EVENT: Tulsa Press Club Headliners proceeds to assist OSU-Tulsa library
DATE: September 7
The Tulsa Press Club has named Wilma Mankiller, first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and best selling author Michael Wallis as the 2007 Headliners. The two will be honored at a banquet on Sept. 7 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The Headliners Club began in 1956 by the Tulsa Press Club to recognize outstanding civic, business, professional and industrial leaders of the community whose contributions have made them headliners in the community, state and the nation.
Proceeds of the event will benefit a scholarship fund at the University of Oklahoma and the special collections department at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa’s Library. Wallis chose to designate the funds to the OSU-Tulsa Library which houses his literary manuscripts, personal photographs, correspondence, book and movie promotional materials and his entire Route 66 research collection.
Wallis is a historian, an award winning journalist and biographer of the American West who has gained national notoriety as a speaker and voice talent. In 2006, Wallis voiced the sheriff in Disney-Pixar’s animated film “Cars.”
Wallis has published 15 books, including “Route 66: The Mother Road,” “Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride” and “The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate.” His work also has appeared in hundreds of magazines and newspapers, including Time, Life, People, Smithsonian, The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Wallis has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize and was a nominee for the National Book Award. He was inducted into the Writers Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Professional Writer's Hall of Fame and was the first inductee into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame.
Mankiller served two years as the first female elected deputy chief and 10 years as the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. She is involved in many aspects of governance and community development, including an array of projects ranging from basic infrastructure and enterprises to health clinics and programs for children and youth.
In 1999, she co-authored “Mankiller: A Chief and Her People” with Wallis. She followed with another book, “Every Day is a Good Day,” in 2004.
Mankiller, who has earned 18 honorary doctorates, has been honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the International Women’s Hall of Fame, the Minority Business Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. She is one of a handful of Native American recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Wallis and Mankiller join the ranks of many notable Oklahomans who have been named Tulsa Press Club Headliners over the past 50 years, including W.G. Skelly, Katie Westby, John Williams, Robert L. LaFortune, David Boren, Kathy Taylor, Harold Stuart, Jenkin Lloyd Jones Sr., Robert Lorton, Peggy Helmerich, Roxanna Lorton, Chester Cadieux and last year’s recipient Governor Henry Bellmon.
For ticket information or to learn more about the Headliners banquet, call the Tulsa Press Club at 918-583-7737.