Voices of Oklahoma

In episode 3 of the Ken Burns documentary “Country Music,” a picture was used featuring the stage of the Grand Ole Opry from 1949 which included Ramona Reed. Ramona was working for WSM Radio as Martha White representing the Martha White Flour Company. Hank Williams is seen in the background. Ramona went on to work for WSM during the summer of 1949, performing on a morning radio show each weekday a...

While Billy Parker was a mainstay on country radio, his claim to fame was as an influential disc jockey, not as a performer. Ironically, for all of the Top 40 hits he spun over the course of his decades on the air, not one of them was his own. Born July 19, 1939, in Tuskegee, OK, he began playing guitar as a child and by the age of 14 had made his professional debut on the Tulsa radio program Big...

“Seeking to Restore Thorpe’s Gold Medals, More Than 100 Years Later.” That headline caught my attention because of course Jim Thorpe is a Native American from the Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma. He was known as the greatest athlete from the first 50 years of the 20th century. I interviewed Jim Thorpe’s son, Bill Thorpe, August 3rd, 2015 at the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame museum in Oklahoma City....

Then he stepped off the path. In his oral history, John F. Hausam talks about his military service in the Korean conflict and how he unwittingly avoided death by stepping off a path. His platoon leader stayed on the path and lost his life because he stepped on a land mine. John was allowed to live 89 years, dying September 15, 2020. He studied and worked as a draftsman but later received his real...

The Sherwin Miller Holocaust Museum has expanded its holocaust exhibit. The museum has been home to a holocaust exhibit for 14 years and while effective in telling the story, the addition makes the overall exhibit even more impactful. This podcast features an interivew with Mickel Yantz, Director of Collections and Exhibits, and you will hear powerful testimony from Holocaust survivors Eva Unterma...

It has been announced that Tulsan Joy Harjo will continue as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States for a third year, becoming only the second laureate to serve more than two years. Joy was born in Tulsa and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Growing up she was surrounded by artists and musicians: her mother wrote songs, her grandmother played the saxophone, and her aunt was...

And one more thing! From the oral history website Voices of Oklahoma, we have one more true crime story. In this episode the victim tells the story. Walt Helmerich was kidnapped June 3rd, 1974 on his way to work in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was told to “Do what I say or I am going to kill you”. He was blindfolded, bound and kept on the floorboard of a car that zipped from one phone booth to another as h...

“Come trade with me.” Those are the words that brought the Drummond family to Oklahoma and Osage County. Frederick Drummond (1864–1913) came to the former Osage Nation, Indian Territory, at age twenty-two in 1886. The Drummond name runs thick in the vast ranch lands of Osage County. The branches of the family tree–cousins, brothers, uncles–are extensive and storied. No one understands the family l...

Dave Whitlock is a world-renowned fly fisherman and contributor of many articles, photos, and illustrations to the world’s top outdoor sports magazines. His first published piece was in Field & Stream in 1968. Dave resigned his position as a research chemist and pooled his talents in painting, illustrating, writing, photography, fly fishing, fly tying and lecturing to embark on a new career as a f...

The largest reaction to our podcasts came with the last episode: True Crime. Several wrote about encountering Whitey Bulger but also many wrote about bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd and family stories of Floyd encounters. He did grow up Oklahoma and robbed banks in our state. So we continue with more True Crime for this 10th episode - stories taken from our oral history website VoicesofOklahoma.com W...

Dr. James B. Buskirk was Senior Minister at First United Methodist Church in Tulsa, for twelve years beginning September 1984. Prior to his First Methodist ministry he was the founding dean of the School of Theology at Oral Roberts University. Dr. Buskirk is the originator of two local church programs in creative ministry called “Motivation for Ministry” and “Affirmation Evangelism.” Dr. Buskirk h...

Name change!  We have changed the name of our podcast because it is easier to remember!  Just that simple!  Oklahoma Voices! Do you remember the TV show Columbo, starring Peter Falk?  He was famous for saying “Oh, just one more thing.” I was watching it recently as he was solving another murder case. True crime holds a fascination for us. True crime books are big sellers and true crime TV shows ar...

Both of R. Dobie Langenkamp’s, grandfathers were Oklahoma pioneers in the 1920s in oil development. The younger Langenkamp worked as an oilfield roustabout, a pump station operator, and a refinery laborer while he was attending school. After Stanford and Harvard Law School he practiced oil and gas law in Oklahoma and twice was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oil and Gas for the Department...

Voices of Oklahoma recalls the story of two graduates of Oklahoma State University, Stan Clark and Steve File, and their dream of opening a bar in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The bar opened July 21, 1975 and took on the name Eskimo Joe’s which came from their desire to have the coldest beer in town. Originally, Eskimo Joe’s was only a bar, but when the drinking age was raised from eighteen to twenty-one...

Allan Trimble won more state high school football championships in 22 seasons at Jenks than any head coach in Oklahoma history.  But his first state title as a head coach was with the Jenks girls track team in 1995. Tremble had a 242-41 overall record and his Jenks teams made 17 state finals appearances. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and was No. 15 on MaxPreps’ 50 Greatest...

COVID 19 is the impetus for this episode of Stories behind the Voices. The current news story is about sending our students back to school this fall.  Teachers and administrators are grappling with the issue of class sizes, social distancing, and the wearing of masks.  As I have been reading about this issue I started thinking about the teachers who were so influential in the lives of some of our...

Russell Myers is best known for his newspaper comic strip “Broom-Hilda”. He was born in Pittsburgh, Kansas but the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma when he was 7. He was sketching and drawing while attending Lanier Elementary, Wilson Middle School, and Rogers High School. Russell attended the University of Tulsa, where his father was a faculty member.   Broom-Hilda was first published on April 19,...

If you want to know the story of the Wayne Creasy Insurance Agency, you must listen to Wayne tell you about selling vacuum sweepers. While waiting to go back to school for his PHD, he answered an ad for a sweeper salesman and went to Kansas City, Missouri to be trained. He eventually made a sale in the home of an insurance agent who thought Wayne would be perfect for the insurance business, which...

Vice President Joe Biden will soon select a woman as his running mate. Today, America is accepting of females in leadership positions at all levels of government and many businesses. But of course, it hasn’t always been that way. All across America women faced the so-called glass ceiling. As they did in Oklahoma. Wilma Mankiller, Norma Eagleton and Stephanie Seymour are three examples of overcomin...

World War II veteran Paul J. Andert enlisted in the U.S.Army in 1940 at the age of 17. Paul served as an infantry platoon sergeant in the 41st Armored Infantry, Company “B” during most of his five-year Army career. Mr. Andert served in Africa, Sicily and Europe while participating in seven major campaigns, plus making two major landing invasions. Oklahoman Paul Andert has vivid memories of General...

Sometimes it is difficult to believe that large businesses started with a simple idea and a whole lot of hard work. On a national basis, two teachers and a writer got together to start up a Seattle coffee bean seller with their own money in 1971, which became known as Starbucks. Nike started out of founder Phil Knight’s green Plymouth Valiant trunk. In our sixth episode we feature three Oklahoma c...

Clayton Vaughn was born in Kansas and raised in Cushing, Oklahoma where he began his broadcast career. He moved to Tulsa and KAKC radio in 1958 and joined KOTV in 1964. In 1969, he moved to Los Angeles to work for KABC but returned to KOTV in 1971, where he served as news director. In 1979, he went to work for WNET-TV in New York City and the New Jersey Public Television System. He returned to KOT...

With 36 years of Division 1 coaching experience, Coach Eddie Sutton became the first coach to take four schools to The NCAA tournament. He is one of only eight major college men’s basketball coaches to have more than 800 (804) career wins. Coach Sutton played basketball at Oklahoma State University under the legendary coach Henry Iba. In 1959 he became head coach at Tulsa Central High School. His...

Rabbi Charles P. Sherman retired in 2013 after serving Temple Israel for nearly 40 years. Temple Israel is Tulsa’s only Reform Jewish congregation. Reform Judaism is the nation’s largest branch of Judaism, with about 1.5 million members in some 900-plus congregations in North America. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Rabbi Charles P. Sherman was educated at the University of Pittsburgh and th...

Thomas Edison is known as America’s greatest inventor and was responsible for 1,093 patents. His friend Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and chief developer of the assembly line for mass production. There is a museum dedicated to these two icons which includes their winter estates in Ft. Myers, Florida. When touring their properties, I thought about inventors from Oklahoma. Thi...