Tulsa Newest Professional Team

By: J.L. Calderwood 

The city of Tulsa is welcoming their newest professional team. The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) has expanded its league in 2013 and Tulsa will have a team this year.

The Tulsa Athletics is now just one of 61 amateur and professional teams that will make up the NPSL. Their first game will be on May 18 when they play host to the Liverpool Warriors at old Drillers Stadium.

This will be Tulsa’s first professional game to be played at old Drillers Stadium since the Roughnecks called Tulsa home. Their last game was played on July 13, 1985. 

Co-owners Sonny Dalegandro and Dr. Tommy Kern goal is to generate a lot of public interest in soccer so that Major League Soccer (MLS) has no choice but to bring a professional team to Tulsa.

What is something unique about the NPSL is that not only professional will be able to play in the league but those that are in high school and college are able to be on teams as well. This is one of the only professional leagues that will allow high school or college aged kids to play with the professionals and still remain eligible for their school teams. 

Spring Awakening Show Not for Children

By Jesika Byerly, Renae Powers and Dustin Duvall

The University Of Tulsa’s theater group is getting ready for their production of Spring Awakening. They play’s costume designer Ashley Bellet told us what the audience can expect.

Bellet says that Duncan Sheik wrote the music for the play. She says the setting of production is the turn of the century during the 1890s. 

“If you want to see a show where the cast is having a blast on stage, this is a great one because they’re head banging and rocking out," Bellet says. "If the performers are enjoying it, the audience is enjoying it.”

University of Tulsa student reacts to increase in homicide rate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6-B4pTUO28

By Lauren Nehf and Laura Yeradi

We interviewed a University of Tulsa student for her reaction to the rising homicide rate in the city of Tulsa. Already in 2013, the homicide rate is 24, which is more than half of the total homicide count in 2012.

Visit the Tulsa World link for their report: http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Tulsa_homicides_at_24_more_than_half_of_2012_already/20130409_11_A1_CUTLIN736201

Race Fans Welcome the Reopening of Live Racing at Fair Meadows

By J.L. Calderwood

Live racing at Fair Meadows is only two months away, and thanks to recent developments, people can actually enjoy racing again in Tulsa—including my roommate and myself.

We are happy with the decision to have live racing for the 2013 season. We enjoy going there and watching the horses while also enjoying each other’s company. We have a fascination with these animals and watching them do something pretty amazing. 

But this season was almost lost thanks to a vote that occurred late in 2012.

Last November, according to the Tulsa World, the Tulsa County fair board voted unanimously to sign a multi-year naming-rights agreement with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. This would have ended racing at Fair Meadows.

But a special meeting of the fair board was held on December 12, the Tulsa World reported,to get live racing scheduled for 2013. During that meeting the fair board rescinded the vote to cancel the 2013 racing season.

“When confronted with this new information, it was imperative to take aggressive and timely action,” said County Commissioner and fair board Chairman Fred Perry. “I believe it is appropriate to follow the terms of the agreements regarding the 2013 race meeting, which is why I have requested a special meeting to address the issue.” 

Fair Meadows has released their schedule for the 2013 season. The first race will be held Saturday, June 8, and the final race will be Friday, August 2. Night races are scheduled Thursday-Sunday, as well as two races on Wednesday, June 19 and July 3. 

Interview with Freshman TU Soccer Player Christian Mata

TU seniors Bonnie Garden and Nicholas Graham interviewed freshman Cristian Mata about his first year as a student-athlete in college. See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVFd4m6ur9o

In-class Digital Journalism Workshop: Producing News Stories for the Web

Today's assignment is simple: Use the next hour to create and produce a short web-based news or feature story for this site, Tulsa Street Stories.

The purpose of the assignment is for you to learn more about blogging and multimedia journalism using this site and other digital technologies, such as Storify, Ustream and others we discussed last week. Or you might use Vine, the six-second video app that is popular on smart phones. Whatever you decide, add your content—or a link to the content—on this site.

As an experiment, I signed on to Ustream yesterday and made a short video about social media use and the AP Stylebook. It's very basic, but it's an easy example of the kind of thing that you can do in a short time. If you want to use Ustream, I can supply you with the password for the Tulsa Street Stories channel.

You'll have to work fast to produce this story and upload it by 4:45, but this is a do-able project. You can use your own laptop, tablet or phone to make photos, audio or video. Remember, this is a journalism class, so you should tell a short, but interesting story of some kind.

Some suggestions for stories:

• TU unveiled a statute of TU football player Glenn Dobbs on Saturday. There's information online about Dobbs and the statue. The state itself is only a short walk away so you can easily make images.

• Tulsa is hosting a number of concerts and performances this spring. Write an advance for one of these performances and add links or other digital content to make a multimedia story.

• Head to the coffee shop at McFarlin Library. Interview a student about his or her summer plans, recent spring break experiences, graduation plans, etc.

• Use your imagination. Be creative. Any sort of idea can work, but it needs to be something  interesting.

AP Stylebook Advice on Social Media

This is my first experiment using Ustream as a digital journalism tool on the blog. Ustream is free at the basic level, so there's an ad here, but it seems to be an easy way for student journalists to use digital technology to produce web-based video. This message was recorded, of course, but Ustream allows journalists to go live, which has a lot of possibilities for breaking news or other types of programming.

This Land Radio: Documentary Radio from Oklahoma

From the audio team at Tulsa's This Land Press, here's the first installment of This Land Radio. Check it out.

Sound Experiment: A Hip Musical Clip from Soundcloud

Here's a short, fun sound piece I found on Soundcloud. Just posting it to practice doing some new things on the blog. Enjoy.