Atoka native Matthew Mungle is being honored as a film icon at this year's deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning once for Dracula, and 26 Emmy Awards, winning six times. In conjunction with deadCenter, Mungle will lead a class on special effects makeup at 11 a.m. on June 14 at the Oklahoma History Center.  

The son of a dairy farmer, Matthew Mungle credits watching movies, such as Frankenstein and Dracula, for his early interest in makeup effects. Borrowing his mother's cosmetics, Mungle would practice creating his own monsters. Later, he began to make face casts and prosthetics on friends and family. Mungle cites The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), which featured fellow Oklahoman Tony Randall, as his biggest influence and the reason he sought a career as a makeup special effects artist. Mungle's credits include Edward Scissorhands (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for which he earned an Academy Award, Schindler's List (1993), Junior (1994), Outbreak (1995), Congo (1995), Primal Fear (1996) and most recently Albert Nobbs (2011) for which he earned his fourth Oscar nomination. Matthew Mungle will be one of the featured artists in a new statewide museum called OKPOP, the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture.

The other deadCENTER Film Festival 2014 Oklahoma Film Icons who will be honored at this year's festival are director and educator Fritz Kiersch, Oklahoma Film and Music Office Executive Director Jill Simpson and actor Wes Studi.

The 14th annual deadCENTER Film Festival opens June 11 and ends June 15. On June 14 Fritz Kiersch and Wes Studi will also conduct programs at the Oklahoma History Center.  For more information visit  http://www.deadcenterfilm.org/festival/schedule/ 

Pawnee Bill's Original Wild West Show performs at 7:30 p.m. on June 13 and 14 at the historic Pawnee Bill Ranch. Stagecoaches will roll amid thundering horse hooves while gunfire explodes around Pawnee Bill and his cohorts as the talented cast thrill and amaze audiences at the 2014 Wild West Show. The show will feature acts from the original Pawnee Bill's Wild West Shows. Producers and directors have combined stage and script with historical preservation to ensure that the Wild West Show is one of the most historically accurate productions to date. Kevin Webb portrays Pawnee Bill for the sixth time. Webb, a long-time Wild West Show cast member and Pawnee Bill Ranch employee, is also a whip artist and chariot racer.   

In the tradition of the original Wild West Show, the cast will parade in downtown Pawnee at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The museum and mansion will be open to the public on show days from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. In addition, there will be historically accurate entertainment, such as blacksmithing, gunfighters and sharp shooters, a medicine man show and musicians, all free and held continuously on the ranch grounds from 2 until 7 p.m. The Friends of the Pawnee Bill Ranch Association will serve a meal in the big barn starting at 5 p.m.

Ticket prices in advance are $12 for adults, $8 for children age 10 and under (ages 3 and under are free) and seniors over 65 are $10. Box seats are $100 per box. Group rates are available for groups of 10 or more people and are $10 per ticket. On the day of the show ticket prices are $14 for adults, $10 for children ages 10 and under (ages 3 and under are free) and senior tickets are $12. Special price package bundles are available and that information can be found at www.pawneebillranch.com or by calling 918-762-2513.  Online tickets are not available for this show. The Pawnee Bill Ranch is located one-half mile west of Pawnee on US 64.