A LIFE OF VISION

Growing up Osage in Pawhuska with her grandparents, one of Julie O’Keefe’s earliest memories is of the mobile units that would visit rural areas to provide free eye screenings.

Remembering the impact these screenings had on her as a young girl, O’Keefe is now involved with Vizavance, a nonprofit that provides free mobile eye screenings and follow-up eye care for thousands of school children in every county — as well as all 39 tribal nations — in Oklahoma.

O’Keefe developed another of her passions — fashion merchandising — after the late Nan Drummond spoke at O’Keefe’s high school on Career Day. Not long after, she began working at Drummond’s Pawhuska clothing store.

“That helped me really open my eyes to a whole world out there,” O’Keefe says. “They sent me to Dallas to buy for the teen lines; I saw people manufacturing, designing, buying and organizing — just an incredible learning experience.”

After a fashion merchandising degree at Oklahoma State, O’Keefe traveled around the world working in product development for clients such as Neiman Marcus, Marriott Hotels and Ballinger Designs.

In 2011, she opened the Cedar Chest Shop, a custom clothing store specializing in Native American regalia, in Pawhuska. Connections in Oklahoma brought new opportunities: restoring the art collection of Bacone College, creating merchandise for the store at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, working as Head Osage Wardrobe Consultant for the upcoming film “Killers of the Flower Moon” and curating the art for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s new Council Oak Comprehensive Healthcare facility in Tulsa. — ZACK

REEVES