Payne County Line Oklahoma Music News: Reba McEntire chronicles Oklahoma’s 100-year history in serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Reba McEntire chronicles Oklahoma’s 100-year history in serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

OklaFilm & OklaMusic
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Oklahoma Documentary, Wagons to Waivers: A Century of Change, to Premiere

The feature documentary narrated by country music superstar and Oklahoma native Reba McEntire chronicles Oklahoma’s 100-year history in serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. OETA is scheduled to premiere the program on Saturday October 24, at 5 p.m. in celebration of October being national Disabilities Awareness Month.

Wagons to Waivers: A Century of Change takes viewers on an emotional journey from the days of the Dust Bowl and covered wagons and shows the state’s progression from institutions to full community inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities. Beginning in 1909 with the creation of the Institute for the Feeble Minded in Enid, Oklahoma’s story includes the tears and efforts of parents, the stories of people who grew up in state institutions, the legal struggles, and the triumph of the self-advocacy movement. The film also documents the Medicaid community-based waiver program that currently funds services for people with disabilities outside of institutions.

Producers Sheree Powell and Michael Chambers of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services began the project as a short educational program on how services to people with intellectual disabilities have changed since that first institution opened shortly after statehood. Nearly two years later, after mostly working evenings and weekends from their usual jobs, Powell and Chambers produced this comprehensive program completely in-house for virtually no cost to the agency or the state of Oklahoma.

Featured in the documentary are former Governor and First Lady George and Donna Nigh. Mrs. Nigh spearheaded Oklahoma’s group home program in the early 1980s during her husband’s administration. Reba McEntire donated her time narrating this video in honor of her niece who has developmental disabilities and lives with family in Oklahoma.

The film will have a second showing on Thursday, November 5, at 8:30 p.m. and plans to air several more times throughout the next year. OETA-OKLA is digital channel 13.2 in Oklahoma City, 11.2 in Tulsa, or Cox Cable channel 112. Check local listings in other areas for channels and program dates.

For more information on these and other events, please visit the Oklahoma Film Music Office website at http://www.oklahomafilm.org
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