ENID, OK - The Woodring Wall of Honor and Veterans Park, Inc., an award winning Oklahoma educational center, a non-profit veterans organization, and home to Oklahoma’s official Vietnam War Monument, is thrilled to announce receipt of the largest donation in the organization’s twenty-two-year history, from the Kansas Military History Museum in Augusta, Kansas.
“We’ve been working on this acquisition for several months and are thrilled to bring this extensive collection to Enid. We’re overwhelmed by the museum’s generosity, along with their collaboration to ensure that the military memorabilia they are donating continue to build the future of educating our youth on the service and sacrifices of our veterans,” said Elaine Johns, Executive Director. The Kansas Military Museum’s gift was made possible with the donation of more than 1800 unique items from all eras of war. The collection includes U.S. military vehicles, weapons, artillery pieces, naval vessels, and aircraft with a focus on the American experience in World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and present day War on Terrorism.
Rather than simply showcasing the collections’ technical prowess and size, the Wall of Honor will set out to immerse visitors in the authentic experiences of the service personnel who fought, and sometimes died, in them. “Our goal is to help the museum fulfill its mission of honoring the service and sacrifice of veterans and their families,” said Johns. “To bring this to life, we aim to put the spotlight on personal stories, real objects, and recreating authentic environments. The combination of these elements creates a fresh perspective and real a sense of the value of our military both past and present. We’ll be collaborating with Enid Communications to document the stories and utilize the testimonies to share the history—and present it right here, right now.”
To accomplish this, we will begin a capital campaign to build a new museum that will thrust visitors into a series of historic scenes that completely immerse the senses. A winding trail cuts through a perilous nighttime jungle; thousands of hand-sculpted bamboo shoots combine with an elaborate projection-mapped moonlit environment to create an eerie setting where booby traps and guerrilla forces emerge from the darkness. Elsewhere, our Huey Helicopter—dominated by faithfully restored M60 guns—sits at the edge of enemy territory, where distant battles and helicopter operations are depicted on an elaborate animated mural.
“Our goal is to provide each visitor an invitation to step into a historic story, whether walking through a dangerous nighttime jungle landscape or joining the arduous, windswept winter march of a convoy approaching the enemy during WWII. We want each person to experience a hint of what veterans did first-hand. And it’s so vital to get it right for veterans to ensure that their stories are told and displayed accurately. This means being laser-focused on every prop, every artifact, every detail, no matter what it takes.
The gift arrives at an auspicious moment for the veterans park as it begins its capital campaign to build a new museum. The collection will be temporarily housed in the Oakwood Mall in Enid, Oklahoma until the funding for a new museum is in place. In the coming months, the Woodring Wall of Honor will make further announcements as to how the gift will be displayed and the progress of the capital campaign.
