Purebred Pigeon SepOct 2024

15 – Purebred PIGEON (as homework assignment) to the manager of the facility and when doing so, ask their parents for help in writing the note. Often, one of the parents was involved with pigeons when they were a child. Thus, the parent when asked is surprised to find out there is not only a museum, but an active pigeon hobby that ex- ists today! Many felt that no one raised pigeons anymore due to existing city codes and housing tract HOA’s. This has repeatedly occurred over the years! The scenario unfolds to find the family visiting the museum. As the reader knows, once you’ve raised pigeons, you simply never forget the experience. Often, they then get involved again in the pigeon sport. This has been noticed numerous times over the years. H istory : For many readers, the AMP&L is unknown or just a vague recollection of comments from years ago. In 1973, two indi- viduals, both Racing Homer fanciers, Thelma Snyder of New Jersey (editor of the Racing Pigeon News ) and Elwin Anderson of Washington had discussed the dream of a museum. Each donated $100,000 as seed money to start a facility of some sort. To understand fully what these two did, in current value with inflation, the $100,000 then would be $707,000 today! The newly formed organization became the American Hom- ing Pigeon Institute. For the next 20 years, numerous discussions and plans were made. None really came to fruition. In 1993, 12 acres of property was purchased in Oklahoma City. On the property was a 100-year-old house that later became a temporary home for the museum. The basement and the first floor housed numerous artifacts and small collections. The name was changed to the “World of Wings,” a name that some of the readers may recall. Later, one acre of the property was sold to the American Racing Pigeon Union at a very attractive price and that property and new building became the AU headquarters. The AU building and the museum are merely 150 feet from each other. Basically, for the next 20 years, plans and multiple dis- cussions of a new building resulted. Primarily, racing pigeon breeders were involved and while the “Road was paved with good intentions,” the Board members simply didn’t have the knowledge of what a pigeon museum could become. The World of Wings Board started reaching out to the fancy pigeon group and after a few years, things changed rapidly. At that time, John- ny Blaine, became the new manager of the museum. He was an astute Tumbler breeder from Kansas and brought ideas from the fancy pigeon crowd. So that the reader has a better understanding, there are a few pigeon museums around the world. Clearly, the best is in Nuremberg, Germany. Karl Heinz Sollfrank has invested over millions of dollars (seriously!) in acquiring his collection. This includes over 8000 pigeon books in dozens of languages, over 15,000 artifacts and at least 1200 paintings from all over the world. In addition, smaller museums exist in Denmark, South Africa and Australia. Private collections are numerous through- out the world. I would suggest that a racing pigeon breeder may consider 15 books and a few paintings, etc. and think it as a sizeable collection. Some fancy pigeon breeders have several hundreds of books, dozens of paintings etc. The reason I state this, is that these folks had experience with collectibles regard- ing pigeons. I can state that no less than 15 people from the Los Angeles Pigeon club have visited the Sollfrank Museum in Nuremberg. The writer has visited the museum numerous times and I count Karl Heinz a friend. Additionally, the museum is now listed as a National Archive of Germany Thus, with the addition of pigeon breeders on the Museum Board that had traveled internationally for the sport, progress was made. Still, some plans were suggested to build a larger facility that would require personal financial guarantees from Board members. My personal suggestion was to build what we could afford and not carry a mortgage – that finally gained some traction. Still, minor debates on what to build and how etc. carried on for a year or so. A local contractor, Ed Pointer, (an outstanding pigeon breeder and NPAVice President) was contacted. He was approached while the museum Board was having a meeting. On a speaker phone so all could hear, he was asked why he wasn’t involved? The next two minutes produced a tirade of comments and words that simply cannot be printed. He was one of many that was sorely disappointed in the lack of progress after 40 years. I know Ed well and was laughing hard at his response. The look on the faces of others at the meeting was priceless. They were simply aghast at his comments. Finally, I asked Ed, “Are you done yet?” He actually squeaked out the word “yes” and was told that the plans would be dropped off to him the next day. He was asked to look at the blue prints and give us a bid. His response was, “I will give you a bid so low if you don’t take it, your names would forever be held in contempt!” True to his word, Ed gave us a construction bid several hundred thousand less than anyone else. His bid included just the cost of materials and labor, no profit at all for a donation to the cause. I also am aware of out of pocket expenses that he also absorbed. I share the above just to let the reader know how all of this came about and the tremendous contribution of Ed Pointer! During the construction, the American Racing Pigeon Union had their yearly convention in Oklahoma City. The museum provided a luncheon for the AU members that were in attendance in the partially constructed building. Possibly 75 peo- ple attended the luncheon and one in particular approached us and asked why the building was to be constructed in stages? The reply was, “We didn’t want any debt. We were merely building what we could afford!” The person asking the question was Don Barker (AKA the Roofer) of Austin, Texas. A well-known fancier, he was correct in stating the total cost of the building would be higher if built in stages. Of course, we agreed with the assessment. He then countered with a very generous offer. He