Nathan Hale High School 50th Anniversary

Make your 2009 vacation plans now!
The dates for the ALL SCHOOL REUNION have been set:

Friday Evening, June 12, 2009
ALL SCHOOL MIXER   Location TBA

Saturday Night
Reserved for individual class reunion plans

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Special "Assembly" & School Tours @ Hale

More Details Coming Soon           50th@NathanHaleAlumni.org
 

8/19/08 We received a note & photos this morning from Lanette Giese '74.  Her brother, Jesse Brown '69, had an unusual patient at his animal clinic in North Carolina yesterday.

A Bengal tiger at Tiger World Conservation had given birth to two cubs.  She killed one of them and dropped the other in the water.

The conservation facility's regular veterinarian was not available so they rushed the two day old cub to Cabarrus Emergency Clinic where Jesse practices.

Our latest report is that, thanks to Dr. Jesse, the cub was stable and should survive the ordeal. She was picked up by Tiger World's vet staff today.

These are kids that went to Whitney, Skelly or St Pius.  Jesse has identified everyone that he could for us.  Let us know if you recognize any of the "unknowns".

THANKS, STEVE!

The NHAF is on the hunt for Ranger items to put on display during Hale's 50th Anniversary, in 2009.

You can thank [or blame] Steve Stephens for his donation of 3 issues of the 1967/68 M.A.T. MuDD - Hale's Mu Alpha Theta math club newsletter.

We didn't know that this school publication even existed until these copies arrived in the mail this week, along with an original 1968 Commencement Program. 

According to the '68 Patriot yearbook, the MuDD staff members were David Taylor, Frank Creamer, Doug Brecht, Will Roy, Wayne Barnes and Diana Henderson.

It was more like reading a copy of the National Inquirer than a math club publication!  These issues should bring memories of day-to-day life at Hale flooding back to those of you who roamed the halls during the 1967-68 school year.

We'd love to have copies of the rest of them for the Class of '68 archives, if anyone still has some stashed in their attic.  We'd also like to hear the stories behind some of the ribbing and innuendo.

While looking for more info about the M.A.T. newsletter, we also discovered that the 1968 Key Club had it's own publication - The Mondo Key Hole.  These would also be a great addition to our Anniversary displays and archives (hint, hint).

October, 1967 M.A.T. MuDD

November, 1967 M.A.T MuDD

April, 1968 M.A.T MuDD

in PDF - Adobe Acrobat Reader required

Contact the NHAF if you have items to loan or donate
for our in school Anniversary displays.

Novelty for hire
By JIMMIE TRAMEL Tulsa World Sports Writer  4/15/2006

Jon Terry hooks teams up with game-day entertainers.  Jon Terry should stage a company picnic just to give the rest of us a visual treat. Imagine a 4-foot-2 Elvis impersonator, a chainsaw juggler and Morganna the Kissing Bandit congregating around Terry's grill.

"It would be like one of those ESPN mascot commercials," said Jeff Ney, promotions director for minor league baseball's Kane County (Ill.) Cougars.

Terry heads SRO Productions of Tulsa, and he is a go-to guy nationally when sports franchises - mostly minor league baseball teams - want to pep up stadium atmospheres by importing freelance entertainers.  When clubs like the Louisville Bats or Charleston RiverDogs need a novelty act, they call Terry, whose talent roster could have been ripped from the pages of "Ripley's Believe It or Not."

Terry's ace performer is 48-year-old Myron Noodleman, a.k.a. Rick Hader, a former Union math teacher who makes a living as a Jerry Lewis doppelganger.  In November 2004, Hader was officially given Max Patkin's former title as the Crown Prince of Baseball.

Larry Gawatz is "Little E". The 41-year-old Sand Springs resident works for DirecTV, but he moonlights for Terry as a Mini-Me version of Elvis Presley.  Gawatz said he is getting the necessary paperwork to perform weddings as Little E.  Not content to be a one-gimmick guy, he someday hopes to unveil a Little Richard Simmons character.

Rubber Boy is a contortionist who can pour his body, limbs and all, into a box no bigger than a microwave oven. He is so flexible that a foot winds up on his shoulder when he follows through on a baseball pitch.

Terry's stable also includes a Harry Caray impersonator, chainsaw juggler Mad Chad, fanatical Krazy George (regarded as the inventor of the stadium wave), hula hoop phenom Anna Jack, Frisbee dogs, Balloon Man (he performs inside a giant balloon) and Jake the Diamond Dog, who turns nine innings into canine innings by shagging fly balls and retrieving bats.

"We are on the third Jake now, kind of like Lassie," Terry said. "But that act just goes over so well. It's so Americana, baseball and a dog. It still cracks me up that I know tonight in Louisville there is a doghouse in foul territory at a Triple-A game. You put a doghouse in foul territory and it becomes part of the playing field, basically. That would never fly in the majors."

Morganna the Kissing Bandit is retired, but Terry still serves as her agent and turns down requests for the gal who became famous for stealing smooches from unsuspecting sports figures.   "When I say I handled Morganna, I mean I do her business," Terry said. "I need to watch what I say."

Making the cut

Terry knows how Chuck Barris feels.  "It's like the 'Gong Show' around here," he said once.  Terry said he turns down 90 percent of acts that come to him seeking representation.  He keeps an archive of audition tapes, even the ridiculous ones. Because his company's reputation is at stake, he must be choosy.  "What we are is we are a side act to sports," he said. "Our moment in the sun is short, quick and it's got to be great."  "You can generally trust if Jon represents the acts, there is something to it," Ney said.

Terry hinted that wannabe performers often come out of the woodwork after finding out how much dough can be pocketed from a four-minute halftime gig.  "I've got a little brother who can do something weird," said Terry, quoting an imaginary potential client. "He can hang from the ceiling with a suction cup in his mouth or whatever."

Terry's response?  "Good. But does he have an act?  My neighbor has a great dog for chasing Frisbees, but it's got to be put into an act.  And do you want to travel the country with five dogs in your car all the time?"

Terry is an optimist.  He wants to believe anybody could be the next great act. "I would give anything in the world to find the next Myron Noodleman," he said.  "We turn gigs down every year."  Noodleman said his summer weekends are "gone" because he is booked so frequently.  Terry said it would be difficult to stage a casting call for new blood because "where they come from is so bizarre.  I wish there was a way of doing it. You know, have my own 'American Idol' "

Unlike barbwire-tongued Simon Cowell of the aforementioned show, Terry tries to soften rejection for the talent-impaired.  But squeaky wheels do not get greased.  Terry said it is usually the worst acts who pester him most frequently about coming aboard.  The answer is still no.

photo by Kelly Kerr, Tulsa World

A ringmaster is born

It makes sense that Terry, 54, found a job in which he is equal parts publicist, manager and agent.  He was a pitch man perhaps before he knew what one was.  As a kid, Terry threw newspapers.  He said carriers who met a quota for enlisting new subscribers were promised a trip to a Major League Baseball game in Kansas City.

"I stood on porches in north Tulsa and west Tulsa, night after night, knocking on doors after dark, begging people to take the paper," he said.  "I said, 'You can cancel next week. Just take the paper.' "  Terry met the quota and went to his first big-league game.  "I was going to Mecca as far as I'm concerned," said Terry, an admitted sports nut.

Fast forward to Terry's first job after college. He left Oklahoma State with two things: a marketing degree and no idea what to do with it.  Terry went to work in the credit department of an oil company.  He said being a "glorified bill collector" made him miserable and he let it be known by way of appearance.

"I wasn't going to cut my hair," he said.  "I wasn't going to do that for 'the man.'  I went to work every day with a wig over my (tucked in hair).  I went out and purposely bought the most ridiculous wig I could find because I didn't want anybody thinking I would choose to wear my hair this way.  I tortured myself for probably a year or two doing that."

Terry bounced around doing whatever odd jobs he could find and got to know Tulsa Roughnecks executive Noel Lemon through a mutual acquaintance. Terry walked into Lemon's office one day and asked for a job in the ticket office.  The soccer team's marketing director had quit earlier that day.  Lemon noticed Terry had a marketing degree.  Terry immediately became the new marketing guy.

Terry worked for almost every minor league sports franchise that called Tulsa home, including many incarnations of pro soccer.  He was doing third-party consulting work for the NPSL's Tulsa Ambush when he noticed that the club had hired something called a Myron Noodleman to entertain fans.

"We were totally prepared for it to stink," Terry said.  "After a while, we were all watching him and not the game.  A goal was scored.  Who got the assist? I don't know."

Terry believed Hader, who launched the Noodleman schtick after winning a Halloween costume contest, was blessed with talent and potential.  Show biz runs in the family. Noodleman's nephew, Bill Hader, is a "Saturday Night Live" cast member.

Terry offered to be Noodleman's agent.  Time passed and they decided to hitch themselves to each other's wagon.  The business partnership didn't kick into high gear until a minor league executive recommended they attend baseball's winter meetings. They set up a booth and easily could have gotten overlooked.   "If they would have put us any further back, they would have had to put us in the bathroom," Terry said.

"But the genius of Rick, and all credit to Rick, he suits up as Myron and starts working the aisles as Myron. . . . Everybody is standing around laughing and watching.  By the time they got to where I was on the back wall, they were saying, 'Look, there's Myron's booth.'  We set up our cheap little booth and walked out of there with a career."

Help wanted

Noodleman got so many bookings at the winter meetings that Terry decided he needed more acts.  He knew Krazy George because they had crossed paths during Terry's stint with the Roughnecks.  Morganna the Kissing Bandit recruited herself.  She predicted stardom for Noodleman and asked Terry to be her agent.

Terry continued to expanded his crew of operatives.  He stumbled on to "Little E" because a company needed a leprechaun to appear at an event. Gawatz took the job and later agreed to be costumed in Presley gear for a multi-Elvis Tulsa Drillers promotion.   After Gawatz curled a lip and mimicked Elvis' sneer, Terry knew a star was born.

"I've got videos of Elvis' concerts and stuff and I just watched him, just like when an actor studies a character," Gawatz said.  "I studied his movements, and not just his body, but his head and everything."

Gawatz said he works about 20 sporting events per year, including baseball games, arena football games and a few hockey games.  Terry said Gawatz loves performing. Once, Gawatz toured Bourbon Street in New Orleans while dressed as Little E.

"Immediately people were just flocking him," Terry said.  "Everybody wanted to take pictures with him.  They are used to street performers there, paying them stuff.  Man, he is making money left and right.  We walked by a strip bar and all the girls came running out, scantily clad, wanting their picture made with Little E. That really caused a commotion.  We went by a couple of clubs and they just saw him and they just came running down. . . . He would go in and they would put on some Elvis music and he would hit that stage just selling it."

Terry said an entertainer who can get steady bookings "can make a good living." The same applies to Terry, who could pay his bills doing only the P.T. Barnum thing, but he still takes on additional work.

"Baseball has been very, very good to me," said Terry, channeling Garrett Morris' ex-jock character from the early days of "Saturday Night Live."

But money is kind of an arbitrary thing, Terry said. He said the most rewarding thing about his career is he has been able to make a living pursuing his passions.  He likes sports, music and "wacky things."

Terry pointed to the "Broadway Danny Rose" movie poster in his living room.  In the film, Woody Allen is a bottom-shelf New York talent agent whose clients include a blind xylophone player and a balloon twister.   "It's my story," Terry said. "Why does he do it? Because entertainment is my life."