Lunch honors leaders, defines downtown

By Steve Lackmeyer

Published: May 22, 2007

Downtown's elite gathered Friday for the annual Dean A. McGee Awards banquet, which honored Sonic CEO Cliff Hudson, Bricktown civic leader Avis Scaramucci and longtime chamber executive Paul Strasbaugh.

The biggest laughs were those unscripted. John Michael Williams, a veteran downtown attorney, delivered what appeared to be an exhaustively researched introduction of Strasbaugh's 61-year career at the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. But Strasbaugh, at age 89, proved to everybody his memory remains sharp when he had to correct Williams on the number of miles annexed by the city in 1960s.

For those who don't know Strasbaugh, he's a living history of the city, having spent much of his career at the side of the legendary Stanley Draper. He's not one to boast about his accomplishments, and maybe that's why it took what some say was four years too long to win the Stanley Draper Award (which was created by Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. in 2002).

Current president Brett Hamm, meanwhile, delivered an amusing top five signs downtown has changed:

"The city has saved millions no longer having to mow the Oklahoma River.

"The Hornets — better to have loved and lost ... oh, never mind, we still want our own team!

"It only took a couple fires and a concrete stage surrounded by water, but Shakespeare in the Park is finally downtown.

"‘Downtown living' no longer means a stint in the county jail.

"Everyone's working to make our streets more colorful, but who'd have thought of making the Underground fluorescent? Of course — Rand Elliott!”

After delivering that bit of humor, Hamm had to trim from his speech a bit of news about the actual boundaries of downtown. For years, the definition of downtown has wavered depending on the eye of the beholder.

Places change, boundaries shift back and forth.

Back in 1982, Neal Horton, the founding father of Bricktown, predicted downtown would someday span from Western Avenue on the west to Lincoln Boulevard on the east, and NW 13 on the north to the North Canadian River (now the Oklahoma River) on the south.

He was close to getting it right. Given a few more minutes of speaking time, Hamm was ready to announce that the city's planning department, Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. and the chamber have all agreed on three of Horton's boundaries. The one difference: they're going farther east to Lottie Avenue to encompass all of the Oklahoma Health Center.

The decision to agree on boundaries is critical, Hamm says, as Oklahoma City seeks to compete for a downtown grocery and other amenities. Downtown Indianapolis, he notes, spans six square miles.

"We've really been making unfair comparisons between cities,” Hamm said. "We've been comparing apples to oranges when measuring against other downtowns. This is really a much better representation of our downtown, its residents and workforce.”