The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 49

II MONDAY, JUNE 4, 2001 THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN Shawnee mulls skate park plan Newcastle pays two manager salaries STAFF PHOTO BY PAUL B. SOUTHEP.LAND By Ben Scott Staff Writer NEWCASTLE For the time being, Newcastle still has two city managers. The city council took no action on the employment status of City Manager Mike Woolley in a special meeting Wednesday. The council asked Woolley to resign in a special meeting May 18, but the city manager has yet to respond. Woolley has been on sick leave since May 8.

Council members had planned to meet in executive session Wednesday, but Mayor Glenn Petty said they decided not to since there were no new developments. Hank York began working as interim city manager May 21 in Woolley's absence. York, who attended Wednesday's meeting, has started addressing city issues and making recommendations to the council. That means the city is paying two city manager salaries. Woolley, who has been city manager in Newcastle since 1997, makes an annual salary of $41,973.

York is being paid $30,000 a year as interim city "The kids skate and jump on the rails and ride the rai down. It's metal and it eat away at the paint." Southard also is responsibl for suggesting a regional pari site to commissioners. The city is planning a re gional park and sports com plex with soccer fields an( playground equipment at i yet-to-be-determined site Southard doesn't think any the possible sports complei sites would be appropriate foi the skate park. "I don't think it could be in corporated with the regiona park," he said. "With th sports complex, we're reallj talking about it being removec from the neighborhood.

won't necessarily be some where people can walk to. "We want to make the skat park where someone can get tc it by walking." Southard has looked at a site just south of the YMCA. A detention pond has already beer cut out of the ground, so there wouldn't be any excavation costs. "There are things they could do there," Southard said. "They could do a bowl with some smaller elements near the street." Some of the features the skate park could include are ramps, rails, stairs and smaller jumps.

A concrete skate park could cost anywhere from $15 to $20 per square foot and most skate parks are 10,000 square feet. Orphan train rider, Alice Bullis Ayler, talks to fifth-graders at Washington Irving Elementary School, 18101 Western, about her experiences as a child. Ayler rode the orphan train, a train that carried abandoned children from northern parts of the United States to the Midwest to find families, in 1930. Orphan train story shared with students By Tippi Heidebrecht Staff Writer SHAWNEE Skateboarders and inline skaters could be rolling into a new skate park, complete with bowl features, ramps, stairs and rails. Mike Southard, Shawnee's community development director, is researching the possible construction of a skate park at the request of a city commissioner.

Part of Southard's research has included conversations with Edmond officials who are in the process of completing the design phase of a new skate park in Edmond's Mitch Park. Southard said he showed the $300,000 price tag for the Edmond project to some of the Shawnee city commissioners. They were surprised at the cost, he said. "A concrete one could be from $150,000 to $200,000," Southard said. "It's just a matter of what elements you want in there." Southard will compare the construction of a skate park using wood, concrete, a combination or metal.

"Or, we could do something basic and then expand," Southard said of trying to control the cost. The park would accommodate skateboarders and inline skaters who don't otherwise have anywhere to practice their sport. Southard said inline skating and skateboarding puts wear and tear on public and private property, especially on painted hand rails. "A lot of kids are skateboarding on the sidewalk, on stairs, in public places," Southard said. "People would prefer they are not there.

"It's real difficult to enforce. Kids that skateboard or rollerblade need somewhere to go." Southard lives across the street from a church, where officials want to build a barrier to prevent youths from skateboarding on the handrails of the casket ramp. "There are a lot of kids that go over there and skateboard on the rails," he said. One-woman show recounts history Petty told the council Wednes Ayler said those who rode the orphan train are often ashamed to talk about the experience. Some survivors' descendants never knew their parents or grandparents rode the orphan train until recently.

"These people all were stories also. I'm not the only one," Ayler said. "I'm one of the last ones." Ayler, who was joined in speaking with the students by some orphan train rider descendants, said sometimes people believed the children were bad, or had "bad blood," because they had been abandoned. She said that made it harder for the children to find homes. "There were good homes beautiful homes.

And there were cruel homes," she said. Now, many orphan train riders and descendants there are about two million descendants in the country have united through the Internet and orphan train heritage associations. Many of the orphan train riders have gone on to become teachers, lawyers, doctors, mothers and fathers, Ayler said. Although the train was often a sad experience for children being separated from their families, she said many have made successful and happy lives from the experience. "I think that this is fate." Staff writer Carrie Pagley can be reached by e-mail at cpagley moklahoman.com or by phone at ing that time were abandoned voluntarily, some involuntarily.

Officials in the late 1800s in New York estimated there were about 30,000 abandoned children living in New York City at the time, White said. As for Henrietta, while her mother worked as a live-in maid, she left the girl with a relative until that relative died then Henrietta was sent to the "Children's Nursery Home for Working Mothers. What Henrietta's mother did not realize is that Henrietta was being put on the "Orphan Train" and carted halfway across the country. Henrietta would not see her mother until 28 years later. After White shared stories of some of the orphan train riders sometimes in their own words the fifth-graders got to meet one of the people White talks about in her show "Toots." Alice Bullis Ayler or "Toots" as she was called as a child rode the orphan train on one of its last rides in 1930.

The 82-year-old is the only surviving rider in Oklahoma City. In New York, the 10-year-old was separated from her three brothers and one sister and taken by train to the Midwest, A family was finally found for her in central Kansas. She was never reunited with her parents but did find her siblings again as an adult. By Carrie Pagley Staff Writer EDMOND Pippa White told the story of Henrietta. Henrietta was born in Germany in the late 1800s.

When her father died, her young mother came to the United States to try to make a better life. White recently presented the story of Henrietta and other orphan train riders as part of her one-woman show at Washington Irving Elementary School, 18101 Western. "There are millions of people who have never heard of the orphan train," White said. "Orphan train riders ask that you remember them." Fifth-graders from Washington Irving, Angie Debo, Charles Haskell, Clegern and Sunset elementary schools crowded the Washington Irving cafeteria to watch White's "The Story of the Orphan Train." Between 1853 and 1930, the Children's Aid Society in New York rounded up thousands of orphaned children from New York and the northeast and sent them west to find homes, Some of the 200,000 children who rode the orphan train dur New Construction day that Woolley had hired an attorney. Margaret Love, a legal consultant for the city, said she has met with Woolley's lawyer, Stan Ward, but no decisions have been made.

She declined to comment on why the council asked Woolley to resign. "It is a personnel issue, and it's confidential until it's resolved," Love said. Ward said Petty met with Woolley before the meeting May 18 and told him the council would ask for his resignation. When Woolley asked why, Petty told him "the job wasn't getting done," Ward said. Ward told The Oklahoman his client would consider filing a lawsuit against the city of Newcastle if he wasn't fully compensated for his resignation.

Petty was assigned to create a severance package for the city manager but there have been no negotiations yet. Since taking sick leave, Wool-ley is spending most of his time at his home in Sulphur, 93 miles from Newcastle. While working in Newcastle, Woolley stayed in a trailer in the city. Woolley's wife, who goes by "Bear," said Woolley will visit a cardiologist this week for his blood pressure ailment and will undergo some tests. He has turned over all issues with the city to his attorney, she said.

He's just working on getting better. "Mike doesn't need to deal with this right now," she said. Carpet Disposal Roofing Remodeling Spring Cleaning Yard Clean-up Moving Disposal Finally, home repair DON'T WORK? people you can trust! Trust your i home to a aintins Carpentry Checkers RemoAeiin Professional! Handymen 424-5555 Call Today for a coupon Car window won't go up or down? Antenna on the blink? Door locks broken? I Call The Experts! MIKES AUTO SERVICE 4301 NW 50th 946-9739 Guthrie chooses sculpture for statehood celebration it Independently buiineM owni Contractor It Independently DuiineM owner I l-jch Jicymrt to uejtmmC.hKkm Contest urges creativity By Kenna Griffin Staff Writer GUTHRIE It's not 2007 yet, but Guthrie officials are getting a head start on the city's statehood celebration. Guthrie was named the state's capital in 1907 when Oklahoma became the 46th state. Now Guthrie's State Centennial Committee, derived from the Guthrie Arts and Humanities Council, is planning a sculpture in honor of the state's centennial in 2007.

The sculpture based on a photograph published in a 1907 Guthrie newspaper will be of life-sized figures of Colonel T.S, Soward, Oklahoma's first Once complete, Kellogg said officials are unsure exactly where the sculpture will be placed, only that it will be in downtown Guthrie. She said the sculpture project will be complete by 2007. "It may be up early and then we will just have another event to commemorate the centennial," she said. Scott said the committee is considering two possible sites in downtown, but he refused to name the targeted locations. "No serious negotiations have been started on either site," he said.

Kellogg said the sculpture is unique to Guthrie because it was the first state capital. "What other project could be more significant than the making of the first state flag," she said, "And it happened right here. It's unique. It's special to Oklahoma and it's special to Guthrie." Scott said he thinks the project Is important to the entire state, not Just to Guthrie. "Women came from all over the state to help make this flag," he said.

"We look at it as a state statute. We feel the project represents the entire state." Staff writer Kenna Qrtffln can be reached by e-mail at kerlffln mklahoman.com or by phone at first lady Lilian Haskell, and Out of three sculptors who submitted models for consideration, Phyllis Mantik of Stillwater was chosen to create the sculpture, Scott said. Scott said the state Centennial Commission approved the project in April, The project doesn't have an official name yet. The state will provide one-third of the $200,000 project's funding, Scott said. The other two-thirds of the cost must be matched by Guthrie's centennial committee.

Scott said one-third of the committee's money will come from fund-raisers, The other one-third will come from grants and corporate and private donations. Scott said he is unsure what the committee's fund-raisers will be, but committee members will meet soon to discuss fund-raising options. The city of Guthrie has given $10,000 to the project, Scott said. That money includes a $5,000 grant from the Oklahoma Arts Council and a 100 percent match from the city last fiscal year, said Melody Kellogg, Guthrie special projects coordinator, who is working with the committee on the project. The city applied for the grant again this fiscal year, Kellogg said.

She said the city will know in June whether the grant will be awarded. an unidentified woman and young girl sewing a flag. A snack food company is telling children it could be profitable for them to forsake the longstanding advice of parents and play with their food. A $10,000 college fund start awaits the winner of Oscar Mayer's Build Your Own Pun contest involving its new line of sweet snacks, Lunchables fun Along with the money comes a year's supply of Lunchables fun snacks. To enter, children ages 6-12 are invited to construct their own concept of fun, using components of Lunchables fun snacks that include cookies, graham crackers and brownies, and toppings such as frosting, marahmallow creme, chocolate chips and sprinkles.

Anything from a roller coaster to a robot to a rocket is eligible as long as it uses components of Lunchables fun snacks. Pictures of the entries and an entry form can be sent to the company at Oscar Mayer Lunchables Build Your Own Fun Contest, P.O. Box 5414, Blair, NE 68009-5414. Entry forms and complete rules can be found at the Web site www.LUNCHABLES.com. Entries must be postmarked by Aug.

31. During statehood, women from cities across the state formed a group called the Betsy Ross Association. The association's purpose was to hand sew the first two 46-star American flags. Accepting I Kfl I 12 Years Old A Younger JBmjk. MMi I 9405 N.

Perm Place Casady Square Pediatric Specialist 753-9090 Soward delivered one of the flags to Philadelphia where it was flown for the first time on July 4, 1908, The other flag re mains in uutnne. Charles F. Scott, Guthrie's committee chairman, said once the council decided to commemorate the centennial with a sculpture, a statewide competition was held to chose the sculptor..