So, every Monday night at McNellie’s The Abner in Norman is Pint Night. Good golly gosh, I love Pint Night. The deal is, you go and buy the featured beer of the night, and you get to keep the glass that is made for that beer.
This first picture is of our kitchen cabinet:
The middle cabinet that is stacked and packed full of glasses is our beer glass shelf…and every single one of those glasses came from pint night. The next picture is a high up shelf where we keep the too-tall pint glasses, or the extra fancy ones that are more fragile (like a Warsteiner Dunkel special edition Christmas glass with a hand blown glass ornament at the bottom): Continue reading Pint Night: From McNellie’s The Abner in Norman→
Dan McGuinness - Opening Night, Edmond, OK. Photo from their FB site, taken about 3 months ago.
(Julie’s view) If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a part of the Red Dirt Chronicles for this short time, it’s that there is no topic or interviewee off limits. So when Kelly mentioned wanting to investigate some of the local music talent, I knew I had the perfect person to interview: Jim Fields. Jim is part owner of the Dan McGuinness Pub franchise in the Moore and Edmond areas and my ex-husband. Don’t freak out.
Jim is originally from Bethany but connected with Lee Adams, owner of Adams Restaurants, while he was living in Memphis, TN. Jim worked for T.J. Mulligan’s at an entry-level position and gradually worked his way into management. All the while he was missing his home state of Oklahoma. It took some convincing, but Jim talked Lee into bypassing Arkansas all together, and they opened the Moore location in November 2006 and the Edmond location in September 2010.
We met up with Jim at the at the Edmond store. He was in a meeting so we took a seat at one of the tall pub tables near the bar. The sweetest waitress took good care of us while I tried to give Kelly a little bit of background information on the restaurants. Jim joined us and he and Kelly talked for a while about some of the local music talent.
But here’s the best part: Jim told me he had something that used to belong to me and he wanted to know if I recognized it. We walked to another section of the restaurant and I spotted what he was talking about immediately.
Norman-based Old Hat (OH) Creative is a sports ad agency. Their mission is to tell the stories of their clients, and tell them well. And if you visit their OH website, you could probably park your hiney in a chair for the next few hours because they’ve created enough cool content to keep anyone entertained for a good long while.
But there is a difference when you see their story in person.
If you review their website, you get the impression of energy, humor, sharp and creative individuals who take their work very seriously. Okay – maybe there are similarities between the online and in-person story.
If you review their website you get the impression that the team is cohesive, that they really care about their clients, their craft, about learning and growing…and about performing together as a well-oiled and evolving system, willing to take risks and think without boundaries. Okay, this is getting silly…those messages are clear when you visit them in person as well.
Damn, their website is pretty good at telling their story!
Tracie Hitz and Walter Colindres pose with Lil' Duey, the Old Hat Creative mascot. Visit Duey's webiste page for more on this travels, arch enemies and lifestyle.
So what can we add for you this morning? Perhaps a third dimension of warmth, of genuine regard for each other as a team. And of the dichotomy between a screaming football stadium of fans where their ads may be running on the big screen compared to the pristine quiet when you walk into their office – all their professionals working on iMacs with headphones on, completely focused on their task at hand.
I spoke to Tracie Hitz, their Director of Business Development, this week and she talked about why she moved from Illinois to Oklahoma in order to join OH. She said that the Chicago area is filled with ad agencies, and a sub-group of sports ad agencies…that it’s a fast paced and challenging life, and fits the image of what you might hope to have working in their industry. At the same time, however, she related that working for the Northwestern University athletic department was – in a sense – an established system with very little room for creative influence in terms of their mission or direction. They already were how they were going to be.
When Tracie moved here, she got two things. The ability to contribute and influence the way OH was developing – she said that founder Zac Logsdon listens to her ideas, considers them and frequently she’ll see them implemented. And, she got “settled down,” a sense of stability and permanence of community. When I listened to her “two things,” I thought… “Well, that’s Oklahoma. Creative and homey.” But it’s certainly OH as well.
Old Hat's "living room," AKA their reception area.
And perhaps that’s the thing we can tell you about when wrapping up our shout out this morning. When you walk into the OH “living room,” it feels comfortable. When you talk with their staff, they are friendly and inviting…and funny. And when you think about their website information as a whole, you get the sense that the team is a family.
I spoke to a Norman resident Wednesday night and mentioned I had visited OH and he perked up, “Yeah, they’re making waves around town!”
“Good waves?” I asked, “What kind of waves?”
“They’re well-respected, over-achievers…a really good thing,” he replied.
So, maybe that’s the rest of the story. A creative family of overachieving professionals who make good waves in their community….but you can get that from their website too. And their Twitter account. And their Facebook page.
And…you can get the chance to win a ‘Lil Duey T-Shirt and an OH hat just by Tweeting this article (see icon below), or visiting the new RDC Twitter account and mentioning us. Just Tweet a message and “@RDChronicles” today, and we’ll enter you in the drawing…and contact you tomorrow if you won.
Here’s to you, Old Hat – we’re “tipping our RDC hat” to you and yours. All the best!
***
Editor’s Note: I was a high school drama teacher for eight years. OH Founder, Zac Logsdon, was one of my former students. He and his wife Jill played the leads (mother and father) in our first off-site play, “Cheaper by the Dozen.” It’s interesting that now it seems they are sort of the mother and father of a dozen or so children at OH, all of whom are very special people...warms my heart to see them doing what they’re doing.
The pop machine. An integral part of the OH living room.Win this hat and t-shirt...Tweet this essay or mention @RDChronicles on your Twitter account!
Next week we’ll begin our “Silent Sundays (see Weekly Schedule page).” To help begin the feel for next week, here’s the first of our RDC Photos of the Week.
If you feel you have a photo that highlights the Red Dirt culture of middle America, showcases the State of Oklahoma in some way or puts a face to who we are, please submit your entries to: reddirtchronicles@gmail.com
If you see your submission show up the following week, then that means you win! What do you win? The smiles of our readers when they pull up the screen on Silent Sundays. We are convinced there is no better reward.
Shouting out to the NY Times “20 Somethings” article this past week, our back-to-school season, our penchant for travel and the geographical region of Norman, OK – here is our first Photo of the Week. Enjoy!
20-somethings Peggy White and Rachel Roberts enjoy a moment under a 1950s "Turbinator Hair Drier" during summer 2010 vacation in New York City. Peggy is a free-lance artist and Rachel is a Photography major at the University of Oklahoma.
Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.
