Recognizing The Roots It wasn't until the 1990s that his hometown of Okemah fully embraced its most

famous son with a folk festival on his birthday. Then, in 2011, Oklahoma's George Kaiser Family Foundation, as part of its efforts to bring the state's history back home, purchased the archives. "My mom had preserved everything and packed everything up in boxes when my dad died," Nora Guthrie says. "And she had always had this dream of, wouldn't it be nice if there was a place. ... I mean, she didn't dream it would be like this, 'cause this is pretty classy, you know, high-techy stuff." The 12,000-square-foot facility sits on a corner of an arts district in an area of Tulsa that itself was disparaged but is now experiencing its own renaissance. The centerpiece inside the Woody Guthrie Center is a special glass case holding the handwritten version of "This Land Is Your Land," which up until now was generally unavailable for public view. A few steps away, a concrete-walled room contains the material