How Seminole Came Together to Save Its College

October 29, 2026Josh Hutton

Terry Morris remembers a college gathering place where students played spades and teachers joined them for Cokes and candy bars.

It was the basement of First Presbyterian Church.

For two academic years, the church housed Seminole Junior College as it separated from the high school and prepared a campus of its own. Sunday school rooms became college classrooms. The pastor’s study served as the president’s office. The basement became the student union.

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His Students Made the Case: The Legacy of H.B. Mitchell

October 22, 2026Josh Hutton

Before David Boren became governor of Oklahoma or a U.S. senator, Harland B. Mitchell was trying to get him to speak in class.

Boren was frightened of addressing an audience, even his classmates. In a 2016 interview with Voices of Oklahoma, he recalled sitting through debate class while the other students got up to speak. Near the end of the semester, Mitchell gave him a warning.

“You’re going to get an F if you don’t get up and speak,” Boren remembered his teacher telling him.

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Tracing Seminole Junior College’s Path to Integration

October 14, 2026Josh Hutton

Wanda Leona Keller entered Seminole High School as a senior in the fall of 1955, the first year it admitted Black students. When she graduated the following spring, another newly opened opportunity awaited. That fall, she became one of the first two Black students to enroll at Seminole Junior College.

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1951 High School Portrait of Oliver Davis Johns

From Seminole Airwaves to a Rhodes Scholarship

October 8, 2026Josh Hutton

Before Oliver Davis Johns became a Rhodes Scholar, he was a teenage radio engineer saving money to get to MIT.

He recalled getting up at 5 a.m., driving to Wewoka and putting the local station on the air. His work also included announcing and hosting an afternoon music program.

“We had something in the afternoon called Postcard Parade where people would send in postcards requesting songs and we would play them and read the postcard,” Johns said.

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portrait photo of Bill Wantland in 1952.

Listen Back: Bill Wantland on His Unexpected College Journey

September 25, 2026Josh Hutton

After attending Seminole Junior College and graduating from Seminole High School, Bill Wantland continued his education at three universities, taking him from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C., and Hawaii.

We asked what took him to such different places. His answer surprised us.

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O.D. Johns: The Educator Who Helped A College Endure

September 17, 2026Josh Hutton

Across a 50-year career in education, Johns guided Seminole schools through an oil-boom transformation, wartime uncertainty and the beginning of desegregation while helping preserve the community’s junior college.

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Title graphic depicting a classroom during World War II

The War Years That Tested Seminole Junior College

September 10, 2026Josh Hutton

In 1942, Seminole school Superintendent John G. Mitchell asked local families to consider what their junior college meant to the community. Near the end of his appeal, he posed a direct question.

“Do you want it to continue?”

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The Municipal Colleges That Brought Higher Education Home

September 2, 2026September 10, 2026Josh Hutton

Long before community colleges became a familiar part of Oklahoma higher education, students in many towns could graduate from high school and return to the same building for their first year of college.

These institutions were known as municipal junior colleges, although the name was not entirely accurate. They were governed by local school districts rather than municipal governments. Most operated as extensions of public high schools, adding grades 13 and 14 to the district’s educational program.

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