Pittsburg County, Oklahoma Biographies

Pittsburg County, Oklahoma Biographies

Carl B. Albert
Holland Family
Jones Family
Stevens Family
Samuel F. Whitman
George Ware

CARTWRIGHT, Wilburn, a Representative from Oklahoma; born on a farm near Georgetown, Meigs County, Tenn., January 12, 1892; moved with his parents to the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, in 1903; attended the public schools at Wapanucka and Ada, Okla., and State Teachers College at Durant, Okla.; taught in the schools of Coal, Atoka, Bryan, and Pittsburg Counties, Okla., 1914-1926; member of the State house of representatives, 1914-1918; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1917 and commenced practice in McAlester, Okla.; served as a private in the Student Army Training Corps in 1917 and 1918; member of the State senate 1918-1922; was graduated from the law department of the University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1920; took postgraduate work at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; vocational adviser for disabled veterans at McAlester, Okla., in 1921 and 1922; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 1922 and 1924; superintendent of schools at Krebs, Okla., 1922-1926; elected as a Democrat to the Seventieth and to the seven succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1927-January 3, 1943); chairman, Committee on Roads (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1942; served as a major in the United States Army, Allied Military Government, with service in Africa and Europe from 1943 until injured; returned to the United States as an instructor at Fort Custer, Mich., in 1945; employed with the Veterans’ Administration at Muskogee, Okla., in 1945 and 1946; elected secretary of state of Oklahoma for four-year term in 1946; elected State auditor for four-year term in 1950; elected State corporation commissioner for six-year term in 1954 and reelected in 1960 and 1966; was a resident of Oklahoma City, Okla. until his death there on March 14, 1979; interment in I.O.O.F. Cemetery, Norman, Okla.

George P. Nigh served four different terms as governor, more than anyone in state history. He was born in McAlester, Oklahoma, to Wilber and Irene Nigh on June 9, 1927. After graduating from Eastern Oklahoma A&M College at Wilburton and East Central State College at Ada, he returned to McAlester and became a school teacher. In 1950, at age twenty-three, Nigh became the youngest member of the state legislature when elected to the House of Representatives from Pittsburg County. In 1953 he introduced the bill that made "Oklahoma!" the official state song. In 1958 at age thirty-one Nigh was elected lieutenant governor, the youngest in state history and the youngest in the nation at the time. He failed in a bid for the governor's office in 1962 but became governor for nine days in January 1963 after the death of U.S. Sen. Robert S. Kerr. The sitting governor, J. Howard Edmondson, resigned in order to be appointed by Nigh to fill Kerr's Senate seat. During Nigh's nine-day term he fired and replaced the members of the Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board to facilitate the approval of an agreement with the federal government to build the Arrowhead and Fountainhead lodges on Lake Eufaula. After he left public office, Nigh started a public relations firm. Newspapers called him the most eligible bachelor in the state. He had dated but never found a girl he wanted to marry until he was introduced to brown-haired Trans World Airlines (TWA) ticket agent Donna Mashburn. A few months later they were married. She had a ten-year-old son, Berry Michael Mashburn. Together, the Nighs had a daughter, Georgeann. In 1966 Nigh was elected lieutenant governor of Oklahoma again and served until he realized his lifelong dream of being elected governor of Oklahoma in the 1978 election. Gov. David Boren left office five days early to assume his new role as U.S. Senator. Boren resigned as governor on January 2, 1979, at 11:59 p.m. Constitutionally, Nigh at that moment became governor for a second time. When Nigh was sworn in for his full four-year term five days later, it was actually the third time he had served as governor. Nigh delivered his inaugural address at the State Capitol, not from a prepared text, but from cryptic notes written on his left hand. He had for most of his adult life written key words on his hand to refresh his memory when he stood before audiences. While waiting to be escorted onto the inaugural platform on the south steps of the Capitol, Nigh peeled off his black leather glove to reveal yet another set of notes for his inaugural speech. As lieutenant governor and governor, Nigh was Oklahoma's greatest cheerleader. As one of the nation's most popular after-dinner speakers, he pushed Oklahoma tourism and industrial expansion efforts and enticed movie producers to film on location in the state. After record tax cuts and advances in almost every area of state government, including sweeping organizational changes, Nigh was reelected for a fourth term in 1982. He is the only gubernatorial candidate to carry all of the state's seventy-seven counties. He served Oklahoma well during his eight-year stretch as governor from 1979 to 1987. As a former member of the Oklahoma House and lieutenant governor, he had worked closely with the legislature during the best and worst of economic times. In his first gubernatorial term state revenues hit all time highs. But in his second term falling oil and gas prices cut deeply into state government's income and resulted in budget cuts and large tax increases. Many believed Nigh's steady hand during the economic downturn prevented long-range damage to the Oklahoma economy. He presided over state government during two of the most controversial moral dilemmas of the twentieth century, horse racing and liquor by the drink. As governor Nigh increased minority representation on state boards and commissions and in state agency management positions. He also appointed the first two women as Oklahoma Supreme Court justices, Alma Wilson and Yvonne Kauger. He led unprecedented state efforts in highway construction, funding for the arts, and improving Oklahoma's penal system. Later, Nigh served as president of the University of Central Oklahoma. In that capacity he engineered a rehabilitation and enlargement of the college's physical plant. George Nigh and his wife, Donna, headed the Donna Nigh Foundation, a nonprofit organization serving Oklahomans with developmental disabilities. At the end of the twentieth century George Nigh worked in the banking industry.

Gene Stipe was born October 21, 1926 in Blanco, Oklahoma, and is the son of Jacob Irvin Stipe, a farmer worker and miner, and Eva Lou Stipe. Following a stint in the United States Navy in the mid-1940s, he was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives at the age of 21 in 1948, serving as Assistant Floor Leader from 1949 to 1953. Shortly after taking office, he married Agnes L. Minton (1920-September 29, 2002), and eventually had one daughter and three grandchildren. That same year, he graduated from law school at the University of Oklahoma. Stipe did not seek re-election to the State House in 1954, but was an unsuccessful candidate for a State Senate seat representing McAlester, Oklahoma. Two years later, he was elected to the State Senate in a special election, serving from 1957 until his resignation in 2003, becoming the longest-serving member of that body. In 1968, Stipe was indicted on charges of federal income tax evasion for allegedly failing to pay taxes on $110,000 in income, but was later acquitted of the charges. In 1975, he was paid $100,000 plus expenses to assist William Con Sutherland in a bankruptcy case involving Sutherland's vending machine empire. Stipe was accused by bankruptcy trustees of taking his retainer fee from illegally-diverted funds. In an out-of-court settlement, Stipe repaid $60,000 in order to resolve the dispute. Stipe was briefly a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Dewey F. Bartlett in 1978, but dropped out of the race, which was later won by Governor David L. Boren. The following year, he was indicted by a federal grand jury for his alleged role in securing a fraudulent Small Business Administration loan for McAlester Frozen Foods, a food processing company based in Stipe's district. He was acquitted on those charges in 1981. While awaiting trial in the SBA loan case, he was indicted by another federal jury on charges of fraud, extortion, and conspiracy relating to his intervention in an extradition case involving a Colorado man. Stipe resigned from the Oklahoma State Senate in March, 2003, having served in the state legislature for 46 years. A month later, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation, and conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act, relating to his alleged role in funneling illegal contributions to the failed 1998 congressional campaign of Walt Roberts in Oklahoma's 3rd Congressional District. The following January, he was sentenced to five years probation, six months home detention, 1,000 hours of community service, and fined $735,567. Furthermore, he also agreed to forfeit his license to practice law. In September, 2007, federal authorities filed a petition seeking to have Stipe's probation revoked as a result of his alleged ongoing relationship with a convicted felon. On September 28, a federal judge ordered Stipe, who suffers from hydrocephalus, diabetes, and prostate cancer, to undergo a mental competency evaluation at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, following a parole revocation hearing in which Stipe required prompting from his attorneys to answer questions, and according to the judge, appeared to be drugged or hypnotized. Shortly thereafter, Stipe and his brother, Francis, were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of mail fraud, witness tampering, money laundering, and conspiracy, relating to their alleged role in a real estate deal involving a pet food company owned by Gene Stipe's former business partner, Steve Phipps. The witness tampering charge stems from allegations that the Stipe brothers engaged in a conspiracy to buy the mortgage on a home owned by former Oklahoma State Representative Mike Mass in an attempt to influence his testimony in the case.