The Tulsa Boys' Home has served nearly 12,000 children in 98 years

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By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

The Sand Springs Rotary Club and the Sand Springs United Methodist Church hosted a nonprofit showcase this past Thursday and twenty-nine local organizations participated. The free public event included free food and door prizes to help bring public awareness and attention to the organizations and the opportunities for community involvement. One of those organizations is the Tulsa Boys' Home.

The Tulsa Boys’ Home was first established in 1918 as an orphanage, and since then has cared for nearly 12,000 children and young people. The residential treatment facility currently is home to 64 boys, ages 11 through 18, who struggle with serious emotional, behavioral, and drug problems.

The majority of the boys in the home are placed by the Department of Human Services, though roughly a third are placed by parents and legal guardians. The average length of stay is ten months, but the facility staff work hard to help the boys transition well upon aging out.

The philosophy of the home is “the belief that most of the emotional and behavioral problems (of the boys) are caused by painful past events or a lack of a safe, structured, supportive, and nurturing environment, with consistency, clear limits, and boundaries.”

The program focuses on addressing the individual, the group, and the family, while including life skills training, character education, and employment opportunities. The home has 24-hour supervision with licensed psychologists and psychiatrists on staff.

“Essentially, Tulsa Boys’ Home is about healing broken hearts and broken homes, giving young boys a sense of hope for a positive future that they perhaps never thought possible.”

The facility boasts a swimming pool, recreation hall, gymnasium, tennis court, weight room, baseball field, football/soccer field, ceramics shop, fishing ponds, running track, hiking fields, and other activities. It also is home to a therapeutic equine program that brings retired race horses and quarter horses to the facility for the boys’ attention and care, aiding in the healing process.

The Home offers hour-long “Hope Tours” to those interested in finding out more about the facility and operation. The Home welcomes volunteers, donations, and admission applications.

www.tulsaboyshome.org

New Public Safety facilities to be built at former Gerdau site alongside retail development

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By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

The Sand Springs City Council unanimously approved a development agreement with OmniTRAX, Inc. Monday evening. Two weeks ago OmniTRAX announced their acquisition of the 146-acre site formerly owned by Sheffield Steel, then by Gerdau Ameristeel. OmniTRAX plans to demolish portions of the Steel Mill and develop the property for industrial and commercial use. In addition to developing a 25-acre retail area, the property will also be the home to the new City of Sand Springs Public Safety facilities. 

Tony Manos, Senior Vice-President of Industrial Development at OmniTRAX, provided a presentation on the project at the City Council meeting. 

OmniTRAX is the owning entity of the Sand Springs Railway, which was acquired in 2014 from Gerdau, and has been leasing portions of the Gerdau property since that time. The company maintains 20 short-line railroads in 9 states and 3 Canadian provinces and works in rail services, terminal services, logistics services, and industrial development. 

"We are a very invested company in our communities," said Manos. "(City-Manager) Elizabeth (Gray)'s team and the two Chiefs (Police Chief Mike Carter and Fire Chief Mike Wood) have been incredible, as well as City Council. This has been the smoothest transition I've ever been a part of in the real estate business."

The Steel Mill is expected to be demolished sometime next year and the new City public safety facilities will be built directly across from WalMart. OmniTRAX is also looking to bring quality jobs to the Sand Springs community, and announced that a new tenant will be moving into a 20,000 sq. ft. facility by April of next year, and will create approximately 50 new jobs for the community.

"We are so proud to bring something back to a site that has been so important to our town throughout its history," said Councilman John Fothergill.  "It really does mean a lot to our city." 

The effort to relocate the current public safety facilities began in 2013 when voters approved a proposition to demolish Fire Station 1, but voted against the corresponding proposition to build a new one. Luckily, there was no timeline for the proposition, and Sand Springs has retained their north side Fire Station. The proposition that failed would have been funded through a property tax increase that could amount to as much as $100 a year for homeowners.

The City gave the project another go in October of last year, when citizens overwhelming voted in favor of extending current sales tax levels. The tax money would be redirected from the previous allocation to a new building for police, fire, and dispatchers. This vote also nixed the decision to demolish Fire Station One, and called for a remodel of the facility to give the Sand Springs Fire Department three stations. 

The City purchased property from the Sand Springs Home in 2014 at the corner of 129th West Avenue and Wekiwa with the intent to build the facilities there, but was met with public concerns that the area was too far outside of town. 

At their last meeting, City Council unanimously approved a contract with Dewberry Architects for design of the new public safety facilities. Their construction will take approximately one year from the completion of the new designs. 

Tyler Morrison receives Student Spirit Award for constructing new gardens at Garfield

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Gardens constructed by Tyler Morrison at the new Garfield STEAM Academy

By: Virgil Noah, Staff Writer

The regular monthly meeting of the Sand Springs Board of Education was held Tuesday in the Charles Page High School Performing Arts Building. The meeting began with the recognition and presentation of awards to several people.

Garfield STEAM Academy lost its garden after undergoing an extensive remodel, but that problem was fixed when student Tyler Morrison volunteered to be the eagle scout for the school, put together a plan and build the gardens. "It was really busy but it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of help and I definitely couldn't have done it without help." Tyler was presented with a Student Spirit Award and a gift card to Rib Crib.

Sand Springs Education Foundation Director Sylvia Fooshee was presented with a Sandite Spirit Award for her contributions and dedication over the years to Sand Springs Schools.

Board of Education President Mike Mullins was recently recognized with the Oklahoma State School Board Association Distinguished Service Award. Mullins, who recently gave up his gavel as President of the OSSBA, received the award at the annual OSSBA/Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration (CCOSA) conference in Oklahoma City. The award is given to only one individual a year. Mullins was also presented with the Sandite Think Right Award for his 19 years of service on the Sand Springs Board of Education. 

The Sand Springs School district set a goal of $65,000 in fundraising for the STEM initiative this year. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Electronics, and Mathematics. Several local businesses and organizations have made donations to the program. The Sand Springs Home was recognized for their $10,000 donation and LD Kerns Contractors was recognized for its work on the Garfield Renovation Project and a $500 donation to the STEM Initiative.

The Board approved out of state travel for several Sandite extra curricular events. The varsity Cross Country teams will be traveling to Fayetteville, Arkansas in October for the Chile Pepper XC Festival. The Dance team will be attending Dance Nationals in Orlando, Florida in February. The CPHS band will be headed to the Alamo Showcase of Music in San Antonio in April. Sandite Baseball will play in a Spring Break Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona in March. 

Sharon James, Matt Watkins, and Heather Miller are attending a Literacy Conference in San Diego, California later this month. Kristen Tanner received a $1,240 Scholarship from Engineering in Elementary to attend their workshop, Linking the E & M in STEM, in Boston, Massachusetts in November.

Opal Moss is older than Sand Springs and still telling the story of Charles Page

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Photo by Lisa Echohawk-Doss

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

The Book Box, Sand Springs’s lone book store, hosted a Meet-the-Author and Book Signing event Saturday, June 11th.

The guest was Opal Bennefield Clark-Moss, an award winning local author who grew up in Sand Springs in its infancy as a fatherless child at the Sand Springs Home. Moss, 104, was proud to share the fact that she was named the same day as Sand Springs. Her books still show her name as “Opal Bennefield Clark,” but she was remarried in 2012 at the age of 100 to Paul Moss. Moss passed away in 2014.

According to Opal, her mother had intended to name her Oklahoma, but a days after she was born, her three-year old sister accidentally referred to her as “Opal” because she couldn’t pronounce the name of the State. Her mother liked the sound of it and the name stuck.

Her father was attacked and killed by wild boar while riding horseback two months before she was born. Her mother, Daisy, nearly died while Opal was a child, but pulled together enough strength to get her children to the new town Charles Page was starting.

She signed copies of her highly acclaimed biography on Charles Page, as well as her latest publication, a children’s story titled “Leelore’s Unusual Choir,” in which she also did all the illustration. 

The Book Box is located at 214 North McKinley Avenue in downtown Sand Springs. To contact The Book Box, call 918.629.1912.

 From The Publisher:

“Charles Page came to Tulsa during the oil boom at the turn of the century. After many failures he finally made it rich in the oil business. He shared his fortune and his life with hundreds of people in need. Charles Page rescued twenty-one children from a defunct Tulsa orphanage. The result was the Sand Springs Children’s Home built in 1918, followed by the Charles Page Children’s Home, a modernistic building now in use. 

Charles Page also created a Widow’s Colony where women could come to find shelter and get back on their feet.

Charles Page is considered the father of Sand Springs, and his name appears on street markers, over libraries and schools. A trust continues to operate his benevolent enterprises. 

The author, Opal Clark, came to Sand Springs to the Children’s Home in 1916. She worked on the book off and on, for more than twenty–five years. The stories of Charles Page’s childhood were told to the author by "Daddy Page" himself while she stood at his knee as an orphan. 

Charles Page died in December, 1926. The author writes, "I shall never forget that day (of his funeral). Church bells rang and factory sirens gave a mournful wail as the wheels of industry in both Sand Springs and Tulsa came to a halt for ten minutes in his honor. As my sister and I stood weeping, strangers around us spoke in hushed whispers of his greatness. We had never thought of him as they pictured him. We knew him only as Daddy Page." 
 
His memory and his accomplishments live on through "A Fool’s Enterprise.”