A Literary Landmark in Stroud, Oklahoma

From a 2013 press release: 

Hello, Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma. We hope you will join us for Oklahoma’s next Literary Landmark dedication on Sunday, April 28 during National Poetry Month. The late poet Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel (1918-2007) will be honored at 2:30 p.m. at Stroud Public Schools, C. B. Wright Auditorium. Literary Landmarks are a national program which started in 1989. 

 

Sites honor a deceased literary figure, author, or his or her work. www.ala.org/united/products_services/literarylandmarks

 

The dedication will feature author and Route 66 expert Michael Wallis as emcee, author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, film screening “Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel” by Chris Simon, poetry readings and award presentations for the Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel Poetry Contest, and music by the Stroud High School Choir.

 

Born near Stroud in 1918, Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel was the daughter of Benjamin and Anna McDaniel. Her father was a sharecropper and her mother was a homemaker. Her siblings were Verne, Roy, Allen, Keith, Harold, Opal, and Kenneth. Wilma attended schools in Lincoln and Creek counties until the effects of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl led her family to migrate to California in 1936.

 

Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma (FOLIO) www.okfriends.net has dedicated 10 other Oklahoma Literary Landmark sites: 

 

Woody Guthrie, Okemah (2001); 

Ralph Ellison Library, Oklahoma City (2002);

Lynn Riggs, Claremore Public Library (2003); 

Angie Debo, Marshall City Hall and OSU Library, Stillwater (2004); 

John Berryman, McAlester Public Library (2005); 

Sequoyah’s Cabin, near Sallisaw (2006); 

Will Rogers Memorial Museum, Claremore (2007); 

John Joseph Mathews, Osage Tribal Museum, Pawhuska (2009); and 

Woodrow Wilson Rawls, Tahlequah Public Library (2011).

 

The Stroud Public Library is co-sponsoring the Literary Landmark Dedication and will be the site for the bronze plaque. Additional sponsors to date include, Friends of Oklahoma State University Library, Back40 Publishing, Friends of Oklahoma Center for the Book, Village Books Press, Tom and Leslie Hubbell, George and Karen Neurohr, and The Estate of Poet Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel. Partners include Stroud Chamber of Commerce, Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History, Oklahoma Department of Libraries; Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers; Oklahoma History Center and Oklahoma Library Association.

 

For information, contact Marsha Morgan, Stroud Public Library, 918-968-2567 or Karen Neurohr, OSU Librarian and Coordinator Oklahoma Literary Landmarks, 405.744.2376.