YLD Leadership Academy

Has your career benefited from being a member of the TCBA? If so, please share.

Therearetoomanywaystocount. Iwouldstartwiththe collegiality I have enjoyed with other TCBA members has added a sense of enjoyment to my profession. I would then add the availability of the resources, such as the abundance of good CLE, the accessibility of the TCBA building itself with the conference rooms and staff. Also the many programs that members of the TCBAvolunteer to do for the benefit of the community provides many ways for each of us to get involved in something beneficial apart from our office practice.

If you could spend the day with one attorney/judge, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

I have always been an Anthony Scalia fan. The sharpness of his mind and his sense of logic was so rare that even among other great Supreme Court Justices he stood apart in his own way. But beyond being a remarkable jurist even among other remarkable jurists, he was man of deep Catholic faith. While I am a protestant, I am inspired by his example of pursuing Faith and spiritualgrowthwhileat thesametimetrying to apply the law in an even-handed way. And I love how one of his very best friends ever was RBG. That by itself makes for a very interesting personality. Lonesome Dove, the TV series. Full Stop.

What is your favorite food?

Speaking of 40 lbs, Italian food, especially Spaghetti and meat sauce. I’ll put a plug in here for Mondo’s and D’Alesandro’s. Both make Tulsa worth living in.

Tell us a fun fact that no one knows about you!

I played NCAA Div. I wheelchair basketball with the University of Illinois “Fighting Illini” and traveled all over the Big 10. That was almost 40 years and 40 pounds ago.

I was the first and may still be only paraplegic in Oklahoma with an “M” class rating on my driver’s license for motorcycles. I put hand brakes on an automaticCanAmSpyderandbecamethefirstlicensed paraplegic-motorcyclist in Oklahoma. My wife and I have ridden all over the Black Hills, around the Grand Tetons in Jackson, Wyoming, through Yellowstone National Park, across the southern Arizona desert outside of Phoenix, and down the Route 66 trail across Oklahoma. The picture is of me in front of the Tetons with my legs strapped onto the saddle seat of our Spyder.