Brad Newman, Public Radio Tulsa’s Chief Engineer, has the ample beard to play Santa. In previous years, he’s been seated on a big red chair in the middle of Cushing, OK's main street, but in socially-distanced 2020 he has cleverly managed to let everyone still see Santa.
Brad writes: "It was Small Business Saturday in Cushing. I was in a store window, sealed off, which had a microphone and a speaker. I could talk to the kids with the microphone and there was a microphone for them to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. It worked great! There were a lot of kids with masks who came to talk to Santa!”
That’s his personal Santa suit, sporting a custom Amish-made belt and buckle. And while children in northeast Oklahoma love Brad for his spot-on interpretation of the right jolly old elf, we love Brad for his dedication to keeping Public Radio Tulsa's complex broadcast plant up and running, 24x7x365.