How I stumbled on the story about Charles Stoffels' CD is really interesting. Last summer I saw an Love county resident here in Ardmore and he told me about the man they all called The Whistler. It seems that several years ago Charles took in interest in Brown Springs and would go there every few weeks just to clean up the place, taking his weedeater, trash bags, etc. to knock down the weeds and remove the litter others had left. So people who passed by didnt know his name, just knew him by sight, and that he'd have his CD playing through his car speakers while he cleaned up the area. But they did say they thought he was from the Muenster, Texas area. So I called the library at Muenster to inquire. The lady who I talked to first said she only worked relief at the library one day a week and to call back next Tuesday, which I did. The second lady knew of The Whistler, but only knew his last name.
I did a search in People Search on yahoo.com and found several Stoffels in Muenster, so I called the first one listed. A lady answered and told me the man I was looking for was kin to her husband, and he lived in Lindsay, Texas. Then she asked me, "Did you say you are in Ardmore?" I answered yes, and she told me her daughter lived in Ardmore. When she told me her daughter's name I nearly fell out of my chair! Her name is Gloria Culpepper and I said sure I know her, I saw her on a daily basis nearly for the 14 years I worked for the Ambulance Service here. Gloria was and still is an R.N. at Memorial Hospital. Her mother and I talked about things back in the 70s when I worked around Gloria, and we had the best chat!
So I finally found Charles Stoffels living in Lindsay, Texas. Lindsay is located just 4 miles west of Gainesville and is where the famous Smokehouse BBQ place is located. It was just a matter of days and I had one of Charles Stoffels' CDs in my hands. I pulled one of the songs from the CD and placed it on my website for listening. You will find a link to the song a little further down this webpage.
Songs on CD:
1. One Day at a Time
2. Just a Closer Walk
3. How Great Thou Art
4. I'll Fly Away
5. Amazing Grace
6. In The Cross
7. I Saw The Light/Will the Circle be Unbroken
8. Wings of a Dove
9. In the Sweet By and By
10. Because He Lives
Credits:
Vocals - Christy Hesse and Lawana Yosten
Rhythm Guitar - Karla Stevenson
Electric Guitar - LeeRoy (Bud) Yosten
Musical Arrangements - Karla Stevenson and LeeRoy Yosten
Here is a peek inside cover of the jewel case.
Inside the Jewel case
And this is a pic of the actual CD.
View of the CD itself
Charles Stoffels gave me permission to place his song on my OklahomaHistory.net website for everyone's listening pleasure. You should be able to just click on the link below and the song will play using Windows Media Player. But keep in mind this song is over 3 1/2 minutes long and nearly 1/2 meg (300k) in size, so it will take a few minutes to download if you are on a slow modem. DSL and broadband users should have no problem for a fast download. Also you can Right-Click on the link and download it ("Save Target As") to a Folder on your computer for playing later.
Click here to play/download ------> 'Will the Circle be Unbroken' by The Whistler. Length: 3 min 40 secs.
The song is the property of Charles Stoffels so please contact him if you plan on anything other than your personal listening pleasure. If you would like to buy a CD from Charles, you can contact him at:
Charles Stoffels
3719 FM 1199
Gainesville, TX 76249
Phone: 940-668-8731
A technical note: The original mp3 file of 'Will the Circle be Unbroken' was
almost 2 and 1/2 megs in size. I used a program call DietMP3 to reduce that file
from 2.5 megs down to just a little over 300k without hardly any distortion of
the sound quality to make for quicker downloading and to save space on my website.
DietMP3 Website
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