Oklahoma Scottish festival

September’s familiar routine of loading up and driving out of state for a Highland Games continues with our next adventure, The Oklahoma Scottish Festival. Held along the Arkansas River with downtown Tulsa as a backdrop, the festival puts highland games on the center stage.

 The games field is in the center of the festival grounds, surrounded by vendors, clan tents and stands for patrons. Despite rains that shut down the festival early on Saturday night, the throwing pitch survived without a scratch. With two height standards, a hammer cage and three trigs there was always an available space for each class to keep moving forward without forced breaks for space. Each throwing area also had a shade tent and a cooler full of water, making it that much easier for throwers and officials to stay comfortable throughout the games day.

Promotion of The World’s Largest Kilt (http://www.worldslargestkilt.com/) seems to have encouraged a lively crowd with an acute interest in the games this year.  Some spectators got excited enough to do the wave to help encourage the men’s A class during sheaf on Saturday.

Seven classes competed over two days for a full game with over 50 throwers. Men’s A class, Light weights and Women threw on Saturday, leaving Masters, Bs, Cs and Juniors to throw on Sunday.  With no novice class the C class was an overwhelming 15 folks. Frank Lamb, one of the ADs, won the C class thus moving him up to the B class.  The B class was an all-day shoot out with the top two throwers trading first place points back and forth. The top tier Men’s A class was a hard fought scramble for top placements, with Texas kid Duncan McCallum taking top honors with Irvin and Thompson (aka Swamp Jesus) nipping on his heels. Two of the A class gents, Chris Jones and Gary Roberts, played a bit of iron man style games throwing again on Sunday to take top honors in the Masters class.  The light weight division (those men that weigh in under 190lbs.) rang in with a group of six guys that put on a heck of a show, with several top ranked throwers for that division.  

Four women were the sum total of the female showing at this venue, but what a set we were! Jera showed us all what this summer’s training has done to increase her throws, and she handily wrapped up a first place spot. Your truly is the only woman you know who can manage to come in first in heavy hammer and last in light hammer, have to keep them guessing, but even with my bobbles in hammer I managed to pull out a second place win. Anna Parsch, you will recall I told you to remember her name in a previous article, had a day full of personal bests with a third place finish. Heather Ellis was the spirit of fun and silliness that kept us grinning all day, and rounded out our fearsome foursome. As our judge, Dave Glasgow said “It is so gratifying to be with people who care about throwing.” Complements don’t come any better than that!

The real treat of the weekend was the Juniors division. This is another way that highland games is growing, and showcasing itself as a family event.  This division is for those under the age of 16 that want to take part in the highland games. All those that competed in the debut of this class for the Tulsa Games were part of highland games families. Seven young men from ages six to fifteen came out and gave it their best. As their judge for the day, I was really pleased with the overall level of proficiency with the events, as well as their desire to do well and help one another. We managed five events before lunch, and called it a day. There is really nothing quite as precious as a hip high kiddo swinging a cut down hammer for all he is worth. Thanks to the ADs and parents for trusting me with your kiddos, I had a blast.  

The Oklahoma Scottish Festival ( http://okscotfest.com/)  treats the athletes well, with individual medals for each event, trophies for the top three finishers in each class, catered lunches and lots of help on hand to get through the day’s events. There are plenty of reasons I keep returning to this venue, and they aren’t all about watching the Men’s A and Women’s class winners chug drinks out of their trophies at the bar with the corporate sponsors on Saturday night! Frank and Matt along with the Tulsa games really do show folks what Highland Games is all about, family, fun and friendships.