OKPOP Museum

06/02/2026

Congrats, Sterlin! 🤩

Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Mvskoke) has received the Peabody Trailblazer Award, recognizing his impact on television storytelling and his work centering Indigenous voices on screen.

From Reservation Dogs — the first U.S. television series with an all-Indigenous writers' room and directing team — to The Lowdown, Harjo has expanded what Indigenous stories can look like on television, blending humor, humanity, community, and place in ways that have resonated with audiences around the world.

The Trailblazer Award marks Harjo's third Peabody Award, following previous Peabody recognition for Reservation Dogs.

Presented by The Lowdown star Ethan Hawke at the 86th Annual Peabody Awards, the honor recognizes visionaries whose storytelling shapes culture and drives social change.

In announcing the award, Peabody praised Harjo for “expanding the possibilities of television storytelling while centering Indigenous voices with originality, humanity, and purpose.”

Accepting the award, Harjo reflected on the importance of creating opportunities for voices and perspectives that have historically been overlooked.

“Diversity isn't a handout. It's empowerment. It is telling someone that where they come from and who they are, they have an impact on people from other backgrounds.”

Harjo joins a list of previous Trailblazer Award recipients that includes Issa Rae, Quinta Brunson, and Questlove.

Following the ceremony, Harjo summed up the moment with a simple Instagram post:

“Ah snap.”

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Source: , Gold Derby,

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06/01/2026

Happy birthday to our friend, Ronnie Dunn of the legendary country music group, Brooks & Dunn!

Born on this day in Coleman, Texas in 1953, he started his country music career in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was his home for many years. His career as a solo artist started in 1983, and partnered with Kix Brooks in 1990 to form Brooks & Dunn. Dunn has many number one records on the US Country charts as a solo artist and through Brooks & Dunn. And since 2019, he is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Happy birthday, Ronnie!

05/31/2026

🚘🖥️🍿

The Admiral Twin is celebrating 75th years with a double feature — including the film that helped seal the drive-in's place in Hollywood history. See link below ⬇️

📸 DOUG HOKE/THE OKLAHOMAN

05/30/2026

Tulsa, the Capital of Route 66, is celebrating 100 years of the Mother Road today with the Route 66 Capital Cruise and a Guinness World Records® attempt for the largest classic car parade ever.

At OKPOP, we recognize the old Will Rogers Memorial Highway as more than a road. It’s a cultural artery, a great exporter of talent, dreamers, hard workers, storytellers, musicians, artists, and makers.

Route 66 has long carried Oklahoma’s creative spirit out into the world, connecting small towns to big dreams and local stories to global culture. It helped shape Oklahoma as a true crossroads of creativity, where people, ideas, and stories met, mixed, and moved on.

That spirit continues to inspire everything we do at OKPOP.

Happy 100th, Route 66. Here’s to the stories still ahead.


Route66 Alliance Oklahoma Route 66 Association Oklahoma Route 66 Museum Oklahoma Historical Society Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios on 66

05/28/2026

Today we celebrate one of the greatest athletes in modern sports history, Jim Thorpe!

We worded that carefully because we aren’t exactly sure about his birth date. There are conflicting sources about the day and year he was born. Some sources say he was born on May 22, and some say May 28. Some say he was born in 1887, and some say 1888. But whichever is correct, we wanted to take the time to remember him.

He was born James Francis Thorpe (Wa-Tho-Huk) on the Sac and Fox reservation near present-day Prague, Oklahoma. He would eventually play professional football, baseball, and basketball, as well as compete in numerous Olympic track and field events.

He won gold medals in the 1912 Olympic Games for the pentathlon and decathlon, and he competed in the men’s high jump and men’s long jump. In the pentathlon, he finished first in the long jump, 200-meter dash, discus throw, and 1,500-meter run, while finishing in third place in the javelin throw. In the decathlon, he finished first in the shot put, high jump, 110-meter hurdles, and 1,500-meter run; third in the long jump, discus throw, 100-meter dash, and pole vault; and fourth in the javelin throw and 400-meter dash.

Controversially, he was stripped of his gold medals in 1913 when it was discovered he had played semi-professional baseball in the Eastern Carolina League in 1909–1910. The Eastern Carolina League was a Class D minor league; its nearest equivalent today would be “rookie league” baseball or complex league play. At the time, playing semi-professional baseball was a common way athletes helped pay for college, though many used false names to protect their Olympic eligibility.

So, for playing semi-professional baseball three years before the Olympic Games, in a sport different from his Olympic events, he lost his gold medals. The problem was, many Olympic athletes had likely been paid at some point in their amateur careers. But Thorpe, being Native American, was unfairly targeted.

In 1982, the Olympic Committee restored Thorpe’s medals but did not fully restore his gold medal status, declaring him “co-champion” along with the runners-up for each of the events. Both of the silver-winning athletes, Ferdinand Bie and Hugo Wieslander, had previously refused to accept the gold medals offered to them by the Olympic Committee and referred to themselves as “silver-award winners” their whole lives out of respect for Thorpe.

In 2022, the Olympic Committee fully reinstated Thorpe and acknowledged him as the sole winner of both events.

Jim Thorpe would play professionally in Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), and barnstormed with an all-Native American basketball team. And, though he did not play, he even reportedly had the opportunity to play professional hockey in Toronto in 1913!

Jim Thorpe died on March 28, 1953.

05/25/2026

Wishing Cody Canada a very happy birthday today! Here he is with Cross Canadian Ragweed in Stillwater discussing the Oklahoma roots of Red Dirt music, the spirit of the scene that grew there, and how a community of songwriters and storytellers helped shape a sound that continues to influence generations of musicians.

From garages and bars to festival stages and arenas, Red Dirt has always been about honesty, connection, and songs that feel lived in. Oklahoma is proud of you, Cody.

05/22/2026

What is your favorite Louis L’Amour book?

L'Amour settled down in Choctaw, Oklahoma, in the 1930s and began writing short stories and novels. His books consisted primarily of Western themes, he called them "frontier stories," but he also wrote a lot of historical fiction, science fiction, and non-fiction. Many of his stories were made into films, and his novels remain popular to date. Some works of his you might recognize are "The Walking Drum," "Hondo," "The Sackett Brand," and "Last of the Breed."

05/21/2026

Did you know the set designer for "Pee-wee's Playhouse" was from Oklahoma?

Gary Panter was born in Durant, Oklahoma and is an artist, illustrator, and designer who's works have influenced some of the biggest television programs of the 1980s.

Not only did he design the set for "Pee-wee's Playhouse," his illustrated character "Jimbo," who was frequently seen in publications like the punk fanzine Slash and the alternative comic Raw, was part of the inspiration for Matt Groening's Bart Simpson.

The OKPOP team recently visited Gary to sit down with him for an interview about his career. And, he graciously donated some of his art and other artifacts to the museum.

05/19/2026

It was great to have Ethan Hawke visit OKPOP yesterday!

The star of FX's "The Lowdown" is back in Tulsa filming the second season. Ethan Hawke, though born in Texas and grew up in New Jersey, he has a lot of connections to Oklahoma.

He has worked closely with Sterlin Harjo, staring the "The Lowdown," and appearing in "Reservation Dogs." He also portrayed Oklahoman Chet Baker in the biopic "Born to be Blue." And perhaps Oklahoma-adjacent, in the 2025 film "Blue Moon," Hawke portrays Lorenz Hart, the former creative partner to Richard Rodgers, with the plot of the film following Hart on the opening night of the hit Broadway musical, "Oklahoma!"

In 2025 the Tulsa World named Ethan Hawke as one of the Tulsans of the Year.

05/18/2026

The Leon Russell mural is getting new life! 🤩

Jeks, a graffiti artist and muralist from North Carolina, works on a mural of Leon Russell at Third Street and Frankfort Avenue on Friday.
Mike Simons Photo