The real and imaginative adventures of Dennis Spielman

Author: Dennis Page 71 of 175

Oklahoma Venture Forum for November 2019

If you missed my announcement on social media, I’ve partnered with The Golding Group to record the Oklahoma Venture Forum podcast! OVF is a non-profit organization providing entrepreneurs and growing ventures in Oklahoma access to capital and management development through education, networking, and other resources.

For November, I recorded the Pritch Pritchard interviews in December, I’ll be taking over hosting duties interviewing Oklahoma entrepreneurs. The November episodes have been released today.

Transparency, trust, and transformation at the Better Business Bureau of Central Oklahoma. How does an Oklahoma organization anticipate its 90th birthday? In the case of the Better Business Bureau of Central Oklahoma, it stays true to the core values established in 1930 while continually adapting its services to the business community. “Transparency is one of the core values of our business,” says Kitt Letcher, the CEO and President of the Bureau. “And our standards of trust must be met before a business can earn BBB accreditation. But we’re also really trying to transform our image to business owners.”

After earning his Ph.D. in Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin, Rob Reynolds began his career as a university faculty member teaching languages and literature. He has also served in university administration, as a textbook publishing executive, and as a co-founder and/or leader of multiple educational technology startups. Reynolds currently serves as Executive Director of TEL Library, a non-profit, public library dedicated to providing affordable learning to anyone, anywhere.

TEL Library continues to innovate content management and publishing with a goal of making high-quality education affordable and easily accessible for everyone, everywhere. They are currently building a library of high-quality, low-cost learning content that can be repurposed and distributed quickly and efficiently across multiple product types and markets. In the next phase, TEL Library’s long-term goal is to leverage its structured data framework and make its structured content available to third-party AI systems to make high-quality, affordable education accessible worldwide.

2×10 The Tombstone Tales of Enid

Under a full moon, Sam and Geoff arrive at the Enid Cemetery for the town’s annual Tombstone Tales event after receiving an invite from Visit Enid. The next day, the two meet Russ Frazee and Errol Wofford at Garfield Furniture to learn more about the town’s history and connection to John Wilkes Booth’s death there.

 This episode of Tales Unveiled is brought to you by Visit Enid. No matter what you’re planning, Enid has plenty of fun things to do and lodging options ranging from popular chain hotels to historic bed and breakfast inns. Get suggestions on what to see, eat, and do at VisitEnid.org

Subscribe to new episodes of Tales Unveiled via Apple PodcastsGoogle PlaySpotifyStitcher, or anywhere you enjoy podcasts.

Recreation of the room John Wilkes Booth died at in the now Garfield Furniture building - photo by Dennis Spielman
Recreation of the room John Wilkes Booth died at in the now Garfield Furniture building – photo by Dennis Spielman

Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by me, Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman. The voice of Professor Geoff DeRoot is Jeff Provine.

We would like to thank Visit Enid for the travel accommodations and itinerary. Also, a thank you to Russ Frazee and Errol Wofford for sharing stories with us.

If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist owned and patron supported, click here. In return, you can get bonus content, including early access to various shows!

Thank you for listening to Tales Unveiled! We would love it if you would leave a rating and review of the show on your favorite podcast provider. Your reviews do help other people discover the show and get noticed by the providers for possible collection features.

Behind the Scenes Commentary (Spoilers)

I was invited by Visit Enid to spend a night in their town to do stories for both Uncovering Oklahoma and Tales Unveiled. This episode of Tales Unveiled was the main feature of the trip. Visit Enid provided dinner at Napoli’s Italian Restaurant (which was good by the way) and hotel stay at Country Inn & Suites (also nice).

The way Jeff and my schedule’s worked, we did the last Tombstone Tale on Saturday night for the season. As we commented in the cold open for the episode, we did have a full moon for the occasion. Since I didn’t have control over the tour, I had to be mobile and capture it from an audience perspective. I also switched from recording parts with my audio recorder and parts with my camera. In the episode, I featured three clips from the tour although I recorded more.

Visit Enid arranged the interview with Russ Frazee and Errol Wofford at Garfield Furniture that we did the next day. As discussed in the episode, what is now Garfield Furniture was the supposed place John Wilkes Booth died. After the interview, we got to see the recreated room where Booth stayed.

This was the first time I was invited by a tourism group to do stories about a city, so I hope I get to do more projects like this one. 

A Spirit Tour of Tulsa

Sam and Geoff travel to see Teri French, founder of the Tulsa Spirit Tours, who has been sharing Tulsa’s colorful past with locals and visitors alike for over a decade. They meet at Foolish Things Coffee where Teri discusses the city’s history, including stories of the Tulsa Race Massacre, serial killers, and prohibition scandals.

Subscribe to new episodes of Tales Unveiled via Apple PodcastsGoogle PlaySpotifyStitcher, or anywhere you enjoy podcasts.


Tales Unveiled is a production of The Show Starts Now Studios and is produced by me, Dennis Spielman. The voice of Sam Saxton is Dennis Spielman. The voice of Professor Geoff DeRoot is Jeff Provine.

We would like to thank Teri French for sharing stories with us and Foolish Things Coffee for letting us record on their patio.

If you love what we’re doing, want us to keep being artist owned and patron supported, click here. In return, you can get bonus content, including early access to my other shows and stories. 

Behind the Scenes Commentary (Spoilers)

Our original plan to feature Tulsa was to include it in connection with our Route 66 storyline. However, with logistics and schedules, we made Tulsa its own trip. On the way back home, Jeff and I did take Route 66 with the intent of hoping to get some stories on the way to Chandler from Tulsa. Since it was Sunday, the few towns we did pass through were closed and we had no luck. We may try again next season.

I did reach out to the Cave House and Gilcrease Museum for interviews, but I never heard back. I would love to go back for more personal stories about Tulsa, but Teri did give us a great overview of the city.

Enid Brewing Co

Oklahoma’s first Grain to Glass brewery, I interviewed Brady Sidwell for Uncovering Oklahoma about the origin story behind Enid Brewing Company and what visitors can expect. 

Visit Enid Brewing for yourself at 126 South Independence in downtown Enid or their website at EnidBrewing.com

I want to give a special thanks to Visit Enid for providing travel accommodations. If you’re planning to travel to Enid, be sure to check out the Visit Enid website to plan your Enid adventure.

Tales Unveiled in the News for October 2019

I want to take a moment to highlight the publications that featured my Tales Unveiled podcast last month. I’ve already shared them on social media, but I wanted to include them in a blog post for prosperity. On the About page for Tales Unveiled, I have all press coverage listed there too.

Spooky Stories collection on Stitcher

The first feature came from Stitcher, a major podcast service. Tales Unveiled was included in their Spooky Stories collection.

Jeff and I were invited to the Oklahoma Today Podcast to talk about ghost stories and the show. As they described, “Oklahoma Today editors Nate and Greg are joined by fellow podcasters Jeff Provine and Dennis Spielman of Tales Unveiled, which explores Oklahoma’s most haunted places, to talk about their favorite local ghost stories and learn more about Provine’s ghost tours.”

The last feature was in the Oklahoma Gazette, Halloween Guide: Invisible guests. This was the first time I was featured in the Gazette where I’m quoted and it’s my first full-page article too. My wife framed the article and it’s hanging up in our house. (For the record, Yes! Science! had a nice section featured about the Myriad Gardens event, but neither Pallas nor I were quoted as it was just about the event.) Now, I just need to work on getting on the front cover.

How has this translated for downloads? The second season started on September 13th. In the month of September, the show had a total of around 500 downloads. In October that number was 10,153! Episode downloads are now averaging between 1,000 to 2,000 whereas last season it was 100 to 500.

Even though Halloween is over, Jeff and I are still cranking out more episodes. Our Tulsa episode comes out Friday and next week will be Enid. We’re working on recording more with plans to end the season with a total of 14 episodes on Friday, December 13, 2019.

Thank you, everyone, for listening and sharing Tales Unveiled! I would love it if you would leave a rating and review of the show on your favorite podcast provider. Your reviews do help other people discover the show and get noticed by the providers for possible collection features.

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