When I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of Virginia in 2007, I was planning to find a teaching position and build a career in the company of scholars. But life had other plans.
George Records, a businessman and civic leader in my hometown, Oklahoma City, asked me to write a book about his family and the bank he founded. About the same time, I partnered with the Oklahoma Historical Society to write a two-volume history of banking in Oklahoma. Then I penned a novel, The Pattersons, and published it under my imprint, 2 Cities Press LLC. When BancFirst President and CEO David Rainbolt asked me to write a corporate history for the bank’s top brass and key customers, I published it as a 2 Cities Press book.
I took a slight detour when I accepted a commission to write signage and find photos for the 89er Trail in downtown Oklahoma City to commemorate the Run of 1889. But then I returned to my comfort zone and wrote a book about Old Oklahoma and named it - what else? - 1889.
My next project, At War with Corruption, brought me closer to the present. In a deep dive into the dark side of my native state’s history, I wrote a biography Bill Price who served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma in the 1980s. Bill’s prosecutions in the most pervasive case of public corruption in FBI history earned him renown as the biggest corruption buster in Oklahoma history. After Bill’s unsuccessful but hard-fought campaign for the state’s top job, Fourth District Congressman Tom Cole gave him another moniker as the best governor Oklahoma never had.
When the First National Bank building in Oklahoma City was redeveloped into an urban oasis, I couldn’t resist getting into the act, as my great-grandfather and his brother co-founded the bank in the late 1920s. With the Oklahoma Historical Society’s permission, I reprinted my article in its quarterly journal, The Chronicles of Oklahoma, about the bank’s founding and early days and published it as a 2 Cities Press title, Brother Bankers.
My current project is a biography of Dick T. Morgan, one of Oklahoma’s founding fathers who has languished in undeserved obscurity for more than a century. An outspoken champion of the Party of Lincoln, Morgan was a politician and religious leader who promoted Progressive causes and served six terms in Congress during the territorial and early statehood periods. The book will be published in July 2024 under the title, Justice for All: Dick T. Morgan, Frontier Lawyer and Common Man’s Congressman.
So, I found a community of scholars not on a campus somewhere, but with people who share my interests, the characters who populate my books, and of course, my readers.
I feel fortunate to do this for a living. Thanks for dropping in.
- Michael
Charlottesville and Oklahoma City