‘Unlock the swok’
By Mark Potter Staff Writer Southwest Ledger
FREDERICK – She considers southwest Oklahoma to be one of the greatest secrets anywhere – but she wants to change all that to bolster the area’s tourism by attracting more visitors.
Mandy Davis is the executive director of Great Plains Country, the organization which promotes the tourist attractions found in 14 Southwestern Oklahoma counties. Great Plains Country has been in operation since 1966.
Those area attractions include the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Comanche County, Quartz Mountain Resort on Lake Altus-Lugert in Greer and Kiowa counties, and state parks including Great Plains at Tom Steed Reservoir in Kiowa County, Foss State Park on Foss Lake in Custer County and Fort Cobb State Park on Fort Cobb Reservoir in Caddo County.
There are also numerous local lakes throughout the area along with museums and other sites.
Davis, who has resided in Frederick since 2018, assumed duties as executive director of Great Plains Country on March 1, which she said was not the best time to start a position in promotion of tourism due to the start of the COVID-29 outbreak.
At the time of Davis’ arrival, the organization moved its office from Duncan to Frederick. She has previous experience with promotion and tourism efforts from past positions at chambers of commerce in Purcell and Gainesville, Texas.
“Southwest Oklahoma is a well-kept secret of adventure,” Davis said. “I hope to promote the area so everybody will know what we have in this area, and visit our attractions.
“I don’t want it to be a secret anymore,” she said. “We have something to fit everybody’s palette.”
Counties within the area of Great Plains Country include Beckham, Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Custer, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, Roger Mills, Stephens, Tillman and Washita.
Great Plains Country is one of six tourist regions of Oklahoma which also include Frontier Country (central), Red Carpet (northwest), Green Country (northeast), Chickasaw Country (southeast) and Green Country (northeast).
MANY ATTRACTIONS CLOSE TO HOME
As area residents plan to stay close to home this summer due to concerns over COVID-19, Davis said that Great Plains Country has many “stay-cation” possibilities as a number of museums, state parks and other attractions that had been closed to the public since the start of the outbreak have since reopened to the public, though with social distancing and other precautions being urged.
Davis said Great Plains Country has come up with the campaign entitled “Unlock the SWOK for Southwest Oklahoma.” She said that her 10-year-old son, Elijah, had asked the question “What’s a SWOK?” and then proceeded to lead a project to promote the area’s tourist attractions despite their closure during the worst of the pandemic when stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders were in effect. That project involved the creation of videos by using images and then narrating information about each attraction via Zoom and posting the videos on Facebook.
“There were over 1,000 each for those videos,” Davis said.
She said with the recent reopening of those tourist sites, virtual video tours of different destinations have been created with others to come. Locations where on-site tours were recently made include Quartz Mountain Resort and various attractions in the cities of Duncan, Comanche and Weatherford.
Great Plains Country, Davis said, has a lot of military history including that of Fort Sill, Altus Air Force Base, the General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum in Hobart and the historic Frederick Army Airfield at the Frederick Regional Airport, where the World War II Airborne Demonstration Team sponsors a Jump School twice a year where students are trained on jumping from vintage C-47 aircraft.
Great Plains Country also is known for Native American history, which is preserved by various area museums and other attractions such as the Fort Sill Museum and Geronimo’s Grave at Fort Sill, the Comanche National Museum and Cultural Center in Lawton, and the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko.
Also located in the region is the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan, which depicts the trail drives from Texas northward through Oklahoma into Kansas during the mid-19th century, the Great Plains Museum in Lawton, Museum of the Western Prairie in Altus, Pioneer Heritage Townsite Museum in Frederick and the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Weatherford.
Great Plains Country is also host to the Oklahoma and National Route 66 museums in Clinton and Elk City, respectively. Both museums depict the culture and history related to the historic highway that is the forerunner to today’s Interstate 40 and whose original concrete pavement cuts across four area counties: Caddo, Custer, Washita and Beckham.
“This is a vital time to visit our attractions and support them,” Davis said.
Additionally, many area lakes including the state parks offer outdoor recreational opportunities such as camping, fishing, boating and swimming. The area also has a number of hunting venues.
A LEADING INDUSTRY IN THE STATE
Davis said that tourism is the third largest industry in Oklahoma. According to figures she received from the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, tourism brought some 21.5 million visitors to the state during 2018. Those visitors contributed to economic impacts that year of $9.6 billion in direct visitor travel spending, $708 million in state and local tax revenue generated, $710 per household in state, local and federal tax revenues, $2.4 billion in direct earnings generated in travel spending, and 103,6000 jobs created.
“And hotel/motel taxes charged by cities go toward local chambers of commerce to promote their tourism efforts,” she said.