Inside this Edition
Until next time
 Jody Harlan and retired DRS employee Shirley Burton.
DRS staff gathered last week to celebrate Jody Harlan, who will retire Friday, and her duties will be shared between existing staff until a new communications director is named.
Harlan has served as the agency’s only communications director for more than three decades.
Photos from the event are available.
If you have a story that needs to be told; a media release that needs promotion; or have any other communications need, please contact:
Dana Tallon
Phone: 405-951-3402
Email: DTallon@okdrs.gov
Brett Jones
Phones: 405-651-4594
Email: bjones@okdrs.gov
We look forward to working with you.
 DRS staff members shared memories.
Joy built into designs and jobs
 Hannah Barnthouse, jewelry designer and owner of Feed Me Gems, inspires a team of co-workers who share her love for sparkly gems: (first row from left) Emily Nelson, Kacie Lowe; and (2nd row) Kylie Walters, Abigail Leggett and Hannah Barnthouse.
Edmond jewelry designer’s passion for hiring workers with disabilities = business success
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EDMOND - If you ask Emily Nelson and Kacie Lowe why they love working at Feed Me Gems in Edmond, the coworkers and best friends will shout ‘Hannah!”
Their boss Hannah Barnthouse, a jewelry designer and business owner, hires a diverse team with and without disabilities to welcome customers to her upscale accessory shop.
“We’re all besties,” she said about her youngest employees who have Down Syndrome. “That is the magic -- getting to spend time with all my friends.”
Everybody is surrounded by sparkly creations, girly glitz and glamour courtesy of Barnthouse.
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Emily Nelson
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Nelson and Lowe wear the gems they sell and are dressed in the latest fashions.
“The company dress code is dopamine dress, which means wear the boots, sparkly eyeliner or all the jewels and polka-dot toes if it brings you joy,” Barnthouse explained.
She met Nelson and Lowe at the Down Syndrome Association of Central Oklahoma where she worked for seven years before launching her business in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.
The gem designer called her first sparkly creations “hair candy” because customers wear them in their hair. This fact led to her company name Hair Candy by Han, LLC, which does business as Feed Me Gems. Han is short for Hannah.
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Kacie Lowe
This fact led to her company name Hair Candy by Han, LLC, which does business as Feed Me Gems. Han is short for Hannah.
“When the business took off, it was a huge blessing, but I was handmaking each and every item,” Barnthouse said. “Then everybody wanted earrings to match.”
She began to design all types of jewelry, headbands and other popular items to meet the demand.
“I had one baby on the ground and another one on the way. I was working full-time (at Down Syndrome Association). You only have so much fuel in your tank.
“Stepping away from the (Down Syndrome) community was not something I could easily do,” she said. “I cried when I told my boss, ‘I feel like I’m supposed to do this right now but leaving is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’”
“No. No. No. Here’s the vision,” Sarah Soell, Down Syndrome Association executive director, reassured Barnthouse. “You’re going to hire our self-advocates, and we’re going to work together forever.”
Eventually, that is exactly what happened.
Barnthouse’s business remained online until she opened the store in June 2023.
She continues to ship elegant gems and accessories worldwide to customers including influencer Paris Hilton and Meghan Dressel, wife of Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel.
She also collaborates with the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services Transition Program and the OU National Center for Disability Education and Training to hire DRS clients and or potentially eligible students with disabilities.
Feed Me Gems facilitates work-based learning experiences with DRS providing funding for wages during the training of new employees.
“Show us how you fluff the merchandise,” Barnthouse prompts Nelson and Lowe who expertly straighten jewelry on glass shelves in the show room.
“I like working here because it’s so much fun,” Nelson said picking up earrings with sparkling strands of multi-colored jewels. “I’m going to buy these earrings for my sister’s birthday.”
“Kacie, what would you do when a customer comes in and says,” I need something blue?’” Barnthouse asks.
“Well, there’s these ones that look like rainbows,” Lowe replies with a smile holding up a waterfall of bright blue sparkles.
“You got it, girl!” Barnhouse said proudly.
“The storefront is the heart,” she explained. “You come in and experience the community. You’re greeted with a smile. The girls are always on the floor. You automatically feel the way that you’re supposed to feel. You feel the kindness. You feel like you belong.”
Feed Me Gems is located at 3224 S Broadway #124 in Edmond. For more information, visit https://feedmegems.com/, email help@feedme gems.com or phone (405) 906-3750.
VR tool available
Bilingual brochure back in stock
A new Vocational Rehabilitation Bilingual introduction to services brochure is now available for ordering from the DRS brochure order form.
The brochure can be reviewed at our website.
Feature a client or business
Do you have a former client that is building a life of independence?
We want to share their stories with DRS Commissioners and in the DRS Annual Report.
Please email Brett Jones at bjones@okdrs.gov with the client's name and contact information. We will take it from there.
Services make a difference
 OLBPH allowed man with visual disabilities to keep loving mysteries
Taken from a DRS Client Success story:
Oklahoma City’s James Wilson always enjoyed a good mystery novel, but macular degeneration threatened to rob him of beloved pastime. He retired from his job due to his eyesight issues.
Services from DRS’ Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped has for more than a decade been able to give Wilson his love of mysteries back. During those years, Wilson would listen to two to three books a week. He would get his audio player out when friends visited to show them the equipment that was making it possible for him to engage in his favorite hobby.
His wife Charlotte Wood-Wilson wrote, “The tape recorder is so resilient. It has been dropped a couple of times. It is also very user-friendly, and he figured out quickly how to work all of the buttons. Thanks once again for enriching his life and mine with the books on tape.”
Rehab services Commission Chair to stay
From the DRS News Archives
Courtesy of the Muskogee Phoenix
Dated August 30, 2016
Empowering Oklahomans with disabilities is not just a slogan to Jack Tucker. It was the focus of his career and remains a way a life, a media release states.
The 69-year-old Oktaha resident was recently elected to his second term as chair of the Commission for Rehabilitation Services.
The commission is the governing board for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.
Tucker is a former DRS client with a visual disability, who spent more than 40 years motivating students to actively prepare for employment and independence as a teacher and principal at DRS’ Oklahoma School for the Deaf.
In addition to Oklahoma School for the Deaf, DRS serves Oklahomans with disabilities through Disability Determination Services, Oklahoma School for the Blind, Visual Services, and Vocational Rehabilitation.
The agency’s new slogan is “Empower Oklahomans with disabilities.”
“It’s not only my belief — it’s almost my faith — that if you put a person in a situation and empower them and back off, they’re going to rise to their ability,” Tucker said. “DRS’ job is to develop the desire for that success – to be there when they run into rocks in the road if they need some assistance so they can continue to achieve up to their full potential.”
One of Tucker’s most notable achievements is the creation and success of Occupation Training Opportunities for the Deaf, OSD’s job training program that prepares deaf and hard-of-hearing students for the competitive job market.
OTOD combines on-the-job training in two to three jobs each school year with a half-day of regular academic classes and practical lessons
in resume writing, job search, banking, budgeting, residence shopping and other consumer skills.
“It’s my belief that whether you’re deaf or blind, no matter what your disability is, you can do what you want to do with your life,” Tucker said. “At OSD we would get a lot of 14- and 15-year-old kids that didn’t have language or had minimal language skills.
“One of my first goals was to get them to make eye contact because their self-concept was so low,” Tucker explained.
“Once you got them past that and got them to develop a little self-worth, the rest was easy.”
“If you coddle them, they will expect it,” Tucker said. “If you empower them, they want to stand on their own two feet, and their successes become DRS successes.”
Tucker and his wife Julie live in Oktaha where they operate Possum Grape Farm. They have two adult children, J.J. Tucker and Jen Tucker.
Laugh it up: A spicy time
Riddle Me This: Mittens the maniac
This edition's question:
Why do cats make good warriors?
The answer:
???
Send us your answer
Last edition’s question:
It has keys, but no locks. It has space, but no room. You can enter, but can’t go inside. What is it?
The answer:
A keyboard
Those getting it right included:
- Maggue Mattox
- Dayna Jarman
- Julie Bailey
- Jennifer Ratliff
- Jacqueline Anderson
- Lauren Buzbee
- Bernadette Ishmael
- Kristy O’Neal-Nelms
- Anne Ramganesh
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