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Club Acquires Beryl Ford Collection The Rotary Club of Tulsa, through it's newly formed Tulsa Archives, Inc., signed the purchase agreement with Beryl and Lydia Ford to buy the entire Beryl Ford Collection, the largest and most significant collection of photographs and artifacts relevant to the history of the City of Tulsa and surrounding area. The agreement was signed during the regular Rotary luncheon on Wednesday, August 11, 2004, by the Fords and Steve Clark, president of the Rotary Club of Tulsa, and Jerry L. Cornelius, president of Tulsa Archives, Inc. Mayor Bill LaFortune, the luncheon speaker, endorsed the document. The Fords were in a negotiation to sell the collection. The Mayor and Karen Keith at that office contacted 2003-04 club president John O’Connor to see if the Rotary Club would be interested in a campaign to buy and catalog the collection. O’Connor and 2004-05 club president Steve Clark, enthusiastically endorsed the project and contact Jerry Cornelius to lead the project. Through several months of legal negotiations handled by John O’Connor, the agreement to purchase was signed August 11th. The club has created Tulsa Archives, Inc., a non-profit organization wholly-owned by the Rotary Club of Tulsa. Don Walker was able to obtain the major funding to purchase the collection from the Bob Lorton family and the Tulsa World newspaper. |
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It is estimated the cataloging, digitizing and inventory of the collection will take a minimum five years and cost $500,000. The entity has five trustees. They are Don Walker, John O’Connor, Karen Keith, Steve Clark and Linda Saferite. The trust will be responsible for seeing that the collection is cataloged and digitized. Jerry Cornelius is the Executive Director. An advisory committee to the trustees has been named including Jerry Cornelius, chairman, Karen Keith, Brian Ferriso, Joe Schenk, Linda Safferite, Beryl Ford, David Yowell, Clayton Vaughn and a representative of the Tulsa World. Informtion is available by calling To join this effort, CLICK HERE to |
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