John W. Morris
Tony Smith was the district engineer. I called him on the phone and told him I had to go out to
Buffalo, Oklahoma, to see Mr. Selman and asked him if he would come along but that he did not
have to come. So we met with Selman and his wife. He and Smith then worked together but, as
mentioned, the salt study and his project never proceeded. Even so, an enemy became a friend.
Maybe the dog had more to do with it than anything else.
I could go on and on about these kinds of tales. One night at a meeting in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on
the Optima project, I was supposed to be in the audience and ended up answering questions for
about three hours.
During the groundbreaking for the state's Arrowhead Lake Recreation Facility on Lake Eufaula
in the late summer of 1963, Carl Albert was suddenly called to Washington. We soon learned that
he left during the meeting because of the Cuban missile crisis.
On Good Friday, 13 April 1964, I was honored in Oklahoma City at a luncheon by induction into
the Cowboy Hall of Fame. That was Friday, the 13th of April, the date of the Alaskan earthquake.
Colonel K.T. Sawyer was district engineer in Alaska and needed help. Captain Jack Sullivan and
several civilian employees were sent.
The point of these incidents is simply to illustrate the involvement of the district engineers in
various aspects of the public scene.
Tulsa was a truly special kind of assignment
for me and my future. As Goose Bay was to
my military construction education, Tulsa
was the singular event in developing
competence in civil programs. Fortunately,
I was able to complete both tours without
serious shortcomings or adverse comments
which would become part of my
performance records.
Let me ask you one question. In the district
history, Mr. William Settle mentions
establishing area offices as an intermediate
layer-
Correct.
Could you talk a little bit about that and
your management philosophy?
Basically, we had so many projects that I
just couldn't centralize in Tulsa all
decisions above project level. So we set up
area offices, both for the construction and
the operations phases. For example, the
On 12 October 1962, Dana Knight of the Ponca
Little River project was some distance from
Tribe of Oklahoma made Colonel Morris, the
District Engineer of the Tulsa District, an honorary
Tulsa, so we had an area office in DeQueen
chieftain of the tribe, with the Ponca name
Arkansas, including a real estate suboffice.
Sungah-Zhaba, Mighty Beaver, because of the
When we had four or five jobs under
district's work on the Arkansas River. "Only a
construction in the same general area, the
mighty beaver," Knight declared "can conquer the
most senior of the project managers would
Arkansas River.
be designated area engineer. We wouldn't
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