It's never pleasant to be the bearer of bad news, but two losses are hurting the Pride of Oklahoma extended family this week.

First, as noted today by the Norman Transcript:

Bernice Thrailkill, 93, of Washington, Ill., died Feb. 25 at Washington Christian Village. Born in Cooper Station, Ill., to Edward and Mae Small Marshall Oct. 8, 1914. She married Paul Thrailkill Oct. 30, 1934 in Washington, he preceded hear in death along with her daugther, Karen McCarty, brothers, Maurice, Orville and Paul Eugene Marshall and sister, Irma Mae Gordon.

[…] Bernice is survived by her son, Gene (Karen) Thrailkill of Norman…

Coach and Karen had returned to Illinois a few times this year as his mom's health began to deteriorate. Since this same site also hosts his Web site, and since the server was down much of Thursday and Friday due to hardware upgrades, he called and let me know they had to go back in a hurry because he had E-mail to send about it, so Gene and Karen were in Illinois at the time.

Those of you who were in The Pride during Coach's final season in 2000 may have met his mother, as she attended the final game. The family's wishes for memorials are in the obituary notice in the Transcript. If you'd like to send Coach a note but don't have his E-mail address, I've enabled the form on his site that lets you send mail to him, so just click here to send him a note. I'm sure that Coach, Karen, and the entire Thrailkill family appreciate our thoughts and prayers at this time.

Second, I am sad to report to you that this past Monday night's concert was postponed because one of the performers died. Mady Byrne, one of the musicians in the Symphony Band and also a mellphone player in the 2007 Pride of Oklahoma, was a 19-year-old music education major from Burtonsville, MD and a Dean's list student. She died Monday morning from liver failure due to a sustained but accidental Tylenol overdose. Mady's death has affected many of the members of the OU marching and concert ensembles, and Brian Britt has met with her family to express everyone's condolences and support.

As noted last week, the Wind Symphony performs at CBDNA in Kansas City on Thursday night, and that conference obviously could not be postponed or rescheduled. A local memorial service for Mady is scheduled for 10:00 AM Saturday morning at Havenbrook Funeral Home in Norman. The Norman Transcript published a death notice for Madalyn Ruth Byrne on Monday.

Madalyn's parents have chosen to speak out about the circumstances of her death, starting with this article in The Oklahoman. They spoke to the media Thursday night in Oklahoma City, and you can read about that in the Norman Transcript, and in coverage from Oklahoma City TV stations KSBI (52) and KOCO (5). about the cause of her death and the attention they hope others pay to the risks of taking too much acetaminophen or any over-the-counter drugs.

I have no information at this time on any official OUBAA involvement or memorial for either of these losses, but thought I should share the information with you.