Representatives from Oklahoma took home four of the top six honors during the Will Rogers Awards Evening in the Frisco Center on Friday night at the National Route 66 Festival in Clinton, Okla.
Author and actor Michael Wallis of Tulsa was given the Will Rogers Award, the group that restored the Old Armory in Chandler, Okla., won the big preservation award, cookbook author Marian Clark of Tulsa won Person of the Year, and Route 66 Harley-Davidson in Tulsa earned the business award.
Delbert and Ruth Trew of Texas won the Lifetime Achievement Award, and David and Mary Lou Knudson of the National Historic Route 66 Federation, based in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., won the Founders Award.
The Trews seemed surprised to win the Mother Road Lifetime Achievement Award, and Delbert became a little choked up during his acceptance remarks. They have been longtime volunteers and driving forces at the Devils Rope Museum and other Route 66 projects in McLean and their area of the Texas Panhandle. The Trews also recently salvaged the storm-damaged “Rattlesnakes — Exit Now” sign near Lela and seek to restore it and re-erect it near the historic Phillips 66 station in McLean. Delbert Trew also has published several books about Route 66 and Panhandle history, and is a newspaper columnist.
Delbert Trew noted that when the museum started to tout Route 66 back in 1991, “we had to make our own souvenirs. Now look what we’ve got today.”
Wallis, author of the best-selling “Route 66: The Mother Road” and voice of the Sheriff of Radiator Springs in last summer’s animated movie “Cars,” was chosen for the Will Rogers Award by the Will Rogers family. Chuck Rogers, who is Will Rogers’ grandson, was the presenter. Wallis, also the winner of the annual banquet’s Steinbeck Award years ago, admitted he had mixed emotions about receiving the award. “This belongs to a lot of people other than me,” he said.
The Old Armory Restorers group of Chandler received the Cyrus Avery Award for preservation for rehabbing the Old Armory. The stone National Guard building, a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s, now contains a Route 66 interpretive center, local history museum and a what soon will be a multipurpose room for banquets and receptions.
Clark turned her knowledge of Route 66 diners and cuisine into three books and numerous magazine and newspaper articles. It also helped garner her the Mother Road Person of the Year Award.
Route 66 Harley-Davidson of Tulsa, owned by Larry and Pat Wofford, is a motorcycle dealership, but also contains a Route 66 memorabilia museum and a popular 1950s-style diner. “Route 66 runs through the heart,” Larry Wofford said upon receiving his Mother Road Route 66 Business Award.
The Knudsons’ National Historic Route 66 Federation has organized national Route 66 events, publishes a quarterly magazine and a Dining and Lodging Guide, and has become a general clearinghouse for Mother Road information. The Knudsons were not present to receive the award. Previous Steinbeck Award winners Jim Ross and Shellee Graham accepted the award on their behalf.
Also, Nora Mansfield, a waitress at the now-defunct Pop Hicks restaurant in Clinton from 1955 to 1982, was honored for being a longtime “Route 66 ambassador.”
The board of directors for the First National Bank of Shamrock, Texas, also were honored for donating the historic U-Drop Inn gas station to the city a few years ago. The deteriorating building eventually was restored and now houses the Chamber of Commerce and other offices.
It also was announced that the 2008 National Route 66 Festival will be June 18-22 in Litchfield, Ill.