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State feels like home to Franks
Retired general hopes to build a $15 million leadership institute and museum in Hobart.
By Ron Jackson
Staff Writer
ROOSEVELT Sometimes a place seeps into the blood.
Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks and his wife, Cathy, discovered that special place decades ago in a western Oklahoma hideaway where giant, granite boulders bulge from the red dirt and mesquite trees die hard.
Back then, the only way to reach their favorite spot was on horseback.
No roads, only a mud flat from an old, washed-out dam and the dream of the oasis it could someday become for a couple of sweethearts.
"We've always loved this place, Cathy Franks said recently with her husband by her side. "It just feels like home.
Franks, who as commanding general of the U.S. Central Command led the attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Cathy Franks made it official two years ago when they carved a road to their special place east of Roosevelt and built their dream home a stout, creamy limestone ranch house topped by a galvanized roof. The couple's "barn stands equally impressive nearby but is actually a fine bunkhouse crammed with thousands of mementos from the general's decorated career.
Outside the barn, a fountain shoots water into a pond where the mud flat once existed, and over the ridge registered longhorns mingle among a modest collection of horses and bison.
Another pasture holds a herd of Black Angus the heart of the couple's cattle operation.
Here, the world outside is a distant frontier.
"This place is hard to find, Cathy noted with a laugh. "That's why we built here.
Childhood memories
There were other reasons that pulled the Franks to that spot, reasons that had more to do with the general's childhood memories beneath the shade of cottonwood trees in Wynnewood or summer days tagging along with his father's Boy Scout troop.
Those moments ushered a young Tommy Ray Franks into manhood, into the U.S. Army and, ultimately, into war.
Now, at age 61, they loom over him as he embarks on the peaceful years.
High-dollar lectures keep him on the road about four months a year and sometimes at his second home in Tampa, Fla. But he always yearns to return to his Oklahoma ranch.
"My early childhood in Oklahoma had a profound effect on me, Franks said. "For me and for Cathy ... it's coming back to our roots. The price of land doesn't impress me; it's the type of values that come with a place that gives it true value.
"This is a place for our grandchildren a place where they can run barefoot through the dirt, learn to shoot guns and ride horses ... a place to be free.
The ranch is on rangeland once owned by Cathy's late grandfather, Jimmy Ellis. Cathy was born in neighboring Hobart, so whenever she returned to her grandfather's land, she felt wrapped in the warmth of familiar surroundings.
"Two men had a great influence on my life my father and Jimmy Ellis, the general said. "Jimmy Ellis was very smart. He was a prototypical cowboy ... a hard worker.
"He never said much, didn't have to. A 50-word day was a talkative day for him. But his word was as good as gold.
Franks honors his grandfather-in-law in one special way. His cattle carry an overlapping "JE brand.
Jimmy Ellis would probably be proud of one other decision.
Building leadership
Last year, the general announced plans to build a $15 million leadership institute and museum in Hobart.
His vision is to construct a 45,000-square-foot "world-class facility devoted to enhancing decision-making through the critical study of history.
Plans call for the institute to also include a 500-seat auditorium, a teleconferencing center, a library and archival holdings for his private papers.
Construction of the institute has been loosely set at three years.
Franks said the decision to place the institute in Hobart came after several enticing offers from other major American cities, most notably Chicago.
In the end, he chose small-town America.
"Hobart is the type of place that has so much wonderful potential a place that is already wonderful in so many ways, really, Franks said.
"It's a place that has core American values and beliefs, and that's the type of place I wanted.
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