It would be interesting to anticipate what the festivals for the American Heartland Theme Park might be, once they get the thing up and running.  I've put together a possible list and general dates for festivals that I see being possible.  To be clear, these are not company proposals; they are merely my on ideas.  Enjoy.
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• "Get Your Kicks" Festival (June):  Celebrate America's highway with kitschy characters highlighting the roadside attractions drivers and passengers experience.  Uplifting live music across the park will be sure to draw your attention through the day and into the night.  Be sure to enjoy Car Show days during this festival.
• American Heartland Teacher Institute (July):  Twenty educators from across the nation are selected by jury to attend the institute for special training and professional development they won't experience anywhere else. During the institute, participants will explore the regions of the United States while also finding opportunities for including STEM, history, writing, reading, and the arts into their own classrooms.  AHTI is sponsored by [to be determined].
• Music Across America (July):  Regional musicians from across the country are performing daily during the month.  You'll tap your toes to everything from jazz to bluegrass to classical and rock oldies.  Stay for an especially exciting Salute to Freedom, an fireworks-enhanced version of our regular Nighttime Spectacular show from June 14 to July 4.
• Monarchs and Fireflies (July/August):  By day, we celebrate the monarch butterfly migration with special exhibits.  Plus, sample and enjoy a variety of Oklahoma watermelons and good, old-fashioned ice cream straight from the churn.  By night, you've never seen a theme park like this as thousands and thousands of LED, fiber optic, and projection effects light up the world around you.  American Heartland is a wonder to behold.   Stay to enjoy the Nighttime Spectacular show across the water.
• Arts Festival (September):  Watch experts at work or try your hand.  We're offering special art and music classes for our guests.  Take a class in pen-and-ink, painting, and even phone photography.  Plus, enjoy our National Gallery, highlighting loaned artwork from the world-class Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
• American Harvest Food Festival (September/October):  Help us celebrate American farmers and ranchers and sample from over 30 unique food experiences featuring the best farm-to-fork dishes available.  Enjoy regional cooking demonstrations in every land at various times throughout the day.
• The Christmas Experience (November/December):  More than a light show, American Heartland seeks to immerse your family in the spirit of the season.  Look for interactive storytelling, special shows (including a crazy Christmas romp with our pirate stunt show), roaming characters (Watch the family decorate the tree every night on the plains.), and more, making the Christmas Experience one of your most cherished holiday memories.
• Classical Romance (February):  Plan your romantic evening in one of our full service restaurants (by reservation).  Choose one of the couples packages in our four-star resort.  Be brave and take a quickfire ballroom dancing lesson.  Plus, we always have wedding packages available in the unique destination settings of American Heartland.
• Celebration of Flora and Fauna (March/April):  As the trees and flowers bud, sit back and enjoy the beauty of the park with colorful natural landscaping.  Enjoy baby animal encounters.  Make and take home a new, stuffed friend from our exclusive line of cute, plush creatures.  The park is alive with new life during this festival.  Enjoy the dogwoods and redwoods when they bloom, and get ready for the azalea blooms which usually occur late in April.  Interested in learning some gardening secrets?  Join classes offered in the Great Plains area of the park.
• Founder's Day (date to be determined):  Help us celebrate the mastermind of American Heartland, the incomparable Gene Bicknell.  Eat pizza as you screen a Bicknell movie, prefaced by Mansion Animation's award-winning short, Gene's 6th Symphony.  Don't miss the Museum of Vision and Legacy as you discover the life of our founder.

Do any of these unique festivals spark your interest?  Just keep in mind, at American Heartland, we just might surprise you when you least expect it.  Floating mini-festivals will appear in our regions at various times throughout the year, such as:
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• Welcome to Oklahoma (spring):  We have special presentations and displays from the best of Oklahoma tourism on display during the spring.  Featured in the Great Plains Show Barn, there will be freebies and lots of literature to celebrate locations in our host state.  Enjoy Watonga Cheese, Prague Kolaches, and other foods from across the great state of Oklahoma.

The mission statement for Mansion Entertainment Group has many interesting aspects.  Since the American Heartland is a part of this group, the mission statement applies to everything that is planned in the new theme park, as well.

In a recent blog post, Hillsboro, Missouri, teacher Krissy Venosdale wrote, "It is clear that when Walt Disney said 'Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children,' he meant it.  He understood kids.  He ‘got’ what engages people. He created an experience that develops wonder, inspires imagination, and instills dreams."

The focus in education has moved dramatically in the last 15 years.  While being a teacher has required a Bachelor of Science degree for several decades now, it has always been recognized that teaching is a balance of Science and Art.  Put in a different way, no one would patronize Disney movies if they were all about cause and effect, character descriptions, set dimensions, or cost analyses and financial projections.  No, we patronize those movies because of the magic - the storylines, the deep character development, and the emotion.  In short, what makes a good Disney movie is the wonder, exploration, and discovery!

In her blog, Mrs. Venosdale, who also created the images that accompany this writing, wrote:

No, our children are our future.  When it comes to our students, we must have a vision of an invisible future.  Walt Disney saw a swamp and envisioned an amazing and magical kingdom.  What do we see when we look at our students?  More so, are we fostering a climate of vision within those students?  No matter how bright our own vision, the future of the universe rests also on their visions.  I doubt even Walt Disney could imagine some of the leaps forward that have been made in his industries since the time of his death.  Only with our continual passing the vision forward, guided by the clarity of our faith, will society advance.

I have some questions, too.  How will the infrastructure handle such a robust endeavor?  Where will employees come from?  Where will vacationers be housed during their visits?  Who is paying for the park?

What if the park fails?  What if it doesn't get off the ground?

I have to stop myself.  That kind of thinking doesn't seem to support the positive vision that the founder and executives have for the American Heartland Theme Park​ in Vinita, Oklahoma.  And it is a positive vision.

They've said that they are confident in their projections and expectations.  They've said the park is already fully funded.  They've said the park will open in the fall of 2026.  All very ambitious.

But what if it happens?  People can say that it's a bad idea, plopping a Disney-competing theme park "in the middle of nowhere".  First of all, that's just offensive to the people who live in this region.  I realize we live in flyover country, but that does not mean that this is nowhere.  

Then again, that just makes me want American Heartland to succeed.  If Disney can build Disneyland in an orange grove and Disney World on a nasty swamp, why can't these folks make something out of a virtually level piece of cleared farmland in northeast Oklahoma.

What if it does work?  What if it is successful?  The more people scoff, the more I can imagine the powers behind American Heartland feeling satisfied.  Who doesn't love an underdog story!

And the more I would love to be a part of the team.  Almost 40 years ago, I envisioned myself being a part of a theme park.  Working at a place called The Wilds, I was poised to be a part of a theme park from the ground floor. I figured that I would write scripts for attractions and shows, that I would train employees, that I would control adherence to the theme.  Had that endeavor been successful and not have fallen victim to bank failures in the 1980s, I might be a CEO or president there, today.

So why not dream a little more?  I'd love to be a part of the development of such an endeavor.  What if it could happen?

As reported previously, I had a hard time finding any history depicted in the signage and displays in the Bricktown area of Oklahoma City, yet I know there is great history to be told.  I wanted to see signs to explain the historic buildings, but as I said, there weren't any to be found.  Off to the side, off the beaten path of the canal, there was finally a statue of a lone Native man with some explanatory markers around him.  The area around him is nice, but why he is hidden off the side is a mystery.

The Jim Thorpe Museum was closed (though it was still early), and by the time I made it around to find the American Banjo Museum, it was after 6pm.  What is there to see in a banjo museum? you ask:  probably banjoes, but I can't really be sure, because it was closed, too.

On one corner between Jim Thorpe and the banjoes was a single historical marker.  Presumably there are more elsewhere, but hey, this is the inner city, and I'm not one to wander alone in a place like this. 

This marker explained something that happened just a couple of months after the great Land Run of 1889 (I'll never understand that method of land distribution; there had to have been a better idea.).  Apparently, new state pride was rampant back then, as well, because when July Fourth came around, the people wanted to celebrate in the biggest way.  They watched horse and wagon races and had all kinds of Independence Day fun, but the grandstand they built wasn't resilient enough to hold the weight of all of those new Oklahoma citizens.  When it collapsed, a boy was killed, and the tragedy put a stop to the celebration.

Of course, there is more history to this area, but they just don't depict it they way they could.  They don't educate people, local residents or out-of-towners, and they should.

For my birthday in August, Mr. Culbertson sent me a collection of snapshots from our past.  This was a teaching partnership like no other, and we were a force to be reckoned with.  Mr. C and I have very different interests and personalities, and our complementary style worked like magic with our students.

He brought me out of my shell, and I help him anchored.  He became more creative, and I became more focused. A real friendship was formed and remained through bright and dark moments.  They are fond memories indeed.

Taxpayers in Oklahoma City sure paid a lot of money for this feature.  Pundits touted a riverwalk in the city would bring about tourism dollars and be a source of pride for Oklahoma.  They held up San Antonio, Texas, and the historic riverwalk there as a possible model to follow.  So that's what they did.  They successfully put it to a series of votes, and the project became a reality.

After all of these years, I finally made it to an area known as Bricktown to see what all the fuss was about.  Let me just say this:  the Bricktown Canal is not the San Antonio Riverwalk.  While San Antonio has history to show off along with its bars and restaurants, Oklahoma City just has bars and restaurants.  Don't take that the wrong way: there are some pretty spots, but this in no way matches what it was intended to be, and there were only two boats cruises that canal at a time (with only one during the day).  Other boats sat idle, even thought I was there in the dead center of tourism season.

I found some flowers, geese, and a couple of ducks down there, but that meant visitors needed to dodge the droppings on the sidewalk in areas frequented by the fowl.

Seen alongside the canal were also the old brick buildings that are concentrated in this part of the city.  It's been known as Bricktown for as long as I can remember, growing up in the area.  But there is something missing that I'll hit in another article in a few days.  Where are the plaques on the buildings that tell when they were constructed and their original purpose?  Where were the appeals to help passersby understand the urban area and spread a historical understanding of the city?  As far as I could tell, those things are completely absent.

The people say Oklahoma City a lot.  Watch the local news and you'll here Oklahoma this and Oklahoma that. There's a lot of people who will fight you to convince you that they're the nicest people in the world, but there should be more of a foundation laid below that pride.  I see old buildings, a canal for boat tours, and a bunch of bars and arcades, but there should be more reason behind these things.

I guess one of my favorite items was this mural on one building's side wall.  Something about the mural appealed to me.  It was painted in a less-than-modern style, and it looked awfully nostalgic...but it still didn't explain things.  I spent several minutes trying to interpret the image, but without more context, one has to rely on generalities and not specifics.

I appreciate the efforts it took to make this area into what it is, but I believe it missed the mark in accomplishing what supporters predicted it would be.

The Last Frontier Restaurant and Resort
Stay in our rustic lodge with an Alaskan wilderness theme.  Swim in the glacier-themed pool.  Dine in our wildlife hall where you can order exotic foods from the frontier (or just pick up a hamburger).  Your room will have all the amenities you expect from a resort of this caliber.  Ground transportation is available to shuttle you to the theme park and back.

The Kamehameha Resort
Always dreamed of visiting Hawaii, but couldn't afford it?  We've taken care of you with our Polynesian resort.  If a luau with a fiery hula show is what you want, come on down to the beachfront pool and take it all in.  Shuttle to the park in style in our surf-busting boats.

My daughter and I spent some time in downtown Oklahoma City, this summer.  She met friends for a baseball game at the Bricktown Ballpark, home of the Oklahoma City Dodgers, while I got some steps in, walking around outside in the heat.  I grabbed these pictures around the stadium as I strolled around enjoying the city.

There is history here, of course, but not the kind that I usually follow.  With the likes of Johnny Bench, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford, baseball history is well-represented at the park.  Perhaps the most intriguing acknowledgement of local history, however, was depicted in the mosaics on the left and right of the ballpark turnstiles.  I found many familiar places and people represented in these mosaics, but a person who stops to admire them may wonder at what they show.