Okie Cherry Thompson

Jun. 22—While doing a variety of jobs helping others, Cherry West-Thompson also takes time to help keep herself fit.

Thompson worked as a teaching assistant at Oktaha Public Schools when her children were little.

"When my youngest one graduated high school, I decided I wanted to do something else," she said.

She recalled driving by a tanning salon seeking new ownership.

"And I said that's what I want," Thompson said.

Thompson ran the tanning salon for 20 years. Her first husband helped until he died in 2006.

"It was easier when my first husband was alive he took care of taxes and fixing things," she said. "It was a good place to have a business, there were a lot of fun people who went there who I talked to and made friends with."

She sold the salon in 2020 during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But that respite didn't last.

"I couldn't take being alone, I told my husband I was going to start subbing, and I subbed in Warner for two years," she said.

When her husband was hired as band director at Keys, Thompson found another position.

"When he went to Keys, they asked 'does your wife want a job,'" she said.

Thompson now is in her second year at Keys, taking the 64-mile daily round-trip with her husband.

When she's not at school or on the road, Thompson enjoys healthy endeavors. She works out regularly at Strictly Fitness and won the women's division of the center's Fitness Challenge this year.

She also enjoys swimming nearly every summer day in their backyard salt water pool.

"The older you get you really need it to get moving," she said. "I don't like to sit."

Thompson serves on the board of Muskogee's Pregnancy Resource Center, which offers resources and support for pregnant women. Thompson said the center recently moved from its long-time location on Broadway to York Street. She said the center has an ultrasound technician.

Education in tan businessRunning a tanning salon proved to be an education for Cherry West-Thompson.

"You have to learn things about how people tan," she said. "It's not just going in there and running it. You have to have classes."

She said she learned how people get vitamin D from the sun.

"You try to teach people how to not burn their skin," she said. "Some people think if you get a sunburn you get a tan but that doesn't happen."

Thompson had advice for people going to tanning salons.

"If you burn easily, you start out low and work your way up to the 20 minutes in the tanning bed," she said. "You don't just go in and think 'I paid my money, I want the whole 20 minutes. If they're real fair skinned, some of them are three minutes. But if they're dark complected, you're going to tan easier, so anywhere from three to seven minutes."

She said winters were especially busy, but the best parts involved meeting different people.

"And making good friends in the process," she said.

Simple things bring big rewardsIn her first year at Keys, Thompson worked in library half a day and literacy lab half a day.

"I worked with kindergarten kids who needed to learn their alphabet, the ones that had trouble reading," she said.

Thompson spent the past year working with a student needing an individualized education program.

"I would help her with her work, and there were other kids on an IEP, and I would help them with their work," she said. "If they needed something read to them, or there was something they didn't understand."

Patience is important when working with special needs children, Thompson said.

"And you've got to be strong willed and patient," she said. "At the start of the year, I would take the student's hand and make her write her name. Then I said 'I'm going to write your name on this board and you're going to copy it.' She got to where she could write her name on her own."

That's one of her biggest rewards.

"Knowing that they're better at the end of the year than they were at the first," she said. "That they did learn something, that you were able to help them, that they feel better about themselves."

Change in strategy for weight lossThompson recalled needing extra weight to win the 2024 Fitness Challenge.

She said she only took Zumba, boot camp and other classes during previous challenges.

"I never lifted weights before, and Brian told me not just to do the classes, you gotta do the weight machine," she said. "I knew how to do them, but I didn't do enough of them steadily."

Thompson said she learned to alternate the muscles she would work.

"So I started doing legs one day and arms the next," she said. "Give them a rest in between."

She said weights were not her favorite part of working out.

"But I've gotten used to them by now," she said. "I'm probably lifting 15 pounds more than I started out with. I usually do 10 reps on every machine twice."

Working with weights paid off.

"I lost 9.1% body fat, or 17 pounds," she said. "You burn body fat by lifting weights. Last year I lost 0.8%."

The hardest part of the challenge was keeping dedicated, Thompson said.

"You had to go a certain amount of days," she said. "I don't think I missed more than one or two days a month during the challenge."

Thompson said her biggest surprise was knowing she could do it.

"You feel a lot better," she said. "You can do more and you don't feel tired when you do it. Classes aren't as hard as they were, and you meet a lot more people at the gym."

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?

"My dad had bought a business here, an exterminating business, and we moved here from McAlester. My kids are here. It's home now."

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT MUSKOGEE?

"It's not too big, but there's stuff to do. It's close enough to Tulsa if you want to go to a bigger town, or Fort Smith. Kind of midway. People are very friendly.

WHAT WOULD MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?

"We've got plenty of restaurants. More activities for kids, an Incredible Pizza or something, mini-golf. Something you can do with the family."

WHAT PERSON IN MUSKOGEE DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?

"At the gym, even though he's not the owner anymore, Brian Ousley is real encouraging. He's still there all the time. and my husband, Bruce."

WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE THING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN MUSKOGEE?

"My kids were born here. "

WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

"Swim. Go on vacation. We like to travel. We do a lot of going to the beach. We want to go back to Yellowstone. We have some friends who have a place up there. Our favorite place is anywhere warm, the beaches, Florida. Hanging with the kids is always a fun thing. Bruce does the cooking when they all come over to swim. With eight grandkids, you have a lot of birthday parties."

HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?

"Muskogee sometimes gets a bad rap for crime and other things but it's just like any other city. There's good bad everywhere. It's some of the people here that make it good."