/ National Weather Museum Science Center
1200B W Rock Creek Rd, Norman, OK 73069
1/14/2016

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Board of Trustees
Kevin Kloesel, Chair
Douglas Forsyth, Vice-Chair
Stephen Koranda, Secretary
Chuck Thompson, Treasurer
Richard Adams
Rodger Brown
Kelvin Droegemeier
Randy George
David Hopper
Pat Hyland
J.T. Johnson
Jeff Kimpel
C. J. Metcalf
Keli Pirtle
Dan Schemm
Robert Staples
Don Wood
John Woods
Emeritus Trustees
Meg Carr
Randy Peppler
Vicki Rose
Don Sherman
John Snow
Andy Wood / We currently have approximately 168members with 25 being Life-Time members. Please visit us on our Web page:
It has been a very exciting year and progress was made on three of our four projects: the Traveling Museum (TM), T-28 project, and Store Front. A status of each project is summarized below:
  1. Traveling Museum (TM) – Thanks to our generous sponsors, The University of Oklahoma, The Chickasaw Nation, Norman Public Schools, Diane and Rodger Brown, Republic Bank & Trust, BancFirst, Virgin Law Firm, Sassan Moghadam, Halbrooke Development Group, Tom McCaleb Revocable Trust, , Gene McKown Living Trust, Oklahoma Electric Cooperative (OEC)Foundation, and Bio-Cide International, we have completed fund raising for this project and have built, wrapped (Thanks to the great design by James Muran) and mostlyoutfitted the Traveling Museum with displays and artifacts. We are now ready to have the museum travel to various venues this Spring. We are still in need of a pickup truck (1 or 3/4 ton) to pull the Traveling Museum.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) (Micheal Shattuck) helped us move the TM for our use at two events this Fall: the National Weather Association’s Annual Meeting Ice Breaker., thanks to Deborah Kay and Jeff Kimpel for helping with this event; and the National Weather Festival held the last Saturday in October where several hundred people toured the museum, a special thanks to Bob Staples, Jeff Kimpel, Ric Adams and Deborah Kay for working this event.

1 New Traveling Museum (Before)

2 New Traveling Museum (after)

3 Traveling Museum at the National weather Festival

b. T-28 Project – The T-28 is moving again. In September, we started leasing a facility at 1200B W Rock Creek Rd. We have moved the smaller pieces (Thanks Ric Adams and Mark Benner) and we are lining up equipment and help to move the fuselage and wings. Thanks to NSSL for allowing us use of the temporary storage on North Base.

We still need an engine, propeller and landing gear to reassemble the aircraft. We are continuing our search for a non-working engine and parts to mount to the T-28. Hopefully, we will find the required parts at an affordable price. Work continues on this project.

  1. Store Front – YES, we now have one!! We are located at 1200B W Rock Creek Rd, Norman, OK 73069. We are leasing an 8000 sq.ft. facility that includes a large overhead door, bathrooms, reception area, Office and Conference room and about 5000 sq.ft. of display and storage areas. The facility is large enough to house the T-28 aircraft and various artifacts and interactive displays. We are currently designing a layout for the exhibits and hope to open for at least a few hours each week starting around the 1st of March.

In addition we have acquired a good portion of the Freeman Weather Museum that shut down in Houston. Bob Staples and I traveled to Galveston, rented a 26ft U-haul and brought back a truck load of weather artifacts. We are in the process of inventorying everything we received from the Galveston County Museum. Thanks to the Galveston County Museum and Jill and David Hasling for these fine donations.

We are also thankful for several gifts of furniture received from the First Baptist Church in Norman, Loren Shirk and the Forsyth Family.

Lots of work remains to make this space a functioning weather museum and science center. If you would like to volunteer your services, please let me know at email: or (405) 651-8649.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!!

4 Overhead and Front Door

5 Part of 5,000 sq,ft, exhibit space

6 The crew that unloaded the U-Haul

7 A portion of the weather artifacts that came from Galveston

8 New sign on Rock Creek Road

d. New Building - This is still our long term goal. It only takes time and money!

Thanks to your continued support, our financial situation remains good,especially considering all the work completed this year. We have $137,637.85 in our account. $81,288.63 is restricted for use on the T-28/Store-front project and $32,548.09 remains restricted for use on the TM. With the addition of Insurance, fuel and internet for the TM and Electrical, heating, air conditioning and rent, our operating costs have increased significantly. The funds needed to operate the store-front facility are dependent upon our membership dues. Please consider joining us in this effort this year.

Annual meeting

January 26, 2016, 5:00 pm

National Weather Museum & Science Center

1200B W Rock Creek Rd.

Norman, OK 73069

Thanks again for your continued support and we hope you will renew your membership for 2016.

Please use the Web page or remit your annual membership payment to:

National Weather Museum and Science Center

ATTN: Membership

P.O. Box 6222

Norman, OK 73070-6222

Memberships are $25 – Individual, $50- Family and $100 – Corporate.

Life Time Memberships are $500 – Individual and $1000 - Family

Your membership fee is tax deductible.

Douglas E. Forsyth

Acting Executive Director

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