Voices of Oklahoma Podcast

Jimmy O'Neill

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 ...

James C. Leake

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...

Ernestine Dillard

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...

J. Paul Getty

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...

Nancy Sevenoaks

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...

Mary Helen Stanley

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...

Marina Metevelis

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...

George Krumme

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...

Warren Spahn

“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...

Julius Pegues

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. ...

JV Haney

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...

Jim Goodwin

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...

Joyce Jackson

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...

Governor David Walters

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...

Dr. Jim A. Rodgers

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...

Frank Riesinger

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...

Joe Cappy

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.

John Hughes

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 ...

Dale McNamara

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 ...

Robert Henry

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 ...

Church Studios - Leon Russell & Steve Ripley

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.

Bill Atherton

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 ...

Clarence Oliver

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 ...

Jay O'Meilia

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.

Randy Foutch

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.

Clifton Taulbert

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 ...

David Easton & Jimmy Steinmeyer

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 ...

Jeannie McDaniel

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 ...

Maxine Zarrow

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...

Oklahoma Voices - Race Massacre

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 ...