Boomtown Tees Brings Tulsa Pride to Downtown

 By Bonnie Garden

Downtown Tulsa has a growing number of shops and boutiques that cater to the young and hip. If you have been to restaurants such as El Guapo, The Max or Joe Momma's, you might have walked by some of these shops and not even noticed.

Boomtown Tees was started three years ago on Elgin, right next to Joe Momma's. The store sells T-shirts designed by local artists as well as local music and art by the the employees.

Boomtown Tees also gives customers the option of designing their own shirts and having Boomtown screen print them for you. I spoke with Cheryl Quetone, who told me how the business began.

"It started with just a T-shirt booth at local shows in Tulsa, and once my boss saw that it was successful, he decided to set up shop," Quetone said.

If you're like me and love to show off your Tulsa pride, this is the place. To see some of their tees, check out their website here.

The Joy of Verbs: Studio Tulsa's Interview with Word Guru Constance Hale

Verbs make the language move. They bring strength and power to writing. They need to be used carefully and well. 

That's among the messages you can find in Constance Hale's recent book, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smoosh, a book about verbs.

We learned about the book this week when Studio Tulsa replayed an interview with Hale. Hale, it turns out, is a funny lady who knows her verbs. She knows the rules and she knows when to break them. She's worth a listen.

A link to the interview with host Rich Fisher can be found here.

Resources for Digital Journalists: Some Links

By John Coward

Audio producers Abby Wendle and Sarah Geis of This Land visited the News Gathering class earlier this month, talking about their work and inspiring the students with some gripping audio interviews.

They also told us about some of the resources available for student journalists aiming to do more audio production. Here are links to a couple of those resources, which students are encouraged to check out and use.

One of the most useful is transom.org. Another is SoundCloud.com.

Dining in Tulsa's Brady Arts District: The Tavern

By Renae Powers

My husband Tyler and I love The Tavern, a wonderful restaurant in Tulsa's Brady Arts District, just north of downtown. 

The Tavern occupies a corner on North Main and Brady. The looks might fool you. The lights are dim inside, with two levels of candle-lit tables. The servers are in business casual attire (no aprons) but the atmosphere is casual. Their food and service: exceptional.

We went to The Tavern on Monday evening around 6 p.m. There were about six groups dining. One of them a table of businessmen that looked like they just got off work and another was a round table of older women celebrating one of their birthdays with laughs, gifts and cocktails.

Throughout the evening, I tried to catch snippets of conversations wherever I could, but the clinking of silverware and glasses blocked them out. The only word I could get from the ladies was “beer.”

Tyler and I started our evening with the deviled egg trifecta. It’s three different kinds of deviled eggs that come in pairs so there’s no need to fight over them. The traditional, wasabi, and bacon renditions are placed on a bed of greens. The colors are naturally vibrant I didn’t even turn on my flash for the photo. 

After finishing our dinner, our waitress drops off the check which is paper clipped to the back of a sienna-filtered postcard. I didn’t have to ask about the picture on the front because I instantly recognized it as the far wall of The Tavern. 

Tyler and I sat to the right of the postcard.  I recommend everyone tries Tavern. It will not disappoint.

The Power of Audio Journalism from This Land

Abby Wendle, left, and Sarah Geis, audio producers from Tulsa's This Land Press, played some examples of their audio reporting to the news gathering class Thursday, March 14. In the foreground on the right is TU student J. L. Calderwood and, center, Lauren Nehf.

Check out some of the This Land audio with a click here.