Prairie Tales: Oklahoma in Story and Song

This assembly includes stories and songs about the history of our great state. A traditional Otoe legend, “Race between Bison and Mustang,” describes the tallgrass prairies before contact with Anglo-Europeans and how the arrival of horses changed everything. After learning about the reign of cowboys through the ballad, “The Educated Feller and the Z-Bar Dunn,” students will hear about the Unassigned Lands opening to homesteaders in 1889 and the experience of drought in the story, “1890: The Year of the Turnip.” Optional classroom integration sessions can be booked after the assembly. In each session, anecdotes of enterprising settler businesses at Oklahoma Station (now Oklahoma City) will lead to a discussion about wants versus needs. Students working as individuals or in groups will imagine what items or services they could sell under Land Run conditions and present their ideas as artwork, orally, or written. Optional classroom sessions are an addition $25 or 1 unit per class.