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Voices of Oklahoma Podcast

Listen to the incredible interviews and behind-the-scenes stories of Oklahoma's most influential people even when you're on the go!


Latest Episodes

Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear

May 15, 2023 • 1 hr 37 min

Geoffrey Standing Bear is the Principal Chief of the Osage Nation. He is the great-grandson of Osage Principal Chief Fred Lookout.Before his election, Chief Standing Bear practiced law for 34 years. He concentrated ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Joseph Williams

May 3, 2023 • 1 hr 27 min

While Joe Williams is primarily known in Tulsa as an oilman, his friends and family speak of him as a bird hunter and conservationist, and then an astute businessman and oilman. It is Williams’ work ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

14th Anniversary

Apr 10, 2023 • 36 min 25 sec

April 10th, 2010 the oral history website Voices of Oklahoma was launched. We began collecting stories in 2009. So, on this, our 14th anniversary, we would like to share the history of Voices of Oklahoma ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Bob McCormack

Apr 5, 2023 • 57 min 28 sec

Bob McCormack was one of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s premier photographers. A native of Pompey, New York (just a few miles east of Syracuse), Bob’s family moved to Lathrop, Missouri, while Bob was still a child.

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Jimmy O'Neill

Mar 16, 2023 • 54 min 59 sec

For those who remember the television show “Shindig!” but may have forgotten the host, this story will remind you of the very talented Jimmy O’Neill, who was from Enid, Oklahoma. He started his radio career at 16 ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

James C. Leake

Mar 7, 2023 • 1 hr 3 min

James C. Leake was a Television pioneer along with his wife Marjory Griffin Lake and brother-in-law John “J.T.” Griffin. In the 1940s, they applied to the FCC for licenses to put television stations in Little Rock...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Ernestine Dillard

Feb 27, 2023 • 1 hr 35 min

Ernestine Dillard of Bixby, Oklahoma is perhaps best remembered for her April 23, 1995 performance when she electrified 11,000 mourners and a national television audience with her “God Bless America” vocal arrangement...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

J. Paul Getty

Feb 23, 2023 • 29min 41sec

A Man’s Perspective on Business and Life was a film prepared for the employees of Getty Oil Company and Skelly Oil Company shortly before J. Paul Getty’s death on June 6, 1976, at age 83. James C. Leake and journalist Bob Gregory...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Nancy Sevenoaks

Feb 21, 2023 • 1hr 32min

Oklahoma native James C. Leake, Sr., grew up on the farm his grandfather homesteaded in 1891.He worked the soda counter at Rickner's Bookstore and Restaurant in Norman while attending college at the University of Oklahoma...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Mary Helen Stanley

Feb 6, 2023 • 1hr 12min

In the late 1930s, women basically had four career choices -- nurse, secretary, hairdresser, or teacher. Mary Helen Stanley decided to follow in her aunt's footsteps to become a teacher. She began her career as a high school speech...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Marina Metevelis

Jan 27, 2023 • 1hr 8min

Marina Metevelis answered the call to defend the United States as one of the iconic bandanna-clad Rosie the Riveters. Marina was sixteen when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941—an event that inspired her to apply for a job at the...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

George Krumme

Jan 13, 2023 • 1hr 53min

George Krumme was born and reared in rural Oklahoma, about five miles northeast of Okemah. His early education took place in a rural school. He finished high school at age 16 in Bristow and then attended Oklahoma A&M...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Warren Spahn

Jan 6, 2023 • 1hr 4min

“The greatest game ever pitched” was an event that may best describe the baseball story of Warren Spahn. For in that game, he displayed the strength and the stamina that earned him the title of the greatest major league...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Julius Pegues

Jan 4, 2023 • 1hr 34min

Julius Pegues was the first Black varsity basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force as a weather forecaster and later as an advisor to the Federal Aviation Administration. ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

JV Haney

Dec 5, 2022 • 1hr 40min

He’s a small-town guy who charmed the big city. He was merely a name who coached high school sports before he became the face of Oklahoma high school athletics. Through his appearances on radio and television, J.V. Haney became the state’s most significant voice of high school sports...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Jim Goodwin

Nov 28, 2022 • 1hr 40min

James Osby Goodwin was one of eight siblings who grew up next door to Tulsa’s St. Monica Catholic Church. His father purchased a 150-acre farm in the community of Alsuma at East 51st Street and South Mingo Road. Nearby railroad tracks separated whites and blacks...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Joyce Jackson

Oct 27, 2022 • 2hr 9min

Joyce Jackson was in Junior High School when she became part of the Katz Drugstore sit-in in 1958, the beginning of a movement that contributed to race relations reform in Oklahoma. Joyce was the first black woman on television in Oklahoma at KOCO 5...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Governor David Walters

September 13, 2022 • 1hr 57min

David Walters was the 24th governor of Oklahoma from 1991 to 1995. Born in Canute, Oklahoma, he was a project manager for Governor David Boren and the youngest executive officer working for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. In 1986, Walters was the Democratic nominee for governor of Oklahoma, but...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Dr. Jim A. Rodgers

August 29, 2022 • 1hr 38min

Dr. James A. Rodgers, a neurosurgery specialist in Tulsa, Oklahoma, completed his medical school prerequisites at the University of Tulsa in 1972. He then graduated with honors from the University of Oklahoma medical school in 1976. After completing his...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Frank Riesinger

July 25, 2022 • 1hr 33min

Riesinger’s Jewelry was a mainstay in Utica Square for over fifty years with a heritage that dates back to the fourth floor above the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Tulsa. That was where Frank Riesinger’s father, Otto, presided for many years over a jewelry repair store...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Joe Cappy

May 16, 2022 • 2hr 41min

Joe Cappy had a front-row seat to a strange episode in U.S. car manufacturing history: the 1987 sale of American Motors Corp. to Chrysler-the deal that gave the Jeep brand to Chrysler and made Joe Cappy the last American Motors Corporation CEO.

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

John Hughes

April 21, 2022 • 1hr 50min

The Hughes Osage County ranch started as a land purchase in 1938 by John Hughes’s father, an oil industry pioneer with Phillips Petroleum Co. John Hughes was a junior in high school when he purchased his first cattle — at $100 a head for strays he had gathered ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Dale McNamara

Mar 22, 2022 • 1hr 18min

Dale McNamara wanted to play golf, but there was no team at the University of Tulsa, so she entered tournaments on her own and became the first woman to win an athletic letter at TU. In 1974, when Tulsa decided to start a women’s golf team and McNamara ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Robert Henry

Mar 16, 2022 • 2hr 25min

Robert Henry is a former United States circuit judge and was the 17th president of Oklahoma City University. He formerly served as the attorney general of Oklahoma from 1986 to 1991, before resigning early in his second term to become the dean of the Oklahoma ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Church Studios - Leon Russell & Steve Ripley

Mar 2, 2022 • 10 min 57 sec

As the Church Studios in Tulsa get ready to open after a major refurbishment, we share the stories of Steve Ripley, who owned the historic studio for many years. Steve knew Leon Russell well, and worked hard to preserve thousands of recordings and the equipment to play them.

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Bill Atherton

Feb 22, 2022 • 2 hr

Upon graduation from Oklahoma State University, Bill Atherton worked with Core Laboratories, Inc. in the Texas Gulf Coast and South America, and served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. After his time with Core, he operated his own petroleum reservoir engineering company in Trinidad ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Clarence Oliver

Feb 15, 2022 • 1 hr 31 min

Clarence G. Oliver, Jr., Ed.D., Emeritus Professor and former Dean of the College of Education at Oral Roberts University and retired Superintendent of Schools for Broken Arrow Public Schools, has enjoyed success in three distinct career fields—Journalism, Military, and Education. He has been a teacher ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Jay O'Meilia

Feb 6, 2022 • 1 hr 48 min

Philip Jay O’Meilia was born in 1927 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between military stints during WWII and Korea (serving as a Navy artist), he attended the Art Students League in New York and the Chicago Academy of Fine Art.

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Randy Foutch

Jan 12, 2022 • 1 hr 36 min

Randy A. Foutch fits the bill as an entrepreneurial oilman. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Geology at the University of Texas and a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Houston.

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Clifton Taulbert

Nov 30, 2021 • 1 hr 45 min

Clifton Taulbert was born in 1945 in Glen Allan, Mississippi, a small town in the Mississippi Delta. He graduated valedictorian from O’Bannon High School in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1963. He received his Bachelor of Arts in History and ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

David Easton & Jimmy Steinmeyer

Oct 28, 2021 • 2 hr 26 min

David Easton was one of the world’s most sought-after interior designers and architects. He was noted in the ’80s for his English-style houses, catering to a clientele with a taste for grandeur. David was named to the Interior ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Jeannie McDaniel

Jul 21, 2021 • 1 hr 40 min

A longtime Tulsan, Jeannie McDaniel has worked to better her city for more than twenty-five years. She worked at the Citizens Crime Commission from 1981 to 1991—serving as director from 1986 through 1991—coordinating programs like Alert ...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Maxine Zarrow

Jun 18, 2021 • 53 min 39 sec

Maxine and her family are known for their active and generous commitment to the Jewish community, mental health, homelessness, and social services.Maxine’s husband, Jack Zarrow, joined his father and brother Henry in the family business...

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Voices of Oklahoma podcast, an Oklahoma Oral History podcast available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Oklahoma Voices - Race Massacre

May 27, 2021 • 26 min 28 sec

Over the past twelve years, Voices of Oklahoma has been collecting stories of the 1921 Race Massacre. As we observe the centennial of the event, we are presenting the oral histories of eleven people who shared their memories and their ...

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About

VoicesofOklahoma.com is dedicated to the preservation of the oral history of Oklahoma. Voices and stories of famous Oklahomans and ordinary citizens are captured forever in their own words.

Oil and gas, ranching, politics, education and more are all visited in these far-ranging interviews. Students researching any of these areas can listen to first-person accounts of the way life was and draw from knowledge that may guide and shape their future. In addition to students, any visitor will feel close to history as they listen to these personal reflections.


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