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Tom Terry, Chairman of Shawnee’s beautification committees and recipient of Keep Oklahoma Beautiful’s Champion Volunteer Award for 2008.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would be your dream for Shawnee?
A: My short-term dream would be to get downtown improved with new landscaping on Main Street similar to what we have on Bell and, hopefully, that would help to increase the number of people that would be wanting to have shops and things here.
I would like for Shawnee to be known statewide for attractive public landscaping, for businesses that are attractive and well-kept neighborhoods.
We’ve got a ways to go before we can get there. We are so much improved over where we were, say, 10 years ago. The business landscaping is so much improved. The city has done a number of things to improve public landscaping.
Q: What kinds of beautification projects are planned for the next few years?
A: The city gets involved with grants — they are working on a grant now with the possibility of improving the median on Harrison Street near I-40. Right now, it’s just a concrete median that’s there by the entrance by Gordon Cooper Technology Center.
We are wanting to do plantings there similar to what’s on 23rd Street in Oklahoma City. If we get the grant, it will be from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. It could be months and maybe years before that actually happens.
It will be an improvement and a welcome to Shawnee. This will be low-maintenance landscaping with, say, some nandinas, and would be attractive year-round but not require a great deal of maintenance.
That particular strip that we are talking about is over 300 feet long. James Bryce and I were shocked when we got out and started measuring it. It’s about 30 feet wide and will have a stamped concrete around the edges, a raised bed in the center part and then a sign.
Q: Is this is a competitive grant?
A: It is an award you have to compete for with other cities. It’s called an Enhancement Grant and a number of cities have applied. They have X number of dollars and they decide which ones they will give it to.
Q: What would be the total cost?
A: This project will cost about $70,000 dollars. As far as I understand, most of that would be handled through the state.
Q: How about the chamber’s beautification committee?
A: The Chamber of Commerce Beautification Committee just finished the big tree distribution program that we got through the Apache Foundation and working with the Oklahoma Tree Bank. This was probably a once in a lifetime project because we got nearly 18,000 trees that were distributed not only to people in Shawnee, but as far away as Norman.
Lots of people got lots of trees and I was really pleased because a lot of the people I talked to live on acreage around Shawnee and they didn’t have any trees at all. So they were very pleased to be able to start putting trees there.
Q: People had to attend class to get the trees, didn’t they?
A: We asked them to, but we didn’t check rolls. We had a class that 750 out of nearly 1,000 people came to and it was wonderful that they got that good information because those of us who have been messing with this for a long time found that some of the things that we were doing were not really the most appropriate things.
So, by showing a video and giving them some handouts, we have a lot more people with information about the best way to plant a tree and how to care for it.
Q: What was the most asked-for tree?
A: The most popular tree was actually a shrub. It was a crepe myrtle. They will grow to about 15 feet if you don’t prune it. The company had said that we could get red rocket crepe myrtle, but it turns out there weren’t any available. So we had some dark pink crepe myrtles and they will really be pretty next spring. There were about 3,000.
There were about 1,550 eastern redbuds. Shawnee is known as the Redbud City of Oklahoma, so that will increase our number of redbuds.
Q: How many people are involved with the beautification committees?
A: It varies, depending on the projects.
For example, we co-op with the Expo Center to do a home and garden show each year. We have about 10 active committee members and then we get our master gardeners to help us. There are about 30 or so active master gardeners who work, then we just pull in volunteers from other people we can find.
For example, for the tree distribution program we had over 110 people who helped with that, including a lot of the people who got the trees. When we had the tree planting seminars, we asked people to volunteer to help and we got a good number of people to do that.
One of the nicest things about volunteering is all the people you meet. You meet people that you never would have known otherwise and that was true this time. I met some people that I want to have some other activities with.
Q: Tell us about the master gardener program.
A: Actually, Oklahoma State University sponsors it. Each county is eligible to have one through the extension service. Joe Benton is our local extension educator. The program is offered each year at the beginning of January and runs through March.
It is about six hour sessions once a week. You have a big notebook of information and then you get field trips and that sort of thing. Some OSU professors come down and actually teach the courses. The idea behind this is to be an educational arm for the university, to help people understand plants and how to be successful with it.
One of the programs that the master gardeners are supposed to do is to provide education in various ways. The first year, you’re supposed to do 40 hours of public service in order to get the certificate. Then, if you continue on with it, you do 20 hours of education and 20 hours of community service.
That ranges from everything from doing maintenance from doing work downtown to planting beds and doing new things around the town.
There’s a network of master gardeners throughout the state. They have annual conventions and then their district conventions and things of that sort. There are 30 active here, but we have had over 100 that have taken the course.
Q: Looking back at all the projects you’ve been involved with, what is your favorite one?
A: The Santa Fe Depot, when I first got involved with it the depot actually had their air conditioners on either side of the front door and it just wasn’t very inviting at all.
Working through the city, the air conditioners were moved over to the east side and we got a better entrance there. We got a grant through the garden council and we had others to match it and we started in working on making some planting beds there at the entrance.
Then, we developed the sidewalk system that the city helped us with and have bricks there. So, it’s made it a much more attractive area.
Kay Watson does an herb bed in the back of the Beard Cabin and we tried to develop the area around the Beard Cabin so that it would look somewhat like Mrs. Beard might have had.
That was my personal project that I liked, but, again, we had well over 100 people working on that. In fact, last August we had OBU students down to repaint the parking barriers there and that needed to happen. It freshened it up a lot.
Q: If someone is interested in volunteering, what would be the best way to do that?
A: Contacting the Chamber of Commerce (273-6092) is the best way.
———
Watch next Saturday’s News-Star for a question-and-answer story with State Rep. Kris Steele.
Tom Terry, Chairman of Shawnee’s beautification committees and recipient of Keep Oklahoma Beautiful’s Champion Volunteer Award for 2008.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would be your dream for Shawnee?
A: My short-term dream would be to get downtown improved with new landscaping on Main Street similar to what we have on Bell and, hopefully, that would help to increase the number of people that would be wanting to have shops and things here.
I would like for Shawnee to be known statewide for attractive public landscaping, for businesses that are attractive and well-kept neighborhoods.
We’ve got a ways to go before we can get there. We are so much improved over where we were, say, 10 years ago. The business landscaping is so much improved. The city has done a number of things to improve public landscaping.
Q: What kinds of beautification projects are planned for the next few years?
A: The city gets involved with grants — they are working on a grant now with the possibility of improving the median on Harrison Street near I-40. Right now, it’s just a concrete median that’s there by the entrance by Gordon Cooper Technology Center.
We are wanting to do plantings there similar to what’s on 23rd Street in Oklahoma City. If we get the grant, it will be from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. It could be months and maybe years before that actually happens.
It will be an improvement and a welcome to Shawnee. This will be low-maintenance landscaping with, say, some nandinas, and would be attractive year-round but not require a great deal of maintenance.
That particular strip that we are talking about is over 300 feet long. James Bryce and I were shocked when we got out and started measuring it. It’s about 30 feet wide and will have a stamped concrete around the edges, a raised bed in the center part and then a sign.
Q: Is this is a competitive grant?
A: It is an award you have to compete for with other cities. It’s called an Enhancement Grant and a number of cities have applied. They have X number of dollars and they decide which ones they will give it to.
Q: What would be the total cost?
A: This project will cost about $70,000 dollars. As far as I understand, most of that would be handled through the state.
Q: How about the chamber’s beautification committee?
A: The Chamber of Commerce Beautification Committee just finished the big tree distribution program that we got through the Apache Foundation and working with the Oklahoma Tree Bank. This was probably a once in a lifetime project because we got nearly 18,000 trees that were distributed not only to people in Shawnee, but as far away as Norman.
Lots of people got lots of trees and I was really pleased because a lot of the people I talked to live on acreage around Shawnee and they didn’t have any trees at all. So they were very pleased to be able to start putting trees there.
Q: People had to attend class to get the trees, didn’t they?
A: We asked them to, but we didn’t check rolls. We had a class that 750 out of nearly 1,000 people came to and it was wonderful that they got that good information because those of us who have been messing with this for a long time found that some of the things that we were doing were not really the most appropriate things.
So, by showing a video and giving them some handouts, we have a lot more people with information about the best way to plant a tree and how to care for it.
Q: What was the most asked-for tree?
A: The most popular tree was actually a shrub. It was a crepe myrtle. They will grow to about 15 feet if you don’t prune it. The company had said that we could get red rocket crepe myrtle, but it turns out there weren’t any available. So we had some dark pink crepe myrtles and they will really be pretty next spring. There were about 3,000.
There were about 1,550 eastern redbuds. Shawnee is known as the Redbud City of Oklahoma, so that will increase our number of redbuds.
Q: How many people are involved with the beautification committees?
A: It varies, depending on the projects.
For example, we co-op with the Expo Center to do a home and garden show each year. We have about 10 active committee members and then we get our master gardeners to help us. There are about 30 or so active master gardeners who work, then we just pull in volunteers from other people we can find.
For example, for the tree distribution program we had over 110 people who helped with that, including a lot of the people who got the trees. When we had the tree planting seminars, we asked people to volunteer to help and we got a good number of people to do that.
One of the nicest things about volunteering is all the people you meet. You meet people that you never would have known otherwise and that was true this time. I met some people that I want to have some other activities with.
Q: Tell us about the master gardener program.
A: Actually, Oklahoma State University sponsors it. Each county is eligible to have one through the extension service. Joe Benton is our local extension educator. The program is offered each year at the beginning of January and runs through March.
It is about six hour sessions once a week. You have a big notebook of information and then you get field trips and that sort of thing. Some OSU professors come down and actually teach the courses. The idea behind this is to be an educational arm for the university, to help people understand plants and how to be successful with it.
One of the programs that the master gardeners are supposed to do is to provide education in various ways. The first year, you’re supposed to do 40 hours of public service in order to get the certificate. Then, if you continue on with it, you do 20 hours of education and 20 hours of community service.
That ranges from everything from doing maintenance from doing work downtown to planting beds and doing new things around the town.
There’s a network of master gardeners throughout the state. They have annual conventions and then their district conventions and things of that sort. There are 30 active here, but we have had over 100 that have taken the course.
Q: Looking back at all the projects you’ve been involved with, what is your favorite one?
A: The Santa Fe Depot, when I first got involved with it the depot actually had their air conditioners on either side of the front door and it just wasn’t very inviting at all.
Working through the city, the air conditioners were moved over to the east side and we got a better entrance there. We got a grant through the garden council and we had others to match it and we started in working on making some planting beds there at the entrance.
Then, we developed the sidewalk system that the city helped us with and have bricks there. So, it’s made it a much more attractive area.
Kay Watson does an herb bed in the back of the Beard Cabin and we tried to develop the area around the Beard Cabin so that it would look somewhat like Mrs. Beard might have had.
That was my personal project that I liked, but, again, we had well over 100 people working on that. In fact, last August we had OBU students down to repaint the parking barriers there and that needed to happen. It freshened it up a lot.
Q: If someone is interested in volunteering, what would be the best way to do that?
A: Contacting the Chamber of Commerce (273-6092) is the best way.
———
Watch next Saturday’s News-Star for a question-and-answer story with State Rep. Kris Steele.
