Voices of Oklahoma

Musical talent runs through the family of Jan Jae. Her parents studied at the famed Juilliard School of Music in New York, and Jana was introduced to the classical study of the violin, on an eighth-size instrument, at the age of two. Then, thanks to the direction and inspiration of her grandfather–an accomplished champion fiddler in his own right–Jana also learned to love playing by ear. She honed...

Longtime lawyer and nature preservationist Sam P. Daniel died July 14, 2019. While living in Oklahoma City during his grade school days, Sam P. Daniel was a neighbor of Federal Judge Alfred P. Murrah. Sam’s parents traveled frequently, so he spent many nights at the Murrah home. Sam loved the judge like a father and decided at an early age to follow in his footsteps. It was the Alfred P Murrah fed...

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landing on the moon, Oklahomans should know that a young man who was born in Okemah, Oklahoma and grew up in Sand Springs was on the support crew for Apollo 11. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists and developed procedures for emergency situations for the prime and backup crews. The support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly, Ronald Evans...

In 1935, the American Justice system was on trial as much as Phil Kennamer, who was the son of a prominent federal judge in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Despite having a high-powered former state attorney general leading his defense, and prominent psychiatrists testifying that he was insane at the time of the murder, Phil Kennamer was convicted of manslaughter in the killing of his friend, John Gorrell Jr., s...

The Oklahoma plan for Group Hospital Services of Oklahoma opened its doors in the Tulsa Loan building at 4th and Main, March 15, 1940. The plan would soon adopt the Blue Cross name and logo. The interest in pre-paid hospital care had actually started in 1929 with a group of 1,500 school teachers in Dallas who contracted with Baylor Medical Center. These plans evolved as a result of the Great Depre...

Judge Joe Morris was formerly Vice President and General Counsel of Shell Oil Company, General Counsel of Amerada Petroleum Corporation and Dean of the College of Law at the University of Tulsa where he taught arbitration law for more than twenty years as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a former United States District Court Chief Judge for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. Joe Morris has been w...

Jim Hewgley Jr. was an independent oilman who served two terms as Tulsa’s mayor from 1966 to 1970. In his first mayoral-election victory, he defeated incumbent Mayor Jim Maxwell, who was seeking a fifth consecutive term. And Jim defeated Maxwell again in 1968. Hewgley had been a registered Democrat until 1956, when he became a Republican and was the first Tulsa Republican mayor to be reelected. He...

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 is considered to be the worst race riot in U.S. history. The actual number of black citizens killed by local, white, militia men and others as a result of the riot was estimated by the Red Cross to be approximately 300. The circumstances leading up to the riot are in question. But late in the afternoon of May 30, 1921, a black teenager, Dick Rowland, used the elevat...

Bob and Diane Borlase’s service to our nation and to our state came in the form of the US Navy, the US Coast Guard, and the Oklahoma County sheriff’s office. Bob enlisted in the Navy in 1952 during the Korean War. He was chief radioman using international Morse code as his ship patrolled the coast of Korea. In 1953 Bob and Diane had a one-week honeymoon before he was sent to the island of Kwajalei...

Tom Coburn is a physician, a former congressman and senator from Oklahoma, and is a member of the Republican Party. Coburn was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the Republican Revolution. He upheld his campaign pledge to serve no more than three consecutive terms and did not run for re-election in 2000. In 2004, he returned to political life with a successful run for...

The Reverend Dr. Mouzon Biggs, Jr. came to Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in 1980 from Beaumont, Texas, where for seven years he was pastor of the Trinity United Methodist Church. He served Boston Ave. Methodist Church for thirty-three years, retiring in 2013 after fifty-four years in ministry. A native of the Carthage, Texas oilfields, Rev. Biggs earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Cente...

In 1958, Clara Luper and her students from the Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council were invited to New York City to perform the play she wrote, Brother President, about Martin Luther King Jr. It was that trip that became the catalyst for the beginning of the sit-in movement in Oklahoma City and the country. One of Clara’s students was her daughter Marilyn Luper Hildreth. It was seven-year-old Marily...

After the death of basketball coach Ken Trickey in 2012, the Tulsa World called him “one of the most influential and colorful characters in this state’s basketball history”. He played basketball at Middle Tennessee State College, where he was an Ohio Valley All-Conference player for three years. He is still one of the top ten scorers for Middle Tennessee and was elected to the university’s Sports...

Carson Attractions in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the foremost ticket facility for events at the Maxwell Convention Center (now Cox Business Center) for over forty years. The story begins with the manager of famed Irish opera singer John Francis McCormack, who is given credit for the beginning of Carson Attractions in 1916. John McCormack was going out on tour for the first time in the United States and...

The original star maker, legendary music impresario Dr. Jim Halsey has set the standard in the music industry for over 60 years. In his honored career, he has guided; and in many cases discovered – world famous household names such as The Oak Ridge Boys, Roy Clark, Hank Thompson, and Reba McEntire, to name but a few. He founded The Jim Halsey Music Business Institute with educational programs at u...

The son of Lebanese immigrants, Michael Samara was born in 1924 in Oklahoma City. He started working in restaurants for his brother, Jake, at the age of twelve. He managed the Jamboree Supper Club in Oklahoma City and moved to Joplin, Missouri, to open and manage Mickey Mantle’s Holiday Inn for six years. Mike opened the Celebrity Club in Tulsa at a location which was then “way out east” at 31st a...

Born Günter Renberg on November 30, 1920 to Anna and Herman Renberg in Delmenhorst, a city in Northwest Germany, he immigrated to the United States in June 1937, leaving behind his parents and brother, because Jewish males were unsafe under the Nazi regime. Invited by his father’s sister, Ina Herzberg and her husband, Abraham and son, Leroy, he came to Enid, where he finished high school in 1939....

Born in McAlester, Oklahoma, Robert (Bob) Lawton Jones received one of the more elaborate educations in modernist design. It started when he decided to head out to Chicago, reasoning that an aspiring architect should make his way to the “most exciting city in architecture.” In 1949, he studied at the University of Notre Dame in nearby South Bend, Indiana, while working for Chicago firms such as Pe...

“What is it like to live in a tent?” asked Robert F. Kennedy’s five-year-old daughter, Kerry, when she met Ladonna Harris for the first time in 1965. This exchange between Harris and the Kennedy family resembled many of LaDonna’s experiences with the media, the public, and government leaders as she rose to national prominence as a leading advocate of Native American rights. LaDonna Harris is a Com...

Governor Bill Anoatubby’s childhood was spent in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, where he graduated from Tishomingo High School in 1964. He attended Murray State College and graduated from East Central State College before serving in the Oklahoma National Guard. He began working for the Chickasaw Nation as director of tribal health services becoming lieutenant governor in 1979 and governor in 1987. Governor...

David L. Boren has served Oklahoma as governor and U.S. Senator and became the thirteenth president of the University of Oklahoma. He is the first person in state history to have served in all three positions. To begin his political career Boren served four terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. His campaign for governor became known for the “Boren Broom Brigade” to demonstrate his pledge...

Granville Oral Roberts was an American Pentecostal televangelist. He was the founder of Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University. His ministries reached millions of followers worldwide for more than six decades. Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the fifth and youngest of Rev. Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudia Priscilla Irwin. Roberts began a life in poverty and...

L. Francis Rooney III is the fourth generation of his family to own Manhattan Construction Company. Manhattan was founded by Laurence H. Rooney in Chandler, Oklahoma Territory, in 1896. As the first company to incorporate in 1907 in the new state of Oklahoma, Manhattan played an important role in building the Southwest. Manhattan Construction, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has built Cowboy Sta...

Johnny Lee Bench was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on December 7, 1947 and grew up in the small town of Binger, Oklahoma. His childhood dream was to become a major league baseball player and, under the guidance of his father, decided that the position of catcher was the most direct route to the majors. Taking that advice, he was selected and signed in the 1965 amateur draft by the Cincinnati Red...

Lynn Schusterman was born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in Oklahoma City. She first learned about philanthropy from her father. As she listened and watched him she was impressed with the importance of helping others help themselves. Lynn is the widow of Charles Schusterman, founder of Samson Investment Company, a Tulsa gas exploration and production company. Charles died in 2000, at the age...