Broken Arrow’s Roster DayCelebration is the oldest town festival in the state of Oklahoma with 2006 marking it’s 75th Anniversary. Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce enlisted Doug Henderson to create a commemorative poster. The poster appears at first to be just a rooster standing on a street corner. But a closer look reveals details and historical trivia related to the festival, a “Where’s Waldo” sort of photo montage created from at least 17 different photos. The rooster a prize game bird valued at about $750, photographed in a makeshift studio at a rooster farm near Collinsville, Oklahoma. As Doug puts it: “Have you ever tried to get a rooster to pose for a photo?”

The dollar bill tied around the rooster leg harks back to the Great Depression era years of the Rooster Day celebration. Back then, roosters with dollars tied to them were released on main street; those who could catch a rooster got the dollar.

In 1950, this not-very-kind-to-roosters contest attracted the attention of Life Magazine, which did a story on the festival and brought national attention to Broken Arrow. Appearing in photos in the Life article is the intersection of Main and Commercial, the very intersection appearing in the poster.

The building across the street is completely remodeled in the computer. In it's windows you will find, reflections of Broken Arrow, Doug’s dog, the American flag, and Citizen’s Security Bank and Floral Haven Cemetery’s logos painted on the windows(both sponsors of the 2006 festival). Also hanging in Floral Haven’s window is a sign: “space available”. Billy Parker, stands just visible behind the glass door of the drug store.

On down the street you can see the building and marquee of another festival sponsor; Arkansas Valley State Bank. The marquee proclaims “75 YEARS!” A Blue Bell Ice Cream truck (also a sponsor) passes by, but the little girl in the Blue Bell logo isn’t leading a cow. At the end of the street appears Broken Arrow’s first skyscraper; the Farmer’s Co-op grain elevator, complete with the city of Broken Arrow’s logo, the Oklahoma Indian shield, freshly painted on the side.

A Classic Cord automobile, which was produced in Broken Arrow, cruises down the street, a blond at the wheel. Drysdale’s Westernwear, another sponsor, appearing on the front bumper. A monarch butterfly flutters by, a scissor-tale flycatcher, state bird of Oklahoma sits on the wire, and an green beetle crawls out from under the Broken Arrow Daily Ledger(another sponsor)newspaper. Making the front page of the paper are the festival’s entertainers, David Ball and the Confederate Railroad. Speedway Chevrolet (sponsor) also appears. A symbol of peace, an actual Indian arrow, broken in two lies on the brickwalk. The date (disputable) of the first Rooster Day in scratched in the cement. The wooden egg, lying on the sidewalk is the first “prize” egg from the Rooster Day’s prize egg hunt. Radio station sponsor Z-104 the Edge appears on a guitar pick just under the roosters claw. Sponsors PSO and Valor Telecom appear as bricks in the sidewalk, and Henderson’s business card lies on the bricks.