Four-sided pole delivers peaceful message

Stephen Morrow, Learning Skills Professor and Advocates of Peace club sponsor, displays the Peace Pole which was donated to the club and the college by Dennis Watson, a member of Veterans for Peace. Watson constructed the pole and fashioned the design after 250,000 poles displayed globally. The pole displays the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in four languages: English, Arabic, Spanish and Cheyenne. The club has set a tentative date for the dedication of the Peace Pole as April 4.
Photo by Carrie Cronk

By Cheriecea Medina, News Writing Student

OCCC’s Advocates of Peace club will plant a Peace Pole on campus Jan. 25 to help promote the idea of spreading peace across the world.

“It has been a special dream of mine to have a Peace Pole for students, faculty, all of us,” said Stephen Morrow, Learning Skills professor and club sponsor. “We can work a little bit harder for peace.

“It will be a reminder for all of us that we all can help make the world better,” he said.

Morrow said he was interested in the peace poles and began researching them.

He found where a man named Dennis Watson had donated one and where the pole was being planted.

“I met Dennis at the Joy Mennonite church and began talking to him,” Morrow said. “Dennis also donated the pole that will be planted here as well.”

The pole is made of red cedar and will be six-and-a-half feet tall after installation, Watson said.

Morrow said the pole, which has four sides and is pointed at the top, has “May Peace Prevail on Earth” written in four languages, one on each side.

“There’s English, Arabic, Spanish and Cheyenne (an American Indian language),” Morrow said.

“We hope to build a flower bed around the pole,” Morrow said. “We are looking for symbolic colors for the flowers.”

The Advocates of Peace club represented OCCC at the Oklahoma Peace Festival, an annual event that promotes peace.

“Our table was successful,” Morrow said. “We had a couple hundred visitors, sold cookies and peace buttons.”

In 1955, the first Peace Pole was planted in Hiroshima.

“It was planted by a survivor of Hiroshima,” Watson said. “There are over 250,000 around the world in over 180 countries.”

For more information, visit www.worldpeace.org/wpps.html or call Morrow at 405-682-1611, ext. 7350.