by Carol Mowdy Bond
Photos courtesy of BlueSTEM AgriLearning Center
“These cats are pest control,” says Dr. Kristy Ehlers, director of school partnerships at BlueSTEM AgriLearning Center near El Reno. “That’s how they’re on the payroll, and they do their jobs.”
Ehlers is describing the two orange tabby cats, Chalk and Fritz, who handle all interior and exterior pest issues at BlueSTEM. The name of the learning center is a play on words — bluestem for the prairie grass prominent in the area and STEM for the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
“Chalk is a master hunter, and he brings us moles, snakes, gophers, mice, rats, and spiders,” says Ann Marshall, education director of BlueSTEM. “He even brought us a tarantula. We don’t have one single mouse or any signs of mice in the building.”
For the most part, Fritz hunts grasshoppers and looks for mice. Both felines spend much of each day roaming the grounds.
“We have a symbiotic relationship with the cats,” says Marshall. “But there are always a lot of cat shenanigans.”
Both cats are famous for trying to leave the property in anyone’s vehicle, such as the time when some El Reno fifth-graders boarded their bus to leave. The driver barely made it out of park when someone discovered a cat on the bus.
“The cats are very curious,” says Marshall. “We tell our students not to leave their car windows down while they’re parked here because the cats will get into their cars. They might not know there is a cat in their cars when they leave.”
Part of the Growth
The mission of BlueSTEM, a nonprofit organization, is to enhance STEM opportunities for students in kindergarten through graduate school, to provide educators with participatory and pedagogical practices in STEM, and to develop community members into citizen scientists.
BlueSTEM’s programs include partnerships with area high schools for students to gain advanced experiential STEM education and conduct authentic research, outdoor education opportunities for schools and youth organizations (including showing livestock at fairs), teacher professional development, and community outreach to civic groups and families.
The stories about Chalk and Fritz go along with BlueSTEM’s growth. In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture hired Marshall to work at BlueSTEM, housed in the historic nineteenth-century commanding officer’s home on the USDA’s Fort Reno compound. The house was built in 1876 when Fort Reno was a military installation. It was occupied by the commanding officer and his family during the Indian wars, World War I, and World War II.
“I said if I have to pay for pest control, I’m not going to spray chemicals in this house,” Marshall says. “I’m just going to get a cat. My cousin had a litter of barn kittens on her farm, and that’s where I got Chalk in 2015. She said the cat was female. So I first named the cat Moka, after the wife of Fort Reno’s nineteenth-century cavalry scout Ben Clark. But after a while, it was obvious that the cat was male. So I renamed him Chalk after the Arapaho Indian scout buried in the Fort Reno Cemetery.”
Fritz joined the staff in 2021 during the fort’s Cavalry Competition. During that week, classes cease, and the BlueSTEM staff turns the venue into a restaurant, cooking for large numbers of people.
“During Cavalry Week, Ann saw a picture of a 12-week-old ginger kitten on social media,” Ehlers says. “She wanted him. I said no. But she persisted. It turned out that the kitten’s owner was one of our student’s parents. I brought the kitten to BlueSTEM during busy Cavalry Week, knowing that Chalk wasn’t going to take kindly to this. And he didn’t at first. But they’ve learned to like each other and play. Fritz is always happy to see Chalk, but not so much the other way around.”
On the kitten’s arrival, Marshall and Ehlers took students to the Fort Reno Cemetery to find a name for him from the historic headstones. Students wrote down their favorite choices and then completed a statistical lesson and created a graph. The winning name was Fritz, after a German World War II prisoner of war buried in the cemetery.
Part of the Crew
Besides eliminating pests, Chalk and Fritz are part of the BlueSTEM crew, and students expect to greet them during every visit.
Marshall and Ehlers continually create a family atmosphere where students and cats are part of the clan. When students are on-site, the cats are in everyone’s business, and the students like that. Even students who are allergic to cats can be part of the scene. They take their allergy medications, and they do fine. Ehlers keeps lint rollers on hand.
“While we’re learning, the cats provide emotional support because they take turns sitting in students’ laps,” says Marshall. “I’ve seen kids come in looking sad, and then they pet the cats, and they look a lot better. The cats definitely provide that kind of mental and emotional health support.”
But when the kitties are not patrolling or helping to teach, Chalk is often sunning in his favorite orange chair in Ehlers’ office. Fritz is often lounging in a cat hammock, hanging in a window and looking outside, and wagging his tail in front of Ehlers’ computer screen.
“He loves sitting there where he can see the world,” says Ehlers.
Most BlueSTEM students are from Canadian County and Epic Charter School, but people from throughout Oklahoma attend the venue’s learning events. BlueSTEM’s intern programs and teacher professional training bring people from across the nation. The staff also takes the program to other places, including Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Norman in 2024.
But Chalk and Fritz stay on-site at Fort Reno — and on the job.
