Hi everyone. Man, last weekend was truly a lot. If you are new to Oklahoma, it is NOT normal to have so many calls for a PDS or particularly dangerous situation. Listen carefully when you ever hear this, and that might be the best advice someone ever gave me after we relocated here decades ago. Saturday night, the NWS Norman issued a record 65 tornado warnings and that superseded the previous record of 45 in one day on May 30, 1999. Hearing this benchmark gave me serious pause. My heart goes out to all affected, there just aren’t words for how sad what happened makes me.

Luckily the EPS and other school districts around the metro called off prom on Saturday, with most rescheduling last Sunday and EPS rescheduling for this next Saturday May 4th. Hoping the weather stops and allows all of the prom goers to get out and have fun at their school’s prom!

The streets are going to be blocked on Broadway this weekend starting Thursday until late Sunday evening for the upcoming Downtown Edmond Arts Festival! There will be shuttles taking people back and forth from 1st & University, so be aware!

Events start off with a mini Vibes Market on Thursday May 2nd, and then the Arts Festival kicks off Friday May 3rd at 10 am on Broadway between 2nd Street and north to Campbell.

This weekend looks to be mild in comparison with beautiful temperatures to accompany the Downtown Edmond Arts Festival in the low to high 70’s. With a small chance of rain, it appears to be the perfect time to get out and see what is new at this year’s event, with a record 157 artists! You can check out the new artists between Hurd & Campbell and see all of your old favorites throughout Downtown Edmond! There will be food trucks, entertainment throughout, and a children’s area that will include a project with Oops I Arted, facepainting and more. Be sure to get to Downtown Edmond Friday through Saturday 10 – 8 pm and Sunday 11 am to 5 pm, and enjoy & support everyone who is participating, all of the businesses who are open, stop by the new Roxy’s in the Edmond Railyard, have a beer or two at Frenzy Brewing and just stroll around to see just how far Downtown Edmond has come in the last year.

If you’ve never been to the Downtown Edmond Arts Festival, here is a preview from 2022! Keep your eye out for photos from this years event at @EdmondActive at Facebook!

Last Saturday, my husband was able to shoot photos at the US Olympic Trials for Kayaking and Kayak Cross and he had a blast shooting these phenomenal athletes! The organizers did a top shelf job getting through the qualifiers during windows of severe weather!

Take a look at the photos here:

Lastly tonight, check out this story by Joe Tomlison of Non Doc Media about the continued difficulty City employees are giving the Hal French Foundation and the Edmond Fine Arts Institute in their failure to move forward with the two entities on the Sculpture park on Coltrane and 2nd Street. If you get a chance, send a word of encouragement or a description of how you think this park would positively impact current residents, the city’s coffers and offer a future go to for residents, their guests and visitors to our City by emailing your city counsel person.

For an example of how profound the impact of the sculpture park and relocating the Edmond Fine Arts Institute to the park would be, just imagine having a well lit park to stroll around in the evening or to visit art shows and various other events.  For a brief moment, after my husband and I went out to dinner, we noticed there were lights on at about 9 pm at Stephenson Park, which surprised us because none of the other parks are lit well, or not lit at all here in Edmond. We lingered for a good amount of time, while looking at the updated park with birds chirping, families laughing and playing and others just hanging around talking on the benches.

After covering Edmond for the last 15 years, this was the first time we had a place in Edmond to do this, and in the moment, it gave me pause and the chills, and left me smiling for the next week with thoughts about the need for the sculpture park and how amazing that development actually is and how profound its affect would be if only for a few folks who are for some reason not very interested in creating this project. I hope something changes, it means more to residents than the City employees actually realize, it appears.

Hope is something art can conjure within people, and having such beautiful sculptures in a public space can offer that to more folks than can be imagined. We can all use a little more hope for our city’s future, right? It’s been a long 5 years with dashed hopes for this park once before, here’s to hoping the 2nd effort causes this project to move all the way forward as other commerce-based projects have, without any trouble.

Take a look at Stephenson Park. It is just as beautiful as the renderings so many years ago. If you are new, go take a look, it’s located on 5th Street and Boulevard.

Have a wonderful weekend and be sure to check out our social media for photos at this weekend’s Downtown Edmond Arts Festival!

Check back next week for an update of all the events coming up between May 11 to May 18th!

Sherri