1st place winner

Russ Long

Norman

"Bicycling Past the Norman Depot"

How many times have you passed the old red brick train depot, and how many times have you seen a train chug-chug its way through the center of Norman with a long freight train on behind? For me it has been many. My father moved us to a farm west of the city in 1932, and by the time I was in Norman Junior High School I had a bicycle. Riding across Norman, from southwest to northeast, I always passed along the railroad somewhere, from the crossings by the university or on Duffy Street to Main or Gray streets, but always a route past the Santa Fe Depot.

My friend on those bike rides to junior high school was Jimmy Bumgarner, and often we'd be joined by Mary Louise Stubbeman. Our favorite railroad crossing was on Duffy, and we'd turn up the path along the tracks and ride on the red brick loading platform of the depot to Main Street. From there it was a direct shot to Highway 77, and across on Gray to Norman High School.

We often toured the walkways on the OU campus in south Norman, and understood every nook and cranny of the buildings there. On the OU campus we often rode around the reflecting pond facing the Field House, and inside the stadium on the track around the playing field. The dome for the telescope atop the ROTC classrooms was especially intriguing, as was the polo field to the south, where a formation of 12 PT-1 pursuit planes from Fort Sill once landed for a demonstration. Anywhere along the railroad was our playground.

The red brick depot was always a focal point of childhood travels across Norman. I'm sure our bicycle antics were a detriment to automobile traffic, as we did not realize difficulties we sometimes caused drivers, nor our danger. It provided exciting times when freight trains passed. We'd stop to watch and count the cars with their incomprehensible writing from far-away places. Once I'd departed on a train there to meet my brother in Kansas for a vacation drive to the west coast. Still later, I left from that station to report for duty in the Navy during WWII, and well remember my arrival home after that war. Many scenes of sad departures and joyous arrivals have been enacted along the red brick loading platform of the Norman depot. It will always be a location of heart-rending memories for many.

The depot was a focal point of activities related to the establishment of the NAATC south base and the NAS Norman north base during WWII. Many Armed Forces members who trained in Norman have passed through that access, and carried memories of this part of Oklahoma to every part of the world. It is fitting that the bronze replica of the Stearman Kaydet "Yellow Peril" aircraft was dedicated south of the Santa Fe platform as a part of the Legacy Trail -- a broad paved walking and biking path that curves through central Norman.

The typical red brick railroad depot building with the marker "Norman" will long indicate an important point of development of this educational cultural center of Oklahoma, and of our nation.

2nd place winner

Lena Hamrick Frost

Norman