Hubbard Road reopens as a "Bored Old Man" and his retirement project ends

July 4, 1776 — The Declaration of Independence is adopted.

July 20, 1969 — Apollo 11 lands on the moon.

November 9, 1989 — The Berlin Wall falls, signaling the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

October 29, 2026 — Hubbard Road reopens in Kay County.

Again.

For real this time.

After seven long years, countless detours, thousands of extra miles driven and enough construction updates to fill a small novel, Hubbard Road has finally reopened to traffic.

In 2019, disastrous flooding brought the Chikaskia River to record-setting heights, devastating the beloved two-lane road connecting Blackwell and Ponca City. Hubbard was closed "until further notice," a phrase that, in hindsight, perhaps could have been a little more specific.

That notice, it seems, was seven years.

An entire generation of young drivers has grown up without Hubbard Road. Teenagers who were barely old enough to ride in the front seat when the road closed are now licensed drivers, some already out of high school, who have never known the convenience of taking the old shortcut into Ponca City.

For the rest of us, Hubbard Road is practically a member of the family.

Anyone with a driver's license — or without one — likely has fond memories of that old two-lane stretch of pavement. Maybe it was a trip to Ponca City with the grandparents, a drive to work, a shopping trip or simply the familiar scenery passing by the window on the way out of town.

For generations of Blackwell residents, Hubbard was more than a road. It was the road to Ponca City.

And for seven years, it was the road to nowhere.

While news outlets across Kay County reported periodically on the road's progress, one man took it upon himself to chronicle Hubbard's long, winding journey back to the land of the living.

He became something of a local folk hero in the process.

You may know him on Facebook as "Bored Old Man," although after speaking with him, it's difficult to imagine when he ever finds the time to be bored.

Choosing to remain anonymous under his online pseudonym — though he admits plenty of people have already figured out who he is — the 70-year-old Blackwell resident told the Journal-Tribune how an ordinary retirement hobby turned him into Kay County's unofficial Hubbard Road correspondent.

It all began in June 2021, when he retired.

"The first month or two was like I was on vacation, but then boredom set in," he said. "Even though I had a couple of hobbies, I still was bored. I'm not one to do nothing. I can't sit very long without needing to get up and go do something."

And so, Bored Old Man was born.

Originally, his Facebook page was intended as a place to share the odds and ends of retirement. Photography, hobbies, everyday adventures and whatever else happened to catch his interest.

He had no intention of becoming the unofficial public information officer for a road construction project.

"I had just started the page to post some of my boring doings, but found it a good platform for sharing information about Hubbard," he said.

His connection to the road, however, goes back considerably further than Facebook.

Having lived in southern Blackwell for all 70 years of his life, Bored Old Man remembers when Hubbard Road looked quite different from the highway generations of drivers came to know.

"When I started driving, Hubbard was only paved to what's S Street now," he recalled. "It was dirt east of there, but turned south on what was referred to as the Ponca/Blackwell shortcut."

He remembers riding in the back seat of his grandparents' car on trips to Ponca City, staring out the window and thinking the journey seemed to take forever.

Of course, when you're a child in the back seat, just about any trip longer than five minutes feels like an expedition across the American frontier.

As he grew older, Hubbard became a familiar part of his daily life. He estimates he has traveled the road thousands of times, including during his years working at the refinery in Ponca City.

"It cuts down the mileage and travel time between here and Ponca," he said.

That convenience was precisely what made the road's prolonged closure so frustrating for local commuters.

"Hubbard Road being closed was a huge inconvenience for lots of people who commute to the north side of Ponca for employment," he said. "You can only imagine the extra miles and the extra gas consumed by these people in the seven years since the closure."

As the years dragged on, residents began asking the same questions.

When would construction begin? What was happening with the bridge? Was there any progress? Would Hubbard ever reopen?

Bored Old Man decided to find out.

"I started seeing people asking questions about the situation and decided to start looking into the situation and keep folks informed," he explained.

He eventually established an email correspondence with a representative from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation who, he said, was always willing to answer his questions.

Once work began, he started making Sunday afternoon drives to the construction site, taking photographs and sharing updates on Facebook.

What began as a simple effort to keep neighbors informed quickly developed a following.

For residents eager to know whether their favorite shortcut was any closer to reopening, Bored Old Man became a familiar and welcome sight in their Facebook feeds.

His photographs offered a firsthand look at the project's progress, while his updates helped answer questions from people who had spent years wondering when they might finally be able to drive Hubbard again.

He wasn't a reporter. He wasn't a government employee. He wasn't getting paid.

He was simply a retired Blackwell man with a camera, a little curiosity and a road he wanted back.

And, apparently, a considerable amount of free time.

Photography, after all, was already one of his greatest passions.

He began shooting film decades ago before making the transition to digital photography. Eventually, however, he found himself growing dissatisfied with the convenience of modern cameras.

"I was getting burned out on digital photography," he explained. "It was too easy letting my latest DSLR make all the aperture and shutter decisions for me."

When he noticed film photography making a comeback, he dug out his old Canon AE-1 and returned to shooting the old-fashioned way.

But 35mm film wasn't quite enough.

He purchased a medium-format camera, then moved into large-format photography. His collection eventually grew to include 4-by-5 cameras, a 5-by-7 camera and two vintage 8-by-10 cameras.

For those unfamiliar with photography, these are not exactly the sorts of cameras you slip into your pocket before heading to Walmart.

And because large-format film and professional processing can be expensive, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Specifically, he took over half of his wife's laundry room and converted it into a darkroom for developing film and printing photographs.

Ironically, despite his impressive collection of vintage photographic equipment, most of the pictures that made him famous among Hubbard Road enthusiasts were taken with his cellphone or digital camera.

His more artistic work can be found on his Facebook photography page, Chasing Light Photography, and on Instagram under the username n5dkm56_photography.

But it was his documentation of one stubborn stretch of Kay County roadway that introduced him to so many of his neighbors.

Over time, those neighbors began reaching out to thank him.

"Yes, I have received many nice messages from people thanking me," he said.

For a man whose retirement began with the simple realization that he couldn't stand sitting still, the Hubbard Road project became an unexpected way to connect with his community.

And now, at long last, the job is finished.

Hubbard Road is open. The detours are over. Commuters can reclaim their shortcut, and young drivers who have spent their entire driving lives taking the long way to Ponca City can finally discover what their parents and grandparents have been talking about.

As for Bored Old Man, he isn't entirely sure what comes next.

"I don't know what's next, but will recognize it when it comes along," he said.

For now, he plans to devote more time to his beloved film photography, including experimenting with alternative printing processes such as salt prints and cyanotypes.

"I learn something new every day," he said. "Photography keeps me wanting to know more. Helps keep the old mind sharp."

After seven years, Hubbard Road's long journey back to service has finally come to an end. For the countless drivers who relied on it, the reopening means shorter commutes, less time at the gas pump and the return of a familiar piece of home.

For Bored Old Man, it means the conclusion of a project he never intended to start, but one that brought him into the lives of hundreds of fellow Kay County residents.

In a world where social media so often seems to bring out the worst in people, there's something wonderfully refreshing about a man who used it to keep his neighbors informed about a bridge.

No controversy. No grand ambitions. Just a retired fellow who saw that people had questions and decided to help answer them.

And while the road may finally be open, his updates will remain a small but memorable chapter in Hubbard's history.

As for the future, we're sure he'll find something to occupy his time.

After all, for a man who calls himself Bored Old Man, he seems remarkably bad at being bored.

And if Hubbard ever closes again, Kay County knows exactly who to call.