This year’s Re and Regina Nick and Roberta Barone are happy to continue the tradition of Italian Festival royalty — but they consider it a humbling experience.
“I’m quite proud of it and it’s quite humbling, knowing the people who have been honored before us,” Nick Barone said.
They are set to be crowned at noon on Saturday at the Italian Festival held west of McAlester on U.S. Highway 270 at the Southeast Expo Center. The festival will be open from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Saturday and from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Roberta Barone said she’s proud to be part of an Italian family. “We’re Roman Catholic and Italian,” she said. “When we celebrate holidays at church, it’s what Italians do, so they’re kind of one and the same.”
“We try to follow the tradition,” she said.
Nick is a salesman at Nix Ford-Mercury, while Roberta teaches third grade at Will Rogers Elementary School.
It took them awhile to meet each other, although they would later learn they knew a lot of the same people.
Nick graduated from Hartshorne High School and Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, while Roberta graduated from McAlester High School and East Central University in Ada.
“I knew many of Nick’s cousins and friends, but I never knew Nick until later,” Roberta said.
After they met, they learned they had more in common than mutual friends. They were wed in 1979.
“We were married in Hartshorne in Holy Rosary Catholic Church,” said Roberta.
They started out upholding tradition from the first.
“Nick’s mom and dad, Paul and Angie Barone, were married in that same church,” Roberta said.
Nick and Roberta now have one more thing in common — a son, Anthony Barone, who is a senior at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.
The couple attends St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Krebs and their lives are centered around the church and Nick’s Italian heritage, Roberta said.
His Italian roots run deep.
Both of Nick’s great-grandparents came to the U.S. through Ellis Island in the 1900s. They initially came to work in the coal mines in the rural Buck community, near the Krebs and Alderson areas.
His paternal grandparents, Nick and Matilda Antonelli Barone, lived in Krebs during the 1920s, where his grandfather worked in the coal mines and later opened a grocery store and butcher shop.
His maternal grandparents, John and Grace Sanelli, lived in Hartshorne, where John Sanelli worked as a coal miner with the Lone Star Coal Company.
One of the benefits of belonging to an Italian family is the food, according to Roberta.
“During holidays we have traditional ham, turkey or rib roast, but it is always served with some type of pasta,” she said.
“Nick’s aunt Mary taught me how to make ravioli and an Easter pie called shatone. She used her mother’s recipe, which was written in her mom’s own writing. I make it for us during the week of Easter. It’s made from eggs and ham, then put in a crust and baked in the oven.”
Roberta also makes meatballs and sauce.
“I’m always cooking something for Nick and Anthony they will enjoy,” she said.
“We eat some type of Italian food almost every night.”
Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.
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