Late-night football fun
I still can’t believe they played that football game Sunday morning.
Lightning streaks across the sky during a weather delay before a college football game between the Oklahoma State University Cowboys and the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane at H.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
From my vantage point in my living room on Saturday night, I could see the story of the early-morning OSU-Tulsa football game unfold.
- I saw weather-blogging star Bryan Painter begin live-blogging as the thunderstorms spawned two tornadoes in northern Oklahoma. He posted how this storm would likely affect the fans that were gathering for the game in Tulsa.
- I saw tweets from reporters Gina Mizell, John Helsley and Jason Kersey as the game was delayed. Following those three reporters on Twitter was the best way to find out the up-to-the-minute information about when the game would start.
- I was on NewsOK.com’s mobile Gameday coverage, where I could see the post-game stats from the OU-Florida State game, which ended after 10 p.m. On the OSU’s mobile gameday page, I saw the story of the storm, the Twitter stream and a blog update from the OSU blog about the only man that stayed in the stands during the storms.
I’m no stranger to midnight. I’ll watch a ball game into the wee hours, so I’m not afraid of late starts. But after 11 p.m., when I learned that it would take more than 45 minutes to be prepared for kick-off, I was certain that decision-makers would not be starting this game.
I was wrong.
After midnight, I lost interest in the game — and it hadn’t even started yet.
The cheerleaders weren’t interested. OSU coach Mike Gundy wasn’t interested. And I bet half the players weren’t even interested.
And I’m pretty sure our reporters, photographers and videographers weren’t interested in staying in Tulsa until after 4 a.m.
But they did. They didn’t even complain. And neither did the sports editors who stayed up even later (or woke up from a short nap) to edit stories as the sun rose and post information on our website so all the fans who lost interest because of exhaustion (like me) could be completely informed.
It was easy to appreciate the fans who stayed through the game.
And it was easy to feel for the players who were forced to wait all day, and then all night, to finally play when they should be resting.
But I won’t forget the journalists who worked tirelessly to make sure you knew what happened when the rest of us had the good sense to get some rest. After all, those reporters didn’t lounge around during the delay — they were working on stories about the delay that we could post online and in the newspaper. Then, after those stories were finished, they had to cover a football game.
And they still looked sharp at 4:30 a.m. for the video camera.
Then again, I’m never surprised at our team. Every breaking news effort or wild sports story proves the same conclusion — journalists are wired to want to tell the story, even if they don’t want to be awake.
But I still can’t believe they kicked off at 12:15 a.m.
NewsOK week in review: Mobile gameday coverage, Mr. Know It and early morning mowing
Follow the OU and OSU games on your mobile device
This is the one thing I’m most excited about this week. We’re making one huge improvement to our live college football game day coverage this year. We’re launching special game coverage pages for OU and OSU so users can easily see all our live content from their mobile device. Go ahead … log on with your iPhone while you’re sitting on the couch …. or while you’re sitting at the tailgate or inside the stadium …. or while you’re shopping with your girlfriend. This page will serve every need. We’ll have our live chat, a live photo gallery, a live boxscore, updated blog posts, update articles, a complete scoreboard and more — and it will be formatted specifically for your mobile device. It will truly be everything you need on your mobile device.
Full Access — Print + Digital
I could write a book about the great offerings we have for Full Access to all our products on multiple devices. But nothing says it better than this video commercial, so I’ll just stop typing ….
Ed Godfrey — the music man
Trace Adkins (not Ed Godfrey)
Outdoors editor Ed Godfrey had an excellent blog post late last week. After listening to Trace Adkins’ new song, “Just Fishin’,” Ed decided to rank the top 10 fishing songs of all time. Ed didn’t think Adkins’ latest would reach the top 10 of all time fishing songs. I disagree.
2011 Football preview — Digital Part 1
You still have time to read all the content in The Oklahoman’s 2011 Football Preview. NewsOK built a special page for the “Dynamic Duos’ coverage, including pages for OU, OSU, High School and Big 12/Nation. There really no better way to get fully prepared for the football season.
2011 football preview — Digital Part 2
The site mentioned above is great for NewsOK users, but what about our iPad users? Well, we also created special PDF editions for OU, OSU and high school football previews. The editions are built specifically to look great on your iPad. It’s high design and in-depth preview coverage built for you to store on iBooks on your device. You don’t have to have an iPad to download these special editions. Go ahead, read it on your laptop or even your iPhone. But if you have an iPad, you really have to give this a try. 1) OU edition. 2) OSU edition. 3) High school edition.
Stop-motion football fun
Speaking of getting ready for the football season, a couple of our video animation experts and one of our artists were busy making outstanding intro animations for our videos. Check out the “Making of NewsOK 2011 Stop Motion Intros” video, starring Kyle Roberts, Billy Davis, Steve Boaldin and Berry Tramel. (Berry did no work on this project, but we think it’s important that he appear in all videos this Fall). This video is really cool, because it shows the amazing talent we have working in our building every day. I’m impressed.
Steve Lackmeyer and the MidTown controversy
Steve Lackmeyer was in MidTown a week ago for an inaugural outdoor food market celebration. He previewed the event with a story. He was at the event as a reporter. He was there when the event was shut down by a number of local agencies. He blogged about it. He Tweeted about it. He wrote a couple of follow-up stories about it. He was so on top of this story that you might wonder if Steve orchestrated the entire thing just so he can report on it. Well, Steve’s a well-respected voice in our community, but he’s not that powerful. He is, however, a quality reporter that stays after stories once he starts to report on them. For that, all of our readers appreciate him.
I dare you not to read this story
We had a well-read story for our Oklahoma readers on Tuesday. It became a well-read story on an international level on Thursday when the Drudge Report linked to the story. The headline says it all: “4:30 a.m. mowing leads to Oklahoma City man’s arrest.” There’s really nothing more I can say to make you click on that story.
Alan Herzberger — star photographer
When we saw the first evidence of smoke to the southeast of our building on Tuesday afternoon, the breaking news reporters sprang into action. As our photographers and reporters raced to the scene and our editors raced to put the information we already had on the top of NewsOK, I took my iPhone a walked to our parking garage to snap a photo of the smoke from a distance. As I walked back to the building entry, I emailed the photo to pics@newsok.com. Before I reached the elevator, I saw the alert that my photo was live on our August User-Submitted Photos gallery. On the elevator, I emailed that to Robb Hibbard, our Digital News Editor. And when I returned to my desk, the photo I took moments earlier was at the top of NewsOK.com — 620 pixels wide. I was very proud.
Mr. Know It debuts
Look closely at that photo on the right. Is that Mr. Know It? Or is it a cardboard Mr. Know It? The debate in our newsroom rages on, but the important thing is that Mr. Know It is available to visit all areas of central Oklahoma. We just can’t know for sure if it’s a real-life Mr. Know It or a cardboard Mr. Know It. It doesn’t really matter, as Communities Editor Don Gammill (the real-life one) says: “He’s generally available to travel, and he’s easy to work with. You’ll never hear him complain, and he’s always smiling.”
A new web editor will join us
I hired a new web editor that serve a multitude of purposes for NewsOK. Her name is Lindsay Houts, and if you are in the social media circles in Oklahoma City, you are already know her. She’ll start soon, and you will see her involved quite heavily with our sports coverage in the digital space. I hope you connect with Lindsay and welcome her to our team.
Most-viewed article
Remember that story about the man who was arrested after he was mowing his lawn at 4:30 a.m.? It was our most-viewed article of the week. We even followed up the story to get more information for our readers. After all, the first story was so popular, we felt there was a little more to tell, so check out Friday’s story, as well.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney was the author of our most-viewed blog post last week. Well, this makes two straight weeks for Travis. His post, “Here we go: A&M gone, now what for OU?,” was the most-viewed post in the NewsOK blogging network. He was breaking down all the options for OU in the conference realignment mess facing the Big 12 Conference.
Most-viewed photo gallery
The wildfires in Oklahoma were our top news item this week. The stories, videos and photos dominated the NewsOK home page, and rightfully so. The gallery was highly trafficked. These photos were from the journalistic professionals that consistently serve up the best images about and around Oklahoma. (In other words, they aren’t the phone snapshots I take from the parking garage).
Most-viewed video
This week’s Press Row video with Jenni Carlson and Berry Tramel also covered conference realignment and the Big 12 Conference. It led all videos this week:
Sports, nDepths and Halliburton executives dominate last full week of August on NewsOK
A blank blog post for about 15 hours
Thank goodness for moms. At a family gathering last weekend, the No. 1 reader of this blog reported that last week’s blog post was blank — as in empty …. nothing to read at all except for a catchy headline. I called up the blog post on the computer and saw that her report was accurate. I’m not sure how that happened. I do know that I made some changes (fixing typos) Friday night on my iPad. I must have pushed the wrong button. Luckily, WordPress has a nice version history of all posts, and I was able to retrieve what was there on Friday night. Whew!
NewsOK.com is hiring
I’m hiring a web editor position. We recently lost a good hand. It’s a shame. But we understand that not everyone spends their entire career here. There are plenty of opportunities for career growth for good people, even when times are tough in the news publishing business. But with every loss comes great opportunity, so we’re looking for a web editor that can do a wide variety of things to help us grow: “NewsOK.com is looking for a web editor to work closely with our online sports initiatives and our sports department. We need a journalist skilled in social media, blogging, content curation, industry technology and trends and solid news judgment to connect with our audience and continue our aggressive digital media efforts. Contact aherzberger@opubco.com.”
OHP sex scandal page
We launched a new Ongoing Coverage page last week amid the series of stories covering the case of Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Patrick Venable. Venable is charged with second-degree rape after being accused of taking a woman into custody in the early morning hours of June 20 and then driving her to her house in Guthrie to have sex. Venable’s next court appearance is set for Sept. 22. On our ongoing coverage page, you can see all the previous stories on this case and read the court and read the affidavit that led to the charges.
Fighting Back – a new nDepth
We launched a new nDepth special presentation this week that is intended to be the first in a series of nDepth specials titled “Fighting Back.” The first one was a story about Reggie Whitten, who has started several non-profit organizations during the past few years after the death of his son Brandon. In this nDepth piece, Jenni Carlson shares Whitten’s story about Brandon’s addiction and eventual death – and how he turned that tragedy into a life spent trying to help others in the world. It’s a powerful story.
Berry’s take on Perkins
Berry Tramel had a Berry-like take on the recent Kendrick Perkins controversy that we reported on last week (and I blogged about in my previous post). From Berry: “What a crock. Hey, Gran Torino, let me tell you what Clint Eastwood would not do in this kind of situation. He wouldn’t hide behind some shill. If he felt he was wronged, he would say so. Or at least, keep quiet and not let anyone else do his talking for him.” We’ve really had all sides of this story covered. Now we’re just waiting on the truth to come out.
Happy iPad customer No. 1
I received an email this week from a longtime newspaper subscriber who now gets the edition every day on his iPad. This customer is a perfect example of a traditional newspaper reader who has transitioned to a digital device as his lifestyle has changed. He was patient and pleasant, but he couldn’t get an edition to download on Tuesday morning. After a quick email exchange (I handed him off to our customer service specialist for digital products), the problem was fixed. We don’t have many problems with customers trying to get an edition or get connected, when we do, we’re happy to help as quickly as we can.
Happy iPad customer No. 2
I spoke with my brother-in-law last weekend. He lives in Springdale, Ark., and reported that he is a new subscriber to The Oklahoman on his iPad device. This customer is a perfect example of a non-traditional newspaper reader who has connected with us because of his new device. He didn’t read the newspaper daily when he lived in town, but he’s always been a digital news consumer. The Oklahoman’s iPad app is a great way to stay informed, especially as it relates to Oklahoma. He’s interested in staying informed about his former state. So because of technology and our development, he’s a new customer. That makes us happy.
Community blogs
We recently launched a community blogs page that has links to a lot of Oklahoma bloggers (45 of them, to be exact). Some of the bloggers are hosted within the NewsOK blogging community, but others are doing their own thing. We link to them as well. I’ve always known the blogging community is Oklahoma is strong, but having dozens of them in one place really helps get around the community quickly. If you’re a blogger, but don”t see yours on here, let me know. I expect that we will add many more in the next week or so.
Travis Haney is on campus
Our new OU football reporter Travis Haney started this week. And judging by his first two blog posts about his tour of the OU campus and his memories of the great Pat Summit, we’re in for a treat on his daily reports and musings about the OU football program. Check them out. Send him a note. And look for much more from Travis.
All-Access from ESPN
Speaking of the OU blog, Mike Baldwin is also covering the Sooners every day. This week, he had the rough assignment of watching television — something many OU fans surely watched as well. His breakdown — ESPN’s ‘All-Access, training Days With the Oklahoma Sooners’ is must-see TV — was helpful to me, especially since I’ve yet to see the program. Mike offered a series of notes about the show, and then said this: “The only negative for a reporter like myself is the media used to get this type of access years ago before college football coaches shut down watching practices. I miss those days. Not only did you get to see which backup players were close to being ready to contribute you saw more of the players’ personalties.”
Gina Mizell starts her gig with us
Staying with the sports theme this week (we are almost ready for football season, you know), check out the blog posts from the new OSU football reporter Gina Mizell. She opened up with an interesting comparison between the OSU football program and the Arizona State football program. She also talked about how she saw her first OSU practice. But her big introduction to us is this video with Berry Tramel from the OPUBCO Studios …
Most-viewed article
A Halliburton executive sipped from a cup of fracking fluid at an industry conference. We had an AP story on it, and Fark.com linked to it, driving the Halliburton executive takes a swig of fracking fluid article to the top of the list for articles this week on NewsOK.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney’s aforementioned blog post about his experience with legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit was our most-viewed blog post this week.
Most-viewed photo gallery
For the second consecutive week, the gallery of the former OU quarterback Jimmy Harris has been the most-viewed photo gallery in our photo section. Jimmy keeps on winning.
Most-viewed video
An OU practice report from Tuesday was our most-viewed video this week:
This week on NewsOK: New apps, updated apps and everything from Bennie Owen to Kendrick Perkins
Serving another iPad experience
We launched our custom iPad application for The Oklahoman last October. I wrote about it plenty, and we received quite a bit of national notoriety for this application. Since the launch in Oct. 2010, we opened the subscriptions up for all subscribers to The Oklahoman, as well as offering a la carte subscriptions for $9.99 per month. But we also launched a different iPad app with a completely different experience in the past month or so. This one gives readers a page-by-page experience on their iPad. In other words, it acts as an interactive PDF of the newspaper edition. Since we launched it, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback. The one review we have in the App store says this: “This is exactly what reading the paper electronically SHOULD be like.” That user is a true believer, but others prefer the customized tablet experience we had already built. Us? We honestly don’t care which application you use. We are simply trying to provide the best digital experiences possible for our users who continue to move their reading habits to new devices. The Oklahoma Print Replica app is just another option for you. And it’s free to all subscribers of The Oklahoman.
A weekend of rowing
Last weekend was a big weekend for the Oklahoma River with the USRowing Master’s National Championships in town. We had the event covered with a series of stories, photo galleries and videos. Dave Morris did a stellar job with a video recap of the event on Sunday. And the blog post from photographer John Clanton was top notch. Of course, the photos galleries were probably the most popular element of the weekend (NewsOK readers absolutely love photos).
Growing Oklahoma Watch coverage
We launched a third Oklahoma Watch page recently. Oklahoma Watch, you might remember, is a “non-profit, investigative and in-depth reporting team that collaborates with other news organizations and higher education to produce journalism that makes a difference in the lives of Oklahomans.” We launched a page on NewsOK late in 2010 as we began our combined Women in Prison series with Oklahoma Watch. And recently, we started Oklahoma Watch pages on Tax Credits and on Immigration. It’s all found on our Oklahoma Watch page. But more than anything, it’s proof of what we think our role is here … the continued focus on serious issues is something that we at The Oklahoman and NewsOK are committed to.
The Kendrick Perkins saga
The Kendrick Perkins saga has been pretty interesting this week. It began on Saturday, when news from Beaumont, Texas, came out with information about Kendrick Perkins being arrested early that morning. It was a misdemeanor, but it didn’t look good. Jenni Carlson wrote a column about it, pointing out exactly how it didn’t look so good. “But to be an NBA player in your hometown doing a youth camp and raising money for life-skills and drug-awareness training for kids, to be arrested less than 24 hours after going to the hospital and being told to cool it, to blow off a charity game and a camp banquet to then go out to a club and get arrested, that is plain dumb.” Darnell Mayberry followed up with reports from the Perkins camp saying that he’s innocent and he wants to clear his name: “‘He was not drinking alcohol, nor was he intoxicated,’ said White, CEO and founder of EAG Sports Management. ‘Not one drop of alcohol Friday night. We’re not sure why they said Kendrick was intoxicated.‘ ” It’s interesting, and NewsOK will have it all covered. What else are we going to do … cover NBA games during a lockout?
This just in — I have a favorite app
I’ve had my iPad for about six months now. I love it. This week, I finally decided on my absolute favorite app. It’s one I downloaded months ago but never really used on a regular basis. This week, I opened the MLS MatchDay 2011 app and realized how much information it gave to soccer fans of the top U.S. league. Granted, I don’t follow the league that closely, but I casually follow what’s happening in Major League Soccer. And if central Oklahoma would have joined the league with a team in 2004 (check the NewsOK archives for history on that), I would have been following the league very closely. As it is, I just felt I should share that for its functionality and content, the MLS Match Day app is my favorite.
NewsOK TV video worth seeing each day
NewsOK TV is a show that Dave Morris and Angi Bruss have been doing for the past month or so. It’s always a great recap on what people are talking about every day.
Download our videos on NewsOK.tv app
Speaking of NewsOK TV, I highly recommend finding and downloading our NewsOK TV app for your iPhone. We updated the app with new functionality on Aug. 10, and it’s definitely worth a look. Check out the iTunes app store for the latest upgrade. It’s all you need to see every video that we produce at NewsOK.
A trip through The Oklahoman archives
Bennie Owen
I received this question from a NewsOK user this week: “I’m looking for an article … that was printed in 1969. Do you know if the online paid subscription archive would go back that far. Thank you for your time.” My answer: “I would recommend using our archives for The Oklahoman. We should have everything you are looking for dating back to 1901. The link is available on the NewsOK home page sub-navigation.” The Oklahoman’s archives are a real treasure that are sometimes overlooked. Just for fun, I did a quick search for Bennie Owen (I wanted to be sure I could find some I ended up with a long list of stories. After all, Bennie Owen is a legendary football coach at OU and the namesake of the field at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Here is just one item I found – a notes column from Charles J. Brill that included a passionate plea to make Owen the athletic director at the school. I love reading old columns from our archives. You’d enjoy it, too.
‘Know it’ all about the state quarterbacks
We launched two new know it pages this week in preparation for the football season. You can now read everything you need to know about OU quarterback Landry Jones and OSU quarterback Brandon Weeden. We can only hope there’s no know it curse, though. Two years ago, we launched pages for Sam Bradford and Zach Robinson. Bradford was injured in the first game. Robinson’s numbers fell short of legendary ‘know it’ status. We wish better ‘know it’ luck to Jones and Weeden.
Most-viewed video
Get ready for a steady diet of Berry Tramel and college football. We start with the most-viewed video this week:
Most-viewed article
The most-viewed article this week was Berry Tramel’s column about the Sooners and their future conference affiliation: OU wants no part of the SEC.
Most-viewed blog
Berry led the blog charge this week. This was also about college football: Big 12 football: Houston is no solution.
Most-viewed photo gallery
The gallery is more than a week old, but it still was popular this week. It was the photo gallery we created to go with our obituary of legendary OU quarterback Jimmy Harris. It should be noted, of course, that the primary column that the gallery was linked to was Berry Tramel’s column: The quarterback who never lost.
A nice time to look at the top stories in July
NewsOK had an interesting cross-section of articles that topped the list in July. Today, I’ll take a look at the top 5 most-viewed articles from last month.
Oklahoma City man who wore diapers sentenced to three years in prison
The most-viewed story of July was a about the sentencing of a 21-year-old man who pretended to be autistic and have the mind of a young child. Yeah … it’s kind of hard to explain, but you probably already read all about it. The article was viewed a lot by our local traffic, but it was also linked from the Drudge Report website, so the page views soared with national interest.
Oklahoma City outlet mall set to open on tax-free weekend
The No. 2 story of the month was about the outlet mall that’s soon to open on the west side of the metro. This mall must be really popular to have it rank so high in our article views. It’s not crime-related. It’s not breaking news. It’s not a sports story. It’s just a straight news story with broad appeal. Nice.
OSU unveils new football uniforms
This story was a bit of a surprise. I knew it would be a popular story, but I didn’t realize it would give us the traffic spike it did last week. The article and the photo gallery helped lift our monthly traffic. People love uniforms. And if you haven’t visited the interactive element that allows you to outfit your own OSU Cowboy, it’s worth a visit.
OU’s Landry Jones, Whitney Hand team up for life
This story has it all for traffic gold. It combines an OU quarterback with Heisman Trophy potential and a three-point specialist on a NCAA Tournament basketball team. It also combines a pretty girl with an infectious smile and a social media storm that went viral. Yes, we covered the engagement of Landry Jones and Whitney Hand.
Oklahoma City parents complain police wrongly rounded up teenagers in Bricktown
And finally, in at No. 5 was this report about teenagers being in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though they were in an acceptable place at an acceptable time. The parents were mad. The police admitted being wrong. The public had its say in our comments — 329 of them, to be exact.
Steve Lackmeyer column well worth the read
Steve Lackmeyer took a moment and wrote a powerful piece related to his recent interview with a Swedish radio network.
He agreed to the interview with the Swedish Broadcasting Corp., to talk about how Oklahoma City has grown since the 1995 bombing and what the people in that area of the world can expect after the recent attacks in Norway.
I reported on that 1995 attack. I’ve covered the recovery of downtown ever since. But I’ve always been a bit skittish about the whole thing. A week into the tragedy I fled Oklahoma City, naively thinking I could escape the story. On the second anniversary of the bombing I literally lost control of my emotional well being — I just couldn’t bear to watch the procession of victims’ relatives and survivors marching down Robinson Avenue.
Great stuff. And it gets even better from there. If you read anything on NewsOK this week, please read this.
And then visit Steve Lackmeyer’s page on NewsOK to see everything he produces with his blog, articles, columns and videos. He know what’s happening downtown Oklahoma City better than anyone.
These NewsOK stories will make you feel good about our little planet
I posted yesterday some of the stories in my ‘we-can’t-make this-stuff-up’ category.
Today, I’m posting stories from the ‘the-world-is a-good-place’ category to be certain I give a fair account of our coverage.
(Though, to be fair, the stories from the ‘we-can’t-make-this-stuff-up’ department traditionally generate more article page views than the stories from the ‘world-is-a-good-place’ department).
Let’s start with this harrowing tale. We had a story yesterday about a woman from Stonewall who was honored for here efforts in helping rescue a man from a pack of wild dogs attacking him.
At the time of the attack, Jennifer Sweet, 28, of Stonewall, was on her way home from dropping off her husband at work. Her toddler was in the back seat of the car when she drove up on the horrific scene — a man covered in blood surrounded by a pack of animals acting more like hungry wolves than domestic pets.
He lived, and she’s a hero. That makes me feel good.
Then there’s this tale about a much friendlier dog named Tigger, a service animal who alerts Deona Boyle when she is about to have an epileptic siezure.
Tigger can sense the onset of Boyle’s seizures before they happen. “He puts his paws on me, nudges me with his nose,” she said. “That’s my signal to sit down, wherever I’m at.”
And there is this great story about a 10-year-old entrepreneur who sells unique homemade parachute cords to support an initiative to send care packages to her brother during his deployment with the Oklahoma National Guard.
At first she wanted to raise money to buy herself a golf cart. Then she decided half of her proceeds could be used to send care packages to her older brother and his Oklahoma National Guard buddies, who are serving with the U.S. Army’s 45th Infantry Brigade in Afghanistan.
I have a wonderful 10-year-old who is learning to save his money and use it wisely. I understand how the fact that this girl wants to give some of it a way to a cause is quite impressive.
And my personal favorite, which I posted on Twitter about earlier in the week, is Jenni Carlson’s column about the exceptional sportsmanship displayed by the U.S. women’s soccer team after losing a heart-breaker to Japan on Sunday. I’m a soccer fan and a patriot, but I frankly didn’t care much about who won that game as I watched it … until it was over. That’s when I became a big fan of the U.S. women’s soccer team.
In the moments after Team USA suffered heartbreak like never before, Wambach was the model of grace and class. A sports world that is often void of common decency should take notice.
Four happy stories that will allow us, for a few moments this afternoon, to look past some of the other important stories we have on NewsOK — like the story about woman accused of abusing a 5-year-old girl or the story about the New Mexico judge arrested on charges of raping a prostitute.
From the ‘we-can’t-make-this-stuff-up’ department
Sometimes, visiting the top stories on NewsOK can make it pretty difficult to believe our world is a good place.
And the social media and pop culture world, which I’m happy to be a part of, is often the backdrop for bad stuff in the world. See from these recent stories on NewsOK.
First, we have the story about the former youth minister in Lexington (a person still active in the church) who is accused of posing as an 18-year-old woman on Facebook in an effort lure boys to send him nude photographs on themselves.
The wife told the FBI she recognized many of “Terri Smith’s” Facebook friends as individuals from the church she and her husband attend. She said she recognized others as individuals from summer church youth camps they had attended.
That marriage is likely to not end well.
Second, we have the wire story of a Florida teen accused of killing his parents and then having a party that was advertised on Facebook.
He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Blake and Mary-Jo Hadley, who police believe were struck on their heads and torsos on Saturday, sometime after their son posted on Facebook to tell friends about the party.
And finally, our current most popular story on the site from the last 24 hours is the story about the suspect in last week’s firebombing deaths saying, according to police, that he got the idea from the recent “Jackass 3″ movie.
What part of the movie the boy referred to was unclear. The 2010 movie is a series of often raunchy pranks, stunts and skits. It ends with fiery explosions that propel the stars into the air. A version called “Jackass 3.5” was released on DVD in June and features skits not shown in the theater. One skit features shaken pop bottles rocketing across a room.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the Internet or Facebook or movies. Those places aren’t so bad on their own.
But the world? Not so good.
But just to offset this post, I’ll make a point to find some happy stories to share in a post tomorrow.
An up-close look at noodling
We’ve had a lot of recent content about noodling in recent weeks.
We’ve had a photo gallery from the Okie Noodling Tournament.
Ed Godfrey advanced that tournament with a column about people from Minnesota who were in Oklahoma for the tournament. The picture … it’s pretty incredible.
We had a feature this weekend from Oklahoman Interns Adam Kemp and Anthony Slater about local noodling enthusiasts and the recent national spotlight the sport has gained.
But watching the video of some of those enthusiasts convinced me. Noodling is unique. It’s something I don’t ever plan to try.
Bryan Painter, Randy Ellis and David McDaniel team to tell powerful stories
The top of NewsOK.com this morning was a great example of what we aim to do each day.
Gail and Craig Box discus the loss of their son, OU football player Austin Box, at their home in Enid.
Three veteran journalists (three of our best) told the story of Austin Box’s death from the parents’ perspective.
From Austin’s father:
“You ask who Austin was,” he said, “Austin was my hero…”
From his mother:
“I have wracked my brain. Did I ignore signs? I don’t know, but I do know that Austin was a silent sufferer.”
The stories from Randy Ellis and Bryan Painter came from an afternoon visiting with Craig and Gail Box in Enid. The parents wanted to tell their story.
Randy and Bryan did what reporters in our newsroom love — listen and share a story with clarity and professionalism.
And, of course, David’s photos paint the picture of grief as clearly as the words.
The three of them helped us understand what the Box family has been through.
