Views from the Top

A conversation with Karen Luke and Beth Short, both former Leadership Oklahoma City Executive Directors

By Mary Walsh

In late July, 2021, LOKC’s two former Executive Directors, Karen Luke and Beth Shortt, met to compare notes on their time in office, reflecting on their almost 40 years at the helm. We thought you would be interested in their observations.

What were the circumstances of your hiring?

Karen:  Because at the time of my hiring the Board felt our program was sufficiently formulated, I was asked to concentrate on raising funds to keep us fiscally sound.  So, my main assignment was to raise $500,000 for an endowment fund.  Remember this was in the mid 1980s here in Oklahoma.  Money was certainly tighter than it had been.  I attended an excellent weeklong fundraising school in San Diego; and following that I felt more prepared for the task.  One of my first fundraising calls was to a former utilities CEO, who told me gently, but in no uncertain terms, that he didn’t support endowments and suggested we do an annual campaign first and then follow later with the endowment. So from that point on I was doing both.  And we succeeded.

Beth:   I was a proud member of LOKC Signature Class X and had just done a portion of Class XI closing retreat when Karen announced her resignation.  (As an aside, the portion of that retreat I facilitated was outside.  I never did another meeting outside and I suggest you don’t either.  It’s too hard to keep everyone’s attention.)  I applied for the position and was on board when Class XII began in September.  I also need to add because of the foundation Karen laid, we mostly rely on our alumni and class members to support our annual campaigns.

What were our offices like in your earlier days?

Karen:  There were two of us, and two rooms in what was then Liberty Bank building, now the BancFirst building.  Guernsey Engineering donated a computer to us, because they didn’t want it anymore.  It took up half of one of the office’s rooms.  Pretty shortly I wrote a grant to Apple for a smaller computer.

Beth:  When I first came to LOKC, we typed individual donor cards every year and put them in a Rolodex to organize the annual campaign.  I imagine there are those reading this that don’t know what a Rolodex is.  Another early memory:  I remember thinking that an organization which had purchased computers with 500 megabytes of memory had overspent.  I couldn’t imagine anyone needing that much space. 

Have LOKC’s goals in terms of class composition changed over the years?

Karen:  I really don’t think so.  We have always emphasized attracting a diverse group, in terms of ethnicity, of geographic location in the city, and in terms of occupation:  for profit, nonprofit, education, military and government.  That policy has served us well in coming to understand many points of view, as well as opinions as to what’s important in a city.  We came to call those diverse communities, stakeholders.

Beth:  I agree with Karen.  You want to have a variety of different perspectives in a class.  I’ve always thought diversity was the reason it was hard to come to agreement on a class project.  They wanted to address issues that were important to them.  And that’s not an altogether bad thing.  See comments below.  But it does need to be said in the earlier days of LOKC, our projects included partnering with the Arts Council to initiate Opening Night, the New Years Eve family event downtown, and also establishing the Oklahoma School of Science and Math here in Oklahoma City, entities which, of course, exist to this day.

Can this diversity present learning opportunities for class members?

Karen:  Oh, yes.  In so many ways.  More than I mentioned above.  We had one class member who was blind.  During Opening Retreat, I went to her room to see if I could help her get to dinner.  She was putting on her makeup in the dark.  That was a revelation to me and I think she had similar good lessons for the whole class.

Beth:  We had a class member who used a wheel chair as his sole form of getting around.  One class day the bus that showed up was not handicap enabled.  The whole day, six of our strong class members lifted him in and out.  It undoubtedly made us all more aware of handicapped access issues.

Is there a particular program or event in which you take special pride?

Karen:  First and foremost, hiring Christy Zelley.  Also, earlier we spoke about stakeholders and the value of diversity in groups.  I become involved with Oklahoma City’s campaign to become an All-American City.  It was evident we had some work to do attracting stakeholders to clarify what issues were the most important, so I resigned from LOKC to become the director for Central Oklahoma 2020 to resolve those issues. Later on, we used the stakeholder method to plan the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum; and still later the city used stakeholder groups in planning the MAPS initiatives. 

Beth:  I am proud to say I recognized early on that 99% of the time, Christy Zelley is right.  Additionally, I am very proud of the success of our LOYAL program, geared to provide important skills to Oklahoma City’s emerging professionals.

Do you have any suggestions for potential applicants to our programs?

Karen:  Certainly, I would encourage anyone with a desire to improve Oklahoma City to consider applying.  Each of our classes, youth and adult, are opportunities to give you confidence and connections.  They will give you a sense that you could be involved.

Beth:  I have two success stories from class graduates who didn’t get in the first time they applied.  Both are too lengthy to tell here.  Call me.  Also, regarding your letters of recommendation:  Letters from prominent people who don’t know you well are not nearly as persuasive as those from people familiar with your abilities.  Again, call me.  I have a couple of great examples of this.  Finally, if you don’t get in the first time, keep trying.  The selection committee pays attention to previous applicants.  Also, as for LOYAL, the most effective recommendations come from people who know about your work performance, and someone who has experience with your volunteer activity.

Any regrets?

Karen:  Not really.  But I do think it would have been advantageous if our current group of program volunteers and board officers had had the opportunity to attend the meetings of national association of community programs (which no longer exists) and also the biennial trip we took to Washington, DC, to meet with our senators and representatives.  I saw both experiences had real value.  However, I do recognize that our present staff of four has so much program work on their plates that this would be something prohibitively big to take on.

Beth:  Speaking of the national association, it always provided us the opportunity to share our programs we thought were of real value.  One that has really benefitted our class members is called Oral Biographies, where the class members have five minutes to speak on “How I became the person I am today.”  We started with the LOYAL program and saw so many positive results that we expanded it to the Signature Program.  More often than not, we found hardships were what shaped class members; more often than not, more than one person in a class had experienced the same hardship.  Added benefits included creating bonds among class members, building bridges among class members who weren’t all that much alike and breaking down prejudices.  I’m sorry we never had the chance to share this.

Ladies, thank you both for your time.