UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
STUDENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
University of Central Oklahoma Oral History Project
Archives and Special Collections
100 North University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
Interviewee:
Mayor Saundra Naifeh
Interviewer:
Date:
Location of Interview:
Kim Penrod
February 3, 2006
Liberal Arts Building Room 211
Transcribed:
Edited by:
Kim Penrod
Lindsey Johnston
SN:
KP:
Saundra Naifeh
Kim Penrod
KP: Good morning.
SN: Good morning.
KP: Today is February 2, 2006 and we are in room 211 of the Liberal Arts Building at
the University of Central Oklahoma. My name is Kim Penrod and today I will be
interviewing Saundra Naifeh, the current mayor of Edmond, Oklahoma. My equipment
person is Melissa Brodt and we are here today conducting this interview for the
University of Central Oklahoma’s Oral History Project. Thank you for joining us Mayor
Naifeh.
SN: Oh, you’re welcome.
KP: I’d like to start with some biographical information if I could, give us your full name
and when and where you were born.
SN: Saundra Taitro Gragg Naifeh, I actually was born in La Hunta, Colorado and moved
to Oklahoma City when I was probably six or seven months, and have grown up in
Oklahoma City until I moved to Edmond.
KP: What brought your family here to Oklahoma?
SN: My father had a construction opportunity with a home builder. He had been in
Colorado with a church woodworking company and was known for his ability in
woodworking and got an offer here. He actually lived in Oklahoma his entire life in
Cherokee, Oklahoma.
KP: Did you have siblings in your family?
SN: I have a younger brother that is two years younger who also went to the, at the time,
Central State College, now University of Central Oklahoma. His name is Greg Taitro
and he is married to another alumni that I introduced that was a sorority sister, Kay
Fothergill.
KP: Your current marriage or children?
SN: My husband has two children, Danielle Chronig and she’s married; Danielle and
Chad Chronig, and a son Blake Naifeh. I don’t have children but I consider his children a
great family and they have a granddaughter that I consider mine, Elise. I have a
granddaughter that I consider mine.
KP: Would you tell us a little about your grade school experience, your early school?
SN: I went to Andrew Johnson, of course who was named after a president. And I walked
to school and the things I remember, we were probably, we lived probably at least twelve
or fourteen blocks away and in those days you walked to school even from first grade. I
can remember walking to school and I can remember my brother walking to school with
me. Often times protecting him because I was, actually a very big child, and could protect
my little brother who was littler even though he was a boy. It was a great experience.
Two of the things that stand out, a couple of teachers I can remember to this day, Miss
Rucker and Miss Cartmill. They were probably are somebody you remember your entire
life, from second grade and fifth grade; it was my second and fifth grade teacher and my
sixth grade teacher, Miss Gilliland, all wonderful teachers. I can remember getting lost,
one time, in about first grade on the way home. I have no idea why I got lost because I
walked everyday. I think I went a different way and couldn’t see the direction and got
lost. One of the things that stands out in my grade school years is that Roy Rogers and
Dale Evans came to our school. When we were in grade school they were like
superheroes. Our school won a citizenship award and part of that first place winner in the
United States was that they would come to your school and meet all the classes and have
an assembly, and it still stands out in my mind. My brother loved and adored, I mean
even when he started school he said his name was Roy, he didn’t tell people his real name
most of the time. He got to be on the front page of the newspaper in Oklahoma City and
we saved all those pictures. We just loved it.
KP: Where did you go to high school?
SN: John Marshall and it was of course in our area, we grew up in the Village and it was
a great experience. I was always active, kind of a social person in high school. My
mother, by that time had recertified as a school teacher and was a substitute school
teacher and that was her career. She truly wanted to be a substitute school teacher. She
was so well know, she typically only substituted at a couple of schools and John Marshall
was one of those schools. She would be in the school building sometimes when my
brother and I were in high school. Again, great high school experience, most of the time.
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You remember lots of things that seem traumatic growing up but…
KP: Any extracurricular activities while you were in high school?
SN: The general things, pep club, during the time I grew up sports was not really very
high on anybody’s agenda in the urban, in the metro areas so I really had no sports
experience. But the pep club, the spirit type things I always was very involved in. I can
remember being an officer in the safety council and I don’t know why that was really an
interesting club for me. But, thespian stuff, I liked to act I guess more than anything else.
Generally school experience was good. I made decent grades and had a good time.
KP: Now, when did you graduate high school?
SN: Sixty seven, 1967.
KP: Difficult time in current events in the [19]60s, do you remember any of the fads, the
music that you listened to?
SN: Well the music is still some of my favorite music. Rock and roll and all the artists
that were sixties artists were, they still are strong today I think. The things I remember
are, in junior high particularly, I went to Herbert Hoover Junior High. We would be in
junior high, when we’d come to school and the teachers felt our dresses were too short.
We would have to get on desks at our knees and if the skirts didn’t touch the desk we
would be sent home. So, I didn’t get sent home often, because my parents were very
strict. But all of us wanted to roll our skirts up to have shorter skirts even in junior high.
We had something very strange I thought, that today it would seem…but we wore
something called petty panties, and they were like pantaloons and they would be long.
Instead of wearing a slip you would wear these pants that were to your knees too, and that
was something all the girls wore. Fads were bright colors and the Twiggy you know, and
I believe that was the time when we were watching fashions of England that would debut
in America. Typically I always wanted to do what was mostly the fashion. My mom
could sew and she could make me a lot of things. Hairdos were always interesting, very
high, very.
KP: Lots of big hair.
SN: Yes, lots of big hair, teasing is what we called it. And slept on orange juice cans
often, to straighten your hair and have it be very smooth; we could sleep, I thought that
was interesting.
KP: Any of the world events, the current…. the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam
era, any of those things, memories from that time?
SN: Well, the younger years what stands out are civil rights clashes that we would see on
TV. It wasn’t as prominent in my memory what was happening in Oklahoma City,
except for Clara Luper who of course I still know and run into Clara Luper now, who I
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didn’t know as a kid; but remember the sit-in. The stuff that the TV would show,
everybody watched it. The things that stand out in my mind, big, are the Cuban Missile
Crisis was scary, and we truly….we could tell, the teachers were incredibly concerned so
that made us all know that even though they talk about the good things it was…I can
remember that it felt very scary really is the word. President Kennedy being, I think that
was probably…I was in the seventh or eighth grade, eighth grade probably. It was just a
shock and very sad. I mean it’s the first time as a child, you could tell national sadness.
You know when in your family something is funny and sad in your family, but national
sadness that we all just couldn’t…it was just so silent. Everything was closed and you
watched things on TV and it held a sense of…those were very important events growing
up that you remember exactly what happened.
KP: You are a graduate of Central State. Tell us about why you chose to come to the
University of Central Oklahoma, Central State at that time.
SN: I think that it was convenient and close. My mother came back to school at Central
State and had a great experience. They were very supportive and said, “We want you to
be able to attend school where you can get accepted.” Central State seemed to be the
logical, because it was a true university, a true four year experience. I did want to live on
campus. I didn’t want to live at home. Financially that seemed I could have that
experience, rather than living at home and going to a larger university. It was going to
afford me the experience that I wanted in college and my friends; I had several friends
that were going to Central State at the time. It just seemed like a great idea.
KP: Where did you live here on campus?
SN: Murdaugh Hall, which was the girl’s freshman dormitory, or at the time, I think it
was the freshman dormitory and you had to live in Murdaugh Hall. In those days there
were a lot more requirements, rules, curfews, expectation that you actually studied during
study hall because it had to be silent. The dorm was full. I was in a room with, a very
small room with three…there were three roommates at all times. So it was always
crowded and we had our space and we learned to live in that small space. My second year
I lived at the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority house and we had a small room with four, with
four roommates. So you get used to sharing and at the time it just seemed like great, a
great experience. There were problems that I can recall of feeling like I needed my own
bathroom. My first semester we had a bathroom adjoining, a communal bathroom down
the hall. My second semester we moved to a different room that was a little bit bigger
and had a bathroom in it. Not a shower but a bathroom sink and it was fun.
KP: Did you have a dorm mom?
SN: We probably did. I mainly remember the hall monitors who were usually upper
classmen. They seemed to be more somebody that I could identify with; they were near
our age but still would be loud. Mainly I think I was just constant chatterer and so I
would talk to them or they would come in and talk. The sorority, there was a sorority
house mother and I can remember the sorority house mothers more than I remember a
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specific person. Now who I do remember is Dean Wilma Armstrong. Dean Armstrong
was someone that stands out in my life as somebody that you could not only identify but
had a specific caricature, a voice pattern that was very cultured in my mind. She could
draw her words out and you could kind of hang on them. She was stern but somebody
that I still credit with helping me have a good start and expectations. She had high
expectations and I was called to her office a couple of times.
KP: Describe some of the classes that you attended.
SN: Well, the general classes were bigger. I think the liberal arts, this building itself I
think was built my first year. So it was a brand new building and I had a lot of classes in
this building. The students were…there was more organization of school, you had an
attendance policy, you did have to come a certain amount of time. Typically the students
were there because they felt like they wanted to learn something completely different
then. I think it was different than my high school experience because we wanted to learn
but there was not the pressure to achieve in high school, I think that there is now. We
seemed to learn and do well but it was not achievement goal oriented and college was the
first experience that I learned that there was a higher expectation and if you didn’t meet it
you didn’t do well. So I can certainly remember professors that stood out that had a high
expectation of you and you needed to excel at least. On campus you would go back and
forth and in your undergraduate you were doing…your first year you had a lot of classes
that were in lots of buildings. Evans Hall, I had several classes in Evans Hall at that time
they had lots of history classes there. Then general English, those kinds of classes were in
another building, but then when liberal arts…a lot of classes were here.
KP: Your degree focus was?
SN: I had a second, I was getting a degree in secondary education with a history and
political science minors. Or it may have been history major with a political science
minor.
KP: Any favorite professors?
SN: Well, yes, Dr. Osborn is someone that I will never forget. Again I think you
remember the people that stand out to you because they did something in your life that
caused you to do better or they had something about them that stood out. Again I think
Dr. Osborn was a cultured person and could explain things in history that seemed
interesting and real. I can remember a lot about Dr. Osborn and his expectations. I
typically excelled in things where you read because I have always had just a lifelong
interest in learning in the reading matter. I loved to read my entire life. So history came
easier because I liked to read and that was a lot of it. So I could remember things and
explain them but I had not been held to a standard of spelling everything correctly too.
He counted off for spelling so I might get all the answers right but if I didn’t spell it right
he would count off. Totally shocked me that my first tests came back not as A’s but
because I did not spell the place or the person correctly. He said , and he called you by
your name, “Miss Taitro, you must…knowing the answer doesn’t make it correct if you
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don’t spell it correctly.” So you learn fast because I was so surprised to not make a good
grade in history. So I learned from that experience and have run into him and I feel like
he made a difference in striving for excellence. I have this little personal motto that I
didn’t develop in college but a portion of it is for excellence so I think that he probably
demanded that in many ways and he got it; he stands out. Dr. Helstern was a professor
that was excellent, he also had a strong history, I mean a strong biblical background and
was a minister in the Disciples of Christ Church, which I had grown up in a Disciples of
Christ Church so I knew who he was and got to experience that type of background too.
He was a scholar and that interested me; they stand out. There are other professors. Carl
Reherman in the political science area were professors that you learned from. Several
professors I learned…you hate to start naming because you really learn from a lot of
professors.
KP: Sounds like you knew the career focus you wanted, the study, when you arrived here
at Central, is that true?
SN: I think that teaching seemed like a career of choice for a lot of women, that you
could have a career in the teaching profession. My mother was somebody that was a great
model and teacher so that seemed like the norm. I had a love for history and government.
I have had an interest in the workings of how you get things done for a long time, even in
high school. You know you would be involved in somebody’s campaign and ran for
office in seventh grade and different times so you understand that that part is partly
government and so [I] interested in those too, they seemed that it was just something I
liked. And it has held true, I still have a strong love of history, read a lot about historical
things and I like to say now, we’re making history. So that is what every day if you think
about making history, you might want to make it not only important and good but
something you’d like to have reported.
KP: There you go. Part of campus life is participating in extra-curricular activities, and
you mentioned a little earlier about being in a sorority. Describe for us your activities and
that part of your experience here at Central.
SN: It was a happy, great experience, lots of people that became friends and you could do
things together. The sorority was active on campus, that was something that was an
expectation along with grades. I wanted to be…achieve I think probably I wanted to be
successful in that area. So I did just about everything that came about. We had a lot of
interaction with not only students in the dorm but with other sororities and fraternities. I
was just active in anything that was offered. I would go to everything and just loved it.
22:23 And you learn the importance I think of having groups of people that can do more
than
one person. Or you have friends that will help you do something that you think is
interesting, so if you have an idea you can make it sound good, you’ll have people that
want to do that. I was a member of Army Blades, which was a, I don’t think that it’s an
organization on campus now, but it was with the ROTC. It was a drill team type
experience. I was, we just got to do a lot of things, even though you might not be the
formal person. One of the funniest things to me is that we had a broncho, even in the
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[19]60s, the late [19]60s, it had a giant head; it wasn’t what the broncho wears now,
which is probably easy to move around in. It was like a huge, huge head that was I guess
paper mache, very heavy and you know, if you wanted to be the broncho sometimes, you
could. I don’t know why I would get to be the broncho at the games but I was, I have no
idea, I wasn’t the designated broncho but there were times I was the broncho on the field.
I think it was just because I just like to yell and get people involved. While I wasn’t a
cheerleader, knew the cheerleaders, they definitely had their job. I guess people got to put
on the broncho head and go up and down, which I would do. Attended the football games
always and was class president my sophomore year, I think, and was an officer my
freshman year, I think. I was elected to class officer. I was in student senate my
sophomore year I believe I was a parliamentarian and was just a member of student
senate the first year. When you’re in student senate in that time you did campus activities,
the homecoming parade, you were active in putting things together. I always was the first
to say, “I want to do that, or yeah we can do that.” I would get all my friends to , I tend to
get people involved and go ,ok…And if you make it fun you’ll have more people that
want to do that. I was involved politically though with the student senate on sometimes
issues sometimes events. I usually would take a stand.
KP: Describe the campus at that time, the buildings and the layout.
SN: It was bare, more than anything else. There were some great buildings. Old North is
still a beautiful building. There was some construction going on but it was pretty much a
bare building with a lot of parking lot. But the parking lots seemed almost bigger than
what the construction was at the time. And it’s much more beautiful, but we did walk.
Since we had Murdaugh Hall and it was in the center of campus, it was a dorm, so you
could walk to things consistently and be involved. Y Chapel of song was a pretty building
and still is. You knew your professors, the president was easily accessible to the students
which was great, you knew him and you could go see him. Dean Freeberger was the dean
of men and you could see dean. He called you in sometimes for something and but you
had a good interaction time as a student. We were starting to see different students
because we, always UCO has had students come from around the country. They were at a
different pace than we were sometimes. I had a roommate from New Jersey, and we
actually called her “Jersey.” She was more what I would today call a look of a hippie; she
came with more of that look. By the very next year most of us had kind of…our hair was,
the women and the boys, women and men, the hair was longer. Starting to adopt the style
of the national look, and we were starting to see that on campus. Freshman but it wasn’t
as the norm but by sophomore year it was more so. We had dress code, girls wore skirts.
You did not wear pants unless it was thirty two degrees, it was a rule. So all the things,
we didn’t wear jeans to class, we had outfits. It was partly how you dressed for campus,
we had, and it didn’t seem too odd. But we were certainly glad when it was thirty two
degrees that we could wear pants to class. And we started to see your first afro, it was
like fascinating, because…and mainly the Afro-American students at that time were the
only person with an afro, but by your sophomore year you were starting to see more
people with a “fro” than you…not everybody, but a lot of people.
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KP: The international population here on campus is becoming more prominent, had that
started during your time here, had you noticed?
SN: Yes, but it wasn’t as prominent. They were not as active in campus life that I think
they are now. There would be events, there would be, I mean there has been a Fourth of
July parade for forever, but I don’t remember that the international students would be in it
or where they definitely take pride and want to show culture, and their culture within the
campus life. It wasn’t as strong in my experience, and I hope it wasn’t that I didn’t know
that it was more evident, but that could be the fact. It may be that it just wasn’t as evident.
Or it may have been that I was so focused on my world that I didn’t see it.
KP: Central was unique in that it has been labeled or called a commuter college, as
opposed to, it had a different campus life than OU or OSU. Being a young person did
you notice the difference, were there some obvious older adults attending your classes?
SN: Yes, they were older but not, I seem to think that most of the people in my classes
were within ten or fifteen years, while we had older students they were commuting and
they were in their twenty five to thirty five year range. They were definitely older, like
my mother went back to school when she was probably forty. And there were students
but there was only a very small percentage, and when you’re in your campus life you’re
gravitating to what your campus experience is, so most of the people that I did things
with were living on campus or were my age at the very least. A lot of commuters, I lived
at the sorority house, did not have a car, so I did walk. But there were sorority sisters that
had a car and we would go into Oklahoma City. I didn’t go home on the weekend much,
because I just loved, I just loved the campus, I wanted to be here. But it was much quieter
on weekends. And I think its probably still quiet on weekends because generally students
are much more mobile and they have the experience to go wherever they want to, and
more people have cars and just in that age group. We had weekend things, one of my,
some of the things that I remember that would never happen now because as mayor I
know would never happen now. We could, we had a volunteer fire department, and there
were fraternity boys, men in the fire department. So when a fire, when you heard the
alarm, if you were doing something as a campus activity with another fraternity you
would have several guys get up and leave to go to be in the volunteer fire department. We
don’t have a volunteer fire department at this time now, and in addition, honestly I don’t
think, I hope this gets nobody in trouble, as a sorority we would have pledges that to be
able to be a full member and we would do things, you know, we would, actually this
happened to me, I didn’t do this. As a pledge I was rounded up and for something, some
fictitious something that we were doing, and taken to the jail and was put in the Edmond
jail. Now that was something that just was kind of something…if there was nothing going
on at the city you could have a police officer come arrest your pledges and take you to
jail for an hour until you could get out, till you could get your friends or somebody to get
you out. That would never even happen; you couldn’t even get into the jail now. It was
just a different time, a different town, and a different experience. And it was just the
kinds of things we did and it made life fun it made it think that you’re part of the
community too.
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KP: Any thoughts of pursing a different degree choice after you started college?
Anything else kind of peek your interest?
SN: I think I became more interested in the political science area. But I felt it blended and
I didn’t necessarily see that that was a career. So, and the history the same thing, I felt
like they were more attached to teaching than anything else. Some of the greatest
experiences I had were trying to achieve an issue and that probably formed a more
background and foundation of how I would utilize my experience. But at the time I felt
like teaching was the best scenario. I did do a student teaching, I was a student teacher. I
love the experience but I had a different experience starting to happen then, because I
married after my sophomore year. And I probably have a natural sales type ability and it
seemed like an option too and had opportunities that came forward. Instead of, I didn’t
make a definite choice not to be a teacher but I had some definite advantages so that I did
not become a teacher. But all the experiences I learned, I mean the idea of how you learn
such a broad background, how you help people, all those things go into my career as I
have a career today.
KP: Any unusual jobs that you held?
SN: At campus?
KP: At campus?
SN: Hmm, I’ll have to think I mean you know I did work part time, but sometimes in a
retail environment, but, because I was so active, I’d say the broncho head was probably
an unusual job. Being on the student senate allowed me to do things that I think that are
in a way related because as a student senate we very much wanted to have recognition as
a university and we were called Central State College, but our college we viewed met the
objectives of a university. And that was an issue on the student senate and I worked to,
that was probably the first time I did issue advocacy as opposed to person advocacy and I
worked to go to the state capital to ask the representatives to support the idea that we
would have a name change. My first year it did not happen, but after that and during that
time period I believe after my, I think it was after my sophomore…during my junior year
there was a new governor. There was an election and one of the issues that mattered to
me was would you name Central State College, Central State University? And one of the
candidates said they would, so that mattered to me. We asked both but that was an issue
as a young person to me that I would ask a governor candidate. Nowadays, it would
probably not make a top agenda, but it was important to me and I worked on it. And at
that new election the current representative at that time was, oh for heaven sakes, I’ll
think about it in a minute, he was C.H. Spearman, and he put that bill forward for several
years and that next year when there was a new governor, the governor signed it. My
junior or senior years when it actually became, no, upon graduation, after I graduated the
bill was signed to become Central State University. And you could send your certificate
in to change your certificate, and that’s what I did.
KP: So you graduated in 1972?
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SN: I think that’s right, I think that’s right. I did, I guess you could call this a job. My
senior year I emceed the Bronze and Blue Review. My husband, Steve Gragg, also was a
student at Central State. While we were not in the theater department we always were
interested and went to all the campus things. And must have known somebody at that
time because I think we were known as a comedy couple on campus, I don’t know how
that happens. He was a very entertaining person and I guess I wanted to keep up and I felt
like I was an entertaining person too. We were asked to be the emcee, so we were a
couple emcee, and at that time Sonny and Cher were big. They were the big TV show and
we parodied Sonny and Cher so between every act we changed clothes, we became
different characters to do the introductions of the campus acts.
KP: Any film footage of that available?
SN: You know, I don’t know, I think my friends…I have some friends that always
promised to share, but yes there are pictures available. But they were things that were
very funny, and some of the things that I wouldn’t do because I said, “That is not funny.”
And he just said, “This is funny you have to do that.” I wouldn’t do it, he’d get
somebody to do it and they were, they the funniest thing. I mean, he had a really
fabulous sense of comic timing. Now I was in the Alpha Gamma Delta’s production my
sophomore year, I think, or the end of my freshman year, during campus, we were in
Bronze and Blue Review. And we always performed, you didn’t have a choice
particularly, but probably I honed my skills because I had a little tiny solo part then but
since that time it’s all about timing. I do know that it’s timing and style, not how good
you are, I am not a fabulous actress but the timing and style I can usually carry off.
KP: So you graduated college and you started your adult life, describe your first
profession, your first career outside college.
SN: My mother in law and I opened a gift store in the City of Edmond and it was the just
the first really fine gift store for Edmond. We were a blooming town, I guess, we’re
doing more things and so I had the opportunity to open a retail business with her and it
was a fun opportunity and it was still a business opportunity. It was called Nomies Ark,
my mother in law’s name was Naomi, but Nomie we thought sounded more like Noah,
and we tended to have a personal…we didn’t tell everybody but we seemed to think yeah,
we need to buy two of everything, one for the shop and one for us. So we did things in
twos. So we took a symbol of the ark full of things and it was a great experience to learn
a civic engagement process, because it gave me the opportunity to start kind of in a civic
path too. And it was on 15th Street at First and it was a brand new building at the time and
we opened the first store in that, it was Plaza East Center. After a few years we moved to
the downtown, north end of the downtown area because we could purchase a building
and my husband had wanted to kind of experience an additional, actually my mother in
law and I wanted to put in a tea room but we really didn’t know that…after we started
that, we didn’t know a lot about food and my husband took over that end of the operation
and it was much more successful.
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KP: What led you to your present professional career as mayor?
SN: Well, civic engagement I think coupled with a strong love for the process. You really
need to love our system of governments, where it’s democratic and people get to have a
choice, and they get to have a say so. All those things, you love that process, you
probably see that it makes things work better than any other process, so you see yourself
in that. And because I always have been an organizer, a joiner, a volunteer, and I worked
well in the group process. You can see what you can do when you work together with
people to think about things. So when I call it the civic path, it is the path that you can do
what you dream of outside an official path. I have been involved in the Alumni
Association, in organizations that have made a significant change, if you have, being
significant and being successful, they go hand in hand, you take significant every time. I
was able to be involved in starting the Edmond Women’s Club, in the community, in the
City of Edmond. That made and continues today to make a huge difference. This was
when we didn’t have anything that helped other groups achieve their goals. So if you
could spark things, if you can start things that helps you understand that all of that goes
together and you get to, that’s visioning really probably more than anything. I see what’s
here and I love it, but I expected it twenty years ago. And if you look what your dream is
in twenty years then you can see what you do to help get there. I think that is what helps
you move into lots of arenas. You have to be able to have a way to live and make your
family be happy and successful so you have jobs to do that. And I have of course a
professional fulltime job too, but it blends well. My professional job blends well with the
political side of things, it blends well with having the freedom to continue to support and
encourage other people to do their dreams and then having a, at this point being an
elected capacity right now is a part of what my life is. It’s not my life, but I’ve been able
to be mayor since 2001. But I have been involved with the city of Edmond as long as I
can remember, because I would know mayors. In fact one of the professors that said
earlier made a huge difference in my life was a mayor. He knew me in a classroom
situation and knew my husband in a classroom situation, and then…so that all blends
together. So when he’s looking for people to help achieve goals of a vision he’s going to
go to people he thinks, “Oh, they’ll do just…they’ll put on a broncho head, they’ll
probably do that too.” So, I have knocked doors to sign a petition to be able to form a
separate district downtown so that we could put up street lights in the [19]80s. That isn’t
just that we decide to ask the city council to do it. The city council cannot go door to door
and ask homeowners to sign a petition to agree to be a separate people, individuals do
that. That’s what I did for a council, so you become involved in the process and you see
“Gosh this is what happens when you’ll spend your time and effort.” Everybody has a
little bit of time to give and some give as much as they can and I think when we all do
that we get a lot more.
KP: What areas or responsibilities consume most of your time?
SN: At the present time I try to build partners in every single thing I can. I have a
professional career, and I have a wonderful family. My first husband passed away and I
remarried in ninety, well I remarried after ten years, and am married to a wonderful man
that has a wonderful family. So all of us have great family experiences that bring your
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foundation and your background and then you’re making your new background everyday.
My family takes the part of my time because that’s what you want to do, that’s where you
get fed and can do things. I work for the Oklahoma Association of Optometric
Physicians, so eye doctors, and they’re all over the state. I represent all of the state
optometrists in the state of Oklahoma, and that is a job that allows you to promote the
best you can have in eye care. The best experience that patients can, and then how you
can get to the next level of research, the new things, you get to be on the forefront of
knowing what’s coming. That blends with what I like to think in ten years maybe we
have something completely new and people didn’t know about it. So that career is a
wonderful opportunity for me to know what’s happening and then I represent our state on
the national level. So I see what is happening on a national level. That blends with what
I’m doing in the way that gets to help Edmond go to the next level. Because I can see the
value and the experience of your town being not only learning from a state and national
perspective, but you help set that path. So one of the things that I consistently try to do is
work within the City of Edmond for is to help others get to be as good as we have the life
here. We have an incredibly wonderful, enriched community life. That is a constant.
Everything I do is to look and think how we get to have people want to live here. To not
only live here but work here and experience. So what I’m involved in is always being on
the lookout for, how to make the experience be better for families, for people that work
here, for people that live here. Learning from every single person and when you have a
talent for bringing all those things together, it all comes together. And you work on many
projects, and many infrastructure needs so that you can think of, “Will we have enough
water in 2050?” What you do today matters, it’s not only how you get the water to the
person that lives out on Claygern, as opposed to Post Road. It’s what about in 2050, will
they both have water and will they love how it looks? All those things go together, and I
try to work on quality issues. Beautification, things that make people enjoy life,
experience the…my experience of the entertainment. How you have something you see
in your community every day you get to experience so that makes me know what we are
missing. Do we need a chamber orchestra? Do we have a battered woman’s shelter? Do
we have the experiences for a town? Do we have things that are continuing… needs to be
met? Is it on anybody’s agenda? If it’s not, how do I get it on that thought process? Do
we have a library on the west side of town? A mayor’s job is to, in my mind, is to bring
everybody together to see what is it that we get to do in twenty years so that what we’re
doing now, it is on the plate and people see how it happens and how they become
involved. How do you get the things like the miracle league? A field for disabled athletes
being able to play baseball in their wheelchair, you talk about it, you get to promote it
and you get your partners like UCO who I’ve had a strong partnership with since I’ve
been in school. I have a love here and enjoyment and you have your friends that go here
you think, “Okay we did that then we can do it now.” You then still have your experience
with the administration, you see what they’re trying to achieve and you do it together.
Public sculpture has changed the look of Edmond in three years. We have sixty-seven
public sculptures, owned by the City of Edmond. Those are all partnerships with
individual owners. They pay for half, the City of Edmond only pays up to 20 thousand.
We have sculptures that cost 70 thousand and so a private individual has paid for the
additional, and it belongs to the city of Edmond. Well then you count an extra seventeen
that are owned privately in the community. But when you’re driving around town you see
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them. You just see, you just had “Flight” dedicated on campus; you have public sculpture
on campus. So we have over eighty sculptures that people can walk around and see.
That’s in a few years. That seemed like a pretty little seed to start, and look what happens
when people want to accomplish it, that’s partnering. That’s seeing how you do it
together, that’s making a difference on your state and national arenas, so that somebody
that reads the southwest magazine that lives in California sees written up sculptures in
Edmond, they come and visit. You have Route 66 right past the campus through our
community and our centennial commission is now designating that we will identify Route
66 so that people from Germany, from all over the world want to come through our
community. That’s what you do as somebody that’s a mayor. It’s not just that you’re a
mayor it’s that you’re vitally interested in where you live, what your doing and what your
family is interested in and you pull it all together.
KP: The community of Edmond surrounds the campus of University of Central
Oklahoma this offers a unique opportunity for interaction for the students and the
residents of the community. This relationship began over a hundred years ago how do
you envision this relationship for the future?
SN: I think that we become so integrated that it seems that the university is more on the
lips of all the citizens. The beautification of the campus I think has mattered in the last
few years. And I think that our citizens now also, it matters to how our community looks.
I think they see a real blend here. I think as there are more living experiences on campus,
where students want to live in the community and have an experience of being able to
walk to things, have a trolley to get to other venues where the campus is being a partner
like the Jazz Lab. I think that makes us a, not only respect each other but like each other
and want to do things together. So I see that growing more and more and I think it is also
great partnerships by having the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has made a
really good partnership with the University of Central Oklahoma with their whole, with
the forensics department by bringing a state of the art forensics lab here. The City of
Edmond helped purchase the land and then prepared the land so that the State of
Oklahoma could build this incredible forensics lab here which brings in people from the
state level into our city and then brings the forensics department to a national
prominence. Well that gives us again more of a global way to work together and be
known for and I think that the “known” quality of things that are happening that are
different require a city and the university to help promote how we’re excelling. The
Olympic designation, the para-olympic designation will have a strong influence
throughout the region and the nation. Well we do those things together and we can
visually see it. The things you visually see I think people identify with more and while
the campus has carried such a prominence in the education field and within the higher ed.
in Oklahoma by having something that you can visually taste, feel, see, helps people
recognize “Wow, I want to do that!” Arcadia Lake, by putting this rowing program at our
lake, which the City of Edmond owns with the Corps of Engineers, it will be something
that people that are seeing the lake go by and they think, “Wow, what is this?” The
university, they’re having programs that are teaching safety and are helping have a
prominence there in the sports arena. It just goes together and it keeps growing. And I
think that we have a wonderful entertainment culture in the campus and by promoting
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that more I think we become more of a leader in the jazz arena. Just from the Jazz Lab,
hat partnership is incredible but I think we expand that with a more, the bigger our city
becomes, we become known for the quality, the program, the people that are here that are
such incredible artists. The Chopin series we are able to use Mitchell Hall, that brings in
your fine arts in such a way and the City of Edmond has recognized the fine arts in such a
bigger experience that we, I think, become the leader as a partner.
KP: What are your most significant accomplishments?
SN: I believe that the Edmond Women’s Club mattered at a time in Edmond’s life that it
changed the heart for giving in our community. I believe it helped our citizens achieve a
philanthropic mission for organizations in the community that also now have become
very, very strong. Edmond Women’s Club, are women in the community that seed things
financially and then with their volunteer hours. I believe that that has made a difference. I
firmly believe that being in the capacity of an elected official in the greatest city in the
state in a way that allows to promote the artistic value and the influence the arts brings to
a community has changed the face. I believe in my professional career, I think being able
to promote the eye care profession that optometry in Oklahoma is the model everywhere.
We have better eye in the State of Oklahoma than anywhere in the United States, and I
believe I’ve had a part in being able to explain that. And I also believe that the
partnership, that I understand the value of partnership with organizations like the
University of Oklahoma, state and national arenas makes us be a leader in our state and
nation. And I believe that families everywhere matter the most, and if I had not had a
strong family that started at UCO, a first family that helped me grow in the civic, and my
family now, the Naifeh family, that helps me get to be involved in all the aspects, as
everybody makes everything significant.
KP: What do you wish for UCO?
SN: I wish that UCO was…more people would come to UCO from everywhere and come
to Edmond. It is the top university. It’s an experience that everybody should have but
honestly it should have more money. We should have a research facility here that is for
forensics, for optometry, for things on this campus that is known throughout the nation.
It can happen, I think if we all want to work to make it happen, it will. I hope every
student gets to have the experience I had because it will frame their life, it will cause such
an enjoyable get active, be involved, keep promoting that, be the best partner that you can
be for our city and for the students. More sculpture.
KP: More sculpture, definitely. Thank you again Mayor Naifeh for sharing your stories,
your personal stories and your professional stories.
SN: Thank you.
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