Voices of Oklahoma

Owen Thomas was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he lived most of his 96 years. His grandfather was a dairy farmer, and eventually, 14-year-old Owen and his brother took over the farm, which became the Thomas Brothers Dairy Farm. He graduated from Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State University) in 1952. Owen left Stillwater for the Korean War, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, beco...

Glen D. Johnson, Jr. was the 8th Chancellor of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education, which includes 25 universities and state colleges. Johnson assumed the position in January 2007 after having previously served as the president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University for ten years. Glen was born in Oklahoma City and is the son of former U.S. Congressman Glen D. Johnson, Sr. He obtained...

Rev. Richard V. Ziglar was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended Atlantic Christian College in Wilson, North Carolina, and Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where he and Peggy were married in 1958. Peggy also graduated from Brite Divinity School. After serving the Christian Church in various roles, they moved to Tulsa in 1975, where Richard serv...

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Betty Boyd became known as the “Queen of Tulsa TV” after a career in broadcasting that lasted over twenty-five years. This self-described “wall flower” blossomed as a mother, a volunteer spokesperson for the March of Dimes, a respected broadcaster, a member of the board of education and an Oklahoma state legislator. When both her husband, Bill Boyd Jr., and her daughter, B...

Vietnam-era U.S. Marine Corps veteran Rusty Fleming was born and raised in Oklahoma City. Following high school graduation, he attended Cameron Junior College on a basketball scholarship but returned shortly to Oklahoma City and started a career with the Bell System in 1964. The draft came calling in January of 1966, and he joined the Marines for two years, deployed to Vietnam in March 1967, and s...

From Troy to Tulsa is the story of Jan Stevens, owner of The Snow Goose, a gift shop in Tulsa’s Utica Square. Jan grew up in Troy, New York, and after attending high school and college, did Master’s work in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was there she began to work in a retail store which sold contemporary gifts, jewelry, dinnerware, and fabrics. Two professors from Tuls...

Fred Dorwart was the United States National High School Extemporaneous Speaking Champion in 1954, the year he graduated from Muskogee Central High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1959 and served in the Navy until 1965. Fred was awarded an LLB cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1966. From 1967 until 1994, he served as p...

Rick Hudson was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His family moved to Chamblee, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, in 1948. After graduating from Georgia Tech, Rick accepted a job with Parker Seal Company as an engineer working on sealing applications in the military, aerospace, and commercial aviation industries. In 1969, Rick moved to Tulsa to take on the role of Territory Sales Manager. In 1980, he s...

Rodger Erker, a native of St. Louis, earned his Real Estate Broker’s License in the state of Missouri. After moving to Tulsa in 1966, he became a Sales Associate with Detrick Realtors. In 1975, Rodger became a partner with Joe McGraw and Harold Grimmer in the firm of McGraw Breckinridge Realtors. Rodger Erker Realtors was formed in 1984 with the main office in Tulsa’s Midtown Brookside area, for o...

Jim Langdon comes from an Oklahoma newspaper family. His parents, Francis and Gloria Langdon, published The Tonkawa News. After graduating from OU in 1974, Jim sold advertising for the Norman Transcript.  He was associate publisher for The Tonkawa News from 1977 to 1981, taught advertising at OU from 1981 to 1982, managed OPA’s Oklahoma Newspaper Advertising Bureau from 1982 to 1984, and was presi...

Gordona Moore Duca received her real estate license in 1971 and was recognized, both locally and nationally, as one of the outstanding REALTORS®in residential real estate. She opened her own real estate firm in 1975 and was named REALTOR® Emeritus in 2011 by the National Association of REALTORS®. During her extraordinarily successful career, Gordona received many recognitions and honors. She was a...

A Massachusetts native, Dan Boudreau served 25 years on the state’s judiciary before retiring in 2004 to focus on mediation and arbitration. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law, after which he practiced as a private attorney prior to judicial appointments. His judicial career began in 1979 as a trial judge; he progressed to...

Toni Garner is the daughter of a Cherokee educator and a first-generation Lebanese homemaker. Having grown up with flower shops on both sides of the family, she learned the ins and outs of the trade from her grandmother and her aunt. Toni graduated from Northeastern State University and opened Toni’s Flowers & Gifts in Tulsa in 1983 when she was 26 years old. Toni was one of a hundred floral d...

Vietnam veteran, Rick Ogden, was born and raised in Pryor, Oklahoma. Rick worked in the family business, Chouteau Lime Company, which was started by Rick’s grandfather when he discovered limestone leading to a quarry in Chouteau. Coming from a military family, Rick joined the Army in 1966 during the Vietnam War. As a U.S. Army paratrooper, his first mission was to stop the Detroit Riot in 1967, wh...

Bob Blackburn, a native Oklahoman, served as executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society from 1999 until 2021. He joined the OHS in 1980 as editor of The Chronicles of Oklahoma and became deputy director for agency operations in 1990. Blackburn is a 1973 graduate of Southwestern Oklahoma State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. He earned his M.A. & Ph....

Joe Robson grew up on a cattle ranch east of Tulsa. After graduating from SMU, Joe came home to start his real estate career. In 1986, he formed the Robson Companies and began to develop part of the family ranch into the master-planned community of Forest Ridge. Joe promoted infrastructure improvements in the Tulsa metro area—roads, water, and sewer. He helped in the efforts to widen the Broken Ar...

Donna and Roger Hardesty grew up in the western Oklahoma town of Fort Cobb. They each knew the meaning of hard work when they met at age 15. Donna comes from a large family, many holding teaching degrees.  After graduating from the University of Tulsa, she taught for a year at Sperry High School. She then joined Roger, becoming a real estate agent, as his construction company became the largest si...

Monsignor Greg Gier was 17 years old and enjoying his high school days when the thought came to him, “There must be more to life than this, there must be, and that’s when I decided to see if, in fact, I was being called to be a priest.”  Monsignor Gier was ordained on May 27th, 1967, and was the pastor at Christ the King Church in Tulsa for 13 years. He also served churches in Oklahoma City, Bartl...

Doug Dodd, a life-long Tulsan, was a television news reporter and documentary producer for KOTV and KTUL-TV before graduating from law school, and is one of a very few Tulsa attorneys who regularly represents national and local magazines, newspapers, and television stations, and media companies with an emphasis on First Amendment and defamation issues. Doug served on the Tulsa Public Schools Board...

2025 marks the 85th Anniversary of This Land Is Your Land.  In this special edition of Voices of Oklahoma, we share the story of what motivated Woody Guthrie to write the song. Woody Guthrie's daughter, Nora, reveals Woody's views on "God Bless America" and offers insight into his mindset when writing "This Land is Your Land."

After graduating from Antlers High School, Charles Stephenson attended the University of Oklahoma and earned a degree in petroleum engineering. Following service in the U.S. Army, where he became an officer, he joined Amerada Petroleum Corporation. Between 1973 and 1982, Stephenson was part-owner and president of privately-held Andover Oil Company. After the sale of Andover, he co-founded Vintage...

Voices of Oklahoma interviewed Nancy and Ted Kachel because their careers significantly impacted Tulsa. They were asked to write an introduction to their story. It is being read as written. We are Ted and Nancy, two lives entwined by shared ambition and curiosity. Our paths first crossed at Iowa University, where we married in 1961 and set out together on a journey that took us from New York to Sa...

MidAmerica Industrial Park, which is Oklahoma's largest industrial park, the third largest industrial park in the United States, and the eighth largest industrial park in the world, is located in Pryor, Oklahoma.   In this episode of Voices of Oklahoma, as we share the story of the park, we want you to know the man responsible for its very existence: Gene R. Redden. A bronze plaque outside the ent...

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Jay Hannah served as the Nation's Secretary-Treasurer and as Chairman of the Nation’s 1999 Constitution convention. As Board Chairman of Cherokee Nation Business, Jay directed the Nation’s holding company for all enterprise operations. He Co-Chaired the Nation’s Private Industry Council with Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller. A community banker for over 40 years in...

Donna Shirley grew up in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. Her interest in Mars and space exploration began when she read The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke.  She took flying lessons at age 15 and soloed at the Pauls Valley Airport the next year, earning a pilot’s license at 16. She enrolled in the University of Oklahoma as an engineering student, even though her advisor told her that “Girls can’t be engine...