SEMINOLE – A private graveside service will be held for David L. Boren, 83, former governor, U.S. Senator and president of the University of Oklahoma. A public memorial tribute will be held at a later date.
Gov. Kevin Stitt ordered flags on state property to be flown at half-staff in honor of Boren’s life, service and legacy until his interment.
“Today (Feb. 21), I join Oklahomans in mourning the loss of former Governor David Boren, who dedicated his life to serving our state. His love of Oklahoma was evident in everything he did.”
Boren is survived by his wife of 47 years, Molly Shi Boren, two children and two grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, U.S. Rep. Lyle H. Boren, who died in 1992, and Christine Boren, who died in 2002.
Boren was born in Washington, D.C., on April 21, 1941, as his father, a Democratic leader from Seminole, was elected to Congress in 1936. In a 2016 interview with John Erling of the Oklahoma Historical Society’s program “Voices of Oklahoma,” Boren shared about his father’s political influence on his life and career.
As a young boy Boren visited the White House with his father, who had helped campaign for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was placed on the president’s lap. The senior Boren was also close friends with U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn, who Boren got to know while traveling with his father. During Harry Truman’s whistlestop campaign to be reelected as the nation’s president, which went through Seminole in 1948, the young Boren was able to ride on the train and talk with the president until a stop in Holdenville.
Boren grew up and crafted his own successful political career after graduating from Yale and Oxford and then earning a juris doctorate degree from the University of Oklahoma in the late 1960s. In 1967, Boren was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives from Seminole County. He served four terms from 1967 to 1974 and then ran for governor.
A political timeline written by state historian Bob Burke for the OHS’ online “Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture,” shows that when Boren practiced law in Seminole, he rose to the rank of captain in the Oklahoma Army National Guard and chaired the social sciences department at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee.
Boren was elected Oklahoma governor in 1974. He defeated the incumbent governor, David Hall, and then won a Democratic runoff with the favored Clem Mc-Spadden. Boren went on to defeat Republican candidate James (Jim) Inhofe in the general election. At 33, Boren was the nation’s youngest governor when inaugurated on Jan. 12, 1975.
His political platform consisted of requiring competitive bidding for state bank deposits and for professional services, corrections reform, campaign finance disclosure laws, and open meeting and public voting by all state legislative committees and state boards and commissions.
In January 1978, Boren successfully ran for the U.S. Senate and served as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was reelected two times and served a total of three terms. In 1988, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
He resigned from the U.S. Senate in 1994 to become president of the University of Oklahoma. Boren was the first Oklahoman to serve as a state legislator, governor, U.S. senator and president of the University of Oklahoma, Burke wrote. Boren retired in June 2018, after more than 50 years of public service.