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5 ECU Tiger Academy creating future community business leaders 6 Recognizing Pregnancy, Infant Child Loss Awareness Month ECU Piano Ensembles ‘Monster’ 8 Concert to feature performers

9 Officials tackle goals in, out of the classroom via adaptive strategic plan

11 ECU haunted house event canceled, but spooky tales about building abound

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ECU Tiger Academy creating future community business leaders By Sunnie Dawn Smith

or the past six years, the Stonecipher School of Business at East Central University has partnered with Willard Elementary School to provide a unique after school experience for their fifth and sixth grade students. They call it the ECU Tiger Academy, and it is an immersive experience designed to teach young people about the world of business in a fun yet educational way. For three weeks, the students meet for two hours after school, learning every step of creating their own business from scratch. In this case, teams of four to six kids have their own lemonade stands. They create business plans and budgets. They design and paint their lemonade stands. They figure out how they want to market their business. They make a presentation to bankers from Vision Bank or Citizens Bank to acquire a loan. After receiving their loan, they squeeze the lemons to make their own lemonade using the Chick-Fil-A recipe – though this year Chick-Fil-A also sponsored them and gave them some lemonade. When they set up their lemonade stand at an ECU football game, their work is still far from done. They still have to review their final profits and pay back their loans with interest to the bank. At the end, each student receives a $15 gift card to Walmart as payment for their work to teach them that labor costs money as well. This year, they grossed a total of $1,300. After paying back the bank, they had $600 to donate to local charities. Mama T’s B&B, PAWS and Willard Grade Center each received checks for $200. When the students first develop their team, they each choose a role that suits their own abilities, such as chief executive officer, chief financial officer and chief marketing officer. Though the students all sell lemonade for $2 a glass, they also each choose a complementary

product to sell for $1. This involved market research. Some chose fruit punch while others chose sweet tea or pink lemonade. One team even made Arnold Palmers, which is a mix of sweet tea and lemonade. One of the most eye-opening experiences for the students is when it is time to pay back the loans. They discuss collateral and what can happen if you don’t repay your loan. Even though these are heavy subjects, they manage to make it fun so the kids learn more than they would in a traditional classroom setting. If a team did not make enough money to pay back their loan, then there is a discussion of how they will acquire the money. This year, everyone repaid their loans, even though two teams did not make enough. One team was $4 short, and another was $8. Instead of asking their parents for the money, they all searched through their pockets and came together to donate a dollar here or a quarter there to make up the difference. Because this program has been in existence for six years, there are some seniors at Ada High School who were involved when they were younger. Many students begin the program in fifth grade and then return in sixth grade as well. “When we started this program, we weren’t sure how it would go but we decided to wait and see,” Stonecipher School of Business dean Wendell Godwin said. “However, the program was wildly successful, and after the first year, 100 kids wanted to do it, but we could only take around thirty on a first-come-first-serve basis.” When the students do come back with all the lessons they learned from fifth grade, they undertake a more advanced program where they sell ice cream in the stands at the football game much like a hotdog vendor. This year, they had 12 returning students and 22 first year students.

Willard Grade Center students in fifth and sixth grade participate in the ECU Tiger Academy by executing a business from the planning stages, securing a bank loan, providing a service, repaying the loan and receiving wages PHOTOS SUBMITTED

Two of the students involved, Leslie Walters and Kellen Stuart, had different yet insightful experiences. This was Walters’s first year and Stuart’s second year. Walters was the CFO for her group, and Stuart was the CMO. They discovered that they each have their own talents and interests, and that they work best together as a team. For instance, Stuart loved going into the stands and selling the ice cream. He is very sociable and likes talking to people. Walters’s favorite part was the planning stage and talking to the bankers acquiring the loan. The kids learned a lot from their experiences – lessons that can be applied later on in life. “Business is hard, but having a team makes it easier,” Walters said. Stuart recalled his experience from the perspective of teamwork. “I learned that you can’t try to do everything yourself,” Stuart said. “You shouldn’t always rely on yourself because someone else might be able to do it better.” www.adahub.com • 5

I Hope boxes assembled and donated by the Kiss Me Goodnight support group will go to help families at local hospitals in recognition of Pregnancy and Infant Child Loss Awareness Month. PHOTO BY NICHOLAS GEISLER

Support group recognizes Pregnancy, Infant Child Loss Awareness Month By Sunnie Dawn Smith

hen Becky Graves found out she was pregnant with a little girl, she was beyond ecstatic. She already had twin nine-year-old boys, but she and her husband had tried for seven years to have another child. She really wanted it to be a girl. However, 20 weeks into the pregnancy, the doctors knew something was wrong. They didn’t know what was wrong. They couldn’t fix it, but they did not think that Isabella Hope would survive. Becky carried her sweet Issy to full term knowing that she wouldn’t live. After losing her daughter, Graves was inconsolable. The loss was unimaginable. Despite her loss, though, Graves found a way to turn her personal devastation into a ministry to help others. Graves leads the pregnancy and infant loss support group called Kiss Me Goodnight that meets the first Wednesday of every month from 6 • www.adahub.com

6:00-7:30 p.m. at Ada First Baptist Church at 521 S. Broadway Ave. Childcare is provided for those families who have other children, and they meet in a quiet area away from all the hustle and bustle of other Wednesday night groups. The support group has been a blessing for Graves and those who attend. Some come right after their loss. Others attend much later. Some come for just one or two weeks while others come every week. It is all up to whatever the family needs to help them deal with their loss. In fact, some of the women who come lost their babies 30 or 40 years ago in a different time in which they were told to just “get over it,” so they never really had a chance to deal with their grief. While October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month – with Oct. 15th set aside to remember those

lost – this is something that affects these women and families year round. The loss of an infant is devastating, and so is a miscarriage. For many, as soon as they discover that they are pregnant, they automatically begin planning and hoping. It isn’t just the loss of a baby – it is the loss of potential and hope for the future. Graves said this isn’t something people talk about much, though it is alarmingly common. Statistics from the Mayo Clinic and Centers for Disease Control show that possibly one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage or loss. Last year was the first time that the group put together a memorial ceremony on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. They lit paper lanterns that they painted to represent their babies. They painted rocks as either keepsakes or to place around town in remembrance. This

year they decided to go a different route. Instead of paper lanterns that can be hard to light in the October wind, they will have glow balloons in white, pink and blue. Instead of the rocks, they will be donating “I Hope” boxes to local hospitals – 25 to Mercy and 25 to the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center. These thoughtful boxes are made possible through generous donations and the work of support group members. Each box contains several items that Graves selected very carefully based on her own past trauma of losing Issy and having a miscarriage five years later as well. She wanted to make sure that every item could be useful for any situation, whether the family got to see and hold the baby or just know the baby was gone. Each box contains a Bible and some books along with information about the support group. In addition to this, though, are a few select items. There is a teddy bear, which can represent the child that is gone. Some choose to use them in family photos so that teddy bear is a representation of the baby that they lost but is still with them in their hearts. Some might even choose to snuggle it and hold it close. Others put it in the casket with their child. Another item is a small fleece blanket. Again, this can be something to represent the baby. In the case of infant loss, the baby can touch it or lay on it, giving the mother something of their child to keep. In Graves’s case, they wrapped Issy in a blanket for the short time they had with her, and after she passed, Graves held onto that blanket – sleeping with it for the next six months – because she said it helped her feel like her baby was still there. The final item is a Christmas ornament. It is a small clear plastic globe with white feathers inside it. Paint and paintbrushes are also included in the box in case the family wants to put their baby’s handprints or footprints on it. In the moment, there is so little time. Families don’t have time to think and they certainly don’t have time to run to Walmart or Hobby Lobby to figure out how to make a keepsake of their baby that they can hold onto forever. This is why Graves included these items. If the family chooses, they have the materials right there where they can create an ornament for their child to always be on their tree with the rest of the family. At the October memorial service, the parents will write notes to place in the boxes letting people know that someone else has been there, and they have survived the trauma. They will also pray over the blankets. “I never would have chosen this ministry in 100 years,” Graves said. “It was either crawl up in a ball and be sad and miserable for the rest of my life, or I could take my loss and use her life and give her significance. Even though she never took a breath outside the womb, she has impacted more people on Earth than if she would have lived. Here I am standing 11 years later, and I am still here.”

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ECU Piano Ensembles ‘Monster’ Concert to feature more than 100 performers By Sunnie Dawn Smith

n 2011, professor Skye Garcia decided to undertake a massive collaboration between pianists from East Central University and the community. It was the first ECU Piano Ensembles Concert and featured 60 pianists participating with eight pianos on stage. It was shortly after the Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center had opened and was the first performance to pack the house. Garcia had been inspired by a Piano and Strings camp in Eureka Springs, Arkansas that he had worked for in the early 2000s. At the end of the camp, they pulled all the pianos together to have a collaboration. He thought it was a great idea but wanted to see it happen on a more organized level. This is how the idea of ECU Piano Ensembles was born. The production was such a success that they wanted him to do it again. However, he wanted to wait. It takes a lot of time and money to put on such a production. The pianos have to be tuned. Music has to be purchased. Schedules have to be arranged for both performance and rehearsals. Also, if it was something that was done every year, it would not have the same audience or novelty. So Garcia decided to wait until the time was right, and that time is now. The ECU Piano Ensembles “Monster” Concert will take the stage at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 4 in Ataloa Theater. It has been in development and planning for the past eight years and will bring together 104 pianists with 13 pianos on stage. This means that 26 pianists can be playing piano at the same time. In addition to the pianists, there will also be percussionists, ECU flutes, a cello, a duo of dancers from Cara’s Kids, ECU Collage and ECU Showtime. The performers range from beginners to professionals with an age range from preschoolers to retirees. Of the 104 pianists performing, 45 are piano students from the community that have been handpicked by their teachers to be a part of this momentous event. ECU faculty will be performing as well as piano teachers and performers from the community. In fact, some former ECU faculty who participated in the first program eight years ago are returning to be a part of this performance. Stuart Deaver is coming back from Tulsa, and Starla Hibler 8 • www.adahub.com

is traveling from Indiana. In addition to specifically for this concert by ECU alum, the collaboration between the local piano Angela Marshall. This piece will also be community and the ECU School of Music, backed up with an orchestral score, four live ECU Mass Communications is also creating percussionists and two dancers from Cara’s slideshows and videos for the production. Kids. “A Treasured Friendship” pairs longOne of the things that is unique about time friends at the piano as a slideshow runs this experience is that it brings together in the background, and “Don’t Stop Bepianists – who are normally solitary crealievin’” will feature high school and college tures – and activities like this can help with pianists with choreography by ECU Colperformance anxiety. lage. “Keep Up!” is another original piece “Piano is such a solitary activity,” Garcia composed by Zach Garsha for six pianists said. “We practice alone. We play alone on six pianos. The final two selections are or just for the teacher. We are all alone, for more advanced performers and include and we perform and perform one time by “Over the Rainbow” and “The Stars and ourselves and then go back to the practice Stripes Forever.” room. This gives pianists a chance to play The concert is free and open to the together as a community. Also, most people public. have performance anxiety and playing on something like this helps with that. It makes performing fun. It makes playing piano a social activity.” Other instruments collaborate all the time, whether it be in band, orchestra or ensembles. But usually if a piano is in an ensemble, it is the only one. It is a rare occasion to bring together so many pianists to share a stage. The performance will include 11 selections beginning with “I Love a Piano” by Irving Berlin. The first verse will feature a vocal solo by Zach Smith, and the second verse will include vocals and choreography by ECU Showtime. The next two pieces, “Fall Fun” and “Creepy Crocodile,” are for the younger beginning students. The rest of the pieces are at an intermediate or advanced level, including “The Swan,” an all-female performance of an arrangement of the Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns classic arranged by Garcia and accompanied with cello and ECU Flutes. “Spanish Tornado” is East Central University piano professor Skye Garcia has an all-male performance. organized the second ECU Piano Ensembles Concert eight years after the original event. This year’s concert will feature 104 “Dragon Kite” is a very pianists with 13 pianos on stage. special performance PHOTO BY NICHOLAS GEISLER commissioned

Officials tackle goals in, out of the classroom via adaptive strategic plan By Sunnie Dawn Smith

hen Mike Anderson first became superintendent of Ada Public Schools, he knew something needed to change. He wanted the school system to have a strategic plan that looked down the road at least five years. It was one of his goals and initiatives and was also a part of his interview process when he applied for the job. He brought on two advisors – executive director of academics and instruction Paula Kedy and executive director of operations Bryan Harwell – to help him achieve his goals. Now after many years of planning, meetings and discussions, the new strategic plan is ready to be implemented. With it comes many changes and new opportunities for the students in the community. They started out with steering committees, on which many of the Ada School Board members served alongside other members of the community. They had district forums and community forums and let those discussions guide the values and key issues they wanted to address. They settled on three complex areas that they wanted to improve: academics and instruction, character and culture, and finance and budget. Once that was decided, they identified a number of initiatives and smart goals that would help address the needs that had been identified by committees and district personnel. Their new strategic plan is now the driving force behind everything that the school system does, but it is still a fluid document, changing as they accomplish goals and set new ones. “These goals are continuing goals,” Kedy said. “If we have a goal to improve STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education, which we do, this is a continuing thing because technology is always changing.” They have already implemented STEM labs in all the schools. Even at the youngest level, students will have a chance to innovate and experiment with hands-on learning. They have other academic goals as well, such as expanding their Advanced Placement programs so more students can take advantage of these opportunities and enter college with college credit already on their records. In the past four years, they have already expanded their AP programs to include calculus and art, bringing their total to

Ada Public Schools is implementing its intensive strategic plan to improve in the areas of academics and instruction, character and culture, and finance and budget via community, teacher and student participation. PHOTO BY NICHOLAS GEISLER

nine different offerings. They don’t just want the students to take the classes, though. They have a goal for at least 50 percent of all students taking the AP exam to pass. While this may be a lofty goal because the tests are very difficult, it is one they believe they can achieve with their new approaches to instruction. Another goal related to testing is that they would like to raise the number of “proficient” scores on the Oklahoma State Testing Programs. However, they also realize that teaching to the test does not work, so they are achieving their goals through more hands-on learning and best teaching practices. Their teachers take part in Professional Learning Communities, where they learn from each other through professional development days and early release days during which they can collaborate and have meaningful conversations while examining data to develop plans to improve instruction. Just as the strategic plan is fluid, so is the instructional aspect. They will be data driven, and if something isn’t working, then they will change. “Data is going to be huge in deciding where we want to go,” Harwell said. “We might start out one way and then change in the middle to go in a different direction.” As far as character and culture goes, those at the top of the school system realize that change must come from the top down. If they want students to have strong character, they must first see this in their teachers, principals, counselors and staff members. This is one reason why the professional development is not just limited to academic instruction. The three younger schools –

Ada Early Childhood Center, Hayes Grade Center and Washington Grade Center – all participate in the Leader in Me program featured last month in the Ada Hub. Fifth and sixth graders at Willard Grade Center participate in a different program called Advancement Via Individual Determination, which provides professional learning for educators to improve college readiness for all students. While AVID is about college readiness, it is also about having a culture of character that those teachers then pass down to the students. These are just a few of the initiatives the strategic plan lays out. They are also starting an aviation program through which students will eventually be able to graduate from high school with a pilot’s license. They are providing guidance on curriculum for certain career paths at a young age to help students develop their interests. The older students will have opportunities to mentor younger students. The entire strategic plan can be found on the Ada City Schools website adacougars.net, and print copies can be found around town at doctor’s offices, real estate offices, the Chamber of Commerce, the Ada Public Library and other businesses. While the Ada School System has lofty goals, officials said they are certain that they can accomplish them, but only with the support of the community. “Our community is second-to-none in support of our schools,” Anderson said. “That is evident in people volunteering in our schools to the community passing bond issues. We cannot do this job alone. We have to have help and the community steps up every time.” www.adahub.com • 9

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ECU haunted house event canceled, but spooky tales about building abound By Sunnie Dawn Smith

he East Central University Chorale has hosted a haunted house event called Choralloween on campus the past two years in the space known as Dorothy Summers Theater. The group was planning on doing it again this year, but flooding in the basement caused them to cancel their haunted house. While recent rain and the age of the building provides an easy scientific explanation for the event’s demise, Dorothy Summers Theater has a reputation that might offer a spookier reason for some familiar with it. Science Hall, now known as Old Science Hall, on the ECU campus was built in 1911. It was the first building on campus back when ECU was East Central State Normal School. It contained classrooms, offices and the library along with an auditorium now named Dorothy Summers Theater. In 1939, a fire destroyed the theater, forcing them to rebuild it. According to the History of ECU website, officials suspected that the fire was caused by a careless student smoking. Years later, the auditorium was named after beloved theater professor, Dorothy Summers. Ever since, the actors and musicians who have worked in the theater lovingly refer to it simply as Dorothy, and some have told tales of strange happenings in and around the theater. Many have theories that the ghost of Summers haunts her namesake, even though reports of bizarre occurrences began long before her death. Now students and other performers refer to both the theater and the “ghost” as Dorothy. The stories that people have of Dorothy Summers Theater involve all different parts of the production space. Some stories have to do with a ringing telephone. Sam Baker and Christian Carvajal, veterans of ECU theater, said they each have their own. “In the days before cell phones, there was a phone backstage for the box office to call the stage manager, telling them it was time to start the production,” Baker said. “By the time I was there in the late 90s and early 2000s, the phone had no cords attached to it, but it would still ring before almost every show.” Carvajal said that in the early 90s,

there was a disconnected, on-stage prop telephone that rang several times during rehearsals and even once during a show. Miranda Carrizales has spent many hours alone in Dorothy as an actress and tech person. “Once I was cleaning up after a show, and I had to go turn off the lights,” Carrizales said. “But this one set of lights refused to turn off. As I was going up the stairwell, I said out loud, ‘Dorothy, I don’t have time for this.’ The Coke machine at the top of the stairs suddenly came on loudly and the numbers started spinning on the screen. I just sighed and walked back downstairs. I told the janitor it was his problem now. Another time, two friends decided to smack talk the ghost, and then the lights all started flickering, which was hilarious for me, but not so much for them.” ECU senior Makaila Rodriguez has stories of her encounters in Dorothy. In one such instance, she said was sitting in the audience in by herself waiting for a class to start. The house lights were on while the stage lights were off, but the light from the women’s dressing room shone brightly from the window. As she stared at the light, she saw a huge black mass covering all the light for only a split second. “There is no way someone could just walk

in front of the door and completely block out the light,” Rodriguez said. “There was no sound of anyone walking. No one was on stage or behind. I was the only person in the theater.” One night, Rodriguez along with several other students and communications professor Vickie Reifsnider decided to spend the night in the theater, bringing a Mel Meter with them, which is something featured in paranormal investigations. During the night, the sleepover participants said they heard a vacuum come on at 2 a.m. They also said they heard banging on the stage, footsteps and knocking in sets of threes. They walked around with the Mel Meter. They said there was not much activity until they got to the prop room. All of a sudden, the device started going crazy. Others have reported Dorothy mimicking voices and whistles. Some tales feature door knobs that move by themselves and doors will shut and lock when nobody is around. Some have even said chairs will move themselves during productions. Whether the theater is haunted or these stories are just the overactive imaginations of the music and theater community, there are many who will not be caught in Dorothy by themselves – and certainly not at night.

Dorothy Summers Theater on the East Central University campus was to be home once again for ECU Chorale’s haunted house event before flooding canceled the event. This setback adds to the spooky reputation the building has earned through the stories of strange occurrences told by the music and theater students and faculty who have spent time there.

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