Living life in a new city

By Olin Wright

Junior Gerardo Diaz 

Gerardo Diaz has lived in Tulsa for 2 and a half years. He is a junior engineering student that loves to have a good time. Some of his favorite places or events in Tulsa are, Cains Ballroom, Rio Tulsa, rodeo, and Whataburger on 21st and yale.

Some events he enjoys around Tulsa are, Oktoberfest, Tulsa State Fair, concerts at Cains Ballroom, and sporting events at Tulsa, and the BOK. He says, " Tulsa has one of the greatest and prosperous communities, along with the friendliest people he has met. He works on campus at the cafeteria and enjoys being around the students and of course, the food.

Last March he went to South Padre Island for spring break and says, "it was the best week of my life". He went on to say, "if anyone wants to have a spring break experience, go to SPI for a week and it will change your outlook on life, literally."

Gerardo Diaz was an interesting guy, and turned out to be very outgoing, and energetic.

Student veteran blazed a trail for female Marines

by Kayleigh Thesenvitz

Kate Tillotson is a student veteran and an American hero, who blazed new trails for women in the Marine Corps.

Tillotson served as a Marine Corps Lioness in a time "before women were allowed to serve as infantry," she said.

Attached with an infantry unit in Iraq for 45 days, Tillotson's job was to search women at predetermined checkpoints.

Tillotson, right, while stationed in Iraq.

One of those checkpoints was the Fallujah Detention Center, which gained notoriety for successfully detaining and processing over 1,000 Iraqis without killing a single Iraqi citizen, even when under attack themselves.

Her position was created in an effort to respect the cultural gender requirements of Iraqi citizens.

While male Marines searching female citizens would have been viewed as a disgraceful act, having female Marines do the searching kept the unit safe and fostered relationships with the communities.

Tillotson said her experience was a great opportunity for women.

"To put it into perspective," she said. "when I served in the Marines, women made up just 6 percent of the Marine Corps' fleet and reserve."

Early in 2017, Tillotson was named Student Veteran of the Year by Student Veterans of America for her work revitalizing TU's Student Veteran Association.

My Anonymous Engineer

By Elise McGouran

My new friend is studying electrical engineering. He was in the middle of studying, actually, when I walked in on him and awkwardly asked if he would tell me a bit about himself. Everything or anything, I wasn't picky.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm a pretty private person."

Regardless, he took pity on me, and, although he wished to remain anonymous, I now have the chance to tell his story.

"I actually started out as a business student, my freshman year. I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I have all these cool ideas in my head, but, a few weeks into starting college I realized that - if you really want to implement any of your ideas, you have to know how to make them happen. How to build them. How to design them. Being a business person you can always have someone do the work for you by paying them money or fundraising, but I thought it would be really cool to spend my time here learning how to actually build the systems that I'm interested in, so it was a pretty easy switch to engineering. I've liked it ever since."

I wondered how the transition was from a business focus to engineering.

"It's been pretty tough, especially since I didn't come in with a background like a lot of these engineering kids have, like math, physics and chemistry, so it really took a lot to get over that initial learning curve."

Even though he came in behind the rest of his contemporaries he doesn't seem jaded. In fact, he's the opposite. He's thankful.

"I had tons of support throughout the whole way, and if I were to say any message to anyone doing engineering it would be to stick through with it. In the long run it definitely pays off."

Traveling Man

By Brian McCurdy

Charles Marley has lived in Tulsa for two years. “Tulsa is not that much different than California,” Marley said. I assumed with his chuckle it was a very sarcastic remark.

Marley made the move across the country so that he and his girlfriend could be closer to her family as they welcomed their daughter, Ramona, into the world. The adjustment was hard at first but they have settled in very nicely.

Marley works at a company called Plank and Mill. He has worked there for 6 months and has been promoted to Lead Shipper. When he is not working he enjoys playing music for a few bands he plays drums with.

“The fans we have at the local dive bars are great,” he said. Marley’ bands perform at a number of small dive bars in Tulsa including The Colony and The Bee Hive Lounge.

Marley is glad to be a Tulsa transplant and believes there are many hidden secrets in the Tulsa community that he looks forward to uncovering as he spends more time here.

Extending beyond the ‘thank you’: Julia White

By Clara Ard

Julia White is a Tulsa native and senior at the University of Tulsa.

Julia White is a senior at the University of Tulsa. She is on the pre-law track, which is fitting considering her passion to, “give voices to people” who otherwise wouldn’t have them. Her dry and witty sense of humor matches the “lawyer” stereotype, but she pairs this wit with sense of empathy and compassion.

White is from Tulsa, where her drive to help the community began. She has spent many hours volunteering and helping with deployed soldiers, predominately in the Middle East. 

She says the soldiers she’s helping don’t have any family back home. Both her father and grandfather served in the U.S. Army. For White, her volunteer work was a way for her to be more intimate in comparison to the typical ‘thank you for your service’, something she had found “difficult to show appreciation for."

While White spends the majority of her time studying and volunteering, she leaves room in her schedule to dedicate to horseback riding. She spent her high school years riding competitively, commuting over four hours to her riding barn. 

She said that if she could have any superpower she would love to time-travel which would make the four hour commute a lot more manageable. She plans on going to law school after she graduates in May of 2018.

Humans of Tulsa : Layla

  By Laurine Chapuis


 Layla Janell Morthada is 18 years old, recently arrived in TU but not in Tulsa. Indeed, she was born there,  she loves her hometown and is proud of it. While the discussion goes by, she said kindly « I hope you like your experience in Tulsa ! ».  Sure I do.

   Layla has a job off-campus, she is working as a waitress in The Tavern, 201 N Main St, for 4 months now, she will welcome you and take your order. If you ever pass by there, don’t forget to stop !

  As she is drinking her hot chocolate milk , she tells me about her dream job : Becoming a diplomat and more precisely an ambassador . I asked her where would she likes to practice this job, but she doesn’t know yet. This is why she’s now majoring political sciences, with the goal of entering a prestigious Law school.

  Beside the ambition she showed, Layla is a sensitive person who likes doing photography. This is her passion. With her Nikon D3100, she sees where the wind takes her and most of the time takes shots outside.

« It helps me focus on the world around me » she said.

  The most important thing for Leila, is being a sister for his brother :  « He is 15 and the funniest person I know » she said.

Layla and her brother are very close and she feels overprotective towards him.

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 She said "He has always been the baby, and it is hard for me to let him grow up." 

Even if they’re 3 years appart, she is used to take care of him. Now he is trying to take care of her, and the hardest for her is to let her baby boy go.

The active student caregiver

By Autumn Hall

McKenna waiting for club meeting to start

Tulsa native and college junior, McKenna Rhodes, followed in both of her parents footsteps by attending TU. I met McKenna recently through a service project, the Gatesway Foundation Balloon Festival, and was excited to learn that she was a very active member of the University of Tulsa's chapter of Circle K International, a community service club with close ties to Kiwanis International.

McKenna is a Business Law major and wants to help "people with special needs, teachers, and veterans," she further explained in our interview together that she wants to help people who need it.

McKenna is a board member of the Gatesway Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities. She was also the volunteer coordinator in the 21st Annual Gatesway Balloon Festival in Broken Arrow this past September. McKenna also volunteers at an education center for children with communication disorders, Happy Hands.

"I love volunteering, but it's disappointing when people underestimate other's strengths," said McKenna. She was inspired to help those with disabilities because her own brother has special needs. She experienced living with a person with Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic and neurological disorder characterized by severe learning disabilities and developmental delays.

Because of this, McKenna wishes to change how people view those with disabilities. It was truly amazing to meet and hear her story.

Helping Hands in the CICU

By Debra Scheuerman     

Nicole Adcock grew up on a cattle ranch in Dustin, OK. A town with no traffic light or 4-way-stop, it covers a total area of .6 square miles. Working as a nurse in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) at Saint Francis Hospital can be a difficult job, but Adcock tries to find the good in all situations.

Growing up on her family’s ranch she always wanted to become a veterinarian. Her grandmother and cousins are all nurses and when looking at the long road of veterinarian school ahead of her, she decided against the extra years of school and became a nurse instead. She often visits home to help with the animals on the ranch to fulfill her love of the outdoors.  

Her favorite part of working in the CICU is being able to help others and see the impact. She loves to “pray and speak life over her patients” and talk with them about "the one thing that can truly help" them, which is Christ. Having patients who are “open and receptive to Christ” is something she looks forward to.

She explained to me that sometimes she is “the only one who is honest with patients about their condition” and their possible life after being in the CICU. “Being honest with them helps them build their trust in me and they feel like they have a friend on their side”, Adcock said.

While Adcock, and everyone working in the CICU, does everything they can to help patients on their road to recovery sometimes they lose their battles. “The hardest part about this job is the calls to family after a patient has passed, having to tell them we did everything we could and it wasn’t enough will never get any easier”.

After talking to Adcock, even for a brief time, you can feel her warmth and desire to help others. She is someone I would want on my side if I were battling for my life in the CICU.

Stephanie's Story

By Molly Monroe 

I met Stephanie behind the concierge desk in the hotel lobby of the Hampton Inn and Suites in downtown Tulsa. She was helping a customer when I approached the counter and asked for an interview. She smiled and obliged, engaging me with friendly small talk until I asked a somewhat unusual question. Her kind demeanor guised the newfound apprehension in her tone. Something inside of her changed with just the thought of it. 

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked.

“I thought I was,” she said curtly, with a blunt sort of politeness. “I thought I found my person when I was a senior in high school. We dated for five years.”

Stephanie told me that she was living in Minnesota when her and her boyfriend decided to move to Tulsa. They initially hoped the move would be a positive, life-changing experience for the both of them to share together. At first, it was—the move was an exciting adventure, but after the realities of life’s normalcies set in, “it just didn’t feel like love anymore,” she said. “He moved back.”

Although they have broken up, Stephanie remains optimistic towards their lasting bond. “I still think that he is my person,” she sighed, her tone relaxing at the memory, “but I think it was the wrong time.”

Moving on from their breakup was difficult for her. “For awhile it was [too painful to talk to him],” she said. Stephanie is patient, however, and cherishes their friendship despite their past. “We broke up and he moved away on Christmas Eve last year. We didn’t talk until March, but now we talk everyday.” 

Since breaking up, Stephanie finds it easier to express herself to her ex. “That was a big problem with our relationship,” she says. Now that they are apart, they each have the freedom to live their own lives without the pressure of a relationship. Yet, the love in Stephanie’s heart will always beat strong. 

Behind the Scenes with Derek Jewell

By Skylar Fuser

I have attended the South Broken Arrow Life Church campus for over two years, but I have never had a one-on-one conversation with my pastor until today. I have even taught his 5-year-old son, Jack, in Life Kids, and talked to his amazing wife, Jenn, on multiple occasions.

Finally, I got to ask my pastor, Derek Jewell, a few questions.

First, I wanted to know the biggest challenge he overcame in college. Like many wise people do, he answered my question with a question of his own. “Who am I going to be when my mom and dad aren’t around?” he said. College not only helps people to redefine who they are, but to become their own person apart from their parents.

Another important question Jewell thought about was, “Am I going to blend in with the crowd?” College provides people with the space they need to grow into either who they want to be or who the world wants them to be.

After getting to know more about my pastor, I feel more connected to my church and those who are in it.

Malinda Morsman in the Magic City

 

By Kyle Crutchfield

Malinda Morsman is a 26-year-old Tulsa native who loves her home city and hates everything else in her state.

“I always tell people Tulsa is like an oasis in Oklahoma, because the rest of the state is...Can I say clusterf*ck in this interview?”

Morsman was born at Hillcrest and grew up in Jenks, where she attended high school. She shows me one of the many tattoos on her arm. It says “Be sweet.”

“This is my first one,” she says, pointing at the simple inked command. “My high school mentor would tell me that all the time, because I was not very sweet back then.”

After graduating from Jenks, Morsman went on to get her esthetics license from Clary Sage, where she now works as a beautician.

Morsman’s favorite spot in Tulsa is the arts district downtown, now known as the Tulsa Arts District. But, she says the other suggested names for the district needed a bit of a makeover.

“The suggestions they had at first, like NoDo, they were terrible,” she says, and offers what her ideal name would have been for the district.

“There’s a big bookstore that’s being built, called Magic City books, because Tulsa was called the Magic City,” she tells me, referring to the name given to Tulsa during the city’s 1920s oil boom.

“They suggested calling it Magic City Arts District, which I thought sounded really cool,” she says.

Although her roots are in Oklahoma, Morsman’s wish is to live far, far away from here.

“I’ve always fantasized about living in Norway,” she says. “Somewhere that’s just a bit more progressive and not so Trump-y.”

But for now, Morsman will continue to embrace her hometown, albeit at a tattooed arms distance.

“No place is perfect,” she says.

Creating hair-y situations in Tulsa

By Megan Lee

Once every four months I feel the urge to change my hair color, and every time I look for a new salon.  This week, Tulsa Hair Co on Riverside had its chance.

The sleek interior of Tulsa Hair Co

Nothing on the outside of it truly distinguished it from a generic hair salon outside of the word Tulsa.  Inside there was a mix of sleek modern decor, children’s video games, and canvases of Tulsa landmarks to make it unique.  The fashionable stylists were also dressed completely in black to round out the atmosphere with a professional vibe.   

Before the session could begin, we had a five-minute consultation. My stylist was hesitant because the color combination of bright red and denim blue was uncommon.  To help, she pulled out a two-inch-thick book of hair samples and dyes to choose from.

Selfie from the chair

As the session proceeded, and the bleach stung my eyes, I heard the hairstylists casually chat about their plans that week.  There were schedule changes to pick up birthday supplies for a coworker’s 20^th birthday that week, gossip about if a certain coworker was ever going to apologize for some unknown scandal, and casual insider jokes that confused the consumer but made the stylist giggle.

The four-hour session finally ended on a discussion of hurricanes and my new “mermaid” hair. As one stylist put it, “her hair looks exactly like Ariel! See? It’s the red of her hair and the dark color of her fins in the water.” My hairstylist, pleased with her work and photography of the hair, handed me her business card with the instructions to take care of my hair or else we will have to dye it again next week.

When you dye your hair, it’s never cheap, and this place was no exception; however, the customer service and light-hearted conversations made it worth the price and drive. 

The mystic sound of the center of the universe

By Elise McGouran

The center of the echo chamber 

I'm alone as I approach the middle of the bridge. It's not very well kept, and certainly not what I expected it to be. The bridge is suspended over train tracks that run through Downtown. There are cigarette butts lying in holes where bricks were dug up for souvenirs. A plastic spoon has been left on one of the flower planters and graffiti litters the ground. One visitor has left his immortal stamp in the words, 'Steven Tyler Rocks the Universe'.

I walk to the center and wonder what I should say, a bit underwhelmed. The sky is clear, and there's sweat rolling down my back. "Sing!" a voice says. I turn and see there's a woman walking towards me, radiating all kinds of sass. "Come on, honey, why don't you sing?"

Why not?

Alright, I decide, something happy. Except that's not what comes out.

I make a pretty sad Fantine (and not in a good way), but the acoustics that make up the echo chamber I'm in soothe a lot of mistakes, and my attempt at I Dreamed a Dream doesn't sound so bad with the sound of my voice reverberating around me. "Wow," she says, "listen to her go! She can sing! Guys, I cannot make this stuff up!" I notice now that she has her phone trained in my direction, videotaping my impromptu performance. I stop.

Her name is Monia. She's been making a live Facebook video and is absolutely ecstatic about our meeting. She leaves after a few moments, still filming. "Didn't I tell you? I cannot make this stuff UP!"

After Monia there comes a pair of girls. One's from out of town and her friend is showing her around. I take their picture. The out-of-towner screams when it's her turn in the center. They laugh and squeal and generally have a ball.

After them, two middle-aged women and an older man make their way across the bridge. They're from California originally and have lived in Tulsa for a year and a half now. "It's not what I expected," the man comments. One of the women tries to video the cavernous effect, but it doesn't take. "I guess you just have to be here," she sighs.

A couple comes with their dog. "Just do it!" the man says. "But why?" his date pouts. "Because - cute couple stuff, that's why!" She sticks her tongue and hands out rocker-style as he takes her picture. They try to experiment with the dog, see how it would react, but it just sits there, panting. "Of course, the only time she's quiet." They laugh.

Another couple arrives not too long after the last group has all left. They're from Ohio, "just passing through." Each visitor delights in testing the serendipitous architectural formation.

Before I leave a lone man walks up; driver's cap on his head and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He stands in the center.

While no one knows for sure what causes the effect,
some believe it is the architectural formation around the site.

"So what now?" he asks.

"Speak up," I say.

"HELLO!"

"Oh." He grins, eyes wide.

I'm in the Center of the Universe.

Fair Fellow Coffee: Tulsa's Trendsetting Coffee Hotspot

By Molly Monroe

Nestled amongst Tulsa’s historic Kendall Whittier district, Fair Fellow Coffee is one of the city's trendiest local gems. 

Off the the intersection of Lewis and Admiral, its white brick exterior stands out from its surroundings. Its outdoor logo text spells out in bold, black, capitalized font over the entrance door. Posters and fliers of upcoming local events and concerts decorate the entrance windows. 

Photos of Tulsa's most beloved
locations decorate the store's wooden wall

The Space
The white brick continues inside the space, which is decoded minimally in a mix of industrial and vintage furniture. Initially, it feels like entering a recently gutted apartment in Dumbo, minus the skyline views but including the hipsters. 

Upon closer inspection, however, Fair Fellow is unequivocally a Tulsa joint: the store’s logo is a white, chunky doodle of a cowboy’s profile; Polaroid photos of Tulsa’s most beloved locations decorate an unpainted wooden wall; locally published magazines are scattered along the store’s coffee tables along with pleasant succulent plants and drawing supplies if you’re feeling creative; even the the wifi password is “ilovetulsa”. 

An Eclectic Clientele 
The menu, listed on a small booklet of recycled paper, contains items hard to find anywhere else in town. One man with flowing, gray hair, walks into the store with confidence. He looks suspiciously like Flaming Lips lead singer, Wayne Coyne. The staff already knows his order. He looks around to survey the cafe and spots a suitable chair for enjoying his nitro coffee with soy.

The space resembles a gutted NYC apartment
with the charm of a local coffee shop

Most of the clientele at Fair Fellow are regulars and are all equally interesting in appearance. Two 20-somethings sit together in a corner table—one dressed in vintage denim and the other in yoga pants, chatting politely about an upcoming project. 

The other customers sit alone—one man, who is a clean-cut, casually-dressed, and probably nearing 30, stares intently into his laptop. Another customer, a bearded, mid-30s guy in a tweed sports coat (despite the warm September Oklahoma weather), scrolls casually through his Instagram news feed and chews occasional bites of his vegan cinnamon roll.

Meanwhile, the barista’s perfectly lined cat eyes stare lifelessly into space as she waits for the next customer to enter the quiet space. She occasionally looks down through her wide-rimmed black and gold glasses to change the low-playing acoustic-alternative melody that plays throughout the shop. 

A Local Experience Worth the Extra Bucks

The coffee is pricey, but at Fair Fellow, you are not just buying a normal cup of Joe, but the experience. Visitors come for the unique drinks and the laid-back, yet trendy atmosphere. It is a versatile space for work, socializing, or simply enjoying the space. To visit Fair Fellow is to embrace Tulsa’s charming heritage while exploring new ideas. A Yerba Mate Latte for here, please.