The Oklahoma Hall of Fame is kicking off a 15-month countdown to its 100th birthday with a statewide tour called Road to 100, launching with an invite-only kickoff event next Wednesday, September 2, at 5:30 p.m. at the organization's Oklahoma City headquarters. The tour will carry storytelling, arts and crafts, and celebration stops to communities across the state through mid-2027, tracing the nonprofit's growth from a single Statehood Day gathering to a statewide institution.
According to KOKH, the Road to 100 initiative is designed around invite-only stops that pair storytelling with hands-on activities as the organization builds toward its centennial in 2027. The station reports that the Oklahoma Hall of Fame was founded by Anna B. Korn in 1927 to celebrate Statehood Day, provide educational programming for all ages, and recognize Oklahomans dedicated to their communities. Its first induction ceremony followed in 1928.
A Modest Start, A Sprawling Legacy
That inaugural 1928 class included just two honorees: former U.S. Congressman Dennis T. Flynn of Oklahoma City and Muskogee civic leader Elizabeth Fulton Hester, according to Oklahoma Magazine. Hester was recognized for her missionary work and support of women's suffrage, while Flynn was a key territorial-era politician. Nearly a century later, the organization has recognized more than 750 distinguished Oklahomans, a list that includes Will Rogers, Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, and Reba McEntire, per the organization's own account.
The group has changed its name twice since its founding: from the Oklahoma Memorial Association in 1927 to the Oklahoma Heritage Association in 1971, and finally to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2015, a shift the organization has said was meant to more clearly convey its core mission to the public. Governance rules were also amended in 2000 to permit posthumous nominations, allowing historical figures who died before induction to still be formally recognized with permanent portraits and museum displays.
Where Road to 100 Is Headed
The tour's public itinerary, as detailed by the station, includes stops at OU-Tulsa on October 1 at 11:30 a.m., the Choctaw Nation on October 20 at 11:30 a.m., and the Shangri-La Resort on October 22 at 11:30 a.m. Early 2027 dates carry the tour further afield, with a stop at the Grand Casino Hotel & Resort on January 28 at 11:30 a.m. and another at the Josie Adams Cultural Centre on February 18 at 11:30 a.m., stretching the celebration well past the kickoff event and into the centennial year itself.
The organization's headquarters sits inside the Gaylord-Pickens Museum, housed in the 1927 Neo-Classical Mid-Continent Life Insurance Building in Oklahoma City and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building's original Vermont marble and Honduran mahogany interiors remain intact, according to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. The property was acquired in 2001 following a major gift from publisher E.L. Gaylord, with a matching 2005 donation from energy executive T. Boone Pickens funding the museum renovations that led to its 2007 public opening.
Reaching Beyond Oklahoma City
Before settling into its Midtown museum, the organization's first permanent home was the former Hefner Mansion, donated in 1972 by Oklahoma City Mayor Robert A. Hefner Sr. and known afterward as the Oklahoma Heritage House. That building served as headquarters until the 2000s relocation, according to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame's reach today extends well beyond its Oklahoma City building. The nonprofit provides more than $770,000 annually in tuition grants and cash scholarships to high school students through programs including the Oklahoma Scholarship Competition, which invites students from all 77 counties to test their knowledge of state history for a shot at college funding. Its publishing arm, established in 1975, has produced more than 180 book titles on Oklahoma history and biography, which are donated directly to schools and public libraries across the state.
That statewide educational footprint threads through the framing of Road to 100 itself, as the countdown tour aims to bring the same storytelling mission that has anchored the organization since Anna B. Korn founded it in 1927 into communities far from the Gaylord-Pickens Museum's doors. The tour's run through mid-2027 sets up a direct line to the organization's 100th anniversary, giving Oklahomans across the state a chance to mark the milestone locally before the centennial year itself arrives.
