Oklahoma storytellers tell the best lies

Some people say that the best storytellers are the ones who are good at lying. And if that’s true, the state has a lot of good liars, especially in Green Country.

At the June 2010 Spirit of Oklahoma Storytelling Festival in Seminole, Connie Fisher, Tulsa, performed at a story concert where one of his stories concerned a “top secret” military mission that he engaged in when he was in the service stationed in Italy. The mission involved helping the villagers in the “very first spaghetti harvest.”

Fisher, a member of the Tulsey Town Yarnspinners, also noted that he had to guard a facility where the first angel hair pasta trees were being cultivated. Fisher’s style of speaking so sincerely with factual detail at the beginning of his story made his “lies” really hilarious.

Betty Perkins, Locust Grove, a retired teacher who continues to teach and to tell stories, says of her “lies”: “I would never tell a lie to improve a story, but I would tell a story to improve upon a lie!” Perkins’s storytelling group the Mayes County Storytellers probably has not quite figured out which of her stories is the truth and which are not.

One of her favorite ones to tell involves the failed outlaw Elmer McCurdy who couldn’t figure out how to be a successful bandit and wound up getting shot and put on display in Guthrie, before disappearing for decades. When his over-embalmed body turned up on the set of a Six-Million Dollar Man show in the 70’s, he was claimed and brought back to Oklahoma for burial.

True story? Yes, though how much of it is anyone’s guess! The story was intriguing enough to motivate another MCS storyteller Deb Evans, Chouteau, to make a digital story about McCurdy’s life. Evans, a Chouteau High School teacher, produced the digital story during an educational workshop with Celebrate Oklahoma Voices.

People who want to hear some good lies should be on the lookout for upcoming storytelling events in Oklahoma. For the most up-to-date information, they can to go the websites of the state’s storytelling organization Territory Tellers or the Mayes County Storytellers.

One person’s lie is another person’s entertaining story. Lying is not always a bad thing.