Tuesday, June 14, 2016.

A small town called Alma is our destination this morning.  It's about five miles east of Fort Smith and has a population of 5,000 people.  On the Vietnam trip last year, we travelled with a coup,e who live in Alma.  He's a doctor and she is the director of the Performing Arts Center here.  We surprised Teresa at work and had a great visit and lunch with her.

The Center is amazing.  She took us on a tour of it along with the man who is the costune designer.  This is a first class operation all the way.  It seats 1,500 people but can be sectioned off for smaller groups if needed.  The local high school is attached to it and they have drama classes and a class for costume design that provides training for the students and provides actors and actresses for the locally produced programs as well as backstage help.  The center has raised more than a million dollars for scholarships for the high school.  It draws from a large geographical area because it's the only Performing Arts Center of this caliber in the area.  I was very impressed, it rivals the Morrison Center in Boise, I think.  They also have national touring productions and well known musicians perform here.

We ate lunch at a good Mexican restaurant.  Thank you, Teresa Riggins Schlabach, for the tour.  It was so fun to see you.

After lunch, we crossed the border into Oklahoma.  We are spending the next five nights in Sapulpa with Stella's sister and her family.  Sapulpa is a small town just to the west of Tulsa.  Her nephews and niece are so excited to see her that they charted all the things that are planned for the next few days on a whiteboard and put it on an easel so nothing is missed.  It's been fun to see them this afternoon.  It's hot here, 99 when we arrived and high humidity.