Voices of Oklahoma

Fred Harris grew up in the small town of Walters, Oklahoma, where he was born in a two-room house. He was first elected to the Oklahoma State Senate where he was one of its youngest members. He made an unsuccessful race for governor of Oklahoma in 1962. In 1964, he entered the race to serve out the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr who had died while in office. He was 33 years old when...

Roy Bliss grew up in Worland, Wyoming where his father was in the Culligan Soft Water business. A neighbor, Tom Mitchell, read about cable television in a magazine. Roy’s father owned an airplane and Tom asked if Roy’s father would “fly around to see if they could find a TV signal, line-of-sight”, which they found coming from Billings, Montana. And that was the beginning of the cable TV business f...

Oklahoma native John A. Brock was raised in Oklahoma City and graduated from Classen High School in 1948. In 1953 he graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.S. in Geological Engineering. He served in the U.S. Army Artillery in Korea from 1953 to 1955 when he began his career in the oil business with Shell Oil Company. John returned to Oklahoma in 1968 to become executive vice president...

Three days after Pat Woodrum’s graduation from OU, she began working at the Tulsa City-County Library system as a branch librarian. Woodrum served in nearly every position until she became the executive director of the Tulsa City-County Library System in 1976, where she served for 32 years. Pat helped establish Tulsa’s Day Center for the Homeless as an alternative to the usage of public libraries...

Warren Gene Morris was a World War II veteran working up the ranks becoming Captain in the Army Air Force flying B-29s. By the age of 21 had flown thirty-four combat missions in the South Pacific. Often, he would fly for 15 hours or more — seven or eight hours to the target and then back to the base. He contracted polio while on duty, crippling him for several years. But through physical therapy h...

Joseph Henry Carter has reported for United Press International in Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Dallas, for Sapulpa and Honolulu newspapers, and for the Oklahoma Journal. He was an aide to congressmen and to Presidents Johnson and Carter, and was director of communications for the Democratic party. Carter also was press secretary to Gov. David Hall. After leaving his post as vice president for...

Francis W. “Steve” Stephenson was the founder of Steve’s Sundry Books and Magazines in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which he opened in November of 1947 at 12th and Harvard. Steve shared part of a building with Ernest Moody of Moody’s Jewelry. He met his wife Hazel while earning a marketing degree from Oklahoma A&M now known as Oklahoma State University. After graduation he went to work for a variety store...

The Bumgarner family has deep roots in Tulsa that began in 1903 when John’s grandfather, A.A.Bumgarner, came to Tulsa and established a grocery store at 15 East 2nd Street. A.A. was successful in business and established a family tradition of community service through his work as a board member for Tulsa Public Schools. The cornerstone of the old Central High School building at 6th & Cincinnat...

Jeanne Eason Phillips was born August 26, 1924, in Etna, Oklahoma, but spent her early childhood years in Slick, Oklahoma, growing up with her seven brothers. While Jeanne was still quite young, her parents moved the family near Sapulpa where they enjoyed the conveniences of electricity and modern plumbing. Eventually they settled in a segregated Tulsa where Jeanne attended Carver Elementary and g...

Jim Stovall is an American writer best known for his bestselling novel The Ultimate Gift. The book was made into the movie The Ultimate Gift, distributed by 20th Century Fox. Stovall is blind and is an advocate for people with blindness. He works to make television and movies accessible to the blind as President of the Narrative Television Network, an organization that has received various award r...

Charles Francis Colcord was a notable figure of the Old West—a cattle rancher, U.S. Marshal, chief of police, businessman, and pioneer. The community of Colcord, Oklahoma, bears his name. He was also the grandfather of Tulsa philanthropist Walt Helmrich. During the Oklahoma boom of the 1890s, Colcord served as Oklahoma City's first sheriff and as Chief of Police for two years. Later, he spent five...

Jim Tygart was a World War II veteran who drove a jeep during the D-Day invasion and other campaigns before being wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. The D-Day invasion launched on June 6, 1944. On the next day, Tygart went ashore at Omaha Beach, Normandy. It was in Belgium, after the start of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, that he was wounded.  The explosion, which destroyed his jeep,...

As an industrious young man, Joe McGraw worked at Kewanee Oil Company during the day and attended the TU College of Law at night to earn his degree. He added duties as the TU Law librarian after his night classes for his last two years of law school, demonstrating the determination and strong work ethic that would lead to his tremendous career achievements in Tulsa’s real estate sector. McGraw gra...

Bart Conner is the most accomplished male gymnast America has ever produced. He is the only American gymnast to win gold medals at every level of national and international competition. Bart was a member of the gold medal-winning men’s gymnastics team at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games and won an individual gold on the parallel bars. He was also part of the 1976 and 1980 USA Olympic gymnastics teams...

U.S. Representative and Senator from Oklahoma from 1987, James Mountain Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 17, 1934. He grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he attended public schools and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa. He served in the U.S. Army and worked in aviation, real estate, and insurance for three decades. He was president of Quaker Life Insurance Com...

It was at the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore that Alex Adwan got his start in journalism. He was the editor of OMA’s Guidon newspaper and the Vedette yearbook in the mid-40s. Alex attended both high school and junior college at OMA. He graduated from junior college in 1948 and continued his journalism studies at the University of Oklahoma. After graduating from OU in 1950, he served as a t...

Born near Chelsea, Oklahoma, Gerome Riley attended a rural all-black school through the Eighth grade. And because of segregation he had to choose between going to Claremore, Nowata, or Vinita for high school. He selected Claremore Lincoln and became a member of Claremore’s only boys’ basketball state championship team in 1952. Gerome was a member of the Claremore Clowns, a local baseball team of a...

Growing up in an artistic household, Patrick S. Gordon took his first painting lessons from his mother, Janelle Gordon, a locally recognized still life painter. He began his formal studies under the tutelage of the widely regarded watercolorist Glenn Godsey, at the University of Tulsa. Patrick received his BFA from the University of Tulsa in 1974, where he also completed extensive graduate work in...

Dr. Don G. Nelson specialized in Internal Medicine and pulmonology for 60 years. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1965. Don became affiliated in Oklahoma with multiple hospitals including Hillcrest Hospital South, St. Francis Hospital, and the Veteran Affairs Hospital in Muskogee. He was born in Moline, Illinois, where he graduated Moline High School and then the...

In celebration of Voices of Oklahoma's 15th anniversary, founder John Erling shares this oral history example: a recording of his father, John Arnt Frette telling the story about how his father emigrated from Norway and built (and re-built) their family home. Though John Erling regrets not recording his mother's voice, it's thanks to this recording that he remembers his father's voice and this bri...

James Gray East grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma and, while attending Oklahoma State University started, an underground newspaper which led to employment with the Daily Oklahoman. Realizing he was interested in crime reporting, he moved to Binghamton, New York to report on the Mafia for a Gannett-owned newspaper.   Moving back to Oklahoma, Jim worked for his hometown newspaper, The Muskogee Phoenix,...

Richard Chapman was the head track coach and history teacher at the year-old Memorial High School in 1963. In 1965, “Coach.” as he became known, was hired as head football coach at Edison High School, where, in his second season, he led his team to win the District Championship title.  Coach was named Tulsa Tribune Coach of the Year in 1966. He coached and taught at Edison for seven years before r...

The tenth of fifteen children, Leona Mitchell began her musical journey by singing in her father's church choir. She received a scholarship from Oklahoma City University in 1971, earning a bachelor's degree in music. Leona debuted with the San Francisco Spring Opera Theater in 1972, and on December 15th, 1975, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Micaela in Bizet's Carmen, the same role she ha...

Tulsa civic leader and oilman Robert LaFortune was born at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, January 24, 1927. In 1920, his father Joseph Aloysius LaFortune and his mother Gertrude Leona Tremel LaFortune, had moved to Tulsa from South Bend, Indiana. Joseph LaFortune worked for Warren Petroleum Company for approximately 30 years, retiring as executive vice president. Before and after retirement, he...

Cyrus Stevens Avery was a businessperson, oilman, and highway commissioner. He created the U.S. Route 66 while being a member of the federal board appointed to create the Federal Highway System, then pushed for the establishment of the U.S. Highway 66 Association to pave and promote the highway. As such, he is known as the "Father of Route 66". And by the way, Cyrus chose the numbers 66 for the fa...