2013 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
The Will Rogers High School Community Foundation honors WRHS graduates through the Hall of Fame. The first class of honorees was inducted in 1989. Paula Combest Unruh (class of ’47)
was active in the Oklahoma Young Republicans before becoming congressman Page Belcher’s campaign manager. President Gerald Ford appointed her to serve on the national USO Board. President Ronald Reagan selected Unruh to be the director of consumer affairs for the Department of Energy and the deputy director general of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service.
Gordon Morgan
Janet Wright Kiz-
(class of ’57) earned a doctorate in psychology at The University of Tulsa, which led to Kizziar and her late twin Judy Hagedorn opening a psychology practice and hosting TV talk shows. Kizziar was a founding member of the Phoenix-based Fresh Start Women’s Foundation, which has helped more than 200,000 women seeking self-sufficiency. ziar
Richard
Counts
(class of ’53) was an all-state Ropers baseball player who later played minor league ball for the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. He returned to teach and coach at Rogers from 1962-88, winning four state championships. He co-founded the Sunbelt Classic Series (now the Heartland Baseball Classic), a national high school baseball series. He died in 2005.
(class of ’59), as a medical doctor, established one of the first centers in America for comprehensive treatment of hemophilia, a rare and inherited bleeding disorder. Today, because of efforts from Counts and others, most hemophilia patients have normal life expectancies.
Lynette Danskin (Bennett) (class of
’60) is known as the owner of Tulsa World of Gymnastics. But she also became a leading authority on Will Rogers as a docent at the Will Rogers Memorial and Museum in Claremore. She was the first woman to serve as president of the Tulsa Rotary Club.
’55) is an award-winning Broadway, film and TV actor/singer/ dancer. Her Broadway performances include “Funny Girl,” starring Barbara Streisand. Her former pianist Barry Manilow orchestrated Bennett’s cabaret act. She performed in the one-woman PBS show “Will Rogers’ Romance with Betty and America.”
Linda Chambers Bradshaw (class of
James Russell (class of ’62) became active in the civil rights movement
Current HOF photos courtesy of Jan Davies Weinheimer '66 Old yearbook photos courtesy of Ride On! Magazine
and was the first editor of New Left Notes, a national newspaper of Students for a Democratic Society. Russell was a Fulbright professor in Mexico and the Czech Republic. He authored eight books on social policy, class and race issues. tþ Source: Ride On! magazine produced by the Will Rogers High School Community Foundation TulsaPeople.com
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