Honorable Mention - Open Division
Tom and Linda Wade
Wakita, OK
Politics Made Us - "OK"
Our collage was designed to connect the Oklahoma of 1907 to the Centennial Oklahoma with the use of humor in the theme "Oklahoma Politics: Donkeys, Elephants, and Everything In Between!"
We planned the border color to represent the red earth from which Oklahoma was named. The background was then painted in a mosaic of colors to show the variety of races living together to create our great state from the Indian Territories. Oklahoma is seen to be rising out of the red earth by the elevation on the board.
In 1905, the Five Civilized Tribes of eastern Oklahoma hoped to form a separate state, and sent a delegation with a constitution to Washington, D.C., planning to be called the state "Sequoyah". The Republican Congress did not wish to admit two states to the Union which would increase Democratic votes by four, so the state of "Sequoyah" was denied. Will Rogers, our great Oklahoma humorist, once said, "Well, you know how Congress is. They'll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them." These two parts of Oklahoma are represented in the collage by the two separate sections of the state, with "Sequoyah" on the right hand side. These two parts are comprised of over thirty contemporary political cartoons found in local newspapers this last year, and all containing donkeys and elephants. This concept is reminiscent of the original Hideaway collage in Stillwater, which was composed of many newspaper cartoons.
By 1907, the two halves are joining to make one state and keeping politicians happy, by bringing in only two Democratic votes. The collage illustrates this joining by the silver ring of donkeys and elephants pulling the two together. 2007 represents the centennial of the actual signing of Theodore Roosevelt to make Oklahoma one state. Politics made us "OK".
"Every year it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. Their platforms and policies become more alike. But I believe I have found out the sure way to tell one from another this year. The Republican says: "Well, things could have been worse; and the Democrats say: "How?" Will Rogers, 1932
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