A four-day Green Country Alternative Fuel Expo is being planned for early October to run concurrently with the Muskogee State Fair.

“We don’t have to be trapped with petro-type fuels,” said state Sen. Earl Garrison, D-Muskogee, an organizer of the expo committee.

“It (high price of gasoline) is the No. 1 issue in America.”

The committee is trying to get T. Boone Pickens as a breakfast speaker to kick off the expo.

Muskogee Mayor John Tyler Hammons said he hopes to have the entire week declared Muskogee Green Week.

Garrison called various area consultants together Monday at the Muskogee Chamber of Commerce for a second planning meeting.

Included were educators, energy experts from the state, Oklahoma Natural Gas and Oklahoma Gas and Electric, as well as Hammons and Muskogee City Manager Greg Buckley.

Joe R. Gill, executive director of Oklahoma Schools Advisory Council, will coordinate the effort.

Organizers hope ehibits will include electric cars from the University of Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa and electric trucks manufactured in Poteau, as well as vehicles using compressed natural gas, which costs 91 cents per gallon.

Vendors will include those who retrofit autos for alternate fuels.

Speakers will include people who can give the public the costs of retrofitting, the miles per gallon for alternate fuel and all costs of operating vehicles using alternate fuel — how many “stations” will be available.

OG&E spokesman Al Stevens will be responsible for a wind power demonstration. A company at Catoosa is building wind turbines, a committee member said.

“You know — they’re the things trucks are hauling down the road that look like a rocket,” Garrison said.

Georgia-Pacific is already fueling its forklifts with compressed natural gas, said ONG Muskogee Area Manager Cheryl L. Whalen.