This Week's Features

 

Some Labor Day Reflections, Chapter 34!

I’m sure the Labor Day holiday brought back many special memories to lots of Grand Lakers, but it especially memorable to yours truly. You see, it was thirty-four years ago this past weekend when I became a full-fledged Grand Laker with the purchase of property on Grays Hollow. And times have certainly changed over the years.

In the early seventies, when I first became exposed to the fun and frolic of our lake, it was indeed a wild and wooly place. As a guest of long-time Grand Laker Carl Carman, in April of 1970, I visited the South Grand Lake area for the very first time. I vividly remember a steak, which would fall apart in your mouth, birds singing so loudly at day break that this city boy couldn’t sleep and visiting a couple of the popular watering holes the likes of which I had never seen before.

Back in those days, if you chose to partake of a few spirits, Oklahoma’s liquor laws were still in the prehistoric state of brown bagging to a private club. You can imagine the surprise of a law abiding citizen like me, when our host escorted a group of us to Dollie’s Club, in the heart of downtown Langley, and got my Grand Lake education underway.

We had barely found a seat when Carl asked, to no one in particular, “What would you boys like to drink?” I replied, “Well, I guess I’ll have a beer since I didn’t bring a brown bag with my drink of choice.” Carl was, and still is a bit my senior in years, and acted a little surprised as he responded, “Son, those sorts of laws don’t hold any water here at Grand Lake. What’ll it be?”(more)

---

Blackjack Charity Golf Tournament Set

The 2010 Grand Lake Casino Blackjack Charity Golf & Card Tournament is set for October 3,2010. . Since 2005, Grand Lake Casino and Patricia Island Golf Club, with the help of their machine vendors, have hosted tournaments which have raised funds for the Grove area charities in the amount of $85,516.48. Charities that have received funds from our tournaments are Grand Lake Family YMCA, Turkey Ford School, Delaware County Children Special Advocacy Network, CASA, The Playmakers and the Grove D.A.R.E. program.

 

 

This year GEFFE (Grove Educational Foundation for Excellence) has been added to the list of charities. The foundation accepts applications from Grove educators for unfunded items for the classrooms and awards them based on need. Computerized “Smartboards” for the classrooms are just one example of how the proceeds from the tournaments are used. Again this year, our tournaments will benefit the Turkey Ford School System, a very small school which has very limited funding. The Turkey Ford School System is committed to educating native American students as well as others in the area. The Y.M.C.A is targeted annually as a recipient of funds from the tournaments due to the programs they provide for the areas children.

The golf tournament will be hosted by Patricia Island Golf Club and will be a four-man scramble event. Entry fee is $125.00 per player, with a minimum age of 21. Range balls, soft drinks and water will be available on the course and lunch will be provided. The tournament will get underway promptly at 10:00am with a shotgun start. (more)

---

 

The Mysterious World of the GRDA

For the past several weeks speculation has abounded about water discharges through the spillway gates east of the Pensacola Dam. Theories, and angry ones at that, included an expedited annual draw down of the lake to an elevation of 741’ prior to the Labor Day weekend in spite of no plans to seed millet this year. Then there were the conspiracy theorist, who reasoned the authority was bypassing the generators in the Pensacola Dam to manipulate their financial picture for their next bond offering. As it turns out, none of these were true, and another negative perception of the authority could have been avoided with a simple and timely press release and stakeholder notification e-mail.

The license renewal in 1992, addressed the monitoring of dissolved oxygen level in Grand Lake and its associated tail waters below the Pensacola Dam. Although this portion of the license was all but ignored for the past few years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission brought this portion of the license back into focus over the past three years at the request of fisheries interest. What concerned resident and visitors alike have been observing over the past thirty days is mandated dissolved oxygen testing.

As summer temperatures soar and discharges from the lake are cut back due to diminished inflows during the summer months, the dissolved oxygen levels in the waters managed by GRDA reach their lowest level. Both state and federal wildlife interests have historically pointed to low dissolved oxygen levels as the cause of major fish kills in late summer. Although steps to improve this situation have been embraced by the authority, with a hefty price tag, the situation still calls for monitoring on a continued basis.

Grand Lake News Online sent the following e-mail to Darrell E. Townsend II, PH.D., in the Office of Ecosystems Management and Barry Bolton, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, along with selected members of the GRDA board and federal and state elected officials (more)

---

 

South Grand Lake Lion’s Club Veterans Honor Plaza

Story by Leigh Maria Thomas

Artist’s Rendering Provided by Virginia Gibson

Think the WWII Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Wall and countless other National Memorials located in Washington D.C. and throughout the U.S. outside of Oklahoma are too far to travel to visit? Well, now you don’t have to travel much farther than your own backyard! The South Grand Lake Lion’s Club is proud to announce the plans for a Veterans Honor Plaza to be located in Grand Lake’s very own Langley, Oklahoma!

Organizing the September 11, 2010 ground breaking ceremonies is Virginia Gibson of Oklahoma State Bank fame.

“The City of Langley has kindly donated three lots on which to build the plaza,” says Virginia, who notes that the location of the site is on Main Street in Langley by the Langley Park.

According to estimates, the project is expected to cost over $60,000.00, not including the landscaping portion.

In order to raise money for the Veterans Honor Plaza, the South Grand Lake Lion’s Club is offering for sale to the public memorial bricks, pavers, and benches to be used in the Veterans Honor Plaza. The bricks, which will be used to complete a 40-foot long “Walk of Honor” in the plaza, are priced at $100 each and provide 3 lines of engraving. The pavers are priced at $250 each and provide 6 lines of engraving. Finally, 8 benches are planned for placement around the plaza and are available for purchase at $1,500 each and they provide room for 24 characters to be engraved. Persons interested in purchasing any of these items can pick up order forms at Oklahoma State Bank, Langley Tag Agency and The Langley Library.

Featured throughout the plaza will be 9 flag poles to proudly fly Old Glory and the focal point of the plaza will be the large black granite monument with 3 sides which will be engraved with the names of the six branches of U.S. Military and Service groups: The United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, as well as the Merchant Marines and Coast Guard. On the front of the monument, there is an engraving of our National Emblem, the proud Bald Eagle.

Ground breaking for the Veterans Honor Plaza is scheduled for Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 11:00am. What better way to honor those who have served and are currently serving our country than on the 9th Anniversary of 9/11, a day that will live in infamy, a day where America and the rest of the world lost so many innocent lives. (more)

A New Adventure is Underway!

In 2004, I sold The Chronicle of Grand Lake and set out to reinvent myself as a professional golfer on the “Senior Tour.” I guess I had seen the movie “Tin Cup” in my dreams, and was motivated by that vision; I spent time on my game daily. Now it six years later come August the first, my swing is still right hand dominated, goes way too far inside and comes swooping down over-the-top. Limitations of that magnitude almost guarantee very limited success in the game of golf and an associated handicap that rarely dips below ten.

With that said, we’re announcing a return, or venture out of the closet as I’ve told some of my cronies, to something we’ve always loved and were pretty damn good at, even if I have to say so myself.  Telling the story of Grand Lake and that of the people who work and play here, to anyone with an interest in this magnificent lake in northeastern Oklahoma, isn’t a job, but an adventure or perhaps calling.

We plan on providing a source of Grand Lake information, an educational site with yours truly writing opinions on pertinent lake issues and other topics, historical commentary by Dr. Bruce Howell, several columns on items of interest. At the all new Grand Lake News Online, we see ourselves as a community service distributor of information and a provider of promotional pieces for our site sponsors. In short, we’re not the business to sell advertising, but we’re in the business of selling Grand Lake to the world.

We’ve collaborated, to a certain degree, with our old friends, Michelle Robertson and Tammi Longacre, at 360grandlake.com in moving Grand Lake, along with the rest of the world, where the marketing trends are headed in today’s market place. 360 Grand Lake is in the business of providing pages to their clients, which can be used to advertise their business and instantly make prospective customers aware of sales items and promotions, while at the same time providing a business directory for Grand Lakers looking for virtually any kind of service or product.

Grand Lake News Online, which can be found on the web at www.grandlakenewsonline.com, will primarily be in the promotion and information distribution business. While the promotion pieces, stories, columns and other information we produce will appear on our site, they will also be made available to all other members of the area’s media. Promoting Grand Lake in general, making important information available to Grand Lakers instantly and telling the story of our site sponsors is what we’re all about. No Virginia, we don’t build or sell ads, but we will peddle sponsorships as a way to finance this new endeavor and no, you don’t have to be a site sponsor to be featured on Grand Lake News Online. In short, we plan on providing information Grand Lakers are hungry for at no charge, and even provide that information to other outlets while providing promotional services to our site sponsors for a paycheck.

Our site will be all inclusive….Lake Rockers, NASCAR fans, old, young, go-fast boaters, sailors, property owners or just plain Grand Lakers……..everybody is invited. Our site is currently under construction and we’ll be adding to it and fine tuning our efforts forever, but we should be representative within the week.

See Ya’ Around the Pond!!

About Rusty Fleming

This guy has been a Grand Laker since 1970 and became a full time resident in 1981. Along with Lynda Fleming and Art & Oleta Corely, he founded The Chronicle of Grand Lake in 1988. He served as the publication's publisher until its sale in 2004. Since that time, he has been active with the Grand Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, the Grand Grand Lake Waterwatch Program, the planned Visitor's Center in Langley and four years ago formed Grand Lakers United Enterprise (GLUE) to represent the interests of moderate thinking Grand Lakers. GLUE has primarily been active in bringing about change to the ongoing shoreline management plan and in restoration of a minimum lake level of 742' and water quality issues. He originally hails from Oklahoma City, is a proud veteran of the Viet Nam era who served with the United States Marine Corps and counts his 18 years with Southwestern Bell and AT&T as the formative years. His family is made up of his wife Lynda, son and daughterin-law Jay & Sheryl Fleming and grand children Jordan and Jenny Fleming.