Graduate's film coming to campus

Friday, February 19, 2010

By Katie Butler

Oklahoma State University graduate Matt Myers is bringing his award-winning feature documentary “Tar Creek” to Stillwater.

Tar Creek was home to one of the largest lead and zinc strikes on the planet, and it became home to one of the worst environmental disasters in the U.S.

Myers said Tar Creek looks like a place of science fiction.

“Tar Creek is located in northeastern Oklahoma, America’s Heartland,” Myers said. “And it might be the one place in the States where you’d swear you stepped into a third world country.”

While the real home of “Tar Creek” is in Ottawa County, Myers said Stillwater is an appropriate location to show the film.

“OSU and Stillwater educated many of the people who told this story or helped pull it together,” Myers said. “And I’m excited to bring it home.”

ECO-OSU is sponsoring the film’s showing on the OSU-Stillwater campus.

“We wanted to bring this film to campus to help make students aware of this devastating environmental issue occurring right here in Oklahoma.  This story is close to home, and shows how damaging our Earth will have repercussions, even in our lifetime,” said Blake Parks, ECO-OSU President.

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, February 20 at the First Christian Church in Stillwater and Sunday, February 21 at the Student Union Theater.  Following the showing Myers will take questions from the audience.  The film will also be shown at 7 p.m. from February 22 – 28 at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa.

Myers is from Vinita and graduated from OSU in 1999 with a degree in literature, but his roots in OSU are deep, he said. Both of Myers’ parents graduated from OSU as well as his sister. His grandparents lived in Stillwater and his grandfather, E.E. Davidson, was Vice-President for Business & Finance at OSU for 17 years until he retired in 1987.   In addition to his family, Myers’ wife is the daughter of Ron and Cara Beer of Stillwater.  Dr. Beer served as OSU’s Vice President for Student Affairs for many years.

For more information about Myers and the documentary visit http://www.tarcreekfilm.com/.