Rob:  Well northwest Oklahoma alone has more than 20,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity, which could power over five-million homes.  A potential that could make Oklahoma the number one wind energy producer in the nation, and has many western Oklahoma towns believing their future lies with what’s sweeping down the plain.  As our Keith Smith showed us earlier this year, Weatherford is hoping to cash in on the winds of progress.
Keith:  Hard to miss, even if you’re in a rush.  Nearly a hundred wind turbines surround the small town of Weatherford off I-40 in western Oklahoma.  Longtime local, Leslie Crall, showing off what he likes to call his wind crop.
Leslie Crall:  This is one of two wind towers that are on my family’s farm.
Keith:  A farmer at the forefront of the state’s growing wind industry.
Crall:  As you can tell by looking at the grass and my hair it’s blowing pretty good today.
Mike Brown:  Most days the wind's gonna blow.
Keith:  Mayor Mike Brown says the wind energy center has been a breath of fresh air.  Since its inception in 2005, going green has meant more green, a financial windfall.
Brown:  Each one of them receives somewhere between four and five thousand dollars a year per turbine, for a twenty year contract and naturally they spend that money here in Weatherford
Keith:  Jobs have been created with the investment in wind energy that produces enough electricty to power more than forty-four thousand homes.
Brown:  When they actually constructed the wind turbines there was about 150 people that came in to, you know, actually build those turbines.
Bill Shonley:  We didn’t pick them, they picked us.
Keith:  Weatherford’s economic development director Bill Shonley says wind is the way to go. 
Shonley:  They’re good paying jobs.  And they’re steady jobs.  And they’re needed jobs.
Brown:  There's been close to two million dollars that has come back to our community to be spent for the people who live here.  They tell us that if the wind's blowing at least seven or eight miles an hour that they're making electricity, so even though we're apologetic about the wind sometimes, the people in that business say that's the sound of money.
If you get underneath them, they're very awe inspiring.  They look large from the road, but when you get up underneath one of them, they're HUGE.
Keith:  And you don’t have to go far to find out about the two hundred sixty foot wind turbines.  There’s a display right next to city hall. 
Brown:  I think that when people get up here and take a look at the base of that blade and realize how big it is, you know a lot of them are in awe.
Keith:  A sense of pride for a place that has always been blessed with Oklahoma’s most abundant resource.