Steve Antry

Giving Blues Musicians Access to Their Big Break

Outside of managing Eagle Energy, Steve Antry enjoys composing, recording and performing the blues. A resident of Tulsa, OK, Steve Antry was a quarter-finalist during the Memphis International Blues Challenge, more commonly called the IBCs. He was awarded the coveted spot by winning the local Tulsa Blues Society competition held at the historic Cain’s Ballroom.

The International Blues Challenge is hosted by The Blues Foundation, a Memphis-based international organization committed to promoting the culture and history of this genre. Each organization affiliated with the Blues Foundation sends a band or individual to compete in the challenge. These bands perform at the Memphis competition along the city’s historic Beale Street.

Typically, players from around the world play before a panel of judges spanning the globe who have experience in listening, producing, or creating the blues. Antry has been a past judge in the event and was granted the status of Lifetime VIP and Charter Member.. The five-day competition involves participants being assessed by a set of criteria established by The Blues Foundation.

To be invited to play is an honor. Those who get selected are usually seasoned players who are ready for the international stage but have not been given a platform.

NAM Releases American Renewal Action Plan

A Tulsa, OK-based business leader, Steve Antry serves as Eagle Resources Group’s chief executive officer and chairman of the board. To augment this work, Steve Antry has been involved with a number of professional organizations, such as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), of which he was a past board member, which works with firms across a range of industrial sectors.

The association has released its American Renewal Action Plan, which poises manufacturers to lead COVID-19 recovery efforts across the country. NAM chief executive officer and president Jay Timmons notes that the industry has been on the front lines of tackling the crisis when providing the equipment that keeps citizens safe across the US.

The plan includes recommendations across three phases, response, recovery, and renewal, with each having several key provisions. In the response stage, NAM recommends that congressional committees allow manufacturers to ramp up production of personal protective equipment.

The association also argues for clear and strong legal reforms that protect essential workers while asking for significant investments in training schemes designed to keep employees safe.

Tulsa Organization’s SafeCare Program Prevents Child Abuse, Neglect

Energy executive Steve Antry founded Eagle Energy, which became one of the fastest growing oil exploration and production companies in the US. Together with his wife, Steve Antry supports a number of nonprofit organizations in Tulsa, OK. One of these is the Parent Child Center of Tulsa.

The Parent Child Center of Tulsa’s mission is to prevent child neglect and abuse through education and advocacy. Its programs are specifically designed to help parents gain the skills necessary to protect, provide, and nurture their children. An example is its trademark SafeCare program.

SafeCare is a free program for parents with children under the age of five. As part of the program, the organization’s educators visit families weekly and administer learning sessions covering five topics: child health, parent-child interactions, home safety, managing child behavior, and healthy relationships.

The educators teach parents fun activities to increase positive interactions with their children, assist parents to identify and remove home hazards that threaten the safety of their children, evaluate children’s healthcare needs, and give advice on illness prevention. The educators also connect parents to community resources if they need help meeting their essential needs.

Enrollment is open to pregnant women and parents of children younger than five. Services are available in both English and Spanish.

Indian Nations Blues Association Supports Native American Music Awards

Steve Antry, a former winner of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award, owns and operates Eagle Energy in Tusla, OK as CEO and chairman of the board. Outside of his professional work, Steve Antry enjoys music and is the founder of the Indian Nations Blues Association.

A 501(c) 3 charitable organization, the Indian Nations Blues Association promotes the benefits of music through educational programs, scholarships, and performances. The organization, which is located in the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, focuses its efforts primarily on Native American Communities by supporting programs facilitated by the Native American Music Awards and Association (NAMA)

The Native American Music Awards and Association is a membership-based organization dedicated to recognizing outstanding musical achievement amongst the Native American population. Since its inception in 1998, the organization and its award show program have grown to feature over 200 nationally submitted recordings. Today, the awards feature over a dozen performances and recognize Native American artists with thirty awards presentations.

Native American Connection to American Blues

Entrepreneur Steve Antry is also the founder of the Indian Nations Blues Association (INBA) based in Tulsa, OK. Steve Antry’s interest in blues and Native American culture and history are the reasons he began the group.

INBA’s main mission is to share the message of the blues through music, education and scholarships to young Native American Blues artists.. However, the group also highlights the contributions of Native Americans to this genre of music.

One of the central discussions of blues is related to its origins. While research points to the African-American community as the origin of blues, there are also other groups with significant influence on the genre.

Counting back several centuries, researchers point to four or five groups that interacted with each other. The French, English, African, Native American, and sometimes the Spanish all inhabited the colonies and what would become the US-with each giving and taking from each culture. More specifically, the Native American diaspora reflects how this group could have easily been adopted and interacted with the tribal groups in the regions.

Two arguments point to this conclusion. For one, a unique aspect of the Native American consciousness is the idea of tribal connection, which is not based on race but adoption. For example, a person might appear to be Native American but not have tribal status, and alternatively, a person might appear as they belong to the American majority and have status simply because his/her birth mother was Native American or through adoption. Then, there is the whole idea of the ubiquity of American slavery, which included slave-owning Native American tribes.

However, there is actual proof of Native American connection to the music in Mardi Gras during slavery. While African-Americans were not allowed to participate in the celebration, Native Americans were. However, they did so performing music with language similar to a patois or language from the African coast.