This is Oklahoma

This is Hal Smith

On this episode I sit down with restaurant entrepreneur Hal Smith. Trying hard to find the words to describe how amazing this episode was. For me this was one of my favorite interviews. Hal has so many great stories. I think we just scratched the surface. He's a huge supporter of Oklahoma. Born in Ardmore now living in Norman. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2017 a moment that he said was one of the biggest achievements. Hal is still growing his concepts today, on average 8 stores a year. Both his children have a love of food and continue to work in the industry. His wife Sandy loves her golf and they try to play every Sunday afternoon. 

This episode is presented by The Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Telling Oklahoma's Story Through Its People Since 1927. Follow them on Instagram @oklahomahof and online www.oklahomahof.org. 

Hal Smith Restaurants

www.halsmith.com 

• Charleston’s Restaurant
• Hefner Grill
• Hollie’s Flatiron Grill
• Louie’s Grill & Bar
• The Winston
• Neighborhood JA.M.
• Pub W
• Redrock Canyon Grill
• Mama Roja
• The Garage Burgers & Beer
• Smitty’s Garage Burgers & Beer
• Mahogany Prime Steakhouse
• Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill
• Upper Crust Wood Fired Pizza
• El Huevo Mexi-Diner
• Notorious P.I.E.

Thanks for listening and please subscribe and leave a review. It means the world to hear your feedback. 

Cheers, 

Mike

This is Les Thomas Sr

On this episode I sit down with THE OSU GAME DAY HOST ( GO POKES ) the one and only Les Thomas Sr! Les has a fantastic story, one of ups and downs. Someone who has battled through life and come out a shining beacon of hope for the community. I won't spoil the story for you but Les drops a couple of exclusives on the podcasts. Stories he's never told before, like his rap name in middle school. 

Les is a humble guy, he's doing great things for his community and helping others in need. He'll tell you this himself, there's two things he's very good at, grilling out and drumming. A drummer from a young age, Les has some series skills on the drums and performed in many groups, he's played drums for artists coming to town and even at the Super Bowl! 

An incredible story you won't want to miss. Les thank you for your time and your service in the Airforce. Follow Les @lesthomas.sr

This episode is presented by the Oklahoma Hall of Fame - Telling Oklahoma's Story Through Its People Since 1927 - Follow them @oklahomahof and online www.oklahomahof.org

Follow us @thisisoklahoma and please leave a review and subscribe

#thisisoklahoma

 

This is Oklahoma Golf #002 - Local Muni's Best & Worst Holes

On this episode myself, Blake and Trey sit down to discuss the best five holes and worst five holes of our local OKC municipal golf courses. It was much harder than we thought! 

We briefly recap how our Oklahoma related tour pros did this past weekend but the majority of the episode of talking about our love and hate for some of the holes we played in college.

Thanks for listening, for more Oklahoma Golf content follow us online @thisisoklahomagolf and please leave a review / subscribe to the podcast.

Golf episodes released every Tuesday.

Cheers,

Mike, Blake & Trey. 

This is Midtown Rotary - Laura Nauman - Spelling Bee(r)

On this episode I sat down with current President of the Midtown Rotary club Laura Nauman. Laura grew up here. She graduated from UCO and worked in the marketing space out of college. As someone who has always been connected with the arts, graphic design, music and arts education she naturally found her group at Midtown Rotary. 

A group of likeminded people who meet a couple of times a week at McNellies for a beer, some food and to raise money for local arts projects. Each week there's a guest speaker. I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak a few weeks back and it was a great experience. 

Midtown Rotary's BIGGEST fundraiser of the year is coming up and its an event you don't want to miss! Are you good at spelling? No? Doesn't matter, do you like great food, drinking local beer and raising money for a worthy cause? BOOM! Then the Spelling Bee(r) event on Friday Feb 21st at Tower Theatre is perfect for you!

You can sign up online here https://okcmidtownrotary.org/spelling-beer/

Last year they raised $18,000 which provided musical instruments and art supplies to local schools. 

HELP RAISE MORE MONEY THIS YEAR! 

Thanks for listening, don't forget to leave a review and subscribe to the podcast for many more episodes to come. 

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Lou Renova - @405_photo - RCG #003

Episode 003 of our Random Car Guys automotive segment. Lou Renova known as 405_photo on Instagram has a pretty awesome story. His title is marketing and content creation for Farmtruck & AZN. 

Lou is a phenomenal automotive photographer. Most people who get involved in photography are given a camera from a young age and grow with it. Lou's experience is a little different. Working for the FNA team one day slinging T shirts at the race meets. AZN says "grab my camera and take photos" from that day the camera hasn't left his possession. 

If you follow him on social media @405_photo you will see how good he is. He's a car guy just like many of us, grew up around them and always liked being a part of the car scene. Cruising around town with all his mates, trying to find local street races and being a car guy. 

Fast forward to today, Lou has traveled the world creating content for Farmtruck and AZN's social media pages. Enjoy the story and follow Lou @405_photo

For more automotive content for Oklahoma headover to @randomcarguys on Instagram and give us a follow. 

#thisisoklahoma

Mike

 

This is Oklahoma Golf #001 - The Intro

NEW SERIES! As some of you will know, I have a huge passion for golf. It is the reason I am here today, the reason I met my wife. Everything in my life has revolved around golf in someway so naturally covering it in a podcast series was a no brainer. CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK ME THIS LONG! 

The goal for this golf series is for me to get together with a few of my friends every week. Talk about local golfing events, local players, course reviews, current events in the golf media and generally to have a good time. 

On this episode myself, Blake Jackson and Coach Tim Braaten ( Ex SNU college golf teammates ) sit down to introduce ourselves, our plans, tell some funny golf stories. We recap on the previous weeks golf tournaments around the world that Oklahoma golfers and Oklahoma related golfers (such as university players from out of state) are playing in. As well as what we think the best local muni course is in OKC. 

I hope you enjoy this series, I am really excited to cover this topic and to share more stories from my golfing adventures around the world. 

Follow us on social media @thisisoklahomagolf

AND LEAVE A REVIEW :) 

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Siren Media with Alyssa Murphy

On this episode I sat down with Alyssa Murphy from Siren Media. 

Alyssa started Siren Media in 2018 after being fired from her current job. Alyssa with the help of some friends created a freelance army to tackle projects. Alyssa has a passion for helping small businesses. She grew up in Edmond, her family have a small business Weathers Audio and Video. So she uses that to her advantage to relate to her clients.

Growing up at the family business answering phones at age 12 and engaging with customers. She learned customer service, always having some form of a job in her youth. Alyssa collected and learned all these attributes to small business to which she uses today.

Alyssa graduated from UCO and decided that she didn’t want to continue working in cosmetics as she did through college for MAC. So once she graduated her sister has this opportunity to come work as a social media manager for her art gallery.

Sadly social media management wasn’t valued that much by other businesses so there was no opportunity to scale. However the sales jobs were very lucrative. So Alyssa went to work as a saleswoman for a corporate media company selling media outlets such as radio ads, marketing products. This first quote corporate job out of college went well but after a while started to feel grey and never ending. Eventually she left that job to go work for a marketing company in Norman. After sometime there she was offered a new position a t a marketing firm in Mustang, Oklahoma. Working with smaller businesses to improve their marketing. But after a few months she realized there was very little business improvement being sold. It was more about getting the business and not helping the client.

So Alyssa left that job and started her own shop “Siren Media” her goal is to disrupt the culture of women in the workplace allowing or having their upbringing impact their business. She's now in her second full year of business

 And today is where we are now. This was such a blast learning about small business needs. Follow Alyssa on social media @sirenmediaokc 

AND LEAVE A REVIEW!! 

Cheers 

Mike

 

 

 

This is Scissortail Park

On this episode I sat down with Stacey Aldridge – director of marketing and communications of Scissortail Park in OKC. Stacey shared her story and talks about preparing for the Grand Opening of the park. The plans for 2020's events and the future of the park.

Stacey grew up in Massachusetts moved to East Texas her junior year of high school. Went to Texas Women’s University studying fashion merchandise with minor in marketing got into retail and shopping center development leading to a job in malls, worked at quail springs in 97 then moved to work at the Chesapeake arena and JUMPED at the opportunity to work at the scissortail park. Stacey started 7 weeks before the Grand Opening. 

The event weekend was a huge success, lots of media requests. She spent her time in the photography pit during the concert. 28,000 people came through the gates and a couple thousand more including media, vendors and volunteers. 

After this Grand Opening the real work starts for the park. Bringing people to visit OKC. The park is another location that can pull more out of state travelers and instate travelers to town. This whole district in downtown is growing for the better.

Currently the event schedule is growing for the warmer weather months, they do get food trucks in for the weekends. But due to the erratic nature of the weather it’s hard to plan certain outdoor events. Events will pick up in March / April.

You can stay up to date on park on social media @scissortailpark or online at www.scissortailpark.org

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and share it with one of your friends. 

#thisisoklahoma

 

 

 

This is Plant OKC

On this episode my wife Taryn joined me to interview sisters Emma & Addie Ryan. Owners of PLANT OKC in midtown OKC. If you have a social media, you watch the news or even have a Netflix account you borrow off your mates. You will have noticed that Plant based diets have been talked about a lot! 

So we thought what better idea than to interview the owners of OKC's most popular Plant based restaurant to find out their story. What a story it is. Emma was diagnosed with Cancer 9 years ago and after trying literally every possible option to cure her cancer she turned to a plant based diet. Go figure it worked! After Addie saw her recovery she tried it and her performance as a college athlete increased significantly. Now disclaimer here, everyone is different and not everyone will get the same results. However, myself and my wife eat 80-20 plant based meals and wow to do we feel better. 

So just give it a try. Eat more REAL FOOD and you'll be shocked at the difference in yourself. 

So not to ruin the whole story but 9 years later they have opened up their first restaurant. Emma has been a health coach and qualified chef for a long time and finally after lots of encouragement they opened PLANT OKC in August last year. 

This episode was so much fun! We laughed a ton and learned a ton about plant based food and how the girls make everything in house. If you're a first timer or want to try it please go to Plant OKC and ask for either Emma or Addie, they will tell you all you need to know and also there's a library of books there to read. 

You can get everything from a morning coffee and a bite to eat, a smoothie, lunch and dinner. Basically anything to fit your time of day! Try it out!

Follow them here @plantokc

Cheers, 

Mike

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Riley Sports Performance

On todays podcast I sat down with two past clients of mine. Josh and Katie Riley to talk about their new business RSP, Riley Sports Performance. Josh and Katie met in college where we all met as well. All of us are graduated of Southern Nazarene University. Josh is born and raised in San Diego with a love of baseball, football and basketball but naturally he was better at Baseball, which brought him to SNU. Katie grew up in Yukon and then went to SNU for athletic training. Both have always had a passion for sport.

 

After graduating they moved away to New York to work in the corporate world. After two years in the big city working in the corporate world, not really spending as much time around athletics as they’d like, they decided to come back to Oklahoma. Shocking I know they chose Oklahoma over San Diego one would think!

Once they returned they earned their fitness training certifications. Katie attended grad school and then they both worked at Gold’s Gym. Doing classes and building their client lists, building a community.

After putting in the hours and building a community around fitness for all ages, shapes and sizes. The timing was perfect for them to grow into this new opportunity at ARC Athletic, Recovery and Rehabilitation with 12 classes a week. All hours of the day there is a class for your schedule. They have created a new class that’s not really seen in OKC. It’s an adult strength training class. So a whole lot more personal with multiple coaches attending each class. By creating it this way they can work with different people, different sizes, all levels of fitness from power lifters to the first timers wanting to get some weight off before their vacation. Even elderly people wanting to be more stable when they walk, being stronger is healthy and that doesn’t mean you’re going to be a body builder that means you’ll not hurt yourself when you bend over to pick that box up in your home. 

In short it’s a strength training class for all levels of fitness with multiple coaches there to make sure you are doing all the exercises correctly.

Super excited for these two to be on this journey together for 2020. 

You are invited to their grand opening Feb 1^st there’s an hour workout and one hour for recovery from 9-11am all the details are on their Facebook page. Coffee will be provided by whole shot coffee.

GRAND OPENING LINK! https://www.facebook.com/events/616073282461015/

 Classes through January are free! So come on down and check them out.

https://www.rileysportsperformance.com

Instagram @rileysportsperformance

Thanks for listening and please leave me a review and 5* #thisisoklahoma

Cheers