Friday, April 11, 2025
The Boys Are Back In Town
Courtesy RPR Media
Cross Canadian Ragweed reunites for first time in 15 years to headline four sold-out shows in Boone Pickens Stadium.
Red Dirt’s rise through the eyes of Josh Crutchmer
T
B Y R AY N E E
HOWELL I
he sound of a raspy voice mixing with the strum of an acoustic guitar floated out the Wormy Dog Saloon windows on The Strip one night, reaching 21-year-old Josh Crutchmer on the sidewalk. Crutchmer turned to a friend and asked “Does that sound like Americana?” In which, his friend replied “As f**k.” A quick “Let’s go” response from Crutchmer set him on a new path. “We walked up there, and the person playing was Stoney LaRue,” Crutchmer said. “That is the day that I sort of stepped out of my life because I went and saw that, and I
A S S I S TA N T N E W S A N D L I F E S T Y L E E D I T O R wanted to do it every night forever.” And he did just that for the next year. Watching performances from LaRue, Cody Canada and Jason Boland on a weekly basis. When Crutchmer wasn’t in the newsroom or at a sports event fulfilling his role as sports editor for The O’Colly, he could be found on a barstool watching the Red Dirt scene unfold in front of his eyes. With the losing record of the Oklahoma State football team in fall 2000, he said he wrote in a sports column about how he’d rather be at the Wormy Dog, listening to music. The artists caught wind, and by October, Crutchmer was interviewing all three for a feature story. Years
later, he still writes about the bands — in his own books or for features in Rolling Stone — but the relationship has extended beyond interviews. In August, Crutchmer was sitting on a blanket in a field in Challis, Idaho, next to Canada’s wife and manager, Shannon. The group was watching the Braun Brothers Reunion, a Red Dirt music festival, featuring Canada and his band. Wade Bowen was performing when Canada’s wife tapped on Crutchmer’s shoulder. “She says, ‘Hey Josh, he’s doing it,” Crutchmer said. The concept of a Cross Canadian Ragweed reunion — the band Canada fronted in the early days of Red
I
@ R AY N E E H O W E L L
Dirt — seemed so far out of Crutchmer’s mind at the time. Earlier that year, Canada said the band would never reunite. He wasn’t sure what Canada’s wife meant. “I was like, ‘Oh, she must mean he’s gonna play a song with Wade or he’s going to the bus to get a beer,” Crutchmer said. “It took a whole full five minutes… I do this double take and my eyes pop out of my head with little springs on them, and she’s laughing at me… “I didn’t really know what I’m gonna say, but I go, ‘Hey, you know it’s my story right?’”
See BOYS on page 5A
Flyin’ Cowboys make tough journey through Bataan Memorial Death March MEGAN ROY
STAFF REPORTER
Courtesy OSU
The Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program at Oklahoma State has never advertised itself as being easy. If it did, it would be lying. The annual Bataan Memorial Death
March is more than just a marathon. It is a challenging feat of physical and mental endurance: 26.2 miles of rugged terrain through high elevation at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Knowing these two things, it is only fitting that OSU’s AFROTC Detachment 670 sent 28 participants to New Mexico this past March to represent the Flyin’ Cowboys.
After not having in-person practice for weeks, OSU Esports won the first Big 12 Championship.
See MARCH on page 6A
New OSU Esports team wins first Big 12 Championship CONNOR FUXA
ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Going into the first Big 12 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament, Oklahoma State junior gamer Evan Simons’ expectations were low. “I thought we were just gonna completely, just crash and burn,” Simons said.
His doubts were not due to a lack of confidence but a lack of preparation. Three weeks before the tournament took place, the Student Union basement at OSU flooded, leaving the esports team without a place to practice. “We hadn’t had any in person practices in three weeks,” The basement had flooded,” Simon said. “I (hadn’t even) played the game in three weeks.”
See ESPORTS on page 6A
Cadet Tyler Epps crosses the finish line securing ninth place.
Courtesy Detachment 670