Voices of Oklahoma

Dr. John Burton Wolf was the senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, OK, for thirty-five years, becoming the Minister Emeritus in 1995. He served churches in Racine, WI, and Meadville, PA, before coming to Tulsa in 1960.

Dr. Wolf was a navy veteran of WWII, serving as a signalman in the Armed Guard and in the Pacific and was commissioned into the navy Chaplaincy Reserves during the Korean War.

His sermons at All Souls included civil rights, reforming the funeral home industry, and the importance of public education.

In the community Dr. Wolf...

It was during J. Blake Wade’s military service which included the Vietnam war that he demonstrated his gift of leadership. When he returned to Oklahoma he dedicated himself to agencies and programs that were for the betterment of Oklahoma.

Blake has served as the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Director of the Oklahoma Capitol Complex and Centennial Commemoration Commission. He was responsible for overseeing preparations for Oklahoma’s centennial commemoration of statehood in 2007. The first three years as Director of the Centennial, the focus was the State Capitol Dome and the Centennial Plaza of t...

NORDAM is a Tulsa-based aerospace company that employs 2,500 “stakeholders” worldwide. But, before there was a NORDAM, there was a sixteen-year-old boy who left Pennsylvania in 1911 because his parents could not afford to take care of him. Ray H. Siegfried was on his way to Texas by train but only got as far as Sapulpa, Oklahoma, because he was running out of money. He found work as an office boy for The Texas Company, which eventually became Texaco. After various exploits, his gregarious personality led him to the insurance business and he formed R.H. Siegfried & Co.

Ray married Ruth...

Muskogee, Oklahoma was a major stop on the Negro League baseball barnstorming circuit. As a child, Porter Reed saw the Kansas City Monarchs, Chicago American Giants, Memphis Red Sox and other Negro League teams play in Muskogee during the 1930s. When he became a teenager, Reed played on the local team battling the Negro Leaguers when they came to town. And when the Kansas City Monarchs came to town, he would play with the Monarchs and against them.

During his career, Porter played with the Birmingham Black Barons, the Muskogee Cardinals, the Detroit Wolves, the Houston Eagles, the...

Guy Logsdon grew up in Ada, Oklahoma. He graduated from Ada High School and East Central State University and earned his master’s degree and Ed.D. in education and administration at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Logsdon became Director of Libraries and Professor of Education at the University of Tulsa.

Logsdon became a leading authority on Woody Guthrie’s life and music and western swing music, including its principal performers Bob and Johnnie Lee Wills. He became an avid collector of cowboy songs from working cowboys, and also became a fellow at the Smithsonian Institution.

His...

As millions of television viewers watch Jane Jayroe crowned Miss America in 1967, and as Bert Parks serenaded her, no one would have thought she was actually a very shy and reluctant winner. Nor would they know that the tears, which flowed, were more of fright than joy. She was nineteen when her whole life was changed in an instant.

Jane went on to become a well-known broadcaster, author, and public official. She worked as an anchor in TV news in Oklahoma City and Dallas, Fort Worth. Oklahoma governor, Frank Keating, appointed her to serve as his Secretary of...

Norma Eagleton is known for many accomplishments including first female Tulsa city commissioner and Oklahoma corporation commissioner. Norma was the first woman elected to a voting position on the Tulsa City Commission when in 1976 she was elected Finance and Revenue Commissioner. And she was the first woman to serve as an Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner having been appointed by Governor George Nigh in 1979, a position she held for 10 years.

At age 50 Norma attended night school to receive her J.D. from Oklahoma City University College of Law graduating in 1988.

When serving as a volunteer lawyer her main...

He was 32 years old and deep in debt. E. C. Mullendore III was murdered on September 26th, 1970, at his home on by far the largest ranch in Osage County, Cross Bell Ranch.

The Cross Bell brand came from an old Mexican Mission and was burned into the hides of cattle driven up from Mexico. The cattle belonged to the family of the mother of Gene Mullendore who was the father of E.C. Mullendore III.

There was a 15 million dollar life insurance policy taken out on E.C. Mullendore III, which would become the largest life...

Bethany Children’s Health Center is a private, nonprofit pediatric hospital and rehabilitation center in Bethany, Oklahoma, west of Oklahoma City. It specializes in caring for children with serious medical conditions, disabilities, injuries, and complex rehabilitation needs.

What makes it unusual is that it is the only inpatient pediatric rehabilitation facility in Oklahoma.

It began in 1898 as an orphanage, founded by Mattie Mallory. It evolved over more than a century into a specialized children’s hospital and was known for many years as The Children’s Center Rehabilitation Hospital. In 2022, it adopted the name Bethany Children’s Health...

September 11th, 2001. It's one of those dates when Americans of a certain age can answer a simple question: Where were you when you heard? 

Now, 25 years later, the Voices of Oklahoma Oral History Archive preserves the memories of Oklahomans who experienced that terrible day in very different places. Some were in Oklahoma. One was in Washington. One was living in New York City. And remarkably, one had been inside the World Trade Center just one day earlier.

Ted Fisher was elected to the Oklahoma Senate as a member of the Democratic Party representing the 12th district in 1986 and served in office until term-limited in 2006.

Before entering elected office, Ted worked for Warren Petroleum in Tulsa and Montgomery Ward in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, the company best known for its mail-order catalog. He later joined a real estate and insurance firm before being recruited to run for office.

As a senator, he sponsored legislation that provided funding for the Training for Industry Programs, authored the Welfare Reform Act, and established regional centers of the Oklahoma School...

Bob Carpenter was the television play-by-play announcer for the Washington Nationals for 20 seasons from 2006 through 2025. His professional broadcast career began in 1976, when he was hired as the play-by-play announcer for the Tulsa Oilers baseball team.

When the Oilers moved to New Orleans, Carpenter remained in Tulsa and became a broadcaster and public relations director for the Tulsa Roughnecks soccer team.  He also became sports director at KTUL Channel 8 and KRAV-FM.

In 1984, he began broadcasting St. Louis Cardinals games and later called games for the Texas Rangers, New York Mets, and Minnesota Twins. Beginning in 1988, Bob spent 17 y...

John Mullen, also known as Ugly John, was born in Turley, Oklahoma. He is a boat dealer, marina operator, and former championship boat racer.

He raced boats from 1974 to 1986 and began selling boats to help fund his racing career. John’s first sale was recorded on a brown paper sack while he sat on a milk crate in his garage in Turley. The garage originally had a dirt floor, but as sales grew, he added a concrete floor and electricity before eventually moving into a 1,200-square-foot building.

The business later expanded into Ugly John’s Custom Boat...

John Erling, a self-described “North Dakota farm boy,” was raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His early interest in performance emerged at the age of three, when he delivered impromptu sermons to the chickens on his family farm.

This formative experience foreshadowed a distinguished career in radio. He spent five years with Northwestern College Radio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, before continuing his broadcasting career at WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, and later at WOW and KOIL in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1976, Erling moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and began broadcasting on KRMG. Following a 45-year career in radio, in 2010 he f...

The renewed interest in Route 66 has come about because of the book Route 66: The Mother Road written by Tulsan Michael Wallis.

To date, Mr. Wallis has written 17 books. His work has also been published in magazines and newspapers, including Time, LIFE, People and The New York Times among others. Wallis has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize. Many honors have come his way including the Writers Hall of Fame of America.

He was the first to be inducted into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame. He was asked to be a consultant for the 2006...

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, becoming a company commander of a rifle division.

He took over his father’s Ford dealership in 1975 when he was 45 years old, and continued to operate until he was 85.

Beyond the de...

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 his bachelor's degree and juris doctorate from the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Johnson established his successful political career as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1982 to 1996. He became...

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 served as Minister of Christian Education at First Christian Church in downtown Tulsa until 1994.

In the 1980s, the Ziglars became involved with PFLAG as the only ministerial couple participating. Richard was a co-founder of the OASIS...

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, Beverly, contracted polio in the late 1940s, Betty became a volunteer spokesperson for the March of Dimes. Based on her charm and speaking abilities she was asked by KOTV in Tulsa to audition for the...

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 served in an artillery unit. He returned in March 1968, during the Tet Offensive.

Rusty resumed his career with the Bell System, which resulted in a transfer to Tulsa and the introduction to...

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 Tulsa who taught design at the University invited Jan to move to Tulsa to help them set up a store in Fontana Shopping Center.

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 president and of counsel with Holarud, Langholz, Runnels & Dorwart, before founding his current practice, Frederic Dorwart, Lawyers.

He has contributed to our community through his service as general counsel for the...

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 started a distributorship known as RL Hudson & Company. The company’s product lines evolved from sealing products to custom molded rubber and plastic component assemblies.

In 2019, the company purchased Rapid Production To...

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 over 25 years. Rodger sold his company to McGraw Realtors in 1992 while remaining with the firm.

In his oral history, Rodger talks about his time in a catholic seminary, the fami...

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 president of American Newspaper Representatives in New York from 1984 to 1986. 

Jim founded Langdon Publishing Co. and established TulsaPeople Magazine in 1986. The company also publishes Ovations, TulsaPeople City Guide, Tulsa Guest Guide, and Vision Tulsa. 

In his oral histo...

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 appointed by Governor David Walters to the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission.

She was reappointed to a second term by Governor Frank Keating and became chair of the commission. Gordona served on the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank boa...

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 the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals, where he authored hundreds of opinions for eight years, leading to an appointment by Governor Frank Keating to the Oklahoma Supreme Court as an associate justice, brie...

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 designers invited to do the inaugural flowers for George W. Bush’s second term. 

Locally, she has given her time and resources to many community organizations, non-p...

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, which lasted for five days. In September 1967, he arrived in Phan Rang, Vietnam, home of the 101st Division headquarters.

While on patrol, along the Cambodian border, he was wounded, an...

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.D. in history from Oklahoma State University. He grew up in Edmond and graduated from Putnam City High School in 1969.

Blackburn published several articles and his first book while still in graduate school, and has...

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 Arrow Expressway, the extension of the Creek Turnpike, and the breakup of the old University Center at Tulsa in favor of the now stand-alone satellite universities.

Joe joined th...

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 single-family construction company in the area with divisions in nine midwestern states. 

When The Hardesty Foundation was established in 2005, Donna placed a significant emphasis on the value of...

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, Bartlesville, Dewey, Muskogee, and Ponca City.

He led or taught at Bishop Kelly and Bishop McGuiness High Schools, Marquette, and the Holy Fa...

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 of Education for 11 years and was a candidate for Oklahoma’s First Congressional District seat in 2002 and 2004. 

Doug is a veteran of the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command, where he served as a D...

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 Petroleum, Inc., where he served as president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board. 

The company grew from three employees at start-up to more than 750 with operations in four countries and reserves of approximately 500 m...

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 San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Bogota, Tulsa, and beyond.

Along the way, we built careers in higher education of campus ministry and teaching religious studies, in social services with...

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 entrance to the MidAmerica Industrial Park administrative office reads: “GENE R. REDDEN, Founder of the MidAmerica Industrial Park”He was honored by a joint resolution from the Oklahoma Senate and Ho...

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 Oklahoma, Jay has served as bank president in the communities of Guthrie and Tahlequah. As head of Financial Services for BancFirst, Jay supervises a wide range of profit centers and support units.

He is a freq...

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 engineers.”

Donna worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab from 1966 to 1998 and was the only woman among the 2,000 engineers who had an engineering degree. 

Her 35-year career as...