Greenway of the Cherokee Ozarks

September 29th marks the date that stakeholders will meet together and talk about forming a Greenway of the Cherokee Ozarks.  To date, regional meetings have been conducted in Vian, Marble City, Tahlequah, Salina and Colcord to explore interest in the Greenway concept, and we've had a good cross-section of local folks from end to end, interested in the project and who think it is a good idea.

Blue Sky Water Society is the local host for this event, Steve Woodall Consulting is our facilitator, and the National Park Service's Joy Lujan is our community development technical assistance team mate.  I'm helping with a few things-- reservations, some invitations, the Blue Sky Water tees, totes and water bottles art.

If you would be interested in collaborating on the Greenway, we'd love to invite you here and now to be a part of this worthwhile project. 

You can join greenwayofthecherokeeozarks@yahoogroups.com or email me for a direct addition to that list. 

You are also invited to subscribe to the Greenway blog:

  http://greenwayofthecherokeeozarks.blogspot.com/ 

Check out this article in the Current:

http://www.currentland.com/ViewArticle/272/Default.aspx

Follow on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/CherokeeOzarks

Invitation to Nature

It is the twelfth hour before this event, but it is the first chance I've had to invite folks.  Tomorrow from about 10 to about 2 at Looney Preserve, you are invited to join some of who are getting together to think about some things about nature.  We are tossing out ideas about what would be included if there were in the  Greenway of the Cherokee Ozarks, stretching from I-40 to 412 and surrounds.

Looney Preserve is between Colcord and Jay on SH10, I think.  Well, you'll see some balloons or streamers and maybe a sign referring to The Nature Conservancy.  It cuts back hard to the South, so look carefully if you are coming from the South.  Go down that road and you will find it.

Here is a story about how I found it the first time.  I was coming home from a Court appearance in Jay.  Storm clouds blew up and it began a torrential rain, as I was driving SH10 going South back toward Tahlequah that morning.  Beside the road was a haggard-looking man with a big burlap bag.  I thought he must have been picking up cans.  The weather was severe, and I gave him a ride.  I told him I'd take him home, and he directed me to the Looney's house.  He said he'd been a journalist or publisher and for some reason I think it must have been of a local paper.  He was about my age... or within ten years either way.  It wasn't that far, but by the time we arrived there, the rain had subsided and it was humid and sunny-- one of those sudden Spring freshets that pass thru.  He invited me in to meet his parents.  I was fascinated with the beauty of their modest place, with bird feeders hanging from the trees and went in.  His mother and father were there-- quite old and it seems spry, in a light-filled sunny room, reading or piddling around.

They were the Looneys.  I later learned that they were reputed conservationists, but it was obvious by the way they took care of the birds.  This fellow told his parents that he was out picking mushrooms and had gotten caught in the thunderstorm and I'd brought him home.  He told me about a cool cave there, and asked if I'd care to see it.  That day, the rain had made a place impassable and I was in courtroom attire:  a suit and leather shoes but didn't mind getting my feet wet although we couldn't go in.  On the ground he picked up an arrowhead and gave it to.  He said he had knapped it and had left it there on the trail for finding.  I thought that was kinda cool.

Before long, I had to get back on my way home.  Maybe I spent an hour there altogether.  When I got back to my office, I joked that I had been waylaid by mushrooms which kidnapped me and took me thru a time warp.  But my law partner, Mary Barksdale, and our secretary/paralegal was accustomed to me ambling off the career path on some unplanned adventure such as this from time to time.  I had only wet shoes to corraborate my adventure.  I always had happy thoughts about that special natural place where like-minded people lived, that I had met in an unlikely way.

Here is a note about Mr. Looney's passing  from 2005:

Murray L. Looney

July 20, 1914 - May 29, 2005

Murray L. Looney was born July 20, 1914 and Died May 29, 2005.  That just states 'when' he lived, not how he lived. Murray was a gentle man. He is one of the founding members of the Central Oklahoma Grotto and was an excellent caver. He was the equipment manager for the group and would rework a carbide lamp for you if you managed to mangle yours into inoperability -- with a smile and an eye twinkle.


Not that he couldn't get a bit irritated at times of supreme human dumbness, but then who wouldn't? Murray was husband to Mary Looney, who preceded him in death in 1989, and stepfather to Nick -- also gone now (1999) -- and Joe. I've asked Joe to write up a piece for the newsletter, so I'll not step on personal toes and wait for his erudite words.


Personally, Mary and Murray greeted John and me with open arms in 1973. We were relative neophytes to caving and absolute greenies to Oklahoma caving. Our interest matched their passion and we stuck with the COG family quite happily. Murray managed all the grotto equipment, while Mary managed the people and FOOD! It was Oklahoma Caving at its best.


Always thin, Murray would be one who could slither through the cracks and is, I believe, only one of two people ever to have made it out the Texas Entrance of Nescatunga Cave. This is something no one wishes to do. There is nothing nice about that passage --  it just had to be mapped and Murray was half of the two-person mapping team. And, just so you know, Mary was NOT the other half!


The graveside funeral service was held at Row Cemetery, just north of Colcord in Delaware County, Oklahoma. Joe Looney spoke of Murray's life and accomplishments and the group then regrouped at the Farm for reminiscences and repast. The Farm is the retirement property (paraphrased) that was Mary and Murray's dream retirement home which they shared together for 10 retirement years before Mary's death. The cave resurgence is in the front 'yard' and the water from the cave flows all year round providing  a blissful murmur. The two-bedroom home is well maintained ...and will become a nature cabin for conservation groups, available by reservation -- soon. Submitted by Sue Bozeman

So on Saturday May 22nd come if you can, and perhaps it will also prove to be a magical experience as it was for me in 1985 or 1986.

Cyrus Conrail, Railroad Tycoon Murder Solved

I was just in Eureka Springs because as railroad company nurse, my duties require that I travel where the railroad needs me.  I'm Nurse Saidie Ratchet.  Pictured here with me is Old Roger, after he came into a rather sizeable settlement for injuries incurred while working on the line to Eureka Springs.  We settled into 1881 Crescent Cottage B&B for a Murder Mystery weekend on Friday evening.  Old Roger cleans up purty nice.  When he arrived at the celebratory dinner gala on Friday, he was attired in his dowdy, stinky usual duds, but I took him shopping.

We hobbled all over Eureka Springs looking for clues to solve the murder of Cyrus Conrail, stopping to quench our dehydration at a little underground pub called Jack's.  I implored Old Roger to sing karaoke, to which he finally resigned himself.  Its kinda funny to see a 1908 railroad laborer performing Carlos Santana's "Smooth" with a cane for playing air guitar.  It reminded me of one of the Soggy Bottom Boys from the movie 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' 

It was our first time to stay at a B&B.  And Old Roger solved the mystery!  He also won "Best Male Characterization" for his character portrayal.  Old Roger was part Slingblade, part Joker from Dark Knight, and 100% outsider smart aleck.  I, nurse Saidie, was worried that I had treated Mr. Conrail too rough with my whips and chains 'alternative' therapy a few days before his untimely denoument, but was glad I happened to have my handcuffs with me because they came in handy.  

We loved Eureka Springs, and it happened to be Diversity Week, so there was a wonderfully eclectic crowd in town-- bikers and gays, not the least of which.  I'd love to live among so many artists in a community with so much community spirit.  No place else has so much public arts and aesthetics infrastructure.  We tried a delicious meal at Garden Bistro, a cafe specializing in local food.

Nancy Newton Carter

Here's a wonderful old picture of my great-grandmother, Nancy Newton Carter.  Her husband, Enoch Carter is in the background.

She was born, if I recall, at Rabbit Trap in Adair County.  A lot of her ancestors are buried at Hope Cemetery North of Westville.

She lived her adult life in Carter community.  In the 1950s when Lake Tenkiller was built, part of that land was changed by the lake.  Today it is called Carter's Landing.  There was, long ago, a Carter Schoolhouse.  There was a post office at Carter community, named after the postmaster Bud Chronister.  The mail came to Chronister, Oklahoma and some of the old birth certificates of babies such as my father show the birthplace as Chronister, Oklahoma.

I published a family history of the Carter women's side of the family in 1995.  Today it is out of print, but I plan to publish it for sale online soon.  Leave a comment with your email address if you wish to be notified about how to purchase this book. 

It contains a story passed down in our family from the Civil War about Nancy's mother, Laura Newton when she was a teen.  She lived back East in the Cherokee homeland of Tennessee.  Raiders came to the home.  They took anything and everything, at gunpoint.  She pleaded with them to let her keep her wedding dress, and they left without taking it.  Another time, she went down the road to a neighbor's homestead to borrow a cup of sugar or flour.  But as she was walking along, she saw a man or men hanged from a tree in their yard.  War must have a terrible toll on the psyches of the people who live thru them.  Laura Newton, all of her life, recounted vivid and chilling stories of these events and she never got over it.

A Geocaching Adventure

Geocaching is secret, so the uninitiated will not find and destroy the cache.  That is why is it always best to have a good excuse for wandering around with a GPS device, usually on public property.

One day, we discovered that a bunch of brand new geocaches had been announced over the state line in Arkansas, so we quickly grabbed our gear and went to find them, hoping to be first and get the honor of "First To Find."  We found a couple of them, but one was kind of hard to find.  It was some place along the fence row of a rural community center called, I think, Illinois Valley.  This little building also doubled as a place for church meetings.  It was a hot summer afternoon with plenty of sunshine left but a storm was moving in, and the cloud cover was interfering without GPS satellite reception.

I was scouting the back yard of the community center and Friedrick was working along the fence row, looking for some clue of the hidden treasure.  I heard him talking and came around the corner.  An elderly lady was holding a box of Ritz crackers like a book in her arms, and asking what he was up to.  "Oh, we are just having a look at this fence."  She must have thought we were surveying for an insurance claim, because she said, "That farmer who owns the fence... his tree is down across the property line."  She was tattling on him for not cleaning up after the winter ice storm of January 2009.  She told us his name and so I dutifully wrote it down.  And she sort of confessed, "Our church uses this community building for Vacation Bible School.  It starts in just a few minutes."  That was when Friedrick said, "Are you ready to call it a day?  We can come back and finish up some other time."  I nodded, then inquired about a good restaurant nearby.

We headed to the truck and loaded up.  That was when I was stung by a wasp and squealed in a most undignified way.  As this particular wasp was now down the armhole of my blouse, Friedrick was helping me retrieve it.  And we realized we looked more like a married couple than two insurance surveyors or engineers working together.  By then, the parking cone and reflective safety vests that made up a part of our "cover story" didn't jibe with the fact that we were both sitting in the truck groping after this wasp that was crawling on me.

We quickly solved the problem, buckled up and pulled away, just as a man was walking up to the car for a visit, as if we didn't see him just about 20 feet away.  When we got home  and logged our "Did Not Find" we discovered that we were not the first ones there who had been scared off by VBS volunteers that day.  Those poor VBS volunteers must have wondered why all the suspicious strangers were showing up with GPS units in hand!