Friday, March 7, 2025
Bella Casey
Maribeth Outheir spends time with members of the Life Center while they participate in various activities such as dominoes and playing cards.
Life Center provides ‘refuge’ for visitors
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BY BELLA CASEY
ome attend the Life Center to regain their identity. They go to the Life Center because they’re afraid any other place could rip it away from them. Judith Deaver, who uses they/them pronouns, hid their identity for most of their life. They used to speak to their partner over the phone twice a day — once during breakfast and again after the kids were in bed — just to keep coworkers from finding out they were gay. But when Deaver signed up to attend
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the Life Center, they had a gut feeling they would be comfortable there. “This (Life Center) is like a refuge for me, just to have a place to go that I could just be who I am and not have to worry about it,” Deaver said. The Life Center is a non-profit adult day program lodged in the education wing of the First Christian Church in Stillwater. It’s so close to Oklahoma State’s campus you can hear the roar of the crowd in Boone Pickens Stadium from its parking lot.
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But the Life Center welcomes a differ- participant squaring up in boxing gloves, ent kind of crowd — one that may not be and another shows one taking an archery able to remember the college team they lesson. cheered on in their youth or have any “People truly believe that sitting at friends to celebrate game days with. home and watching TV is what Mom or “It’s for people who might be experiDad like to do, because that’s just what encing either loneliness or have a disabil- they see them doing,” said Maribeth Outity, if they don’t want to go in a nursing hier, Life Center executive director. “But home, it’s an alternative,” said Gladeen then when we get them here, they don’t Allred, who helped found the Life Center. want to sit and watch TV. They want to Participants don’t just sit in a room all get engaged.” day. The Life Center lobby is decorated See CENTER on page 5A with proof of it — one photo shows a
Red Dirt Relief Fund helps Oklahoma artists make music HAYDEN ALEXANDER NEWS & LIFESTYLE EDITOR Every musician starts somewhere, but it’s not an easy path for local artists. Artists work tirelessly, performing every chance on stages in every locale. These singers, songwriters and musicians don’t have the luxury of taking a break. “Musicians don’t have paid time off, they don’t have sick leave, they often don’t have access to insurance; we’re trying to change that,” Katie Dale with the Red Dirt Relief Fund (RDRF) said. “We’re trying to make this a profession where people can
feel supported and live successful personal lives outside of their work.” Dale is the Executive Director and founding member of RDRF, a nonprofit that serves Oklahoma musicians and their families. Through concerts, benefits and donations, the fund has raised more than $950,000 for local artists. Dale had the idea for the fund while putting together a festival with Red Bull. After the concert, Red Bull wanted to give the proceeds back to the community, but there was no music-specific charity to turn to. Dale contacted John Cooper with the Red Dirt Rangers and met up at The Farm in Stillwater, the birthplace of Red Dirt music, and came up with the idea for RDRF.
See MUSIC on page 7A
Students can purchase meat from Cowboy Meats every Friday.
Jake Muret
Cowboy Meats provides sustainable food production, real-world learning experience for agricultural students SUNGJOO CHUNG
Hayden Alexander The Red Dirt Relief fund supports Oklahoma artists through donations, festivals and benefits.
FAPC,” Jackson said. “The second floor is both a USDA facility, inspecSTAFF REPORTER tor facility, as well as an FDA facility.” The operation serves multiple purposes, chief among them being For students at Oklahoma State’s cost recovery and student training. Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Jackson said live animals used for Products Center (FAPC), education teaching can be extremely expensive. extends beyond the classroom. A single beef animal can cost around Every Friday afternoon, the back $3,000, with classes sometimes loading dock of the center transforms requiring six or more animals at once. into Cowboy Meats, a retail outlet “We figured it up this morning that selling meat products processed by some of those beef (animals) that we students. had coming in were around $3,000 Joel Jackson, pilot plant manager at a piece,” Jackson said. “It adds up FAPC, has been overseeing Cowboy really quickly. You’re talking almost Meats since its reopening in Aug. $18,000 worth of live animals.” 2022, following a nearly two-decade hiatus. “Cowboy Meats encompasses the activities of the second floor of the
See MEATS on page 5A