Navistar opens new school bus facility in Tulsa

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Jun 6, 2001

Navistar International Corp. officially opened its new $45 million school bus manufacturing facility in Tulsa on Tuesday.

The nearly 1-million-square-foot plant currently employs more than 400 workers to assemble the international integrated conventional school bus.

"This plant is key to keeping our school bus business the leader in the industry," said John Horne, Navistar chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Producing the chassis and the bus body under one roof will enhance the product quality, increase efficiency and improve responsiveness to meet our customers' business needs."

The Tulsa facility, under the operation of American Transportation of Oklahoma, is the first to be built solely for the production of the international integrated chassis school bus.

"This bus facility enhances the strength of Tulsa's business climate and work force," said Mayor M. Susan Savage.

The bus facility is located on the site of a former Douglas Aircraft plant that built B-24 bombers for the Army Air Corps during World War II. Navistar owns a diesel engine manufacturing facility in Melrose Park, Ill. that built engines for the B-24 bomber.

Navistar traces its school bus origins to 1907 when the brand was first used on the company's school buses.

American Transportation of Oklahoma is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Truck and Engine Corp. Based in Warrenville, a suburb of Chicago, Navistar had 2000 sales and revenues of $8.5 billion.

Let them eat doughnuts

It was a premiere befitting Hollywood. Amid a small army of radio and television trucks, hundreds waited in line -- and some camped out all night -- to be among the first customers at Oklahoma's first Krispy Kreme doughnut store, which opened its doors early Tuesday morning at Interstate 240 and S. Western Avenue.

Cars were backed up for about a mile along a road in front of the store, while police officers posted themselves in the intersections surrounding the store.

Brent Kennedy, one of four partners bringing Krispy Kreme to Oklahoma and Arkansas, surveyed the scene with a wide smile and said one woman ordered 23 dozen doughnuts.

Kennedy said another store will open in Oklahoma City Sept. 18 and another in Tulsa next year. He said 10 stores are eventually planned in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The first customer arrived at the store at 9 a.m. Monday and waited in a lawn chair all day and night to be the first customer, Kennedy said.

When the store opened at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, he bought three dozen doughnuts from state Insurance Commissioner Carroll Fisher, who manned the counter.

"This, to me, is like throwing out the first ball in a World Series," Fisher said. "This really is a part of history."

Fisher said he once tried to bring several dozen of the doughnuts home from Georgia in his luggage, but that some colleagues forgot to pack them.

"The next day five dozen doughnuts came by overnight express mail," he said.

The first Krispy Kreme doughnut shop opened in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1937. There are now more than 180 Krispy Kreme locations in 30 states.

Improving first impressions

Efforts to spruce up parts of Tulsa International Airport before the arrival of thousands of U.S. Open spectators will fall a bit short, but officials believe projects that were finished will leave visitors with a positive impression of the city.

After some prodding by Mayor Susan Savage and former Tulsa Airport Authority chairman, Thomas Bennett, airport authority trustees decided in the spring of 2000 to undertake $15.9 million worth of terminal-area improvement projects.

Eleven of the 13 projects are or will be finished by Sunday, when all contractors will suspend work and clean up their projects for the golf tournament. But two visible projects will be undone.

Airport executives and contractors say an 800-foot fabric canopy that will shelter passengers in front of the east and west baggage claim buildings will be less than half-finished.

The exterior of a nearby six-building rental car quick-turnaround facility will be complete, but the interior will be unfinished, officials said.

"To the average visitor, it will look like a work in progress," said James Thomas, president of WorldCover Inc., an Oklahoma company that has subcontracted the $2.53 million canopy project from general contractor Barton Construction Co. Inc.

Completed projects include new flight information display systems in walnut cabinets, new terrazzo flooring and wall coverings, new furniture and historic memorabilia displays.

Mickey Edwards to speak

Former Fifth District Congressman Mickey Edwards will speak at the Oklahoma City University President's Club dinner at 7 p.m. June 20 at the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club.

In his talk, "George Bush's Washington," Edwards will address the political climate in Washington.

Edwards is the John Quincy Adams Lecturer in Legislative Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a lecturer in law at Harvard Law School. He is an associate of the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership and director of the center's legislative leadership program.