Oklahoma Hall of Fame To Induct 2011 Honorees

Seven Oklahomans, including former Commander-in-Chief of the United States Central Command Tommy Franks, will be inducted into the 84th class of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame on November 17.

Thursday, November 17th 2011, 11:45 am

By: News 9


Seven Oklahomans will be inducted into the 84th class of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame on November 17 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. These Oklahomans will join the cast of 641 individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame since 1928.

"Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is the highest honor Oklahomans can receive for their contributions to our state," said Shannon L. Rich, president of the Oklahoma Heritage Association and Gaylord-Pickens Museum.

2011 Oklahoma Hall of Fame inductees are:


Tommy Franks, Wynnewood

Tommy Franks was born in Wynnewood and grew up in Midland, Texas. After two years at the University of Texas, he joined the United States Army. He would later graduate from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1971 and earn a master of science degree in public administration from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.

Before his 2003 retirement from the Army as a general, he served as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Central Command, overseeing American military operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. Franks was the U.S. general leading the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in 2001. He also led the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Franks was commissioned as a second lieutenant as a distinguished graduate of the Artillery Officer Candidate School in Fort Sill in 1967. In Vietnam, Franks earned three bronze stars with valor and three purple hearts. He has served in West Germany; Korea; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; and The Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

His many honors include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Distinguished Service Medals, four Legions of Merit, Air Medal with Valor and an Army Commendation Medal with Valor.

He and his wife, Cathryn, have one daughter and three grandchildren and divide their time between Tampa, Florida, and Roosevelt, Oklahoma.


Harold Hamm, Enid

Harold Hamm was born in Oklahoma in 1945, the youngest of 13 children, to share crop farmers. After graduating from Enid High School, he worked for an oilfield service contractor and Champlin Petroleum Co. before starting a one-truck oilfield service business in Ringwood.

In 1967, Hamm incorporated Shelly Dean Oil Company, which later became Continental Resources. Today, Continental is a successful independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company that operates in 20 states and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Hamm serves as chairman and chief executive officer.

Hamm is chairman of the board of Hiland Partners GP Holdings and is a member of the board of Complete Production Services. He is past chairman of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and served as a founding board member of the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board. He has served as president of the National Stripper Well Association and founder and chairman of Save Domestic Oil, Inc. He co-founded the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance to preserve the domestic oil and gas markets.

Hamm has received the National Ernst and Young award in the energy, chemicals and mining category for his accomplishments in the oil industry over the past 40 years. A leading advocate of education in Oklahoma, Hamm has received numerous awards and recognition for his contributions. Among many other gifts, The Harold and Sue Ann Hamm Foundation donated $10 million for the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.


Marques Haynes, Sand Springs

A native of Sand Springs, Haynes began his basketball career at Booker T. Washington High School, where he led the school to a high school national championship in 1941. He starred collegiately at Langston University from 1942 to 1946, where he led in scoring for four years and led the university to a 112-3 record, a mark that included a 59-game winning streak. Haynes' dribbling and ball handling caught the attention of the Harlem Globetrotters, and after Langston was invited to play an exhibition game against them, Haynes was invited to join them. After earning his degree in industrial education from Langston, he began his career with the Globetrotters, which would last from 1947 to 1953. In 1953, he founded his own team, the Harlem Magicians, but later rejoined the Harlem Globetrotters as a player and coach. He played with both the Bucketeers and the Harlem Wizards before playing his last nine years of professional basketball with his recreated Harlem Magicians.

In a four-decade career, Haynes played in more than 12,000 games, traveled more than four million miles and entertained fans in nearly 100 countries. Contrastingly, Haynes and his teammates suffered discrimination at home and had difficulty locating hotels and restaurants that would serve an African American troupe.

Regarded as one of the greatest dribblers to ever play the game, Haynes retired in 1992. He earned the distinction of being the first Harlem Globetrotter player glorified in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He has also been enshrined in the Langston Hall of Fame, the NAIA Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. He is one of only three Globetrotters to have his jersey number retired.


Cathy Keating, Tulsa

Cathy Keating is a fourth generation Oklahoman who was born and raised in Tulsa. She has focused much of her life on community service, most prominently while she was First Lady of Oklahoma from 1995 to 2003. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Keating organized and implemented the international prayer service. Her book, In Their Name, The Oklahoma City Bombing, was on the New York Times best seller list, with all proceeds going to project recovery.

Also while First Lady, Keating founded Friends of the Oklahoma Governor's Mansion, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the mansion's restoration and preservation. She renovated and permanently furnished the Governor's Mansion and the Phillips Pavilion and authored the books Our Governor's Mansions and Ooh La La: Cuisine Presented in a Stately Manner, with all proceeds benefiting the cause.

Keating has served on the boards for the Habitat for Humanities National Trust, Oklahoma City National Memorial and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. She is co-chair of the Washington, D.C. American Red Cross capital campaign and the Oklahoma City Salvation Army capital campaign. She serves on the boards of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, where she founded and chairs the Annie Oakley Society, a women's leadership organization, and Express Services, Inc., where she chairs the company's international philanthropy.

Keating is the recipient of the Thoroughbred Award for the David and Sybil Yurman Foundation, the William Booth Award, the National Champion for Children Award and Outstanding Southerner in Southern Living Magazine.

She and her husband, Frank, have three children and seven grandchildren.

Steve Malcolm, Tulsa

Malcolm is the recently retired chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Tulsa-based Williams Company. In 2002, when Malcolm was named CEO of Williams, it was facing financial crisis due to the collapse of the energy trading and telecommunications industries. As the new CEO, Malcolm immediately began to set both long- and short-term strategies to get Williams back on track. He successfully led the company into a new era of growth and expansion from 2004 until he retired in 2010. His retirement marked the end of a 26-year career at Williams, during which he held leadership positions throughout the company.

Malcolm holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Malcolm has served as chairman of the Tulsa Future Oversight Committee and the vice chair of the Tulsa Stadium Trust. He has served on the boards of the YMCA of Greater Tulsa, YMCA of the USA, St. John Medical Center, the University of Tulsa Board of Trustees, Tulsa Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Metropolitan Tulsa Urban League Advisory Board, Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice, Tulsa Educare, the Tulsa Area United Way and is a trustee for Missouri University of Science and Technology.

He has served as vice chair of the American Exploration & Production Council and is a member of the American Natural Gas Alliance, the American Petroleum Institute, The Business Roundtable, the National Association of Corporate Directors and the National Petroleum Council.

Roger Miller, Erick

It was during long days in the cotton fields and on his three-mile walks to school in Erick, Oklahoma., that Roger Miller began writing songs. Entertainer Sheb Wooley, married to Miller's cousin, taught Miller his first chords on guitar and bought him his first fiddle.

Following discharge from the U.S. Army, Miller headed to Nashville. He auditioned for Chet Atkins, who had to loan him a guitar, and was told to work on his songs and voice before coming back. While in Nashville, he played fiddle in Minnie Pearl's band and met George Jones, with whom he collaborated on a few songs.

After getting married and having a child, Miller moved his family to Amarillo, joined the fire department and played honky tonks at night. There he met Ray Price and was asked to join the Cherokee Cowboys. With his family in tow, he returned to Nashville and signed a songwriting deal. Within two years, he cut a duet with Donny Little and then launched his solo career. Among his hit records were "You Don't Want My Love," "King of the Road," "Engine #9" and "The Last Word in Lonesome is Me." Though he reached the peak of his career in the ‘60s, Miller continued to tour and record into the ‘90s, charting his final top 20 country hit "Old Friends" with Willie Nelson in 1982. In 1985, Miller produced the score for and acted in "Big River," a Broadway stage adaptation of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, earning him a Tony Award.

Miller passed away in 1992 and was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1995.


Elizabeth Warren, Oklahoma City

Elizabeth Warren attended grade school in Norman and graduated from Northwest Classen High School, where she was a debate champion. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and her J.D. from Rutgers Law-Newark.

Warren currently serves as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She also serves as the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University. Warren was the Chief Adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and she was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist as the first academic member of the Federal Judicial Education Committee. She has served as a member of the Commission on Economic Inclusion, vice president of the American Law Institute and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Warren has written nine books and more than 100 scholarly articles dealing with credit and economic stress. Her latest two books, The Two-Income Trap and All Your Worth, were both on national best seller lists.

Warren has been principal investigator on empirical studies funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and more than a dozen others. She has testified several times before House and the Senate committees on financial issues. Time Magazine has twice named her one of its 100 Most Influential People in the World, the Boston Globe named her Bostonian of the Year and the National Law Journal named her one of the most influential lawyers of the decade.

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