVED BY: Greg A. Metzer, OBA# 11432 METZER & AUSTIN, P.L.L.C. 1 South Broadway, Suite 100 Edmond, OK 73034 (405) 330-2226 (405) 330-2234 (FAX) ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26, December 3 & 10, 2023 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA C ST. MUSKOGEE APTS, LLC, an Oklahoma Limited Liability Company Plaintiff, vs.

JANICE LONG, VOIN LONG, BENJAMIN LONG, GLEN TRINH, CHRISTINATRINH and ROGER STOKES, if living and if deceased, the known and unknown heirs, executors, administrators, successors, devisees, trustees and assigns of JANICE LONG, VOIN LONG, BENJAMIN LONG, GLEN TRINH, CHRISTINATRINH and ROGER STOKES Defendants. Case No. CV-2023-909

NOTICE BY PUBLICATION THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Janice Long, Voin Long, Benjamin Long, Glen Trinh, Christina Trinh and Roger Stokes, if living and if deceased, the known and unknown heirs, executors, administrators, trustees, successors, devisees and assigns of Janice Long, Voin Long,

Benjamin Long, Glen Trinh, Christina Trinh and Roger Stokes, if any.

You, and each of you, are hereby notified that C St. Muskogee Apts, LLC as Plaintiff, has filed in the District Court of Muskogee County, State of Oklahoma, their petition against the Defendants who may claim some interest in the following described real property, to wit: Apart of Lots 2 and 3 in Block 393 of the City of Muskogee, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, more particularly described as follows, to wit:

Beginning at a point in the Southerly line of said Lot 3 a distance of 155 1/3 feet Westerly from the Southeast corner thereof; thence Northerly parallel to the Easterly line of said Lots 2 and 3 and across Lot 3 and into Lot 2 for a distance of 142.5 feet; thence Westerly to a point which is 140 feet Easterly from the Westerly line of said Lot 2 and 150.5 feet Northerly from a point on the Southerly line of said Lot 3 which is 150 feet Easterly from the Southwest corner of said Lot 3; thence Southerly 150.5 feet to said point on the Southerly line of said Lot 3 which is 150 feet Easterly from the Southwest corner of said Lot 3; thence Easterly 29.97 feet, more or less to the Point of Beginning

That the Plaintiff is the owner of said real property and in the actual and peaceable possession thereof.

That said Defendants, and each of them named herein, claim some right, title, lien, estate, encumbrance, claim, assessment or interest in and to said real property involved herein adverse to that of said Plaintiff, which constitutes a cloud upon the title of said property, as is set forth in the Petition filed herein, reference made thereto.

That the Defendants, and each of them, be adjudged to have no right, title, claim, estate or interest in and to the real property involved in this cause of action and that they, and each of them, be perpetually barred and enjoined from setting up or asserting any right, title, claim, estate or interest in and to said property. That said Defendants, and each of them, must answer the Petition filed herein by Plaintiff on or before the 10th day of January, 2024, or said Petition will be taken as true and correct and judgment rendered accordingly decreeing that said Plaintiff is the owner of the property described in said Petition, to the exclusion of the Defendants named therein. Given under my hand and seal the 21st day of November, 2023.

Robyn Boswell, COURTCLERK MUSKOGEE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

By: Arthur Parsons Deputy

WRIGHTSTOUT& WILBURN, P.L.L.C. Paula Ranallo Wilburn, OBA# 12446 300 W. Broadway; P.O. Box 707 Muskogee, Oklahoma 74402-0707 (918) 682-0091/ Fax: (918) 683-6340 Attorney for Plaintiff

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26 & December 3, 2023

IN THE DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR MUSKOGEE COUNTYSTATE OF OKLAHOMA

In the Matter of the Estates of Stephen W. Caywood and Terri Donnette Caywood, Deceased.

Case No. PB-2022-9 Judge: Orvil Loge NOTICE OF HEARING FINAL ACCOUNTING, DETERMINATION OF HEIRSHIP, DISTRIBUTION AND DISCHARGE

All persons interested in the Estates of Stephen W. Caywood and Terri Donnette Caywood, Deceased are hereby notified that on the 14th day of December, 2023, at 9:00 o’clock A.M. in the District Court of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, before the Honorable Orvil Loge, the Final Accounting, Determination of Heirship, Distribution of the Estate, and Discharge of the Administrator will be heard and ordered and all persons interested in said Estate are notified then and there to appear and show cause, if any they have, why the same should not be done. The Final Account and Petition for Distribution will be filed herein on or before the 21st day of November, 2023

Orvil Loge Judge of the District Court

Notice prepared by: Jim McClure, OBA# 11422

Published in The Muskogee Phoenix November 26 & December 3, 2023

IN AND FOR THE DISTRICT COURT OF MUSKOGEE COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA

In re the Estate of CHARLES RAY LONG, Deceased, Case No.: PB-2023-147 Judge Orvil Loge

COMBINED NOTICE OF HEARING ON PETITION FOR SUMMARY ADMINISTRATION, NOTICE TO CREDITORS, AND NOTICE OF FINAL ACCOUNTING, DETERMINATION OF HEIRSHIP, DISTRIBUTION AND DISCHARGE

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Petition for Summary Administration pursuant to 58 OS § 245 has been filed on the 20 day of November, 2023, setting forth the following information:

1. The name, address, and date of death of the Deceased are as follows: CHARLES RAY LONG whose address was 2705 Boston Street, Muskogee, OK 74401 and whose date of death was October 12, 2023.

2. The name and address of the Petitioner are as follows: Bonnie Long whose address is 2705 Boston Street, Muskogee, OK 74401.

3. ALast Will and Testament of the Deceased does not exist. The names and addresses of the heirs of

7.

Muskogee Phoenix

December 2-3, 2023

Submitted by National Institutes of Health

Chronic insufficient sleep can increase insulin resistance in otherwise healthy women, with more marked effects in postmenopausal women, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings, published in Diabetes Care, highlight the importance of adequate sleep in minimizing the risk for type 2 diabetes, which can develop when the body fails to effectively use a key hormone, insulin, to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

“Women report poorer sleep than men, so understanding how sleep disturbances impact their health across the lifespan is critical, especially for postmenopausal women,” said Marishka Brown, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Sleep Disorder Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which co-funded the study with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), both part of NIH.

Previous studies have shown that sleep restriction can elevate risk for conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and disordered glucose metab-

olism, which can lead to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. However, many of those studies were done only in men or focused on shortterm, severe sleep restriction.

The current study enrolled only women and sought to determine if a prolonged, mild restriction of sleep – a reduction of just 1.5 hours each night – increased women’s blood glucose and insulin levels. Insulin helps regulate glucose in the body, and when the body’s cells build resistance to insulin, they become less able to use it effectively and can cause a person’s risk for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes to rise dramatically.

For the study, researchers recruited 40 women, aged 20-75, who had healthy sleep patterns (at least 7-9 hours per night), normal fasting glucose levels, but had elevated risks for cardiometabolic disease due to having overweight or obesity or a family history of type 2 diabetes, increased lipid in the blood, or cardiovascular disease.

To establish a baseline for the study, women wore a sensor on their wrists to record their sleep and determine their typical sleep patterns for two weeks and kept nightly sleep logs. The women then

completed two six-week study phases in a random order –one where they continued to follow their healthy sleep patterns, and one where sleep was restricted. In between they took a six-week break to recalibrate. During the adequate sleep phase, participants maintained their typical bed and wake times. On average, they slept for 7.5 hours per night. In the sleep restriction phase, participants delayed their bedtime by 1.5 hours per night, while maintaining their typical waketime. During this phase, they slept 6.2 hours per night, which reflects the average sleep duration of U.S. adults with insufficient sleep. At the beginning and end of each study phase, participants completed an oral glucose tolerance test to measure glucose and insulin blood levels, along with an MRI scan to measure body composition.

The researchers found that restricting sleep to 6.2 hours or less per night over six weeks increased insulin resistance by 14.8% among both pre- and postmenopausal women, with more severe effects for postmenopausal women – as high as 20.1%. In premenopausal women, they found that fasting in-

sulin levels rose in response to sleep restriction, while levels of both fasting insulin and fasting glucose tended to increase in postmenopausal women.

“What we’re seeing is that more insulin is needed to normalize glucose levels in the women under conditions of sleep restriction, and even then, the insulin may not have been doing enough to counteract rising blood glucose levels of postmenopausal women,” said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, Ph.D., associate professor of nutritional medicine and director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, and senior author on the study. “If that’s sustained over time, it is possible that prolonged insufficient sleep among individuals with prediabetes could accelerate the progression to type 2 diabetes.”

The researchers also looked at whether changes in body weight explained the changes they saw in insulin and glucose levels, as people tend to eat more in sleep-restricted states. However, they found that effects on insulin resistance were largely inde-

pendent of changes in body weight, and once the women started sleeping their typical 7-9 hours per night again, the insulin and glucose levels returned to normal.

“This study provides new insight into the health effects of even small sleep deficits in women across all stages of adulthood and racial and ethnic backgrounds,” said Corinne Silva, Ph.D., Program Director in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, & Metabolic Diseases at NIDDK. “Researchers are planning additional studies to further understand how sleep deficiency affects metabolism in men and women, as well as explore sleep interventions as a tool in type 2 diabetes prevention efforts.”

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.