Voices of Oklahoma

Ray Bingham was an agent, producer, and manager for some of country music’s biggest stars. Music has made Ray’s world go around since he was nine and started listening to western swing bands at local ballrooms. Music was popular entertainment in Claremore, and where Patty Page, Tommy Alsup and Stone Horse started out. His life story is the history of country music from Oklahoma roots to far beyond...

When Peggy Josephine Varnadow was signed by Universal Pictures in 1949, the public relations staff whittled down her name to the barest essentials, and thus Peggy Dow was born. Born in Columbia, Mississippi, her family eventually settled in Louisiana where she attended Louisiana State and Northwestern University in Illinois. Local modeling and radio opportunities captured the attention of a talent...

Oklahoma native John L. Massey grew up in Boswell, Guthrie, and Durant and graduated from Southeastern State University (now Southeastern Oklahoma State University) in 1960. While a senior in college, he won his first race for the State House of Representatives, serving two terms in that body and two additional terms in the state Senate. Mr. Massey left the Senate in 1970 to devote full attention...

Centenarian Dr. Herb Lipe was born February 10th, 1924, in Claremore, Oklahoma, growing up during the Depression and Dust Bowl. His Father, Clark, and Mother, Virginia, owned a grocery store in Claremore and were proprietors of acreage near Oologah, where they had a pecan orchard. Herb joined the Navy in 1943 during World War II, serving in the Pacific Theatre. Shortly before completing his milita...

The legendary oilman W.G. Skelly was 50 years old when the book Oklahoma Leaders was published. The book was published in 1928 when Mr. Skelly had already made many noteworthy accomplishments. As you listen to the reading of the book, you will hear how W.G. Skelly was regarded in 1928.

Petty’s Fine Foods was a specialty food store in Tulsa, Oklahoma's Utica Square. It closed in February 2016 after more than 70 years of being a staple of Tulsa shoppers. The grocery store was established in 1945 by L.G. Rowan and Robert Petty. The business, which was then called Rowan & Petty, opened at the corner of East 21st Street and South Wheeling Avenue. The store quickly became known as...

In 2011, Harry Kaiser’s World War II medals were finally issued to him. An Army corporal during the war, Kaiser served with the 60th Infantry Regiment attached to the 9th Armored Division and saw combat during the Battle of the Bulge, including the defense of Bastogne, then across central Europe, and finally at the firefight over the Remagen Bridge. It was at Remagen in March 1945 when the force o...

Through strong friendships, hard work, and pure salesmanship, entrepreneur Denny Cresap grew a one-truck, one-employee beer distributorship in Bartlesville into one of Anheuser-Busch’s top 20 distributors in the United States. Premium Beers of Oklahoma became a large, multi-location company providing services to 27 counties in the state prior to its sale in 2012. With proceeds from the sale, Cresa...

N. Scott Momaday, an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, playwright, storyteller, artist and teacher, was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. He grew up in various communities in the Southwest. His parents, who were teachers, moved among reservation schools. He is enrolled in the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma but also has Cherokee heritage from his mother. Momaday’s novel House Made of Dawn led to a writing...

There is a distinguished Tulsa family that is associated with several downtown Tulsa real estate properties. The Mayo family was responsible for building the Mayo Building, the Petroleum Building, the Mayo Hotel, and the adjacent Mayo Motor Inn parking garage. Today, a fourth-generation Mayo family member, Peter Mayo, follows this heritage in restoring and improving Tulsa’s former Municipal Theatr...

Montie Box, known as “Mr. Sand Springs,” was a real estate developer, civic leader, and philanthropist. After graduation from Sand Springs High School, he joined the Navy Reserve and soon began attending Oklahoma A&M College, now Oklahoma State University. After service during the Korean War, he returned home to begin a 68-year career in real estate development, joining his father-in-law, Ray...

Charlie Soap has dedicated his entire career to strengthening many Cherokee communities in northeastern Oklahoma. Serving under three chiefs, he was community service group leader for the Cherokee Nation, overseeing a $100 million budget dedicated to many projects including public transit services, roads, bridges, and infrastructure. Following his career with the tribe, Mr. Soap worked with busine...

Mollie Blansett Williford is a native of Houston, Texas, where she attended Stephen F. Austin State College. Her marriage in 1957 to Galveston native Richard Williford, who was in the oil industry, meant the couple would move to various communities. When they moved to Tulsa, Mollie began volunteering. Her work at Key Elementary would be the beginning of a remarkable volunteer career dedicated to e...

As a public relations man, Steve Turnbo was a fixture in local Tulsa business and civics for more than five decades, helping clients and nonprofits tell their stories in the media, at community gatherings, and wherever decision-makers congregated. His behind-the-scenes work over the years helped build toll roads, construct stadiums and arenas, pass bond elections, and manage crises. He established...

In 1953, Troy Smith purchased an old root beer stand on the outskirts of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Within the next six years, he perfected a simple but memorable menu and added controlled parking, canopies, music, a carhop, and an innovative system for ordering food over an intercom speaker system. Most importantly, he formed the first of many partnerships that would define a formula for success—shared r...

Community volunteer Nancy McDonald’s service to Tulsa has touched the very soul of the state of Oklahoma. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Nancy began her career as a medical technologist. While her children were growing up in Tulsa, her interests turned to education and youth development. She was very active as a PTA volunteer and became a leader in the voluntary integration of Tulsa Pub...

Becky Dixon, president and owner of AyerPlay Productions, began her career in broadcasting at KTUL-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she was both a news and sports anchor. In just six years, she was hired by ABC Sports and became the first woman to host a network sports show when she joined Frank Gifford as co-host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Dixon served as a broadcaster for the Super Bowl, Winter...

Carlton D'metrius Pearson, born on March 19, 1953, is an American minister and gospel music artist. He gained recognition as the pastor of the Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center Incorporated, later known as the Higher Dimensions Family Church, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His church flourished during the 1990s, attracting an average attendance of over 6,000. However, his theological beliefs in u...

Sherman Ray survived WWII Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, by sewing German uniforms. He was targeted by the Germans not once, but twice to be transported to the infamous Auschwitz. The first time, as a young man, was with his family. Sherman had heard rumors of the camps and wanted his family to jump from the train with him to escape, but they refused, so he jumped alone. That was the last time he saw...

King Kirchner was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Tulsa-based Unit Corporation from 1963-2001. Following retirement, he continued to serve as a director of Unit Corporation, the fourth largest onshore drilling contractor in the United States. Kirchner grew up in Perry and graduated from Perry High School in 1945. At age sixteen, he began working as a roughneck in the oilfields...

During its halcyon days dominating the Northeastern Oklahoma radio market, KAKC-AM gave the world several memorable disk-jockeys—it was the era of personality DJs and Top 40 radio: Happy Harry Wilson. Roger Rocka. Dick Schmitz. But the most memorable of all to Tulsa-area teens was: George Basil Seagraves III. With a name like that (and coming from a family of lawyers), he was destined to become on...

The grandfather of Jenkin “Jenk” Lloyd Jones Jr., Richard Lloyd Jones, bought the Tulsa Democrat from Charles Page (the founder of Sand Springs, OK) and turned it into the Tulsa Tribune. The Tribune was an afternoon newspaper and was consistently a republican paper; it never endorsed a democrat for U.S. president and did not endorse a democrat for governor until 1958. Richard’s son, Jenkin Lloyd J...

Killers of the Flower Moon is the story of serial murders of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation which took place mainly in Fairfax, Oklahoma. Joe Conner, an Osage, lost a family member to the greed. An aunt, Sybil Bolton, was murdered in Pawhuska in 1925. Joe and his wife Carol are founding members of the Fairfax Community Foundation which owns the Tall Chief Theater and manages its fundraisi...

David Bernstein was the Executive Director of the Tulsa Mental Health Association from 1969-1973 and was instrumental in developing the first 24-hour telephone suicide prevention hotline in the Southwest, which evolved into today’s 211 Helpline. He was then Executive Director of the Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa from 1973-1985. While there, he worked on much-needed services for the gr...

Killers of the Flower Moon, written by David Grann, is the story of a series of murders in the early 1920s in the Osage Nation, located in northern Oklahoma. Voices of Oklahoma interviewed David to give you a background of this story before seeing the film of the same name. David talks about a “missing panel,” a corrupt system which ignored the crimes, and a funeral director who would cover up bul...