Oklahoma Governors 1955-1959: Raymond Gary (1908-1993) - Born two months after statehood in rural Marshall County, Gary proved a strong contrast with both his gubernatorial predecessor and successor. He possessed… Read the full story at John Dwyer’s The Oklahomanshttps://www.johnjdwyer.com/post/gov-garyRead the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's Media The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special. |
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Coach Stan White, who himself starred for both Oklahoma City Douglass High School and Langston University, coached the former for 27 seasons, leading the Trojans to the state football playoffs 14 consecutive times, two state title games, and a state championship. Life is so busy and passing so quickly. I found out this week when in OKC that a dear friend of mine and one of the greatest men I have ever met, Douglass Trojan High School Oklahoma Hall of Fame football coach Stanford White, passed away a month ago. I knew he had been fighting cancer and a serious heart ailment with the same courage he faced everything in his long and storied life and career. So many people have their own stories of his selfless contributions to their life, whether the football team who won the state championship in 1976, the scared white kids bused to mostly-black Douglass whom he helped, or the countless young African Americans whom he showed what true manhood was, as opposed to the many false substitutes produced by our society. For me, it was the scores of hours he gave of his time to me, for many years, as I labored on our OKLAHOMANS books. He taught me not just the black history but THE history of all the people of OKC and beyond. He didn’t just tell me his opinions, he introduced me to the liitle-known, the unknown, and the legendary in OKC’s black community. He took me to their homes, got the conversations going, then sometimes stayed and sometimes quietly excused himself. I can’t even begin to calculate all the great stories in OKLAHOMANS 2 that are there only because of Stan White, that I would never have known anything of… The unforgettable stories of his own high school coach, the famed Moses “PiYi” Miller, who first led Douglass to greatness. What a blessing to laugh with Coach Stan about PiYi’s hilarious, roughhewn antics, then marvel with him at his dauntless feats… Stan and Rae White The brave doctors, dentists, and pharmacists of Medi-Phar going to OU President George Lynn Cross and OU football coach Bud Wilkinson in the 1950s and saying: “Just give Prentice Gautt a chance. He is the Oklahoma player of the year, but we will pay for his schooling his freshman year. If he makes the team, you pay for it from there.” He made it, and then some. Not only did he become an OU great and an NFL store, he became Assistant Commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. And the nation’s finest student athlete academic center possesses his name on the Sooner campus… Dr. Frank Cox facing down the rabble rousing black Muslim “Theodore GX” in the 1960s, warning him that “This is MY town and you better not make trouble in it”… Coach Stan’s former Douglas assistant football coach Jake Diggs grabbing a violent, non-student troublemaker on the campus of U. S. Grant High School during the busing turmoil of the 1970s, body slamming him, and holding him for the police”… Countless times in countless ways he gently but wisely pointed me in the right direction, introduced me to the right person, encouraged me along the way in my long labors. Who knows how many people will know the deeds and feats of black Oklahoma after reading OK 2 because of the influence of Coach Stan that would not otherwise have. He was far too big a man for his influence to end with his mortal life. In 2009, Douglass named its football field for Coach Stan White. He quashed a popular move to rename the entire stadium for him and insisted that it remain named in honor of his own Douglass football coach, Moses F. Miller. Then-Douglass coach Willis Alexander played for White. "He always taught us things more than football,” Alexander recalled. "Football is just a tool that helps you get ready for life. He was my father figure." I know that a lot of people who knew him a lot longer than the 15 years I did really miss him. I miss him dearly. His loss leaves a gaping hole in my heart. The last time we talked, not feeling physically well, he assured me that he was trustfully resting in Christ and what He had done for him. I was choked up and all I could think to say was, “I love you, coach.” I am so glad I did. And now he and his beloved Rae are united again, in a land where “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’ Read the full story at A Giant of a Man - Coach Stan White, from Oklahoma History, with John Dwyer
Everybody was getting in on the 2022 Will Rogers Medallion Awards celebration at Coopers BBQ in the Fort Worth Stockyards. OKLAHOMANS 2, the long-awaited sequel to its celebrated 2016 OKLAHOMANS 1 prequel, won Will Rogers Medallion Awards (WRMA) for author John J. Dwyer and publisher Red River Press this past weekend at the annual WRMA banquet in Fort Worth. The largest-ever turnout for the premier contest of Western literary works, including a nearly-20-person OKLAHOMANS 2 cheering section, brought attendees from across America and nominations from as far away as Israel. According to WRMA Executive Director and multiple-Medallion Award winner Chris Enss, “The Will Rogers Medallion Award attracts the finest Western authors around the globe. It’s always exciting to celebrate the many writers and the books they’ve penned about the American frontier. I think Will Rogers would be pleased to know the passion that continues for this rich genre of writing." OKLAHOMANS 2 also had the largest individual cheering section for the 2022 Will Rogers Medallion Awards celebration at Coopers BBQ in the Fort Worth Stockyards. OKLAHOMANS 2, the best-selling non-fiction book in Oklahoma for the month of June 2022, chronicles the stirring post-statehood history of the Sooner State, including the pandemic and other momentous events of the 2020s. It features more than 800 illustrations and an additional 500 pages of free bonus material, including scores of podcasts. Continuing the OKLAHOMANS 1 theme of Oklahoma as “The land of the second, third, sometimes last chance,” OK 2 turns the reader loose on a heroic and heartbreaking stampede through the incineration of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, the sweeping horrors of the Dust Bowl, the mighty valor of the Thunderbirds as they liberate Europe—including Dachau—the Vietnamese boat people braving the Pacific in search of the freedom they finally found in Oklahoma, Clara Luper’s NAACP Youth Council, who couldn’t get service at a downtown OKC lunch counter, the bombing of the Murrah building and the “Oklahoma Standard” it subsequently revealed to the world, and the Moore teachers who shielded their students with their own bodies as a historic F-5 tornado buried them all under their own wrecked schools. OKLAHOMANS 2 supporters Ken Sibley, a Texan who co-produced John Dwyer’s epic book of the American Civil War, THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES, and Clark Curry, an Oklahoman and Chairman of the Board of the Red River Institute of History, through which OK 2 was published. Some of Oklahoma’s greatest historians shared their enthusiasm for the book. According to Dr. Bob Blackburn, renowned Executive Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society from 1999-2021, “There has never been a history of Oklahoma written like what John Dwyer has done. In 100 years, historians will be looking back on what he has accomplished.” “John Dwyer is without peer as an Oklahoma historian,” said William R. Carmack, Regents Professor and Chairman Emeritus of Communications at the University of Oklahoma. “Volumes 1 and 2 of THE OKLAHOMANS constitute the best history of our state ever written.” “I wish I could write like John Dwyer,” said Marvin E. Kroeker, Professor Emeritus of History at East Central University. “He is in a league of his own.” OKLAHOMANS 2 also features the vibrant images of Oklahoma’s official Centennial photographer Mike Klemme, and the state’s greatest artists, including Wayne Cooper, R. T. Foster, Wilson Hurley, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Mike Larsen, Ross Meyers, Christopher Nick, G. N. (Neal) Taylor, Charles Banks Wilson, and Mike Wimmer, and dozens of action-packed graphic novel-style illustrations by USAO artist-in-residence Jerry Bennett. Here is the link to the dramatic two-minute preview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecC7rYtsir8Here is John Dwyer’s spontaneously-delivered “What Oklahoma Means to Me” at OKLAHOMANS 2’s national book release celebration at the Oklahoma History Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkVR8ahuwNwOriginally created to honor outstanding volumes of cowboy poetry, the Will Rogers Medallion Award expanded into other categories as interest and reader demand increased. According to WRMA co-founder Charles Williams, “All works must represent an accurate reflection of Western Americana, or cowboy and ranch life, historical or contemporary.” Williams illumined the enormous impact of Oklahoman Will Rogers’ legacy on the event: “Will Rogers was an accomplished author as well as a cowboy entertainer, and the purpose of the award is to honor this facet of his legacy, as well as to highlight current books that embody strong content, excellent production values, and enduring interest. As writers, as Westerners, and as Americans, we owe a tremendous debt to Will Rogers, and this is our way of acknowledging and honoring that debt.” Luke Dwyer doing business with some of those legendary Coopers BBQ ribs and sporting some Will Rogers Medallion Award hardware. Will Rogers, the Cherokee Kid, in whose revered memory it all happened. Many thanks to Atwoods Ranch and Home, a farm and ranch supply company based in Enid, Oklahoma, for their support of the Red River Institute of History and OKLAHOMA GOLD! Please support them as you are able! Wherever you are, you can order online from thousands of quality products on their terrific website HERE. Atwoods also has 66 stores in 5 states: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. In addition to farm and ranch supplies, Atwoods stores sell clothing, lawn and garden items, tools, hardware, automotive supplies, sporting goods, pet supplies, firearms, and seasonal items. Read the full story at Oklahomans 2 Wins Will Rogers Medallion Award, from Oklahoma History, with John Dwyer |
John Dwyer's Oklahoma HistoryAuthor John Dwyer takes us on a voyage through time, to discover Oklahoma is ways we've never fully understood. The hardbound pictorial of volume 1 is available for a limited time at up to 40% off, using this link.
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January 2024
Novelist and Oklahoma native Ralph Ellison said, "You have to leave home to find home", an apt description of the journey of John Dwyer, author and general editor of The Oklahomans. The Dwyer family roots were firmly transplanted from Ireland to Oklahoma by John's great-grandfather and grandfather, the latter who settled in Oklahoma City in 1909, just two years after Oklahoma achieved statehood. Although born in Dallas, TX, John was relocated to Oklahoma when his widowed mother returned to her home when he was two years old.
It would be on Oklahoma soil that his mother instilled in him his love for history, and coupled with his unusually creative imagination, it soon became apparent that John not only liked to hear great stories of legend and history, but to make up his own as well. It would be out of a sense of divine purpose that he would use that creativity in response to a higher calling in the years to come. John began a career in journalism during his high school days when he served in a variety of roles, including news and sports reporter, for the Duncan Banner, a daily newspaper in his small Oklahoma hometown. He was the youngest sports editor in the newspaper's history by the time he attended the University of Oklahoma on a journalism scholarship. He graduated in 1978 with a bachelor of arts and sciences degree in journalism. Dwyer further developed his journalistic skills in radio as a play‐by‐play football and basketball announcer for several radio stations. He won the coveted position of sports director for the University of Oklahoma's 100,000 watt KGOU‐FM radio station. For seven years, he provided live, on‐air reports to America's largest radio networks of University of Oklahoma college football games. Except for a year in England during 6th grade, John lived in the Sooner State for 28 years before returning to Dallas in 1986 to attend Dallas Theological Seminary where he earned his Master of Biblical Studies. While there, Dwyer worked part time on the sports staff of The Dallas Times Herald, which at the time owned one of the five largest circulations of any daily newspaper in Texas. It was in Texas that he also met and married his wife Grace in 1988 and settled down to start his family. In the spring of 1992, Dwyer and his wife founded the Dallas‐Fort Worth Heritage newspaper, which would grow to a circulation of 50,000 per month at the time of its sale, after nearly a decade, to new owners. The Heritage pioneered innovative features such as full color photography and graphics, an expansive web site, a cluster of informative daily radio programs, and an aggressive, uncompromising brand of investigative news reporting unprecedented for contemporary news publications holding an orthodox Christian worldview. In 2006, at the urging of his family and the Oklahoma Historical Society, John returned to Oklahoma to tackle the colossal task of writing "The Oklahomans," which was endorsed as an official project of the Oklahoma Centennial Commission. He has completed volume 1 (Ancient‐Statehood) and a portion of volume 2 (Statehood‐Present), which releases in November 2018. He is now an Adjunct Professor of History and Ethics at Southern Nazarene University. He is former history chair at Coram Deo Academy, near Dallas, Texas. His books include the non‐fiction historical narrative "The War Between the States: America's Uncivil War" (Western Conservatory), the novel "When the Bluebonnets Come" (Bluebonnet Press), the historical novels "Stonewall" and "Robert E. Lee" (Broadman & Holman Publishers), and the upcoming historical novels "Shortgrass" and "Mustang" (Oghma Creative Media). John and Grace have one daughter and one grandson and live in Norman, Oklahoma. They are members of the First Baptist Church of Norman, where they serve in a variety of teaching, mission, and other ministry roles. Categories |