And welcome, welcome, welcome, good morning, good morning, good morning,
and the idiots. Time for our holiday edition of our Community Connection.
And as always it is our Thanksgiving annual Community Connection with the Motorcycle Toy Run.
And I got ladies, and how you guys doing. Been wonderful looking
forward to a good year. This year brought to sidekick. Introduce yourself.
Hi, I'm ellie. Hey there you go. Nice to have you both
in here now today it's a bright, almost darn perfect day, and here's
open that when we kick off the Toy Run it's going to be maybe it
just a little bit warmer. Looking pretty much same, Yeah, hoping for
a warm year and plenty of sunshine. What have we got this? This
is number thirty six, yep, number thirty six. Wow, boy,
they've been doing this longer than you've been around this one. Yeah, I'm
talking to you. I was a teenager when it started. Now tell everybody
what we have going on here, because this is really pretty cool because you
know, we get a front row seat here at the radio station because you
go right down Frank Phillips Boulevard with the motorcycles and the toys and everything else.
So tell everybody First of all, where do we start out and how
does this all work? We start out at the parking lot that is by
Arby's on Frank Phillips, and the parade goes all the way down to the
Salvation Army where the drop off is and that's where we have the free meal
for the for the participants. Well, this is great, and every year
it seems to get bigger and bigger. We have the little shrinking there during
COVID, but everything is back to just about normal, if not even bigger
than normal. Yeah. Yeah, we're always hoping for a good turnout.
Plenty of toys for the kids. And you know, bring a toy,
get to ride the parade, you get a meal. It's a wonderful day.
Oh great, Now you want them wrapped or unwrapped, unwrapped, unwrapped.
Okay, so if you want to be in the motorcycle break, just
bring an un wrapped it a gift for a boy or girl. Put it
on, put it in Santa Slade because we got Santa. Oh yeah,
we got Santa. And well you got Sanda, and you do every year.
You got Santa. And the sligh comes right behind all the motorcycles.
The motorcycles come behind Santa. I forgot how that goes. Santa leads a
parade. Santa leads a parade and in zoom, off we go. Now,
if we don't have a motorcycle, but we want to contribute, can
we do that? Absolutely? Anybody can stop by the parking lot. Everybody
starts gathering at noon, noon, and the parade takes off at too.
Come by see Santa. Bring a gift. You're more than welcome to.
And if you want to watch the parade anywhere down Frank Phillips is awesome.
Right by the radio station, that's even better. I actually do the official
count. Just a few buildings up. Yeah, I know you do.
I've seen you go. I've seen you down there. Yeah, got your
a little clicker, got my clickers going. And we count the number of
bikes and then also the number of riders so that we know how many how
many people are participating? Call head, Hey, hey, you got a
three four four, it's that one in the back. Oh man, that
is great. That is just an awesome thing. Now I understand we have
people who contribute being sponsors. Do yep, we have our sponsors, and
you also get on our infamous T shirts. But those things are collectors items.
Everybody knows that, oh they are. I have every shirt since I
started volunteering with it in nineteen ninety. The third year, Oh my goodness,
and Elizabeth actually does she did the art for last year's T shirt that
she and I are wearing. Oh wow, that's great. She's done it
for this year too. So we're ready for the big reveal on toy Run
Day. What the new design is. I'm dying to see. This one
looks great. The twenty two that we're modeling here, that's gonna be hard
to beat. But I got faith in you, kid, You got skilled
who we got to thank here. We got a lot of folks who have
kind of ponied up here. So this year's sponsors we have no limit.
Power Sports g H Masonry, oglesby Assembly of God, Wannie Holtscher Farms,
Imaging Concepts, Burswelle Cycle Sports Accounts by Janna Coachworks, Paint and Body,
Carolyn's Doghouse, Evans Nursery, Paul's Wrecker, the Radio Station Super six,
Trant's break in Alignment, West Side Paint and Body in Memory of Beckett Hope
Boreo colst rental and New Haul in memory of Cotton, Humble Roads, a
biker church and Priesthood, Rainey's Custom Butchering, Magical Universe, Ghettoways, Glenn
Dedey and Matthew Haywood and the Bartswel Police. Well there you go. And
of course they kind of ride along too, don't they. Yeah, they
don't want to miss out on the fine. They don't want to miss out
on the fine. Well, this is always a tremendous event and it's something
that a lot of people look forward to each and every year, and especially
the kiddos. Oh absolutely, they really don't put one in one together here
on this. They just know there's a lot of motorcycles in their Santa Claus.
Yeah, exactly. We of the years, especially since I've been doing
the count for about the past fifteen years, where I get to see everybody
lined up because not only do I I count, then I have to run
to the Salvation Army. So I go down the parade after all the bicycles,
and I get to see all the people that were out by standing watching
the parade. And I've seen that group grow over the years. Oh,
it's something else. It is a lot of fun and when's the date again?
The date is December second, next Saturday, next that. Okay,
that's a big day around here. He's got this prey, got that prey.
So you start out with the motorcycles and you do the other one later
at night. Yeah, you get a two for that day. Yeah,
two for the price of one. This is gonna be good. I'm kind
of jacked up for it now. I've been looking ahead at the weather and
it looks like we're gonna probably be on the pretty okay side. Yeah,
for December second, And it's gonna be a great day to get on the
motorcycles, gonna be a great day to ride. It's gonna be a great
day to help out kids in need. Absolutely. You know, luckily our
people show up. You know, we've had people show up when it's cold,
snowy, rainy, whatever, but a beautiful day always brings them out
in droves. Now, Lizbeth, you've been coming in here every year i've
been here, which is about five years. Have you been part of this
ever since you were toddler? Yeah, I mean I've grown up within this
and so it's just been a fun experience. I remember when she was about
three foot something and now she's full grown person. Yeah, it's a boy.
They do that, don't they. Yeah. I mean when she was,
when she really was a toddler, she was helping out, you know,
wrapping up silverware and helping us serve the food and everything roll. And
it's just grown since then. My goodness sakes, it's kind of you kind
of grew up with that too, because you started off as a teenager with
this and you grew with it as well. So it's a nice little family
traditioning guy going it is. My aunt Marty Halter, started it and she
there was they would go to a one in Tulson and the Toy Run and
a couple other places, and she's like, Bartlesville has enough to support a
toy run, and so she decided to start it, and she has.
And good how it's grown absolutely so much so that when she decided to step
back and kind of just be the face of the toy Run rather than running
it and doing all the hard work, she earned her her retirement. It's
taken three of us, me, my sister, and my cousin to take
it over, and one of us runs the kitchen, my sister does the
the the administrative stuff, and I do the t shirts and the radio spot.
Hey, he does the artwork. Yeah, he does. It's all.
You know, it's mostly run by the family. Well, you gotta
love it, you know, this really is a cool thing, and we're
looking forward to it December second. I get out there about noon at the
parking lot down there by Army's. Yeah, and then we'll put the toys
up in Santa's Slay. Santa will lead the way at two at two o'clock
in Zoom, we go down. We obey all posted speed limits, absolutely
we do. Also there's it is for two and three wheel motorcycles and three
although side by sides and ATVs and things like that maybe street legal. They're
they're not a motorcycle, so you know, they unfortunately can't participate, but
they can bring a toy and watch the parade and have fun. Absolutely,
just like anybody else. Yeah, and remember if you if you're not a
writer or you used to be, uh and or you want to be,
but you don't have your your two wheels on you, you can always bring
a toy and that that works just fine too. It does. Every bit
goes to the kids. The what we have left after we sell the t
shirts, and we help the Salvation Army out by asking them what they need,
and we go have a toy buy, you know, a week or
two after the toy run to complete out what the Salvation Army needs to help
the kids. That's got to be fun too, it is. It's a
pretty fun trip. I want to thank you for sharing your Thanksgiving morning with
us, both of you ladies, and also telling us about the toy run.
We're going to have this on the internet here with our news story and
we'll tell everybody about what they can do, where they can find you and
how they can participate. All right, thank you very much, thank you,
and happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving into you two, alrighty, thank you've
been listening to our community connection.