From Fighting Fires To Saving the Arts By: Whitney Ewing

Any kid you know that took art in elementary school is lucky. In recent years, the state of Oklahoma has had to cut education funding and arts are usually the first programs to go. One organization in Norman is working to change that in their community.

Firehouse, originally a fire station, has been used since 1971 as an art center.

The Firehouse Arts Center is located on Flood Avenue between Boyd and Main streets. It is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening, and also on Saturdays from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon.

            Sally Frech, secretary at the art center, stopped to tell a little bit of the story about Firehouse.

            “The firehouse art center started in 1971…the city was going to tear down the old firehouse because it was getting to small for the use of the fire engines. These three ladies had the foresight to go to the city and work with them in not tearing down the building and using it for educational purposes.”

            The art center offers classes for artists of any age, starting as early as five years old. Frech says one of their goals is “trying to expand and go into the schools and help get art education for the lower grades because most of the schools have had to cut out the art education.”

 But classes are not the only services that Firehouse offers to the Norman community, every six weeks a new exhibit is on display in their gallery.

Recourse for Discourse is the current exhibit on display. It features art from seven local, young Norman artists looking to get their names out there. Artists include Marina Crawford, Hershel Self, Kendall Brown, Craig Shawn, Erin Elise, Katie Babb and Jessica Joy.

A look inside the gallery shows how different the pieces are, while still complementing each other.

The artists featured in this exhibit have a plain and simple goal for this exhibit, “we are a group of artists who intend to engage, solidify and improve the art community in Norman, and promote that community as a culturally rich and vibrant place to live and work.”

Each artist’s work has a completely different style from the others, but as Frech says, “I think the show flows and blends in together, each kind of stating a different subject in the “recourse for discourse.”

Self commented on his pieces, titled Untitled, saying, “my work is a comment on what happens when a highly productive and efficient society is able to exist but only at the cost of individual thought and emotion.”

Swan used his piece, titled Still Life, to connect with the viewer, “it’s not just about observing and replicating the objects on paper, it’s about creating a sense of emotional context between artist, image and viewer.”

Recourse for Discourse will be on display at Firehouse until October 29^th. Members of the community can go to see how local artists perceive society and what they would like to change about it.

On November 11^th, the art center will have a new exhibit which will be a Holiday Gift Gallery for anyone to come and buy a gift for the holidays that is made right here in Norman, Oklahoma.

A Champion, Bringing It Home By: Whitney Ewing

            If you were to Google the name, Alex Naddour, almost every article on the first, and probably the second, page would be about gymnastics. An athlete for both the University of Oklahoma and Team USA, Naddour is known around the world for his skill in the sport.

            Even though he competes on the world stage, Naddour is still a college student. He still loves his family and his dog. And he, like many other males, loves to fix up cars. And given the chance, these are the things he would ramble on to you about, not gymnastics.

            Although he may not enjoy talking about it, Naddour was, as he likes to say, “Kind of born into it kind of a thing…My mom and my dad were both gymnasts.” Alex is not the only sibling that followed in the footsteps of his parents. His older brother, Tony, and his younger stepbrother are gymnast. In addition to his younger stepsister being a cheerleader. In fact, when Alex was being recruited by OU, he was able to draw attention to Tony, so that he was able to be recruited and join OU’s team, just like any other athlete.

            While he may have been born into his sport of choice, that is not the only thing that Naddour learned to love, just like his father. Naddour says working on cars was something that him, his brother and his dad did together before he left his hometown of Gilbert, Arizona and came to college.

            A hobby that started as a way to spend more time with his dad and brother has come a long ways from that. Naddour is now constantly fixing and flipping cars with a new one in his driveway just about every time you drive by. “The shortest I’ve had a car, I had a motorcycle and I had that for about twenty-four hours…the longest was probably five, maybe six months?”

            One childhood wish that Naddour finally had come true as a result of coming to OU to join the gymnastics team was getting a dog. “My dad had a dog when he was in college and he wouldn’t let us get one because he got so attached and didn’t ever want to have dogs again…When we were younger the thing always was, ‘you guys are old enough to have a dog now, once we have grass in the backyard, we’ll get a dog.’ We got grass, and we never dog.”

That was exactly what Naddour did when came to Oklahoma, got a dog. His dog, Koda, is as big as most children. And to Naddour, is just that. His child. The two came together when Koda was just eight weeks old, and just one year and a few months later dog and owner act like they’ve been around each other for years.

The one thing that Naddour really has been around for years is, of course, gymnastics. He recently returned from a trip with Team USA to Tokyo for the World Championships with a bronze medal. But even this success will not keep him from staying the same person he is or from reaching to even higher goals.

Naddour shows off some of his favorite trophies won in his career.

With huge more events in the near future like the Olympics, his roommate, Raymond White, says he will change, but not a lot. “Yeah I think he will change, just like a bit. He’ll stay Alex Naddour like he’s always been, but he’ll probably have some maturity that happens to him…Especially with the Olympics. It’s the Olympics.”

            His coach at OU, Mark Williams has been working with Naddour for three years and says, “the chance to be on an international floor with [him] competing to qualify for the Olympic games is gonna be a special thing.”

            Of course, it will be most special for the athlete who, like every other kid, dreamed of competing in the Olympics when they were older. Now that Naddour has his chance, he plans on making the most of it and doing just what he always has been to get there.  

Freshman Class at OU Consists of Everyone and Their Dog

            The freshman class at the University of Oklahoma this year is already setting records; it is the biggest class in the history of the school. With over 4,100 students, it surpasses last year’s class by nearly one thousand students.

            Having so many students come in all at once poses problems in some areas, but also has some benefits for the students themselves.

            Troy Young, a resident advisor in Couch Center, says “this year the residence halls are actually at max capacity, which means that there’s pretty much no empty rooms for freshman to move around or for other freshman to move on campus.” He also says that in previous years those empty rooms were used also in the event an emergency. “This year there aren’t as many of those rooms, so it’s just kind of like you have to prioritize and just hope that nothing bad happens.”

            Even though Cate Center is slowly becoming less of a dorm, which means less rooms for freshman to live in, and becoming more of an office building, the university is building a new athletic residence hall on the southeast side of campus, which was recently approved by the OU Board of Regents and started construction, that will also be able to house freshman starting in the fall of 2013.

            An issue that hits a little closer to home for the students themselves is the nightmare that has become OU parking. Sophomore, Don Caudill says that he has driven around for up to thirty minutes just to find a space.

            Lots around campus are constantly full. This includes the housing-only lots around the dorms, and even multipurpose lots that are all the way across campus from the dorms.

            Freshman Eduardo Iturregui shares some advice from his own experience with parking, saying, “on the weekends it’s easy, and on the weekends you get a good parking spot because everybody goes home.”

            Large classes are also being affected by having so many freshman on campus. Introductory classes are usually large and fill up quickly every year at OU, due to how many people need the credits and also need the class as a prerequisite for another class.

            Caudill says one of his classes has become a standing room only class, “Freedom in Greece, its huge. You have to get there like 15 minutes early to get a seat, so it’s terrible. There’s so many people in there.”

            Adjusting to a school with so many students can be tough whether you are from a big or small school. But, freshman Michael McCoy says Camp Crimson was the moment he realized just how many people would be joining him at OU. “I was at Camp Crimson, and I was like, ‘man, there’s a lot of people here.’”

            At this point in their college career, these freshman have realized the advantages of being around so many people that all have similar goals. Caudill says, “I went to a small division two college before I came here and even coming from there it was a culture shock. I mean, it’s really cool though. Because I’m a really social person so being around a million people like this is just really fun.”

            While it may be only halfway through their first semester, many students are hoping that OU will tackle the problems that the large influx of students has caused in terms of housing, parking, and classes. In the meantime, students should adopt the mindset of these freshman boys and take advantage of all the new people just waiting to be met.