Finishing one monumental year, starting one for the ages
Published Jan. 6, 2026
David's year-end column for 2025
Looking east on Dewey Avenue, with Sapulpa High School construction on the horizon
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We just finished a monumental year. In early 2025, construction started on two of our most impactful projects for our community – the new Sapulpa High School and downtown’s Dewey Avenue renovation – and once the rains stopped, both advanced quite well. Dewey is nearing completion, while Nabholz will finish the high school in 2027.
People may not remember this, but we endured more than 60 days of rain after Sapulpa Public Schools broke ground for the high school in January. I’ll never forget when one weather reporter explained how we topped our average annual rainfall by July! All that water slowed us down, but our school construction progresses nicely now. Our skyline is changing with all that steel flying in the air – which comes from our local supplier, Bennett Steel. We’re very grateful and proud of that.
In another huge blessing in 2025, we are most grateful that each of the SPS high school campus projects came in under budget, which was a huge sigh of relief for all of us and a huge win for our school district and the community we serve. That allows us to deliver on the promises made when voters approved that bond in September 2023. The progress since then is undeniable, and the way our community worked together to achieve this is inspiring. We look forward to that continuing in 2026.
Reed Architecture also enjoyed some tremendous opportunities with other clients. Our design work with Master's Plan Church Design & Construction took us into two more states in 2025 – that’s 22 in all, with a few more on the horizon. We also completed phase four construction at Evergreen Baptist Church and started phase five. This makes six wonderful years we’ve enjoyed with Master’s Plan, and more than 20 with Evergreen. We’ve been so blessed to work with them! And First Church in Owasso is completing another project with us and developing plans for a few more in 2026 and beyond. That brings us great joy!
All of these led to some wonderful developments in our office. In 2025, our team added Intern Architect Addison Hagar, Interior Designers Abigail Jamison and Sadie Lollar, and Executive Assistant Tiffany Thompson. Our extended family also grew as Interior Designer Nicollette West had her first baby, and Addison welcomed hers on Jan. 3!
I can't say enough about this team and how they've performed over the last several years – especially in 2025, with the amount of work they put together and got out on the street. Project Manager Jason Haslam does a great job balancing and completing all our Master’s Plan projects, which take us from one coast to the other. Our state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure allow us to handle that and our two out-of-state architects as if they were here. Architect Jun Robinson and Associate Architect Jordan Taylor Travis contribute great work from Texas and Utah, staying connected with everyone in everything, and they continue to hit home runs on multiple projects.
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Aerial shot of the Sapulpa High School construction project by Sapulpa Public Schools
and contractor Nabholz
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Dewey’s completion prepares us for an exciting year. Not only will Nabholz make great strides in building the high school, but a grant we helped arrange should allow Sapulpa’s Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum to start an exciting expansion we designed for them in 2023. These projects, along with the city’s new Rock Creek Bridge park, will establish new bookend Sapulpa landmarks along historic Route 66 as enthusiasts from around the world come to celebrate the highway’s 2026 centennial. As president of Sapulpa Main Street for 2026, I look forward to watching that celebration unfold with Sapulpa’s Great Route 66 Giveaway and the 2026 National Main Street Now Conference, which comes to our town in April. Those projects will carry us through the Route 66 Blowout Car Show & Festival to the triumphant return of the Route 66 Christmas Chute, a fitting finale to the centennial and the 250th anniversary of our United States of America.
Right now, I’m reading proofs of two books that Sapulpa Main Street and the Sapulpa Historical Society will soon publish to remind us of our city’s dramatic history. The first one tells us how the Muscogee warrior Sapulpa set the foundation for our city with the coming of the railroads. It ends on a cliffhanger, the great divorce of 1928! Book two picks up the explosive saga with Sapulpa’s struggles and triumphs through the rise, fall, and return of Route 66, the last great adventure story of the American West. In all, these chronicles have all the makings for a great television miniseries – and it’s all our history!
Sapulpa Main Street also will launch a collectible oil can series this year with Gasoline Alley Classics. That should become a hot annual event for Route 66 fans!
And through all of that, SMS will struggle to find someone who can fill the shoes of Cindy Lawrence. She has helped guide Sapulpa Main Street as a volunteer and director since its inception 36 years ago. Replacing her could be SMS’s biggest task this year – one full of poetic irony, since her last day as director will be Nov. 11, 2026, the 100th anniversary of when Congress approved U.S. Highway 66. What a send-off that will be!
By this year’s end, Sapulpa will have a fresh, dynamic face, one its residents and visitors should marvel at. With the high school’s debut in 2027, I look forward to seeing all that the future holds for our beloved hometown.
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Aerial shot of the Sapulpa High School construction project by Sapulpa Public Schools
and contractor Nabholz
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