Northwest Oklahoma Centennial Veterans Memorial is located on Shattuck’s Main Street at the southeast corner of the Shattuck High School Campus, on what is known as the Gazebo area.

The Veterans Memorial actually came about as a result of a challenge.

After a trip to the neighboring town of Canadian, Tex., and viewing the Veterans Memorial there, the late Mrs. T. W. Miller asked her husband , the late Dr. T.W. Miller, why Shattuck could not have a memorial?

Having spoken to city coordinator L. R. Holley, a committee for the Veterans Memorial was set up. The original committee consisted of Dr. Miller as chairman, Dale Colbert, Sgt. Eric Jones, Earl Clark, Rod Ford of Gage, Cordell Taylor of Arnett and Ralph Baker of Laverne. Mr. Holley served as an ex-officio member.

Thanks to Mr. Holley, an application was made to the Oklahoma Centennial Commission for a grant for the memorial. Later, with the help of our state representative, Purcy Walker, a generous check from the commission was received that allowed us to have the memorial that we now have.

A lot of work was saved when Dennis Brown downloaded information on Washington D.C. based web site that listed many of the Ellis County Veterans from the Civil War up to Desert Storm. With publicity in the Northwest Oklahoman many area families started turning in the names of their veterans so that now there are almost 3,000 names on the Memorial. These include veterans, not only from Ellis County, but from the neighboring counties of Lipscomb, Tex., Woodward, Harper and Roger Mills, plus others from all over the United States.

So what started out as an Ellis County Veterans Memorial was changed to the Northwest Oklahoma Centennial Veterans Memorial.

Phase 1 of the Memorial was dedicated on May 28, 2007. It started with a “Missing Man” flyover with planes from Vance Air Force Base, Enid. Col. Rod Ford acted as Master of Ceremonies for the occasion. The first panel of the Memorial was dedicated at this program. This panel contains the names of those who made the supreme sacrifice in defense of the United States of America and contains the names of over 90 service personnel.

Special speakers at the dedication included U.S. Representative Frank Lucas, State Senator Mike Schulz and State Representative Purcy Walker.

The Shattuck FFA Chapter has been very instrumental in helping with the Memorial. The chapter adopted the Memorial as their chapter project and chapter advisor Ty Greer secured an initial grant for the chapter to use on the memorial. As their first project they purchased the large American Eagle in Flight that sits atop an 8 foot solid piece of granite. Next the chapter applied for and received an additional grant that was used to purchase the iron for the fence that surrounds the Memorial. There was enough money left over from this grant to purchase the materials for an underground sprinkling system that was installed by Tim Abbott.

Without the cooperation of the Shattuck School Board of Education and the City of Shattuck Board of Trustees and Mr. Holley, there would not be the outstanding Veterans Memorial that now stands on Shattuck’s Main Street.