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The day the music died
Founder of Oklahoma Opry and Rodeo Opry remembered as a friend and mentor to musicians
By Darcy Delaney, staff writer
The Sunday Sun
Music lost a legend Dec. 31, 2006, when Granville J. Leftwich, founder of the Oklahoma Opry and Grant’s Rodeo Opry, passed away in his Oklahoma City home after a brief illness. He was 77.
Known to most as Grant, Leftwich spent 30 years of Saturday nights as the executive director and show producer for local country and western and gospel shows.
According to an Opry press release, “back in 1977, Leftwich set up some folding chairs at the National Guard Armory, put on a country music show and called it the Oklahoma Opry.”
Every week from 1977 until June 2004, Leftwich, alongside his Opry Angels and band, gave thousands of young artists a venue to share their voice at the original Oklahoma Opry, which is still open in Capitol Hill.
Leftwich left the Oklahoma Opry in June 2004, and, with supporters, created the nonprofit Opry Heritage Foundation.
After raising money, Leftwich and the group began renovating a theater in Stockyards City, a place where Leftwich had talked about moving for years. The theater opened as Grant’s Rodeo Opry in January 2005.
The Rodeo Opry was soon chosen as an official project of the Oklahoma Centennial Commission and its name was changed to the Oklahoma Centennial Rodeo Opry.
Leftwich’s life was celebrated by an estimated 300+ family members and friends at a service held Jan. 4 at the Rodeo Opry.
During the service, Leftwich was recognized as being a friend, mentor and coach to nearly 20,000 country performers over the years.
“I've known Grant for 14 years. His passion, and his entire life was his show. Many people in Oklahoma got their first shot at singing in front of an audience because Grant gave it to them. He loved music and he loved musicians. He leaves a void in his absence that will be mighty tough to fill,” said Dustin Jones, Opry performer and former Opry musician.
The service was carried out like a typical Opry performance, with a stage-full of artists performing and paying tribute to the man they credit for helping them start out in the music industry.
Kata Hay began performing at the original Oklahoma Opry at the age of 3.
Now 19, Hay said, “Grant was the single most important influence in my career. Since I was 3, he's been 100 percent behind me, calling and encouraging me. Furthermore, he was one of my best friends.”
Maci Wainwright also began performing at the Opry when she was young.
“He offered opportunities that were invaluable to me as a performer, a singer and an artist. He taught me not to care what others think and to be true to myself,” she said.
The service featured Opry emcees like Darlin’ Darla, KKNG’s Lynn Waggoner and News Channel 9’s Robin Marsh.
A letter of commendation was given by Gov. Brad Henry and was read aloud. Country singer/songwriter Bryan White also sent a heart-felt letter expressing his gratitude toward Leftwich and the Opry for helping him begin his career.
“Musicians, performers and the audience always knew that the Opry was wherever Grant was,” said Randy Earhart, chairman of the Opry Heritage Foundation of Oklahoma.
Leftwich was born Sept. 5, 1929, to Frank and Bitha Leftwich in Sasakwa. He was preceded in death by his parents; his brother, Leon Leftwich; and his loving wife, Margie. He is survived by his brother, Billy and wife Barbara and their son, Keith and his wife Dinah; his children, Sandi Bailey, Mike and Liz Leftwich and Sherrie Leftwich; grandchildren, Sarah and Brad Goebel and Zandra Hayes; and great-granddaughter, Presley Goebel.
Copyright © 1999-2010 cnhi, inc.
GM employees reflect on future
By Darcy Delaney, staff writer
The Sunday Sun
Faced with an uncertain future, hourly employees of Oklahoma City’s General Motors Assembly Plant pondered their financial security.
A year ago this week, the GM plant in Oklahoma City ceased production and closed its doors. Since that time, company officials said 1,533 of about 2,400 hourly workers at the plant took the company buyout, known as the GM Pre-retirement Program in which employees agreed to an early retirement package. This is reportedly the largest number of employees to choose that option than at any other closing GM plant.
According to the United Auto Workers Local 1999’s Shop Chairman’s Report, there were 337 people who remain in the plant as part of the Jobs Bank. These employees have chosen to remain on the payroll receiving full pay until the union contract expires in September 2007. They are not participants in the early retirement option of the GM Pre-retirement Program.
Another 105 employees are currently active full-time workers in the plant. Their primary responsibility is the dismantling and shipping of equipment. Their future likely involves a transfer or other options upon which the international union and GM have agreed.
Ken Owen, 51, began working at the Oklahoma City GM plant 27 years ago. He started his career in the body shop, installing latches on the hoods and trunk lids. Then he took a job on the line as a fitter, making adjustments to the hood, trunk lid or doors to ensure they fit properly.
Later he served as editor, writer, graphic artist and photographer of an in-plant joint publication called “OKC Press.” His last assignment was as the Transitional Work Center Coordinator, a program designed to help those injured on the job return to work more quickly and decrease re-injury rates. Employees were able to recuperate in the plant and receive full wages instead of sick leave while working within their restrictions.
He is one of the 1,533 workers who chose the early retirement package.
“The GM Pre-retirement package was attractive because it allowed me to grow into full retirement while still bringing home a decent paycheck,” he said. “The benefits have been many. Probably, the most important benefit is it has allowed me to return to school to complete my degree in art.
“I have really enjoyed the experience this time,” he said. “I think I am just now coming to the full realization of who I really am.”
While Owen said he does not have any major frustrations or regrets in taking the buyout, he said there have been some minor setbacks.
“Naturally there have been moments of doubt when you question whether you made the right decision. Initially I looked for work and found it to be a series of closed doors. It seems no one is interested in a 51-year-old union dog,” he said. “Believe it or not, it was a difficult adjustment at first. I have worked somewhere doing something since I was old enough to walk away from the house pushing a lawn mower.”
Workers at the plant who opted for the buyout are not living on the wages they received prior to their retirement. Instead, the package included significant cuts in pay.
“It has definitely been an adjustment, but it has also afforded some opportunities that would not have otherwise been available. In many ways it has been a blessing,” Owen said.
In order to ensure full retirement benefits, about 377 employees, including 58-year-old Tom Blue Eyes, decided to transfer to another plant.
Blue Eyes was a body shop assembler working in the sub assembly body shop in Oklahoma City. He transferred to GM’s Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kan. and currently works as an assembler in the Chassis department there.
“My plans have always been to work 30 years with GM and then retire. This is the only way I could do that,” he said. However, “moving out of state is very stressful, and you don't realize how stressful it is until you make the move.”
While Blue Eyes said he still keeps in touch with some of his friends from the plant in Oklahoma City, he said there are some differences in UAW’s local unions.
“The relationship here at Fairfax ... appears that the UAW is not as strong at Fairfax as the UAW was in Oklahoma City.”
Ray Modisette, 57, has worked at the Oklahoma City plant for 28 years. He began working in the paint department installing sheet-metal hoods and fenders on cars. During his time at GM, he worked in several different departments, on many different jobs and on all three shifts. He went through an apprenticeship program and became a pipefitter 10 years ago.
Modisette is among the 105 people currently under active employment in the plant. He currently is removing equipment tagged to go to a plant called “Cactus” somewhere in Mexico.
“We have been working on removing assets, but with miles of conveyor, wires, piping, all types of equipment and tools, it could last for months,” he said. “Management has started bringing in outside contractors to remove some of the equipment. They must want the assets out quicker than we can remove them by ourselves.”
He was given the options of transferring or early retirement, but instead chose to stay in the plant.
“My decision was based on family considerations. My wife has a good job and is employed in Oklahoma City,” he said. “My daughter wanted to finish her senior year at Choctaw High School. My mother is elderly, and I wanted to live close to her to assist in her care as she grows older. There are many other considerations both monetary and emotional that go into the mix, but those are three big ones.
“For now I am working and probably will be until September. After that I do not know what I will do. We may have an opportunity to move or retire at that time.”
Modisette and other employees in the plant do not know for sure when the plant will close its doors for the final time.
“That will probably be determined by the UAW-GM national contract agreement. Those talks are scheduled to start this coming September,” he said.
As for the building itself, “We have had several visitors from Tinker Air Force Base tour the plant,” Modisette said. “I think Tinker officials would like to have the property since it is located adjacent to the base. I have not heard a price discussed, or whether they could use the building.”
While some people might find it difficult to retain loyalty to a company to which they had given so much, Owen and others said their loyalty remains intact.
“GM is a corporation that makes decisions based on what is good for the bottom line. That mind-set is often in conflict with what is good for the employees of that corporation,” he said. “They are not good or bad because they worship at the altar of profit. That is why a union is a vital and mandatory part of the equation.
“Without the UAW's involvement, the employees of GM's Oklahoma City plant would have been dealt with in the same manner as the equipment inside the building. However, none of this affects my loyalty to GM. I still buy their products and I always will. I encourage everyone I know to buy them as well. This is simply a matter of self-preservation. If they do well, I do well. Despite all that has happened, I still believe in GM. They make a good quality product that competes with anything on the road.”
Copyright © 1999-2010 cnhi, inc.
Living with Lupus
RSC student lives her life to the fullest, in spite of disease
By Darcy Delaney, staff writer
The Sunday Sun
She steps out from her yellow Volkswagen Bug wearing jeans, platform tennis shoes and a T-shirt, grabs her Tinkerbell backpack and walks toward her office. To most people she looks like a healthy 23-year-old woman, so one may wonder why she is parked in a handicapped parking space.
Erin Waltman, editor in chief for the 15th Street News at Rose State College, was diagnosed with lupus in 1997 at the age of 15.
“When Erin first disclosed to me that she has lupus, I was amazed. She seems very capable of juggling the many responsibilities of editor in chief for the 15th Street News, an active college student and caregiver to her pets,” said Johnna Ray, news editor for the 15th Street News. “Erin looks like the average college student. You would never know that she has any type of illness at all by simply looking at her.”
Lupus, according to www.lupus.org, is “a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints, blood and kidneys.”
Common symptoms, according to the site, are painful and swollen joints and fever.
Waltman suffers from a specific type of lupus called systemic lupus erythematosus, (SLE).
"They thought I only had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at first, but when my blood work came back, it showed I had SLE,” she said. “I had been in horrible pain for awhile - even crossing my legs was painful enough to make me cry. Walking was almost impossible, and I felt exhausted all the time.
“My mom thought it was just growing pains, but she finally got concerned enough to take me to the doctor when my fingers and toes would turn blue-white every time I got a little cold or emotionally upset.”
Her fingers were turning blue because of a symptom associated with lupus called Raynaud’s phenomenon.
Having lupus, like most diseases hinders her abilities to participate in some activities young adults tend to do.
“I don't have as much energy as other people my same age,” she said. “I can't really go out and party without serious repercussions. If I stay out late one night, I know I'll spend the next three days in a foggy state of exhaustion as my body tries to deal with a lack of sleep and a mild symptom flare up caused by over-stressing myself.”
Unlike many diseases, people are not able to pick out a person with lupus simply by the way they look, which can sometimes lead to frustration.
“People don't realize I'm sick a lot of the time,” she said. “I look very healthy on the outside, so when I'm having a bad day and I have to park in the handicap spots in the parking lot, people always look at me like I'm just too lazy to find a spot in the back of the lot and walk.”
While Waltman may become exhausted easier than the average person her age, she keeps herself busy with school, work and her animals and family. She has guinea pigs, a hamster, a ferret and two dogs, a Chihuahua and a Toy Poodle.
Waltman not only has several pets and goes to school, she is also the editor in chief at the 15th Street News, a weekly newspaper at Rose State College in Midwest City.
“By the time I get home, I'm usually pretty exhausted, but I have two WebCT courses via the Internet that need my attention, and my pets need more care, and I work on a comic strip that I publish Mondays and Fridays on a Web site, so I have to devote some time to that,” she said. “I also need to spend some time with my boyfriend, Lib, and cook dinner in the evenings.”
While all of this may be exhausting, she said she “likes keeping busy.”
Now, eight years after her diagnosis, Waltman is coping with her disease. She currently takes medication for the lupus, but said nothing helps as much as paying close attention to her diet.
"I've been on almost every lupus medication available, but I've found that nothing helps me as much as eating a diet low in sugar, red meat and white flour and high in whole grains and vegetables,” she said. “I drink the recommended eight glasses of water (eight ounces each) daily, exercise and take a lot of natural, herbal remedies to help keep me on track.
“The things I take vary from herbs that naturally are anti-arthritic (like Boswellin and Curcumin) to herbs that help stomach upsets (Ginger, Garlic, and Aloe Vera).”
Currently, she is only taking one prescription drug, an immunosuppressant drug called CellCept.
“For me, this is a big deal, especially since at one time I was on seven prescription meds,” Waltman said. “I've pretty much learned to live with the constant pain and general joint stiffness, so that doesn't affect me too much anymore.”
Ray has seen Waltman cope with her lifelong disease and admires her strength.
“I am encouraged by her lack of complaining – she never complains about her illness, nor does she use it as an excuse – and I am further encouraged by her determination to maintain healthy eating habits,” Ray said.
While some people, if put in the same situation, may be pessimistic, Waltman said she tries to remain positive about her situation. She has learned to cope with her disease.
“My life isn't so bad, honestly,” she said.
Illegal Immigration and the Public School System
By Darcy Delaney
The Daily
Each year, about 1.1 million migrants attempt to enter the United States illegally and are caught by the U.S. Border Patrol, said Doug Mosier of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This number does not include those who successfully cross the border the undetected.
Illegal immigrants flee various countries and travel to America for several different reasons. But the majority of illegal immigrants who move to the United States do so to better their financial situation by crossing the border from Mexico, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Spanish is the first language of many children in Oklahoma City Public Schools. After interviewing the parents of four children in this school system, three of them (none with a self-proclaimed level of English speaking above a four on a scale of 10) said they left Mexico for America to better the lives of their children.
Each of the three parents who are originally from Mexico said they came to the United States illegally because they could not afford a visa or even immigration forms. They now work anywhere from 40 to 68 hours a week providing for their children.
Six years ago, 23-year-old Maria Gonzalez* moved with two children to America from Oaxaca, Mexico. She currently works in a factory with a high school education. She works 40 hours a week and sends 20 percent of her earnings to her parents every two weeks. Her parents still live in Mexico and are not able to find a job there.
In Mexico, she and her parents were starving and they did not have enough food to eat or to pay their basic needs. Gonzalez said she wanted to help her 7-year-old and 2-year-old boys with their education and wanted them to have a better life.
However, a “better life” sometimes comes with its own trials and tribulations.
When she was 17 years old she crossed the river to migrate to America. All the while, she said she feared for her life, and she thought she would not make it across.
And while the worries are not the same as they were in Mexico, she said she still lives with concerns about the future.
Gonzalez said she lives in fear every day because she thinks immigration authorities will deport her. The feeling of someone chasing her is constantly with her. She said this affects her psychologically, making it difficult to sleep at night.
A frustration and lesser worry, she said, is that she has to take any underpaid job because she cannot get the proper documentation to work legally.
Even though she lives in fear, she said immigrating to America has been worth it because “life is very difficult, especially for low-income families in Mexico, therefore, it is not easy to find a job and the majority of the jobs are underpaid.”
“In the USA, if I want to accomplish something, I can do it by working hard, even for an illegal immigrant,” Gonzalez said.
She said she also believes her children will now have an opportunity to finish high school and earn a degree.
“In Mexico, the school is very expensive and only the wealthy people can afford it,” she said.
A 34-year-old man named Jose Zapata* has a 12-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy.
He has been in the United States for a year and is from Zacatecas, Mexico, has an elementary school education and cannot speak English at all. Zapata said he thinks language is a barrier, but he said he is happy that even though he cannot speak English, he found a job as soon as he came to America.
He currently works as a welder six days a week. He works 48 hours a week and sends 10 percent of his salary to his parents because they are elderly and are unable to work.
He said he traveled to America because the job he had in Mexico did not pay enough to raise his children and his dream was to get a better salary to help his family with basic needs. However, the salary he currently receives is higher than what he earned in Mexico.
“Life in Mexico is very difficult for low-income families,” he said. “If people do not have money or a good job that can help provide the basic needs to a family, the children have to suffer the consequences.”
He now earns a decent salary, and said his children will benefit from living in the United States because they will be able to receive a better education than in Mexico.
In Mexico, Zapata said he had to pay for school supplies, uniforms, utility bills, food and rent. His expenses exceeded the salary he earned.
Louisa Perez* is a 37-year-old female who has four children — three daughters who are 5, 11 and 20, and a son, who is 6.
She is from Guanajuato, Mexico, and has been in the United States for 14 years.
She has an elementary school education and said she speaks little English.
Employed as a housekeeper in the Oklahoma City area, Perez works 38 hours at night and 25 to 30 hours during the day. She said she normally works about 68 hours a week. Every two weeks she sends 15 percent of her salary to Mexico in order to help her older daughter.
She fled to America to help her children. She said during the time she was married in Mexico, she stayed at home with her children and had a small garden that provided food for them.
Later, Perez divorced her husband because she said he was an alcoholic and was abusive. She found a job in a factory, where she said sexual harassment was common from some of the managers. She said she went through bad experiences because she was a single woman desperate to keep her job to feed the children. She later decided to quit her job and pay a “coyote” to help her flee to the United States.
She said walking through the river was one of the most frightening experiences she had ever encountered in her life and that she would never want to go through the same experience again.
For Perez, America is a land of opportunities. She said she will continue working hard to help put her children in a better position than what she has been through.
In the United States, she said she has benefited with a better salary, better health care and a safe environment for her children.
However, because she cannot speak English well, she said language is a big problem. In some of places she has worked, the managers discriminated against immigrants who did not speak English. Some of the managers were hateful, but overall, she said she is “very thankful to have jobs that can provide food and shelter for my children.”
She said life in Mexico is even more difficult for a divorced mother with children because the neighbors are too conservative and a single woman is criticized all the time. Being in America has been a positive experience because she can provide a better education and a better lifestyle for her children than in her native country.
She wants her children to receive a higher education. She said in Mexico she could not help them the same way she is doing it in the United States, even if she had two jobs.
Estado Carrizal,* a 55-year-old man from Caracas, Venezuela, has been in America for four years. He has four children who are 9, 14, 16 and 18.
He has an engineering degree, but he currently works as a waiter 38 hours a week and as a janitor cleaning offices 25 hours a week. He said he speaks English fairly well.
He and his family immigrated to America because he lost his job in his native country and “because the government has too many problems.”
Carrizal and his family flew to Mexico, and they contacted someone to help them cross the border. They were unable to receive a permanent visa.
However, unlike Gonalez, Zapata and Perez, Carrizal does not send any of his earnings to his native country.
He said his children have been attending school and “they are doing an excellent job learning English and being the best students in their schools.” He said he hopes his children “can be professionals and find a good job that can provide for them a better life.”
Carrizal also said he thinks life in the United States is “great” because he and his family have the freedom and the opportunity to improve in their careers and be better for society.
Illegal immigrants have many challenges facing them when attempting to move to the United States — how will they immigrate? Will they be deported or go to jail? Will they make it into America alive? Will they find a job?
All of these questions and fears are a part of many immigrants’ daily lives, but yet, they still sacrifice their safety and security for what they consider to be a “better life” for their family and themselves.
* All names are fictitious as these sources wish to remain anonymous.