hid from Russians

For eight months Quail Creek resident Dee Morales lived with bated breath, worried about the well-being of her brother, Tim, caught behind enemy Russian lines and fearing for his life in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Now, as her brother has survived the harrowing experience of war, Morales can share what she and her mother, Joyce, experienced from halfway across the globe.

Morales, a former KWTV news reporter and freelance field producer for Good Morning America, ESPN and World News Tonight, lived throughout the world as part of a US Air Force family stationed in Holland, England, Italy, Colorado Springs, Co. and eventually Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. She has called Fridayland home for decades, while her sister, a retired RN, lives in the Yorkshire Moors and brother Tim in Ukraine for the past 19 years.

“I’m incredibly close to my siblings,” said Morales. “My brother and I share a love of writing and travel.”

Timothy J. Morales, PhD., 56, a former University of Central Oklahoma college professor, lived in Oklahoma City for 20 years from

1983-2003 — except for a three-year stint at Purdue University in Indiana where he lived while working on his Ph.D.

He moved to Ukraine after a colleague introduced him to his first wife who was a Ukrainian citizen. The couple had a son who is currently a student at the University of Kyiv. Morales and his second wife have a 10-year-old daughter.

Morales ran a successful English school in Ukraine before the Russian invasion one year ago upended the lives of an entire nation. Although he had done nothing wrong, being

See UKRAINE, Page 7