When we finally document the story of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s championship season — after we’ve had time to reflect, dissect, critique, appreciate — it’s possible that the defining result is Mayor David Holt becoming a meme based on his head-in-hands response to Jaylin “J-Will” Williams’ perfectly timed F-bomb at Scissortail Park. No, it wasn’t […]
Greg Horton
Posted inNews
Inevitable change
In Sam Anderson’s brilliant 2018 history of Oklahoma City, Boom Town, the New York-based writer offered some observations of OKC that at the time were very true, but 2012 — the year his assignment began — was the last year those things were true. “In the larger economy of American attention, Oklahoma City’s main job […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Modern heresy
Jon Middendorf faced a heresy trial in 2018. A panel of clergy and administrators convicted the senior pastor of Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene with charges vague enough that his conviction was deemed not worthy of punishment. Middendorf had dedicated a baby as part of a service in his Northwest Expressway church, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Prairie preservation
Herb Greene is the architect behind the newest Oklahoma property listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1960-61 as his family’s private residence, Prairie House was a collaborative effort between Greene and his University of Oklahoma students. Greene was himself a student of Bruce Goff, and the two of them are considered […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Following the light
The blast from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing found Polly Nichols in a northwest corner office on the third floor of the Journal Record building, where she worked as the executive director of a nonprofit. The office was just across the street from the federal building, so the blast was devastating, collapsing the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Grassroots arts
Allied Arts has hit the midway point of its 2025 campaign, and it has raised roughly half of its $3.9 million goal, according to president and CEO Sunny Cearley. The funds raised go to support more than 40 arts and culture organizations and agencies across Oklahoma. “Three-point-nine million is a big number,” Cearley said. “I […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Innovating OKC
The Field of Dreams analogy is inevitable when people talk economic development, and while more than one person mentioned it when referencing Convergence and Innovation Hall, the more apt metaphor is Matryoshka dolls, those nested dolls you might have found in a curio cabinet at your grandma’s house. “If you build it, they will come” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Novel mimicry
In the first third of Tulsa attorney Greg Laird’s debut novel One Life for Another, the protagonist’s mentor says, “Don’t ever forget, if you don’t win this case, your client will be executed. … I assure you that it is a feeling to which you will never get accustomed, and despite handling cases with insurmountable […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Placemaking OKC
The Cloud Puncher statue that joins Heartwood Park to Lively Hotel by means of a massive metal rope lassoing a cloud is designed to be a metaphor of Oklahoma’s relationship to the weather, something made clear in OAK’s messaging. While the statue is immediately one of the most interesting and dramatic pieces of public art in Oklahoma […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Oklahoma Conference of Churches’ annual dinner is Thursday
Oklahoma Conference of Churches holds it annual dinner and hands out ecumenist, interfaith and community service awards.