Despite the success he’s built at his Tulsa-based boutique-style Black Optical, Gary Black never intended to open multiple locations or even expand in the existing market.

But that changed two years ago when management for Oklahoma City’s then-new retail center, Classen Curve, began talking to Black about the fledgling shopping destination and the possibility of a second Black Optical.

“When I saw the architecture and plans for Classen Curve, I knew it was the only place we would ever expand into,” Black says. “It’s the only place that could possibly work for us. We deal in clean, progressive products, and Classen Curve sums that all up. Just like Brookside is the place to go in Tulsa in order to see things you won’t see anywhere else, Classen Curve is like that too.”

Today, Black Optical at Classen Curve is open for business and features an elegant and comfortable design that reflects the attention to the aesthetic that defines “The Curve.”

Bob Benham can relate to Black’s experience. The CEO and owner (with his wife) of famed boutique Balliet’s was inspired to move the 75-year-old business to the Curve by none other than Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon.

“Aubrey showed up at my office one day about four years ago and was asking questions about my background and plans for the business,” Benham says. “Aubrey is a visionary and I knew he had something in mind.”

Benham says that just months later, he was approached and asked if Balliet’s would anchor Classen Curve, which Chesapeake was then developing just adjacent to the company’s corporate campus.

“Because of who was planning it, I knew that this would be a (development) that contributed to the economy, which would be environmentally conscious and which would have innovative architecture. The idea was that Classen Curve was to be a walking experience like shopping in a downtown.”

Benham says a deal was struck and Balliet’s made the move to Classen Curve, where today the tony shop enjoys more than 17,000 square feet of space – a 5,000 square-foot increase over its previous location.

“This was a unique opportunity for us economically – to move from a deteriorating area to what I think is the best corner in the city,” Benham says. “We saw Balliet’s as a big part of the renaissance of Oklahoma City.”

Like Black, Benham also cites the architecture and design of Classen Curve as key appeals. Relative to the rest of Oklahoma City and even to the entire state, Classen Curve is indeed innovative and unique.

That was the plan from the get-go.

“Classen Curve represents an architectural and conceptual breakthrough for retail in Oklahoma,” McClendon says. “Oklahomans can see the high standards we set for Classen Curve simply by walking or driving through it.”

“There is nothing like this center anywhere in Oklahoma,” says Rand Elliott, the well-known Oklahoma City-based architect behind both Classen Curve and Balliet’s.

“It is indeed a new idea for Oklahoma City, and we believe one of the most extraordinary retail and restaurant centers in the United States. In essence, Classen Curve symbolizes the maturation of Oklahoma City, and it creates a truly unique place for the best locally-owned retailers and restaurateurs in our community to provide their customers with an incredible experience among businesses which have an affinity for real quality.”

Classen Curve’s trademark design element is the orientation of the outdoor shopping center. Shops face an inner courtyard-style parking lot, fostering a quieter, more private feel.

“The inward parking design is new to us, but it has been done successfully elsewhere,” says Alison Oshel, director of community redevelopment with the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce.

“It seemed risky at first. People are used to giant signs on the front of buildings. But consumers seem to like the environment, the feel similar to being in an enclosed area.”

Citing Penn Square Mall as the catalyst for the region, Oshel cites plans for the adjacent Triangle at Classen Curve and the anticipated opening of Whole Foods Market later this year as signs of continued economic development.

Oshel adds that Classen Curve is commanding higher rents than elsewhere in Oklahoma City outside of the mall.

“There is great buzz out there,” Oshel says.

While innovative design is an important component to Classen Curve’s appeal, its resident businesses warrant credit as well. Balliet’s and Black Optical are joined by retailers such as On A Whim, BD Home, Red Coyote and Uptown Kids; and by restaurants such as Café 501, Upper Crust Pizza, Republic Gastropub and Matthew Kenney OKC. A Barre3 also serves the community.

“People love how everything is home-grown retail,” Oshel says.

Shoppers seem to love Classen Curve if numbers are a measure.

“Business has been tremendous,” says Benham. “We’re up 46 percent since the move, even though we’re just now emerging from a recession.”

Black says his decision to expand into Classen Curve was a “no-brainer.”

“There is no other place in Oklahoma City that we would really fit,” Black says.

Like Oshel, McClendon says he believes that Classen Curve and the development of the Triangle at Classen Curve will spur additional growth.

“The opening later this year of Whole Foods will mark a new chapter in the development of the area,” McClendon says. “The Triangle at Classen Curve will be home to one of the nation’s most recognizable and respected retailers, which will prompt other exceptional national retailers to strongly consider locating here.”

In the meantime, more residents discover Classen Curve every week.

“It’s become a destination and we hope it leads to more creative development in the city,” says Oshel.

Her tan is perfect. She must have spent hours on that hair – after she finished her makeup. The “flippers” cover the unsightly gaps left when she lost those teeth. Her bathing suit is cut high and those heels push up a pair of perfect calves. The room’s lights go down, the spotlight hits the catwalk and she struts like a model, turning and twirling to give the judges the best views. A beauty pageant, after all, is a beauty pageant. Even if she’s only 8 years old.

San Francisco “pageant mother” Kerry Campbell was in trouble with authorities only a week after a Good Morning America piece during which she cheerfully admitted that she regularly injected her 8-year-old daughter, Britney, with Botox. According to mom, Britney was losing her competitive edge in her beauty pageants. After the San Francisco Human Services Agency removed Brittney from her mother, Kerry admitted that her Botox admission was a fabrication.

Glitz pageants leave most parents with an unsettling feeling.

“Even though I really love this industry, I want my child to be normal. I want her to just be a child. Putting a little girl in those pageants is a little bit extreme,” says Heather Rouba, Mrs. Oklahoma 2009.

She feels that parents that push their daughters in that direction may be living through their children, may be overcompensating for some deficiencies of their own, or have other issues that their daughters are paying for.

“When you take a child and put her into (a glitz pageant), her existing character traits are completely different (than those of older women). They’re focused on basic accomplishments in school, playing, laughing and learning how to be friends. Improving children works in a natural pageant setting. They’re set up to reward children with excellence in areas that children should have excellence in,” says another former Mrs. Oklahoma, Stacy Kukal.

“Putting kids into a glitz pageant says, ‘God didn’t make you right to begin with. We’re all going to get together and see what we can do with you,’” Kukal continues. “Generally, those kids end up with confusion about who they were to begin with.”

There are, however, alternatives to the glitz pageant circuit. “Natural” pageants allow young girls to perform factory-ready, emphasizing skills and talents, not hair extensions. Contestants can’t use makeup in natural pageants. Glitz pageants have swimwear competitions. Interviews weigh more heavily in the scoring of natural pageants. Wigs, false teeth and other enhancements are fair game at glitz pageants.

Kukal’s 6-year-old, Georgia Rose Matlack, a natural pageant competitor, is the current International Junior Miss-Jr. Princess, the title given to the winner of the largest natural pageant for her age group.

A young girl’s driver for winning a pageant should come from a desire to improve herself in positive, authentic ways. That, says Kukal, is what the whole pageant system was built for.

“When you’re judged on the way you look, you’re going to want to put a lot of emphasis on that, a lot of value on that. So I feel like it’s better as a child and as a young person to develop your character. Even being the person I am and knowing that I would have loved pageants as a child, I really feel like it was the best thing for me to wait and go get it on my own. I appreciate it more because of that,” says Rouba.

But “glitz” pageants are big business. There are more than 25,000 glitz child pageants annually. It’s a $1 billion industry, and a lot of money changes hands. Coaches and choreographers get a cut. Makeup artists get a cut. Airbrushed tans aren’t free. Dressmakers can pull in $2,000-plus per gown. There are travel expenses. Entry fees pile up.

Toddlers & Tiaras, TLC’s reality TV show about glitz pageants for the third grade set, pulls in a more-than-respectable 1.4 million viewers each week. There’s no shortage of actual pageants, but the blog posts on the show’s website suggest that many viewers tune in because, for a reality TV show, it’s fantastically surreal.

Whitney Grubbs and her 2-year-old sister, SamiJo Grace, have appeared on the show twice. Grubbs says the pageants have helped her sister with her self-esteem and also turbo-charged her social development.

Grubbs dismisses detractors that claim the glitz pageants are less than healthy for competitors.

“I can see the point when people go to the extreme like the lady with the Botox, but for these girls it’s just fun. It’s just dress-up to them. Every little girl likes to play dress-up. They just get to dress up and have fun with their friends. It’s just a good time for them. These girls are so young that it’s not about the competition. She’s only two. She just likes to get up on stage and dance and entertain everyone,” she says.

Nonetheless, Grubbs is adamant about pulling SamiJo out of pageants before she hits 8 years old. That, Grubbs says, is when the pageants get far too competitive, the parents go way too far to win and the kids pay the price.

“It’s tough in the pageant world. The kids are harsh,” Kerry Campbell said during her controversial Good Morning America appearance.

Of course not every parent of young girls in glitz pageants shoots up their little contestants with Botox. But to many, the spray-on tans are questionable enough.

Award-winning editorial cartoonist Bruce Plante makes readers of Tulsa World think and laugh every weekday. He has more than 30 years of experience making thoughtful points about important political and social issues – with just one panel and a couple of word balloons. He is syndicated, his work appearing in newspapers and magazines from the New York Times to Newsweek.

Oklahoma Magazine: You’re coming up on three decades of professional cartooning. But when did you actually begin cartooning?
BP: Second grade. I drew a caricature of my teacher. She wasn’t supposed to see it, but she did. She grabbed the cartoon and dragged me into the hallway and started spanking me. She told me that cartooning was never going to get me anywhere. She did that spanking based on how many syllables the cartoon’s sentence had. It just made me try harder.

OM: During your career, which president has provided you with the most material?

BP: Reagan, and maybe Clinton. They’re real close. But probably Reagan.

OM: Which president has provided you with the best material?

BP: (laughs) I guess Clinton. Let’s just say I was for Clinton, voted for Clinton and, coming from Arkansas originally, I was really rooting for him. Then he pissed me off. I kind of vented my spleen, which always makes for better editorial cartoons.

OM: There are many paths that a talented illustrator can take. How did you arrive at political commentary and editorial work?

BP: That started in college. I knew I wanted to be a cartoonist. I grew up drawing characters from Marvel comics and MAD Magazine, that sort of thing. I was a real Spider-Man nut. Loved Thor. I got really bored drawing the stuff we had to draw for fine arts majors at the university. So, I started drawing caricatures at Six Flags Over Texas, just to get my foot in some kind of cartooning. When I got back to the university, I started drawing caricatures at fraternity parties and that sort of thing.Somebody dared me to draw the student government president. I drew it. I gave it to my friend. I didn’t know he worked for the student newspaper, and he gave it to the editor, who printed it. It got a lot of reaction. It was kind of cool. Then the student newspaper editor called me up and asked if I wanted to do this on a regular basis for pay. So I thought, ‘Well, this must be it.’ Then I visited my mentor, George Fisher, and asked him what an editorial cartoonist is supposed to do.

OM: Fisher was a wonderfully talented editorial cartoonist. What sort of stuff did you learn from him?

BP: He’s one of my heroes. He actually changed the community that he worked in with his cartoons. Ever since I worked with him, that’s what my goal has been – make Oklahoma, the state that I’m in, a much better state.

OM: Your topics can be very complex. You only have one panel and one, maybe two word balloons to get your message across.

BP: Twain had a quote: “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
It’s harder to write a sentence than it is to write a short story. One thing that’s interesting about this is that (editorial cartoonists) have to rely on what people know. Often, most people aren’t really that familiar with the issue.

Sometimes details I pick out and use aren’t known by most of the readers. When you see a wordy editorial cartoon, that’s the reason we do it – we can’t always count on people being aware of an issue. Sometimes, though, it makes us pick the subjects based on what people know – they’re all going on about Donald Trump now. They’re all going to know about Osama being killed.

OM: You’ve been doing this for a long time. You have to do five of these a week. Has the pressure ever gotten to you?

BP: Nope. It’s just one of those things that is part of life. I’m always thinking about a cartoon, hoping that it’d just hit me. I wish it happened like that more often. Earlier in my career it did. But I’m so used to deadlines now that it’s just not that big a deal. But sometimes that’s why you see a bad cartoon out there.