What are your thoughts on the final selection?



Oklahoma quarter: Panel selects design


By Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — After evaluating five designs submitted by Oklahoma for its commemorative quarter, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts has recommended one with the state bird flying above wildflowers.


The commission’s action, taken Thursday, is just one step in the process for selecting the state’s quarter, which will be released in 2008. Tuesday, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee is scheduled to evaluate the five designs submitted by Oklahoma and make its own recommendation.
The nine-step process also will include review and approval by the U.S. Treasury Secretary and the state. All 50 states are getting commemorative quarters in order of their entrance into the union; Oklahoma was the 46th state.

The design chosen by the commission, a seven-member panel composed of artists and architects, features a scissortailed flycatcher, the state bird, in the center of the coin, with a field of Indian blanket wildflowers around the bottom half. At the top is the word Oklahoma and just below that is the year of statehood, 1907.

The design was selected over four that depicted the Pioneer Woman, a famous statue in Ponca City of a woman and child that honors the courage of the homesteaders who came to Oklahoma — and other elements meant to convey the state’s history and character, including oil derricks (in two designs); a peace pipe (in two designs); a windmill (in one); and the state’s shape (in two).

Thomas Luebke, secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, said Friday that, in selecting designs for other state quarters, commissioners have tended to favor the simpler ones with fewer elements.

The Oklahoma design recommended by the commission, he said, is “simple and unique” and its symbols are not widely known. Contributing: Michael McNutt, Capitol Bureau