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April 4, 2009

Bond issues top topics at WIF meeting

Woodward continues to move forward.

This is the message Woodward Industrial Foundation Chairman Hugh Jones expressed at the organization’s annual meeting Thursday afternoon.

Jones highlighted the projects the Woodward Industrial Foundation was involved in during 2008 as part of the annual report section of the meeting.

Specifically he emphasized the positive impact of “not one, not two, but three bond issues” that were approved by the citizens of Woodward over this past year. These bond issues, which included $17.6 million for the Early Childhood Development Center and expansion projects at the city’s elementary schools, will help to provide a bright future for the city, Jones said.

He also mentioned that the passage of the hotel/motel tax increase to six percent will benefit the city by giving additional funding for tourism promotion as well as supporting the new Woodward Tourism and Convention Bureau.

Then in March of this year the citizens of Woodward passed the half cent sales tax for capital improvements for the city, which was another positive step forward for the city, Jones said.

Other projects Jones mentioned that the foundation helped out with in 2008 include the million dollar check that was received by the city for infrastructure and a new conference center to be built adjacent to the Northwestern Oklahoma State University-Woodward campus.

Seeing the completion of the NWOSU campus itself was also a major highlight of the foundation’s year. Jones said the process was “long and laborious,” but the hard work has paid off now that the campus is up and running.

He said the foundation had been involved in selecting the site and ensuring the satellite campus would be built in Woodward. This was many years ago. It was not until 2005 before Woodward voters passed a bond issue to fund the campus and then another three years before the campus opened for classes.

Jones summed up the previous year by saying “2008 was a great year in Woodward, Oklahoma.”

The foundation chairman then looked forward to 2009, noting that one of the major programs the foundation will continue to be involved in throughout the coming year is wind energy. Both Jones and LaVern Phillips, president of the foundation, spent time talking about the effects wind energy will have on the economy and people of Woodward, not to mention the environment.

Jones spoke about the wind energy technician certification program at High Plains Technology Center and called it “the leading program in the region.”

He also expressed hope that Edison Mission Group, a company based out of California, continues to find the area attractive for energy projects. The company started a wind energy project called Buffalo Bear near Fort Supply and partnered with Chermac Energy Corp. for the Sleeping Bear project in Harper County.

Ensuring wind energy projects continue to look at Woodward is a major goal of the foundation for 2009, Phillips noted as he showed off a new brochure about Woodward’s wind energy opportunities to the meeting’s attendees.

The brochure detailed where the best places for wind generation are in the Woodward area. The hope is the brochure will help draw more companies interested in wind energy, like Edison Mission Group, to the area so that jobs can be provided for residents and tax revenue can be had for schools and governments to run.

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