Beautification & Landscaping (annual budget <$100,000): Idabel Main Street

If you want to talk about recycling on a grand scale, talk to the folks with the Idabel Main Street program. They stepped in at the last minute to save the town's historic Rouleau ["Roo-LOW"] Hotel from the wrecking ball and helped to turn it into energy-efficient apartments for the elderly.

Built in 1916, the Rouleau, once the center of social and civic activity in Idabel, had been vacant for decades and was badly deteriorated. The Main Street program contacted Southridge, a Kingfisher firm with a good record of successfully converting old structures. A combination of hundreds of volunteer hours over a four-  year period, the involvement of the Little Dixie Community Action Agency, and a one-point-eight million dollar investment from Southridge have brought life back to what's now called the Rouleau House. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places a year ago.

Our judges say the magnitude and results of this project are amazing. The Idabel Main Street program is good news for historic preservation and restoration in Oklahoma.