Growing Up Tulsa Tech

Tulsa Tech is turning 60! Travel back with us to 1965, when it all began. Hear firsthand stories from the families who lived it: Judith Lemley Holt, daughter of our first Superintendent Dr. Joe Lemley, Lanny Gibbs, son of Tulsa Tech’s very first counselor Al Gibbs, and Mark Winesburg, son of photography teacher Al Winesburg. 

Discover what it was really like when Tulsa Tech opened its doors and started shaping futures.

Transcript

Announcer: From Tulsa Tech, helping you make your own path with insights and information about the world of career training, the Tech Times Podcast starts right now. 

Ryan (Host): Hello and welcome to this special episode of the Tech Times podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Williams, as we celebrate 60 years of career training here at Tulsa Tech.

Ryan (Host): I'm excited to welcome three guests joining us today. In Mark Winesburg, Lanny Gibbs and Judith Lemley Holt, these three are children as some of the first employees at what was Tulsa Public School's Vocational technical Center, now known as Tulsa Tech. Welcome to all three of you.

Mark Winesburg: Thank you.

Lanny Gibbs: Thank you.

Lanny Gibbs: Nice being here

Judith Lemley Holt: thank you. 

Ryan (Host): So, mark, I wanna start with you a little bit. Would you share with us a little bit about your parents' roll here at, uh, Tulsa Tech and then maybe your experience that first day or so? On campus

Mark Winesburg: of my campus Being on campus or his campus?

Ryan (Host): Well, your, your experience when the school started in 1965.

Mark Winesburg: Okay. 

Mark Winesburg: , My father was the first teacher that, came with Dr. Lemley and, and, he came from, downtown Tulsa at the Vocational Education Center, which was a part of East or Central High School, and that was in 1964. Or five. But the first thing I remember is being at the ribbon cutting before they broke ground at, the Lemley campus.

Mark Winesburg: And I got in trouble 'cause I was playing in the sandbox. 

Ryan (Host): There was a sandbox

Mark Winesburg: and I never understood what the shovels were for in front of the sandbox because it's a field of grass and shovels. And so my dad was unhappy with me because I was playing in the sand. But, well,

Ryan (Host): it was fun, right?

Mark Winesburg: It was, yeah. I didn't know any better. I was only four.

Ryan (Host): Lanny. What about your experience and your, , dad's roll here? 

Lanny Gibbs: Oh, well, dad, I, I look at it as Dr. Lemley was the captain of the ship, and dad was second command. And, , you know, with Dr. Lemley's leadership, the, everybody believed in the student. And that was the main thing.

Lanny Gibbs: This has always been a wonderful place to be if you're a student or an a potential employee. This is a wonderful place, always has been. But my history is, well, I do remember Joe Roy Lemley

Lanny Gibbs: was my age, my first roommate in college. It was kind of like a family thing. And Judith there too. We all kind of remember groundbreaking.

Lanny Gibbs: But and then of course I was a student, a high school student. Adult student and an employee for 32 years.

Ryan (Host): So Oh, we'll get into that. Sure.

Lanny Gibbs: And still hang with the, , retirees. So it's, , a lot of memories. A lot of memories,

Ryan (Host): yeah. And what was your dad's roll in those early years?

Lanny Gibbs: Well, dad came from, Tulsa Webster.

Lanny Gibbs: Mm-hmm. Actually, I'm class of 72. , Stayed there, but he was a counselor. Dean of boys moved to Tulsa Tech. Center, while it was still a center part of Tulsa Public Schools as a vocational counselor. So he helped, he recruited students for the first class. And then of course, Dr. Lemley finished his tenure at Edison as the principal.

Lanny Gibbs: Am I right on that? And, . Tulsa Tech was born. 

Ryan (Host): But your dad, , as by the way, a hall of Famer here at Tulsa Tech, but he was instrumental in recruiting those first students

Lanny Gibbs: Yes.

Ryan (Host): Coming that first year, right? 

Lanny Gibbs: Well, his office was at, , the Education Service Center at Tulsa Public Schools for the mid school year.

Ryan (Host): Very cool. And Judith, do you, what are your memories of that first year of Tulsa Tech? 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, I remember, , my dad. , Coming up to me at the dinner table and telling me that he, he and my mother and I were going to spend a month in Corvallis, Oregon in June of 1965, where he was going to attend a seminar on vocational education.

Judith Lemley Holt: That was five days a week for a month, eight hours a day. Okay. And he handed me an atlas and said, you're going to navigate us there and I'm not going to look at the map. 

Ryan (Host): Wow. That's fun. 

Judith Lemley Holt: So needless I, he got my attention right away. 

Ryan (Host): So your dad was Dr. Joe Lemley, first superintendent of Tulsa Tech. And by the way, Corvallis is very pretty.

Ryan (Host): . How much do you remember of that time there?

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, dad would take a sightseeing when, on the weekends, during that month, and we saw Crater Lake and Mount Hood. Hoods, Timberline Lodge and Seal Rock and really enjoyed it. But getting there was kind of a foreshadowing of the challenges that Dad would face launching his career tech education on the way.

Judith Lemley Holt: We crossed the highest road in the Rockies, the Trail Ridge Road, and it was not supposed to be open yet, and it was snowing and sleeting and it took us four hours to go 40 miles. In Dad's 63, Thunderbird, which weighed about five tons. I dunno. You know, it was a big one. 

Ryan (Host): Did they have chains for the road at that point?

Judith Lemley Holt: And so we made it across and we got to the bottom of the mountain and there was a mudslide and we were de toured around the slide. But we got through that and then we got it 11 o'clock at night into Steamboat Springs. Now we're trying to get to this seminar. . Okay. And, got a couple of rooms and we all fell asleep listening to this downpour that was continuing, and the next morning we woke up and it was bright, sunny, but we could still hear the water.

Judith Lemley Holt: So I looked out the back window of the room and Steamboat Springs was out of its banks and literally lapping at our door. 

Ryan (Host): Mm-hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: So this was just the beginning of dad's challenges as we started.

Ryan (Host): Are you saying it's a foreshadowing of,

Judith Lemley Holt: it was definitely a foreshadowing of things to come. So my pioneer father drove on.

Ryan (Host): So I'm curious, , in terms of the history of the area surrounding Lemley campus as well. Was this area, did it look a lot different in the sixties than it does now? I mean, Tulsa wasn't this big, right? 

Judith Lemley Holt: It was practically empty fields. 

Ryan (Host): So nothing was really around 31st Street, 41st Street at that time.

Judith Lemley Holt: That's right. Lanny, were you gonna talk about what

Lanny Gibbs: Well, no, I,

Judith Lemley Holt: our dads had to do on Labor Day. 

Lanny Gibbs: There's that, there's the video. It's what a little more than 10 minute video with the 60 years plus in it. It does mention the first, day at school that. It. Well, and I, when I saw it was a little bit, , interesting 'cause Dr. Lemley mentioned Al and his son, Lanny Joe, his son Joe, and he mowed the lawn the first day of school so students could. It see their way into the place. 

Ryan (Host): We always thought that was folklore. 

Lanny Gibbs: Uh, no. It was a fact, Jack. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. And so how much,

Lanny Gibbs: I mean, you think about Johnson Grass, there was nothing there.

Lanny Gibbs: Stoplights. It took Dr. Lemley forever to get stoplights in this place. I mean, , traffic lights, sorry, 

Ryan (Host): right out front of campus here. Yeah. 

Lanny Gibbs: That did not exist. I mean, they worked hard just to get. It some kind of signal into this place. 

Ryan (Host): It's very interesting to me to feel like that this was empty fields surrounding this campus at that time, that there's just nothing around.

Mark Winesburg: The only thing on the whole camp or on this whole triangle was the, , continental movie theater. 

Ryan (Host): Oh yeah. Oh wow. And, . 

Mark Winesburg: That was a double movie theater. And in fact, when they closed, they offered Dr. Lemley to buy the whole property. And we didn't have the money at the time, but we could have had this whole corner.

Ryan (Host): Hmm. 

Mark Winesburg: Or the triangle that is here at one time. 

Ryan (Host): Wow. That would've been interesting. 

Mark Winesburg: But, , there was the con one gas station in a donut shop on the corner, and then the Continental Theater and us. And it was the only thing that was in this triangle, . And, , it was pretty nice. There was some nice fishing ponds that we got to use when.

Mark Winesburg: We got, uh, stuck up here at the school while our parents were working. We would go out and fish and yeah. 

Lanny Gibbs: Did you actually catch anything though?

Mark Winesburg: Oh yeah. I caught lots of fish or perch and some catfish. But, uh, that was always fun 'cause I got to go out and play in the field while they were out working all day.

Mark Winesburg: They'd just honk the horn and I'd come running. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. You mentioned the, um, story about mowing the grass that first day. It really seemed like, I, I guess how much of the campus was a family affair for you guys? 

Mark Winesburg: Uh, morning to night. My father worked in school projects or the school yearbooks until he went to bed.

Mark Winesburg: Uh, this, not only were they teaching photography, but he was in charge of, , making sure that the school yearbooks got made. So he and the students, the seniors did the yearbook while the juniors were learning how to take pictures. It was, , quite an event, 

Ryan (Host): man of many hats. 

Mark Winesburg: Yeah. 

Ryan (Host): What about you, Lanny?

Lanny Gibbs: What's the question now?

Ryan (Host): Like just a family affair being on campus. 

Lanny Gibbs: Um. Well,

Lanny Gibbs: there was always a like skills, USA events, which was VICA at the time, which actually gave birth to HOSA. So there was always student events happening and uh, even as kid would show up for some of those with dad. So I remember a lot of those. It is pretty much a family thing, I mean, and again, I still see it as such.

Lanny Gibbs: I, uh, the, uh. We will have dinner with the retirees here in a couple of weeks. We do that once a month. 

Ryan (Host): Judith, I'm assuming you're, you spent quite a bit of hours here on campus as well with Dr. Lemley.

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, actually I shared my dad with the rest of the world and, and he had me as busy as he was, his expectations were always high.

Judith Lemley Holt: You can imagine what it was like to be the oldest in his family. Alright. But, . When I was, 18, I was an intern reporter at the Tulsa world, and my dad, they, the reporters told me, you need to go down and look at your dad's clippings. So, because when I was in high school, I wasn't reading the newspaper.

Judith Lemley Holt: Sure. I was doing high school, you know, and so I went down there and I read everything that had been written about Tulsa Technology Centers and dad from s. The start of it to 1969, which was when I was an intern. And, , in there, one of the most fascinating things to me were the, the words that they used to describe dad and one was evangelical champion of vo-tech education.

Ryan (Host): That's a great description.

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes. , A missionary, like they referred to him, you know, and so I was learning about the other part of my dad. The part that I didn't get to see at home. 

Ryan (Host): Sure. 

Judith Lemley Holt: But he used the same techniques on me as he did on staff and students at school. So I have several stories to tell later about it.

Ryan (Host): Well, let's hear one. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, okay. First of all, I'm going to say that, , about dad that, , he considered it a moral issue. Interesting. This was an ideology with my father that students who needed to enter the workforce during high school or after high school should have training opportunities. And so everything he was quoted in the papers had that because there were battles going on in the state, especially where money was concerned.

Judith Lemley Holt: Boren was the governor, and Boren is a Rhode scholar. Okay. And he believes in this form of education, the traditional scholastic academic, , pathway, and he was having a hard time getting the governor to share some money. . Okay. So, , that was in every news article. There were many battles fought and there was name calling that took place.

Ryan (Host): Oh dear

Judith Lemley Holt: as well. I will not repeat those names. Okay. But, , he would say to me, he said, God must have loved the common man. He sure made a lot of them. And that was a Lincoln quote. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And he wouldn't tolerate any form of elitism in attitudes or otherwise. And so, , you know, he, , said, , he was quoted in, the Tulsa Tribune written by, Harold Charney, who was a long-term board member here.

Judith Lemley Holt: Yeah. , And in that article called Preparing People for Productive Lives, dad is quoted as saying, if education is to assure the right. Education program is appropriately delivered to the right person. Our educational philosophy must embrace a belief that all honest work has dignity and therefore no person is or should feel superior to anyone because of how they earn a living.

Ryan (Host): That's quite a quote. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes. Well, dad's, dad's back. True love in when he was in high school is writing. And he wrote jokes. He wrote, uh, comedy articles. I have many articles that he wrote when he was in high school. And that was what he really, he was a communicator. 

Judith Lemley Holt: You know, and that was what Tulsa Tech needed.

Judith Lemley Holt: Somebody that could communicate these things to the public, 

Ryan (Host): he was the right man for the job at the time.

Mark Winesburg: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Judith Lemley Holt: And it ref, I, I'll continue in reference to you what you had asked about how that impacted how he brought me up. I, I referred to myself as a daddy's girl. I was literally on his heels every opportunity.

Judith Lemley Holt: I watched him build a five room addition to our first home. I helped him string the foundation for a lake house at age eight. One day my dad asked me what shape I thought the kitchen serving bar at the cabin should look like. So after describing a giant fish shape, dad handed me. His wide flat carpenter's pencil and said, draw it.

Judith Lemley Holt: My dad, without hesitation followed my carefully drawn shape with his screaming loud handheld power saw. I have never had much trouble making decisions since that moment. 

Ryan (Host): What a confidence builder. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes, and and I felt like that's what dad's it pervaded every choice he made in the programs for Tulsa technology centers was that.

Judith Lemley Holt: Handing over to the student, the opportunity to make decisions and actually apply what they knew. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. That's so great. Did your parents' jobs kind of shape the way you experienced school as compared to other students? Mark. 

Mark Winesburg: , I basically grew up with too many parents. I, my father brought me to school whenever I wasn't at my own high school.

Mark Winesburg: I was at Tech and, everyone knew me except for the people I went to work for. And, , it was quite surprising that, you know, I had to kind of keep it quiet that I knew everyone and they didn't. Because I didn't wanna be treated any differently than any other new employee. But, every one of the teachers assumed that I was their child, and Dr. Lemley and Gibbs were, , very strict with me and kept me in line the whole time they were here. 

Ryan (Host): Well, it takes a village mark, you know? 

Mark Winesburg: Yeah, it did. Yeah. With me, especially 

Ryan (Host): Lanny. What about you? You kind of talked about your path earlier, but 

Lanny Gibbs: Dad was pretty much grassroots, you know, worked with the students, , the, ,

Lanny Gibbs: different organizations. 

Ryan (Host): Did it, did it kind of shape your student experience?

Lanny Gibbs: Yes.

Ryan (Host): Growing up?

Lanny Gibbs: Well, like I say, I was here. Kind of followed in his footsteps from more of the, well you take Judith, she went more the administrative right line like her dad did. I kinda stayed more grassroots. I stayed, again, still stay in touch with him, but was a part of the, uh, well, let's say administration used to like to call us a union.

Lanny Gibbs: We like to call ourselves an association like National Education Association. So, uh, it kind of put us on odds a little bit, but not really. 'cause as a family from, you know, back when Mark was playing in the sandbox all the way through, so everybody knew everybody. Everybody took care of everybody.

Lanny Gibbs: Students were the main focus and that's, uh mm-hmm. Like you were saying, it was all about the student. It didn't matter if you were a support staff or an administrator or a teacher is all about the student. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, Lanny there. My dad had an experience, uh, when he was in ninth grade that I think formed this desire to, that the student was first and the teachers were a big part of keeping the students first.

Judith Lemley Holt: And he had, um, he was the a sharecropper son and they were very poor. And, he was in school and, you know, he was growing fast. He got to be six foot five and his pants were a little short and somebody made fun of him one day and he came home and he said, look, I'm not going back. So his daddy punished him and, , put him behind a plow in the fields in Checotah, Oklahoma.

Judith Lemley Holt: About a day or two later, he looks up from the field and he sees this tiny little woman in her little lace up. Shoes from that period making her way across these furrows up to him. And she said, are you Joe Lemley? And he said, well, yes. And he, she opened her roll book and she said, your name is written right here in India ink.

Judith Lemley Holt: It's permanent and I can't erase it and it could jeopardize my job with the superintendent if you don't come back to school. And she said, I expect to see you back in school. And he was back the next day. 

Ryan (Host): Good for him. 

Judith Lemley Holt: So dad told that story many, many times. And so when tech started in 1965, the first thing that the teachers had to do was call the rolls that students that were coming to their school to call them in advance and tell them, welcome, anxious to see you, and so forth.

Judith Lemley Holt: And so, all those little things that happened to dad as he. Went through many challenges before he became a superintendent. , We're still part of him and he made it a part of his practice 

Ryan (Host): and having him work here, that that helped shape your. Career path and your student experience, right? 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes. We have a family tradition.

Judith Lemley Holt: My parents were both educators. My mother, , and he went to school on the GI bill together and graduated with their master's. They went to Connors Junior College. They went to OSU, on their masters in Northeastern State. So they went to three schools together. , Mother had been a valedictorian. She was a rancher's daughter.

Judith Lemley Holt: And. So they worked together and they started teaching in Orlando, Oklahoma first, and then Council Hill, Oklahoma, and then came to Tulsa and , mother had an all level certificate. She taught high school before she got here. She taught elementary. When she got to Tulsa, dad started at Webster, then he moved to Central and then quickly became assistant principal at Central.

Judith Lemley Holt: And so that was my background and I did 43 years in Tulsa public schools. I did teach 16 of those years. And, I taught English journalism, creative writing, and French.

Ryan (Host): Wow.

Judith Lemley Holt: And so I was kind of on the academic side. Dad didn't have a problem with that. Yeah. You know, he tolerated it. But, regardless. And then, , my daughter has continued the tra the tradition, and she teaches, , advanced math at TCC. 

Ryan (Host): Very cool.

Judith Lemley Holt: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan (Host): Very cool. Um, you, Judith, you kind of mentioned it a little bit earlier. How did people talk about the school at the time? Was there excitement? Was there doubt, pride? Like how did people engage with the school at that time?

Judith Lemley Holt: Uh, in the start? Yeah. Very start.

Ryan (Host): Yeah. In the start.

Judith Lemley Holt: There was a lot of, um, negativity, 

Ryan (Host): really. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes, there was. And my dad was the perfect man to deal with it because he was always positive, you know, and, , he, he, like I said, he would quote Lincoln and he was a gifted speaker. He could turn anybody around, , on their attitudes, especially me.

Judith Lemley Holt: And, I remember, in that battle, he had to deal with the fact that there were many students who were failing at their home schools, but he had high expectations for the students that were gonna come to Tulsa Tech, and they had to have a C average. They had to have good. Good. I don't know if that's changed or not, but I know how he started it.

Judith Lemley Holt: They had to have a c average. They had to have good attendance. , They had to have a an acceptable discipline record. And he, he knew that if he was gonna succeed with this school, that he had to start with people that were ready to learn and he stuck with it. He fought battles over it, and he won that war.

Judith Lemley Holt: And I think this is another reason that Tulsa Tech has been as successful as it has been because of dad's standards. 

Ryan (Host): Sure, no doubt. Lanny, do you remember anything back in the day that they were talking about Tulsa Tech?

Lanny Gibbs: Well, again, it kind of is a continuing story because career tech, education, I mean.

Lanny Gibbs: Dad was involved with it back in the fifties. You know, 10 years later there's the foresight of the state to start this institution, Tulsa public schools and the rest of the state. But there was always that, what you're calling negativism is kind of like, it kind of falls in the category of best kept secret too.

Lanny Gibbs: People don't really understand what's out here, and even today you can watch national news at different states and they're just. Inventing career tech education.

Ryan (Host): Mm-hmm. Right.

Lanny Gibbs: And we're, well, it's been here since, for, since mid last century. Really? That's right. That's right. But so why is this negativ, um, negativism?

Lanny Gibbs: It still exists today. Well always dealt with it, I guess we always will. 

Ryan (Host): Sure. And Mark, you were pretty young. Do you remember anything from back in the days? 

Mark Winesburg: I just remember that they had lots of school dances. You left your, uh, school colors at your high school when you were here, you were Tulsa Tech.

Mark Winesburg: And there was no high school belonging to anything except Tulsa Tech. . And uh, that was very interesting 'cause you weren't allowed to wear your school colors here at that time. Yeah. 

Ryan (Host): That is interesting. Why was that? Do you know? 

Mark Winesburg: They didn't want any of the, uh, rivalry school problems to be here,

Ryan (Host): so that makes sense.

Lanny Gibbs: Everything stayed at your home high school and it wasn't discussed at this location. They had their own dances and they had their own, kings in Queens, but if for other. A pair of other ideas and other things. And they also believed in, , the fact that we didn't have money. When I started working at the maintenance department, , we had most of our parts actually manufactured by our own employees and our own students because.

Lanny Gibbs: We didn't have the money to go out and buy the parts. We didn't have money for tools. So whenever the maintenance department needed to do work, we had to go out to the class, check the tools out, just like the students did go do our job and then go back and check 'em back in because we didn't have funding at that time to, have our own supplies or anything.

Ryan (Host): That's so challenging when you're trying to maintain facilities for. Classroom instruction and labs and stuff, 

Mark Winesburg: but the students learned how to actually manufacture parts and things because we would take them a drawing or the old broken part and they would miraculously make it in our different classrooms and shops, and they were miraculous.

Mark Winesburg: They kept us going when we did not have money for our maintenance department. 

Ryan (Host): Were there any teachers or staff members that stood out to you in those first few years? Judith. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, , I'm my homemaking teacher from Memorial High School. Mary Snyder was hired by dad, , to come out here and teach the home economics classes.

Judith Lemley Holt: And, , she was an early person out here and of course, eventually Betty Boyd . Was out here. And she was the first lady of television in Oklahoma. And I was into television. I was a journalism major. And so I, I thought, oh, this is pretty cool. Dad's decided to do this, you know? , But hearing about how the students made the parts, there was never a barrier.

Judith Lemley Holt: He never saw barriers. 

Ryan (Host): Mm-hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Only solutions. And again, that was part of the success. You know, , I don't know if you recall, but MasterCard had a series of advertisements at one time. And always they ended it with the word priceless. And, I believe that, if I were to do a MasterCard commercial for Tulsa Tech, it would be getting it right the first time.

Judith Lemley Holt: Priceless. Because, you know, starting out, that's the first impression. 

Ryan (Host): Oh, for sure. Yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: You know, that's the first impression. And, and first, I always told my teachers first impressions are forever. You know? 

Ryan (Host): That's powerful. Yeah. Yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Mm-hmm. 

Ryan (Host): Lanny, what about you? 

Lanny Gibbs: Yeah, well, something Mark said stirred a little bit of something.

Lanny Gibbs: The, uh, I think we couldn't wear Letterman jackets to school back in high school because again, you mentioned the you had the question about identify, identifying with your homeschool. It, you didn't, it's not that you couldn't identify with your homeschool, but the nice thing about this place was you could reinvent yourself here 

Ryan (Host): for sure.

Ryan (Host): Yeah, definitely.

Lanny Gibbs: So, you know, leave. What you wear at your homeschool alone and reinvent yourself here in the student organization or skill or whatever. And that was a major benefit. 

Judith Lemley Holt: I don't know if they're still wearing the red jackets. Okay. That was right off the right from the very beginning. My, my dad said they're gonna wear red suit jackets when they go to competitions, you know, , they're going to be taught how to behave.

Judith Lemley Holt: Dad was the disciplinarian, at Central High School as his assistant principal. There were 3,300 students there, and he was the only. Disciplinarian for 3,300. And as being his daughter, I can promise you he got his way. And, and, and so I, I, I thought it was great that my dad put those red jackets on the kids.

Judith Lemley Holt: They were obvious. And those pictures you would see of them over the years, how proud they were of their opportunity to compete. And, and of course they always competed well and still do. 

Ryan (Host): I've heard stories of even, that's the first time students have ever worn a jacket and so they were really proud in, in attending those competitions.

Ryan (Host): So,

Judith Lemley Holt: absolutely.

Ryan (Host): Lanny. Did you have any influential, uh, folks in that, in those early years?

Lanny Gibbs: Too many dimension actually.

Ryan (Host): Okay.

Lanny Gibbs: I mean, I'll come up with the co, the couple, but, , the Mary Snyder wonderful. , Betty Boyd. Charles Herndon electronics teacher, still around, see, might see him in a couple of days at the retirement session, but I had him as a, , as an adult student.

Lanny Gibbs: I took a class from him and then later he's one of my mentors and, , wonderful individual. There's others, I mean, I could go on, but I wanna say something about the red jackets. The red jackets were. VICA, vocational Industrial Clubs of America, which is now Skills USA. Early on, VICA was the only, it was trading industrial ed type organization, but it grew and actually hosa, the health occupations came out of that.

Lanny Gibbs: And then some blue jackets started showing up. Yeah. But for the early years it was all pretty much red jacket around here with VICA. Yeah. VICA. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. Were there times that each of you saw maybe the school change in ways that felt significant to you? Like if in terms of growth or. 

Judith Lemley Holt: I, I had a real estate license at one point and , I went to my, , skills renewal kind of activity here.

Ryan (Host): Yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And , and that's when I realized the extent to which that they were training people for other industries, , and providing, , facilities to do that, 

Ryan (Host): , Beyond some of our full-time programs. Those, . Adult career development sort of classes. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Mm-hmm. And things. Yes. And so I thought that was really good because I felt like it's getting everyday people in here and they're seeing, oh, what a fine place this is.

Judith Lemley Holt: It was just another way to spread the, the news about the qualities of programs. Sure. And I also held three Future Educator of America conferences at the Peoria campus. So I was in Phi Delta Kappa. My dad had been president of that organization and one of the, their organizations was Future Teachers of America, , no Future Educators of America, excuse me, FEA.

Judith Lemley Holt: And so tech agreed to provide, , buses. For middle and high school students for all these areas to come to my conferences. And I had people, guest speakers, we gave away scholarship money to seniors that sp spoke to the group. They got to eat at the Peoria campus. And so I, I did a little outreach for tech too, but it was in trying to develop future educators of America in Tulsa.

Ryan (Host): Well, we appreciate that advocacy. . Mark, what about you? Did you, , see the school change? , You've obviously worked here and we'll talk about that a little bit, but in terms of those early years, , how did the school's growth and change throughout those years? 

Mark Winesburg: It, uh, was very slow in the beginning, but then it just multiplied and became very.

Mark Winesburg: Busy. I used to know everybody here on campus. Everybody knew me. Now I know very few. I was, I was hired in 1979, but I was the 291st employee at Tulsa Tech, and that was my number for many, many years. But, uh, so now I don't even know how many people we've had working at Tech before, but. It, it's been a lot of, uh, change since we've all been here.

Ryan (Host): Yeah. 

Mark Winesburg: Came a long way from that little sandbox. 

Ryan (Host): That's right. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, and numbers, numbers of students. Oh yeah. In 65 there were 300 and some 3 35 I believe it was. And when dad retired in, in 1988. There were 43,000 students that year. Mm. In all the four, in the four campuses that he had developed. 

Ryan (Host): Sure. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And so that's, that's a, an amazing growth.

Ryan (Host): Oh yeah, definitely. 

Judith Lemley Holt: You know, 

Ryan (Host): Lanny, you obviously worked here. 

Lanny Gibbs: I worked. I can say, if you look right down, of course this is radio work. You can't, but see that field right there? 

Ryan (Host): As we're looking on the Lemley Memorial campus, you'll see a big grassy field. 

Lanny Gibbs: There you go. Well, I can't help but remember the yellow taxi words of they paved paradise and they put up a parking lot.

Lanny Gibbs: Because right up there is where it happened.

Ryan (Host): Yeah.That field is the future home of the career education center. Construction on the new state-of-the-art facility is just getting started and is scheduled to take about three years to complete. 

Lanny Gibbs: And, , you know, with growth and all, but it, uh, I'm looking where it was all, all went the first building. And the Mark knows, and everybody knows 

Ryan (Host): Lanny share with us.

Ryan (Host): You, you actually, came back and started working here. Talk, share with us a little bit about your career at Tech. 

Lanny Gibbs: Well, I, the building's still there. Top floor of F building or the bottom floor F building is, , was the electronics department. We had four teachers and there was one in Peor at, , Peoria two.

Lanny Gibbs: But as life changes, the, , curriculum changed. We got into telecommunications. So I went from, , teaching electronics technology here to, , Riverside Campus and was there teaching electronics and then, , got into the telecommunications were realm, and then ended up on this side working for Jennifer over there in the biz department.

Ryan (Host): Okay.

Lanny Gibbs: Specializing mainly in safety. 

Ryan (Host): Okay. So safety trainer for companies throughout the area then?

Lanny Gibbs: Right.

Ryan (Host): Awesome. And Mark, you, you came and worked here as well and you're still working here?

Mark Winesburg: I'm still here.

Ryan (Host): That's crazy. How many years?

Mark Winesburg: Uh, 47 years starting tomorrow. 

Ryan (Host): And that's the record for longest employees served?

Mark Winesburg: Uh, probably. 

Ryan (Host): Okay. We could confirm that maybe, but I would guess so.

Mark Winesburg: Um. There hasn't been very many people that's been here that long that, uh, but mine's all been at the same Tulsa tech where other people came from other locations and they counted their years for, from that school district. 

Ryan (Host): All right.

Ryan (Host): Yeah. 

Mark Winesburg: So, but mine are all at the same location. 

Ryan (Host): Talk about that all the shift and change throughout the years as your career evolved. 

Mark Winesburg: Well, I'll start, I'll use computers as an example. We started out as, uh, with a computer class. Then the computer itself was the size of two rooms for the whole computer, and that was

Ryan (Host): you're talking computer singular.

Mark Winesburg: One computer, took over two rooms, and uh, we had two teachers. We had Bob Kite and another lady that taught the, uh, card reading or card punching class. 

Ryan (Host): Okay. 

Mark Winesburg: And we've come from that to where we carry more computer knowledge in our pocket than what we had in a two room building. 

Ryan (Host): Two rooms to take up a hole.

Mark Winesburg: It's amazing how, uh, things have changed. Yeah, we've come a long way 

Judith Lemley Holt: in, in, in on that subject. Um, when dad was at Webster, he was a drafting teacher and he had a son, a, a student who was about six foot six and weigh about 240 pounds and was very loud. And my dad said to him, if you ever develop that loudness of yours in the right direction, you're going to succeed in life.

Judith Lemley Holt: And this is from a, uh, an article written about by Ron Butler in the Tulsa world because that student, Ron McCutchen. Decided later, years later that the friendship between he and my dad and the guidance my dad had given him, he was able to build a company and donated to this tech center a $5,000 teaching machine.

Ryan (Host): Wow. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Uh, and that happened, um, when dad was still principal, before he became superintendent here. 

Ryan (Host): Hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And you think about that, they. We're talking about the machinery. So this was a math, it was a computing machine is what it was. It was a mathematical computer and, and it was donated 

Mark Winesburg: and it took up two rooms.

Ryan (Host): Oh, that is so funny. Judith, I was curious, what's it like driving by the original Memorial campus and seeing your namesake? 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, it's very special to me because Lemley is kind of a unique name. I remember going to Chicago Airport one time and getting in the back in the day when we had phone books just to see if I could find any Lemleys and there weren't any Lemleys in Chicago and that's a big place.

Judith Lemley Holt: And so, I was very proud and I al also thought about every time one of. The students that I graduated with from Memorial High School in 1968, I thought, you know what? They're gonna remember me every time they see that Lemley campus on there. 'cause there was not another Lemley around at that time.

Ryan (Host): Sure. 

Judith Lemley Holt: So it's a unique name. Um, I have to say though, Don, my husband Don has a wonderful family in Texas. I imported him from Texas and, um, his, one of his brothers and his sister. And Don and I all got married in the same summer. 

Ryan (Host): Hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: You know, you can imagine parents having three children get married in the same summer.

Judith Lemley Holt: And his sister married a young man whose mother was a Lemley. 

Ryan (Host): Oh. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And I thought to myself, how rare. What a rare thing. So yeah, I'm very proud to see that, that name. Yeah. And I dropped my, my middle name and kept the Lemley name so that people would still know who I was. . Because I changed my last name three times.

Judith Lemley Holt: . You know, so I'm Judith Lemley Holt. 

Ryan (Host): Wow. Very cool. , You were talking about the sandbox mark, , from way back when. What do you think your dads would. Think about Tulsa Tech now with six campuses and as, and as big as we are. , 

Mark Winesburg: He, it would be hard to explain. I mean, he did two photography classes and now we have three or four teachers that do what , he did.

Mark Winesburg: And when he did it, I mean, he was even publishing the yearbook. He and Bill Reed were, uh. Very good at, uh, publishing when they got finished, but it's amazing how much we've changed going into digital. And, you know, we carry more in your pocket than he ca carried in a whole vehicle of, uh, different photography things.

Mark Winesburg: So when he took a student out to take pictures at a wedding, they would have tripod after tripod with these big cameras set up all over the wedding studio. Or the church where he couldn't get it all in his vehicle, where students had to take some of the equipment to themselves and now you carry it in your pocket.

Mark Winesburg: That's. It's amazing. Yeah. So it, with all, its changes that have come, I mean, we had a dark room, we had two dark rooms in his classroom, one for color and one for black and white. And now people don't even know what a dark room is. 

Ryan (Host): I was just gonna say, does anybody really know what that is anymore? 

Mark Winesburg: But, uh, it's a lot safer now 'cause you don't have to have all of the, uh, chemicals and things that you had to play with then.

Ryan (Host): That's true. 

Mark Winesburg: And, uh. Believe me, I got burned by a lot of them growing up.

Judith Lemley Holt: Do you all still have a staff newsletter? 

Ryan (Host): Oh, we do. It's a weekly email that goes out called Tech Connect. Okay. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Have you ever seen one that looks like this? 

Lanny Gibbs: Oh,

Mark Winesburg: that's an old one.

Lanny Gibbs: TAV-Tact Tech was the, uh, 

Judith Lemley Holt: Tav-Tact . That was your association newsletter?

Lanny Gibbs: Yep. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, um, this one was the one that came out, uh, when dad decided to retire. And, um. I don't know if you remember K Turnball. 

Speaker 5: Oh yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: K Turnball was a, in evidently put out this, this, this, uh, newsletter and I did 11 years of newspaper and 14 year books for East Central High School. So I know it's a lot of work what her dad did, but, um, she wrote a poem about dad's time here and it has a lot of interesting things called Ode to Joe.

Judith Lemley Holt: Do you mind?

Ryan (Host): Well, let's hear it.

Judith Lemley Holt: Okay. Once every century or two, when God feels particularly inspired, he creates a special fellow whose talents would be required, one who would challenge traditional beliefs of a straight college prep education. A man who'd consent to be head chief yet help kids pick out a vocation.

Judith Lemley Holt: He must get along with teachers. God said and meet with tough politicians. He'll need to be a man who's well read, able to make sound decisions. He'll frequently need to talk to large crowds, so I'll make him very loquacious and he'll often have to think out loud, so I'll be sure that he's sagacious a fair amount of stubbornness he'll need.

Judith Lemley Holt: To make sure it's done right and perseverance to succeed. Though through budget cuts and snake bites his whole life, he must dedicate to vocational education. So educators will emulate his remarkable innovations. He'll need the body of an athlete, the compassion of a saint, who'll take the bitter with the sweet without too many complaints.

Judith Lemley Holt: He'll have to have courage, judgment, and spunk and tenacity to meet every day. A giant of a man able to slam dunk. So Doc, God gave us Dr. J. 

Ryan (Host): That is very cool. Thank you for reading that. 

Lanny Gibbs: Yeah. And keep in mind, that's from the teachers. . That's from not really part of the school. The independent association, the teachers.

Lanny Gibbs: Uh, adored the guy. 

Ryan (Host): Yeah. . Lanny, what, what, what would your dad feel about today's Tulsa tech? 

Lanny Gibbs: It'd be the growth. I've said it before. 'cause again, dad was into vocational education back in the fifties, and so the seed was grown really about outta Stillwater. Go pokes. It was a and m at his days.

Lanny Gibbs: That's OSU my days. Uh, but from this little place, then it. You know, if you looked at the map at Tulsa and then all the other institutions has grown, and Tulsa Tech has grown, it just amazing. Amazing. But I guess I like to look at it. We got it right in this state. 

Ryan (Host): Oh, the career tech system is really, really cool.

Ryan (Host): It's, it's something that, um, sets Oklahoma apart, as you guys know.. , would Dr. Lemley recognize Tulsa Tech these days? 

Judith Lemley Holt: I think he had this in his vision all along. Dad had 20/20 vision. He really did. And he would talk about things that the rest of people would only dream about. So that was just who he was.

Judith Lemley Holt: And, um, in fact, I, I might say that, um, to give you an example, he, um, was a draftsman, a teacher, an administrator, a hall of famer, a fisherman. A philosopher, a poet, an artisan, a gardener, and an amazing speaker and storyteller. He was invited to the membership of the platform association, which when he was invited to join, only 100 people had been invited since Benjamin Franklin.

Judith Lemley Holt: So dad was a sharecropper son that had gifts and the people that worked for dad. And that worked with dad and in, and in other institutions that were educational would always mention how gifted he was. You know? And it was a gift because there, the only people that I think he ever heard speak other than teachers was a, uh, a country baptist, fire, fire, and brimstone preacher, you know?

Ryan (Host): Mm-hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: And, and that's probably where that evangelical or missionary like. Aspect of him came out. , So yeah, I, I had to mention that, that I think that, that, that his method of communicating was reached people. 

Ryan (Host): Do you think that was a big impact in terms of the draw for students and staff in those early years? , Making sure that, you know, we had a strong foothold of strong foundation for this district.

Judith Lemley Holt: Well again, I think the draw, part of the draw was the, uh, standard that he set. And that was that the teachers had to have at least two years experience in business or industry associated with their work, , because they could all qualify to teach in a regular high school or middle school.

Ryan (Host): Sure.

Judith Lemley Holt: But because they had a teaching credential. But they, they dad wanted them to have that hands-on experience. It was absolutely important to him. Um, he was a hands-on person. I marveled at his landscaping, his gardens. He built me a playhouse one winter. I sat on every board he sawed when I was, I guess I was about seven when he built a 17 foot boat in a one car garage.

Judith Lemley Holt: You know?

Ryan (Host): Did that even fit?

Judith Lemley Holt: Yeah, it did. It actually did. Dad, , added five rooms to that house. He built an addition Wow. To that house. He designed and built, , lake houses. But dad loved to teach and he would earn more money, more money in one summer. At Texas Instruments, drawing, doing drafting. Then he would make all year long as a teacher.

Judith Lemley Holt: But his first love was teaching and so I felt like that again, that wonderful, instructive manner that he had, uh, with his teachers. I know as a teacher I would've given anything to have somebody come up and tell me something that would help me out, you know? 

Judith Lemley Holt: And, uh, over the years as I've. As I've talked to people that would come up to me and say, oh, I'll never forget your dad's speaking, or I, or, or he did this for us, or he did that.

Judith Lemley Holt: And these are things that I wouldn't know if they hadn't told me. 'cause like I said, dad kept me busy too. But, um, let's see here. I, oh, I wanted to mention one other thing In, 2014. Tulsa People Magazine annually puts out, um, people that pass away that year that are big, major contributors to Tulsa. , And they're called, , lives well Lived.

Judith Lemley Holt: And, um, dad was mentioned that year when he passed and they said that, um. He was honored postmortem when, uh, when former state director of Oklahoma Department of Career Tech, Roy Peters wrote this about it, said pioneers like Dr. Joe Lemley were key to building the great foundation for the Oklahoma Career Tech systems.

Judith Lemley Holt: Great reputation. It was a new concept in the sixties, and it had to be done right. Joe knew how to do it right. Again, that getting it right the first time, for sure. Yeah. Concept. But I, I wanted to include that because I thought that was a very nice thing for them to include in Tulsa people. 

Ryan (Host): It was such a nice statement from, um, Mr. Peters that mm-hmm. You know, the, to be able to, uh, say that postmortem is really great. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Mm-hmm. So, 

Ryan (Host): yeah. Um, mark, do you have any, if you could tell today's students or staff one thing about those early years, what would it be?

Mark Winesburg: We were, uh, very close and the teachers really cared a lot about their students. If somebody was missing, my dad would call them that night and call 'em at home to see why they weren't at school. It was important for everyone to be at work, and he always wanted as a family. Atmosphere. , Our employees at Tulsa Tech were such a family that, , when my father passed, the people that performed the ceremony at his funeral were Mr. Gibbs and, Dr. Lemley. They performed the whole funeral. And, it was such a surprise to have, such. So many people show up. There were people from the state of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City that showed up. At the funeral. I met all kinds of people and it was very special for us. We were a big family.

Mark Winesburg: If one of the teachers were missing. Dr. Lemley would call and make sure we were okay if he found out I was homesick from school. This is what I mean when I say too many parents, is he would call me and make sure I was okay and that I could go back to school the next day and I'm not even part of his family.

Mark Winesburg: So, you know, we were, everybody knew each other and our families and our spouses, we were very close and, uh. It was very important to Dr. Lemley. 

Ryan (Host): You have a unique perspective given that you've worked here all these years as well. Um, obviously things have grown around this district, but I feel like we still kind of have that family atmosphere through our six campuses.

Ryan (Host): Do you feel that same way? 

Mark Winesburg: We do to a point, but. It. We don't have the communication and there would be too many, there's no way to keep up with so many different people. I can't remember everybody's name with all of the change and everything. The only thing constant here is change. Sure. And uh, but we do have a family atmosphere, but it's not.

Mark Winesburg: The same as we did then because we,

Ryan (Host): it's a little more challenging at this scale. 

Mark Winesburg: We can't, there isn't a church big enough for all of us to go to and meet. We can't even meet in a building and have us all together at one time, let alone our families. . And grandkids.

Ryan (Host): Lanny, go ahead. 

Lanny Gibbs: The early on, like he was talking when we had our summer conference, August conference.

Lanny Gibbs: We'd all meet. Administrators, teachers, uh, board members, we'd all meet, stay in the same hotel because it was small group so we could all, you know, be together, dine together, so forth. But the institution itself has gotten so big. You can't do that anymore. You can't can,

Ryan (Host): it's little more challenging.

Lanny Gibbs: We can't all be in the same place. . So, you know, it, it, it, it's still there, but it's just. Spread out more, I'd say. 

Ryan (Host): If you could have, um, if you could share one story Lanny, uh, to today's students about those early years, what would that be? 

Lanny Gibbs: Well, one, Dr. Lemley dad, the whole crew, uh, would make sure a student did not go home hungry.

Lanny Gibbs: Now, how did it get budgeted? They didn't worry about it then, if that makes sense. These days you just got to cross your T's and dot your I a little. With more concern. But again, pretty much back in those days, there was no student that went hungry and might even fed some of the family. 

Ryan (Host): Did you all have any other memories you would want to share to our audience?

Judith Lemley Holt: Well, I'd like to share one when dad was moonlighting, uh, as a teacher.

Judith Lemley Holt: He was drawing house plans for people at the dining room table, and I was about three years old and again, I was on his heels every moment. And so dad had the, um, wood shop at Central High School downtown, make me a miniature slant board and a drafting board, and he had the metal shop make me miniature drafting tools. And one day he came home from school with those items and he put a piece of white paper on my little drafting board and taped a, a blueprint that he had done next to it and said, copy this. And I did exactly what dad said and I copied it. And years later when I had the opportunity, I, uh.

Judith Lemley Holt: Drew the plans for the, and submitted them to the city of Tulsa for a very large addition to a home, and then since have built two custom homes. And I learned everything before I went to kindergarten from dad and, and to me it was just my way of knowing how he would function with At Tech. It's like the students making.

Judith Lemley Holt: The parts . That, that were needed for maintenance. It just totally makes sense to me. 

Ryan (Host): Hmm. 

Judith Lemley Holt: That was the way he was. There were no barriers. 

Ryan (Host): Kind of a jack of all trades. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yes. In fact, 

Judith Lemley Holt: Yeah, I think I mentioned all the different things that he seemed to be 

Ryan (Host): Yeah, true. You did. Yeah. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Uh, capable of, you know, and needless to say, when you grow up with a daddy like that, it's hard to find a, a, a man elsewhere that can match him.

Ryan (Host): Mark. 

Mark Winesburg: One of the things that I thought was odd at the time I didn't understand because I was so young, but my father was president of the the School Association and, uh. And at that time the president was also where the negotiations went on so many a time at the dining room table. There were all these strange people doing the negotiations for the, uh, whole school district, and I was not allowed to interrupt and, uh.

Mark Winesburg: To me now, negotiations is done in a completely different location.

Mark Winesburg: . Can you imagine doing it at your dining room table with all those people sitting around? It's completely changed, but that's one of the main things that I remember. 

Ryan (Host): Well, I just wanna take a moment and say thank you to all. To each of you for joining us today.

Ryan (Host): It's been so great sharing these incredible stories over the last 60 years. Um, I appreciate y'all being here so much. 

Lanny Gibbs: Thank you. 

Judith Lemley Holt: Thank you. We were happy to be here. 

Lanny Gibbs: Me too. 

Mark Winesburg: It's very nice. Thank you. 

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