Tulsa History: January 2011 Archives

Zingo is for sale. The Bell's Amusement Park roller coaster that thrilled generations of Tulsans is being auctioned off on eBay by Better Price Surplus Warehouse for $400,000 or best offer.

Roller Coaster for Sale. Engineered and manufactured by Philadelphia Toboggan Co. Erected in 1968 and dismantled in 2006. The Zingo Roller Coaster formerly at Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma has been dismantled, put in storage and is now for sale. The train, track, gears, motor, chain, bent legs, and lumber (2x6, 2x8, 4x4, 4x6, 6x6, 6x8, 6x12). Tens of thousands of board feet of lumber, all double kiln, dried pressure treated, yellow pine painted with white latex. The coaster was 72 feet at its highest point and 2,675 feet long. This lumber can be cut, sorted, loaded etc, at its present location as long as its gone by 5/30/2011.

This coaster is for sale as a whole unit or can be separated into 2 lots. The lumber as 1 lot and all other components (train, track, gears, motor, chain, etc.) as Lot 2. The asking price is $250,000 USD for each lot, or $400,000 USD in its entirety or Best Offer by 4/15/2011. This equipment and lumber must be moved from its present location by May 30th, 2011. We will entertain any serious offer and help with the logistics of the move. Contact Marc Price at 918-625-0492 or email bargains@betterpricestore.com

It's not unheard of for a wood roller coaster to find a new home. Frontier City's Wildcat was relocated from Fairyland Park in Kansas City. Knoebels' Phoenix came from Playland Park in San Antonio. According to the Roller Coaster Database, there are only 167 operating wood roller coaster in the entire world; 120 of them are in North America. Perhaps Zingo can find a good home in another part of America or another part of the world. Or perhaps someone could find a place for it here in the Tulsa area.

MORE: News on 6 talks to Robby Bell:

Bell says he decided to sell Zingo because he needs the money to help open a new Bell's. And he says he's only selling what could be easily replaced, unlike some of the other rides at Bell's.

"So certain pieces we don't want to turn loose of, but Zingo is just a matter of lumber and bolts. And we have the trains and the chain, but even if we sold that, that could be replaced," he said.

We've lost two Tulsa TV pioneers in the last little while. Newsman Jack Morris died in early December at the age of 88. Betty Boyd, host of local daytime shows and later a state legislator, passed away Thursday at age 86.

Whenever someone says, "It's 10 o'clock!" I mentally supply the rest: "Jack Morris news time!" I remember Morris at KTEW (NBC) in the 1970s, but his first television job was as news anchor at KTUL.

Here's an 15-minute profile and interview with Morris, from 1991, the year he was inducted into the Oklahoma Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame (Jerry Webber, who worked with Morris at KTEW, is the narrator). Morris talks about the course of his career, including his nightly commentaries from a conservative perspective, traveling to Israel right after the Six-Day War for a documentary on the mideast crisis for KTUL, and what it was like to have to deal with news footage on film. In 1978, he won a Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge gold medal for his commentaries. (For Hal O'Halloran fans, there's a brief glimpse of a promotional photo of the KTUL news team -- Morris, O'Halloran, and weatherman Don Woods - at 4:45.)

KTUL has a tribute to Betty Boyd, which includes a promotional video from 1965; it appears to be aimed at selling Boyd's daily noontime show to potential advertisers. In the video you'll see a brief Cy Tuma newscast, an ad for Wilson's MOR canned ham and BIF canned beef (the shot of MOR with sliced olives belongs in James Lileks' Gallery of Regrettable Food), an old-school weather cast, a Maxwell House commercial, and a bass player and a pianist who played the theme and incidental music throughout the show -- live.

MORE from Tulsa TV Memories: Jack Morris is featured on one of the "Newsmen" pages, and Betty Boyd has a page all to herself.

Here's Jack Frank's video tribute to Betty Boyd from a few years ago.

She mentions Hal O'Halloran and Cy Tuma at about 2:20. And at about 1:10 in, Lawrence Welk flirts with Betty.

UPDATE 2024/11/20: Updated the embed code for the Jack Morris video. The Betty Boyd tribute is no longer on YouTube, but Jack Frank of Tulsa Films has posted her entire interview with Lawrence Welk.