Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame honors four with Booker T. Washington ties

Four of the 10 members of this year’s class have ties to Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School. Three — Bobbie Allen Booker, Karen Pittman and Art Williams II — are alumni.

The fourth, Lawrence “Night Train” Lane, has been the public address announcer at the school’s S.E. Williams Stadium for more than 55 years.

This year’s honorees will be recognized for their significant contributions to local education during a formal induction ceremony Friday at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City.

“It’s a real honor,” Lane said. “To be recognized for all of your years of labor in the public school system in Oklahoma — I’m honored and flattered. I’m just grateful to be above the ground and to be able to be inducted.”

First hired by TPS in 1967 to teach English, business and math at Horace Mann Junior High School, Booker went on to have site leadership positions at multiple middle schools within TPS before becoming the district’s executive director of middle schools in 2000.

For her, just seeing students move on from middle school to high school each year was a high water mark of her career.

“I always recall the eighth grade promotions, when the students are getting ready to move on to Booker T., and it’s always been a bittersweet moment because you know when some of them entered as a sixth grader, you wondered, ‘Is he or she going to make it?’” Booker said.

“And then you see them walking proudly across the stage to accept their certificate stating that they’re moving on to high school, and they come back and they tell you when they’re giving you that last hug: ‘I don’t know if I would have made it without your help.’

“You know, just hearing those words means a lot.”

On top of his duties as a public address announcer, Lane has been teaching for 46 years, with the last 23 at Checotah Public Schools. A former member of the Oklahoma Education Association’s Board of Directors, he is also a 2020 inductee in the TPS Athletic Hall of Fame and is known for his work as a basketball referee.

“To leave that legacy behind for my kids and grandkids is humbling,” he said. “It is very touching, and it means a lot.”

Now the principal at Drexel Academy, a private elementary school in northwest Tulsa, Pittman has been in education for almost 40 years. She said she was inspired to go into teaching by her second-grade teacher at Robert Frost Elementary School, Carolyn McCondichie.

“She just cared so much about the students and just really took up a lot of time with us,” Pittman said. “And she made sure that we learned everything that we needed to learn. She taught us how to read well and with expression and spelling.”

Coming full circle, McCondichie’s son went on to work under Pittman at both Academy Central and Drexel Academy.

Although Williams did not necessarily know early on that he wanted to be an educator, with both of his parents teaching during the segregation era, he said it was instilled in him subconsciously.

A Vietnam War veteran, Williams went on to teach at Langston University, including a stint as chairman of the school’s African American studies department. Drawing from that background, he expressed concern about attempts in other states to block or restrict teaching African American studies.

“That’s very concerning,” he said. “In other words, just wipe us totally out as African Americans and what we contribute to this society and education. We don’t want people to teach about that because it might upset some other people, but we’ve been upset 400 years. We’ve been upset, too.”

Established in 2011, the Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame inducts 10 accomplished Black educators and support employees from throughout the state each year.

Other members of this year’s class include Jason Brown, Vernetta DeMartra, James Simpson and three posthumous inductees: William Sulcer, Melvin Todd and Jimmie White Sr.

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