In the Shadows – Bigfoot Symposium Recap - Article 57
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Despite the snow falling last Friday, the turnout for the 2022 Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium was better than expected to this last-minute snowstorm hitting the area. The tally for attendance on Saturday was over 600 in the conference with an estimated 300 people who stopped by to check out the vendors outside the building.
The concessions sold Indian Tacos among other items, and people were lining up at lunchtime to get the frybread, with one gentleman at the end of the day, buying out the remaining few pieces of frybread to take home with him.
In attendance were folks who traveled from some of the following states to see the event, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Wisconsin. These folks braved what could have been snow on the ground to attend. The snow however was pretty much off the roads by Friday afternoon, and the sun quickly melted the snow on the grass by around 8:30 am Saturday morning.
The event opened on Saturday morning with a tribute to a long time Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center member who had helped with the symposium for 6 years and had passed away last year. Using some grape juice, the MABRC members present for the event gave a toast in remembrance to Roy “Bushman” McClish and other MABRC members who had passed away.
Then the speakers began speaking, starting with D.W. “Darkwing” Lee, who then turned it over to Jim “Biggjimm” Whitehead. Afterwards, researchers escorted Bigfoot in to do his presentation. A little angry at being made to give a presentation, Bigfoot walloped a researcher sitting inside the entrance with his club, before being made to get in front of everyone. Once his presentation began, it was something that the audience really appreciated. Afterwards, at lunch time, Bigfoot posed for pictures with members of the audience.
After lunch, Carl “Sensortech” Hartline gave his presentation, shortly followed by Steven James, and then the keynote speaker Ken Gerhard. People sat transfixed with all the presentations and asked many interesting questions throughout. With the bad weather before the symposium, there wasn’t enough MABRC Researchers to safely take out the public on night hikes, so an impromptu meet and greet with the speakers was held Saturday night, where the public was able to sit with the speakers and discuss Bigfoot and even venturing into Loch Ness Monster and a few other cryptids around the world.
Sunday morning started off with a presentation by D.W., followed by Jim Whitehead, and then with lunch, Bigfoot made another appearance and took photos with audience members, and everyone was excited to see their favorite cryptid in person. The town hall followed and a lot of great questions were raised by the audience about Bigfoot and were answered by Steven James, Jim Whitehead and D.W. Lee.
After that, the door prizes were next where tickets were drawn and all the prizes were given away, those who weren’t present will be getting a phone call in a few days to arrange for pickup or shipping of their items.
Altogether, it was a successful symposium, even with the bad weather hanging over it at the start. The number of people who did attend far exceeded the expectations of the organizers with the snow that had fallen. The MABRC and the Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium wants to extend our gratitude to all those people, including the vendors, who braved the weather to come out and have a great day listening to speakers talk about Bigfoot.