OSL History
Tish Farris, Gerry Pugsley, Lurline Mabrey, Pat Gilder
Candlelight Ball Planning
(As told by Charter Member Margaret Knight)
“Over 50 years ago on a warm autumn evening, I banged on my garage doors with a tennis ball thinking “Now, you have to do it now. You’ve thought about it over a year. So just do it. Now. Start with Sue Potts. She’s civic minded. So, I drove to her house.
After a cursory explanation that a Service League was like a Junior League for small towns, she agreed to take an active part.
Helen Watson was my next call. Helen was a bushel of fun. Ideas flowed from her like water over Niagara Falls. Especially the fun things. A fund raiser of various group dances, she suggested. She’d choreograph it all. A marching number, a Can Can, a Hokie Pokie, a Rumba. You name it; she could and would do it.
So, on with recruiting members. Lurline Mabrey was gung ho. Carlisle wanted a Y for the town. Ruth Kenney wanted lunch meals for kids who came to school hungry. Margaret Robinson wanted care for an under privileged child with cystic fibrosis. A Cotillion, the big thing for the teenagers back then was suggested. Marion Robinson and Barbara Thompson wanted a Pink Ladies for Okmulgee’s impoverished hospital.
Very quickly our cup runneth over. Too many things needed to be done at the same time. We couldn’t start a Service League and a Pink Ladies at the same time. We’d all be spread too thin. Which way to go?
Finally an “aha” moment came. Pink Lady hours of service could be counted as Service League volunteer hours.
Another woman, active in the Girl Scouts, wanted Girl Scout Service to count as Service League hours. After a moments hesitation, I shrugged, why not. Any thing that helped would be service.
Meanwhile Juanita Bird went with me to talk with the City Manager. His eyebrows lifting, he asked, ““Why do you want to do this?” “To help our community and the people in it... to do good,” I answered. After a long pause, he said with a nod, “Sounds good.””
Back row: Susie Ewton, Mary Harlan Lewellen, Anna Cruce, Leslie Ewy, Debbie Wade, Mary Howard, Cathy Patterson, Amy Rogers, Linda Lotspeich. Middle row: Mary Crowley, Shelly Chastain, Brenda Branch, Lou Ann Walters, Glenda Haynes, Brenda Priegel, Jearlyn Nick, Denise Morrow. Front row: Jackie Drake, Debbie Gardenhire, Carol Cable, Nicole Winters, Margaret Hess, Julie Golden, Dee Dee Nick
40th Anniversary Ball 1999
Soon thereafter about twenty women met right at the Okmulgee Country Club and The Okmulgee Service League was formed. All those present were asked to bring a friend to the next month’s meeting.
To do anything for the community we knew we had to raise money. Suggestions sprang like pop corn from the eager volunteers. A thrift shop, a speakers’ bureau, a debutante ball, a floor show, a play. Along the way they all, and more, came into being.
Helen immediately got with it and taught the different groups the dances they would be performing. Practice, practice, practice. The girls seemed to enjoy their practices as much as they did their time on stage. And the audience loved them. Prolonged hoorays and clapping brought repeated bows from the happy high knee marchers.
Another great money raiser was the Candlelight Ball. Sue volunteered to organize and make all arrangements. Decorating for it was a ball in itself. Adjacent to the stage across the side walls of the north end of this very hall, Mary Volturo stretched wide swaths of butcher’s paper & decorated it with luxurious scenes of the deep south. Ann Wise brought bags of garlands of southern moss from a recent trip which we hung from the ceiling and enhanced with twinkling lights.
Proud fathers escorted their beautiful debutante daughters down the center aisle of this ball room chock full of the generous citizens of Okmulgee who had purchased tickets to the Ball. The girls wore long, white dresses, long, white gloves and smiled radiantly as they proceeded to the stage on their father’s arm. That first ball was quite a burgeoning success.
Early on a cohort and I went to see the President of Okmulgee Tech and asked what contribution we might give to the school which was so important to our community. He suggested a student scholarship. The one time offer turned into an annual scholarship and is still given out today.
Jami Macaluso, Sherry Conrady, Muriel Siegenthaler, Shelly O’Mealey, Deborah Jennings, Ann Giuloio, Lawanna Giddings, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Sulivant, Page Hayden, Linda Milligan, Nicole Constantine, Margie Bemis, Fran Columbine, Mae Arterbery, Karen Mabrey, Linda Brydges, Carolyn Brown, Elizabeth Torbett, Maggie Bailey, Lynda Barksdale, Shawna Thomas, Nancy Graham, Joyce Williams, Pat Miller, Sis Hummel, Carolyn Burks, Amy Nix, Janine Kramer, Christy Brasier, Teresa Yarbrough, Tricia Pearson, Jenny Columbine, Mandy Flanary
50th Anniversary Celebration 2009
The town desperately needed a new hospital. Joyce Williams and I scoured the surrounding small communities and their superior hospital facilities. Okmulgee’s need grew larger.
When the idea of building a new hospital took hold throughout the city, Margaret Robinson was President and with a vote of the membership, volunteered to raise $2,000. Margaret told me she trembled in her boots when the news of our pledge came out in the paper. “She wondered how could we ever pull that off?
Within days the answer arrived on her doorstep. Edith Viersen Terry called and asked her to come by. Edith gave her a check towards the hospital for $2,000. I thought to myself “Glory, glory Hallelujah!”
The necessity of a new Teen Town surfaced real quick. Helen and I went one evening to view the then current Teen Town being held in an old and abandoned school on the north side. It’s a wonder the building hadn’t fallen in on them. The Red Baron evolved as the answer. In time we bought a building from George Volturo. Mansberger & Volturo contractors turned this restaurant into a Teen Town. It was a huge success. It gave Okmulgee’s teenagers a place to hang out.
Meanwhile a Tulsa friend of Pat Viersen Brown loaned me a copy of Tulsa’s Junior League handbook which was a great help in drawing up our constitution. And thus, the birth of Okmulgee Service League.
Today, we understand our heritage is noteworthy and our future is bright. With the years have come changes in the face of our membership. Today, we are working women, some of us mothers, wives, chauffeurs, and the like. We will continue to balance out limited time with the want and desire to serve. The bonds of friendship and support that are a part of this group are important. Not only do we serve others, but have formed strong support systems for our members’ needs. That, in our opinion, is as important in this day and age, as the need to serve.
Women helping women and women helping to make our community a little better. That, to us, is what it’s all about!