unearthing Oklahoma's Best-Kept Secrets with oklahoma today
Since 2022, I’ve been lucky to write with Oklahoma Today, uncovering hidden gems from a 1928 mansion and a tranquil Illinois River resort to a Victorian estate and a vibrant skatepark. Exploring these unique spots has been a joy. Here are just a handful of features. Check out Oklahoma Today’s full archives online!
South Side Saturday Night
When Oklahoma Today reached out with the idea to do a feature on Oklahoma City’s south side, it became one of my favorite projects I’ve worked on. Over about six months, I dove into the rhythms of a South Side Saturday night, from candlelit concerts at the Yale Theater and live music at Resonant Head to late-night margaritas at El Chilango, plus community stories in Capitol Hill and the Wheeler District.
When I spoke to Elaine Lyons, president of the South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, I asked her to describe the south side in one word. She said, “opportunities.” And that is the essence of what this piece became: the opportunity to spend a night sampling south side restaurants and bars, an afternoon strolling through the Wheeler District, a chance to soak in a part of the city where bike shops and coffee shops share a storefront and where annual festivals take over busy mural-covered business districts.
Hooked on Symphonics
I ventured out to Enid to take in the iconic Enid Symphony Orchestra, not only a staple of arts and entertainment in northwestern Oklahoma, but also a rumored space for local hauntings. Hear from the symphony’s founders and players about the days spent transforming the iconic space, braving cobwebs and pigeons, and how it stands today, bringing music to the masses under a crystal chandelier.
Customer Service with a cherry on top
Liberty Drug in Chickasha combines traditional pharmacy service with a nostalgic soda fountain experience. Since 1920, the pharmacy has been a local favorite, serving classic malts and floats. Owner Keith Neidy, who took over in 1991, cherishes the shop’s history and traditions, including its famous 5-cent coffee. Neidy reflects, “I thought this was the coolest place… I was pretty fortunate.”
Buds for Life
While it’s come to represent Oklahoma’s natural beauty, with its vibrant, pink blossoms, the redbud tree was once a lightning rod for controversy in what became known as the “Redbud Wars,” a debate mainly centering around its connection to the infamous “Judas Tree.”
Field Day
The Oklahoma Sports Heritage Museum offers more than just a glimpse into the past with curated galleries spanning the spectrum of sports, piquing the interests of even the most sports-unaware, like myself. Read about the museum that made one museum fan say “there are literally thousands of stories that can be told in that place.”
Bonus content: if you’re familiar with Oklahoma Today, then you’re familiar with the “Off the Map” or “Seek” section, an interactive column in each magazine where a writer describes an Oklahoma spot, and it’s up to you to write in with your guess. Here are just some of those unique Oklahoma spaces. Click the links to read the full stories, and test your own Oklahoma knowledge.
Stay to Play: Nestled by the Illinois River, this Eastern Oklahoma resort is a haven for creatives and nature lovers. Revitalized in 2009, the resort features local art and music, creating memorable experiences for guests.
Halfpipes in Full Color: This skatepark near the Oklahoma City skyline features colorful murals and diverse ramps, including an 11-foot half-pipe.
Mystery Manor: A 1928 mansion in Northwest Oklahoma, built by a controversial oil baron, dazzles with European-inspired luxury and a scandalous history. Now a venue for tours and events, it captivates visitors with its opulent details and storied past.
Reader’s Refuge: Every literary local knows this local spot housed in a former shopping mall, where the quiet hum of conversation blends with the mechanical sound of an espresso machine for a book browsing backdrop.
Making an Impact: I ventured out to a quiet Oklahoma town, where a colossal meteor collided with the Earth around 450 million years ago.
A Roadside Relic on Route 66: Along Oklahoma’s Route 66 stretch stands a simple white building with vintage red gas pumps, and, though it may seem unassuming, the spot encapsulates a Mother Road nostalgia.
Sky High: On a college campus, a building is topped with a golden star and hosts everything from theatrical performances to religious readings. Learn more about the history of this iconic tower that’s been scaled by rebellious students (like myself, I might add) for decades.
A Small-town Mansion’s Modern Revival: This stately home’s name was created from an Italian phrase meaning “beautiful to see” and the three story brick mansion lives up to its name with pressed tin ceilings and marble wainscoting.
Train Fare: This Southeast Oklahoma restaurant offers a unique dining experience in a restored early twentieth-century railcar, with staff donned in striped railroader hats and an ambience of whistles and rumbles of passing trains.
Rooted in Mystery: A strange forest in a Southwest Oklahoma mountain range has become an eerie and captivating destination, where voices echo and the trees grow straight into the sky.
Uncovering Oklahoma’s Visual Art Scene with Art Focus
I currently serve as editor of Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s “Art Focus” Magazine, a quarterly publication covering Oklahoma artists, exhibitions, galleries, and movements shaping the state’s arts scene. Stories range from explorations of quilting and fiber arts beyond hobby craft to Queer filmmakers and drag performers creating work rooted in joy, alongside features on murals, Native artists, community spaces, and major exhibitions across Oklahoma.
Fall 2025: Readers will find coverage of major fall exhibitions, including “ArtNow 2025: Materials and Boundaries” at Oklahoma Contemporary and Patrick Gordon’s “Wall Flowers” at Philbrook. This issue also spotlights “Boy Mode”, a Queer Oklahoma-made film, a deep dive into fiber arts across the state, a feature on Norman’s Uncanny Art House and how art spaces build community, and an in-depth look at a local beadworker using her art to create beaded portraits of Freedmen and their descendants.
Winter 2026: This issue includes a feature on artists Yvette Aranya and Laura Voth, whose work addresses trauma, survival, and healing through painting and collaborative artmaking. You will also find a preview of the Paul Reed retrospective at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, offering insight into Reed’s use of color and time. Plus, in a massive journalistic feat, readers can dive into a major retrospective celebrating 25 years of MOMENTUM, tracing the exhibition’s lasting impact through interviews, photographs, artist reflections, and memories from those who helped build it.
Spring 2026: Inspired by the centennial of Route 66, readers will travel the Mother Road with artist Clint Stone, whose work captures Route 66 as a living, changing landscape shaped by the people who inhabit it today. This issue also highlights Kiowa artist and curator MaryAnn Guoladdle Parker’s multidisciplinary practice, a look inside OU’s dramatic iron pours and sculpture program, and a feature on queer artists creating spaces of healing, visibility, and community through their work. Readers will also discover a story about mutual aid and creativity through Mycelium Gallery’s Artist Closet and a feature on Oklahoma’s growing mural movement, from Plaza Walls to Fresh Paint and Sunny Dayz.
exploring oklahoma city’s literary community with INFO MAGAZINE
At the Metropolitan Library System, I help produce the Info Magazine, a monthly publication available at all 19 library locations. In addition to editing, I collaborate with other writers on stories that highlight the wide range of library offerings.
Past pieces include “No Shushing in the Library,” which explores everything from toddler music classes to punk shows in our branches, and a feature celebrating the history of the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library. Some of these stories live on the library system’s website, like these recent blog posts:
Find Your Joy: Celebrating National Library Week – Libraries are full of stories, especially from the staff, guests and advocates who bring them to life. Read more about the people behind your local library, from a staff member with his own radio show to the team behind the iconic 2004 “book passing” at the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library.
Getting Ahead: Reading with Your Child at the Library: Learn more about programs like the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and how simple daily habits like reading, talking and playing together help build early literacy skills long before children enter school.
School Success with Tools and Programs: The library is more than just books. Check out this article to learn about the various resources at your disposal for everything from creating coding to GED practice tests for learners of all ages.
Honoring Stories of Survival: Looking Back on Michael Korenblit’s Visit: Learn more about Holocaust educator and activist Michael Korenblit’s visit to the Metropolitan Library System, where powerful conversations about survival, human rights and remembrance connected library audiences with personal stories of the Holocaust and its lasting relevance today.
Unlocking the Power of Your Library Card: Learn more about how a free library card unlocks access to books, streaming services, technology, literacy programs, community resources and lifelong learning opportunities for all ages across Oklahoma County.
Lost in the Digital Jungle? Use Library Resources to get Organized: Learn more about the library’s Special Collections and Research Department, preserving and sharing Oklahoma history through more than 150 collections of photographs, maps, yearbooks, and oral histories, offering the opportunity to explore local history, with the support of expert staff.
Dolly Delivers Magic: One Book at a Time: Books open up a whole new world of imagination, and through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, more than 18,000 Oklahoma County children receive free books each month. Hear from a local family about the impact the program has had on their lives. PS: you can hear from another Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library family here.
Behind the Stacks: All About Library Aides: Anyone who knows Jim Nimmo knows how special his role is to the library system. Learn more about how library aids keep the library running and how, in Jim’s words, they put the “deranged books back in order.”
Chef Loretta Barrett Oden comes to Belle Isle Library: I spoke with this Emmy-award winning Chef about her acclaimed cookbook, “Corn Dance” and her philosophy about the story of food as connection to land, to culture, and to one another.
Now Introducing…Metro Library’s First-Ever Poet Laureate: I spoke with Hallie Waugh about what it means to her to have this new opportunity and about one of her inspirations for poetry: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “The Poet.”
The Power of Libraries: A Community Testimony: Albert Einstein once said, “the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” Nobody embodies that better than library guests Drew and Kathy Mehner, who have used their local library system to explore programs like yoga, needle felting, woodcarving, dance lessons, and so much more.