In January of 2015, I was asked by Lindsi Lemons the Program Director of Schools for a Healthy Lifestyle, and Jason Hasty of the Putnam School district, if I would be interested in Painting peaceful playground games again for their Oklahoma schools. After numerous delays due to record rainfall, other commitments, and a minor injury, we were finally able to paint the third week of July. It turned out that it would be the hottest week of the summer!

I talked my former co-worker and dear friend Vaughn Humbolt who was enjoying retirement to come help me for four and a half days to paint eleven schools, nine in Oklahoma City and two in rural Oklahoma. The schools that we painted included: Overholser Elementary, Apollo Elementary, D. D. Kirkland Elementary, Ralph Downs Elementary, Harvest Hills Elementary, Northridge Elementary, Parkland Elementary, Oakridge Elementary, Hupfeld Elementary, Beggs Elementary, and Choctaw Elementary.

The first day we left my farm outside of Augusta Kansas at 4:30 A.M. and drove to Oklahoma City to our first of three schools. The first two days we had six schools to do with some of them being repaints, while the last two and a half days we were starting from scratch. Typically, we would work from 6:30 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. By about 11:15 A.M. the surface would be too hot to work on. Then we would go eat lunch, take a nap at the hotel, and go back to painting from 4:00 P.M. to 8:30 P.M.