Early Life
Adams was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1923. He was the son of K.S. "Boots" Adams and Blanch Keeler Adams and became an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation by virtue of his maternal line. Two of his great-grandmothers were Cherokee women who married European-American men: Nelson Carr and George B. Keeler, who played roles in trade and oil in early Oklahoma. Keeler drilled the first commercial oil well, near the Caney River. Adams' father succeeded the founder Frank Phillips as president of Phillips Petroleum Company in 1939. Adams' uncle William Wayne Keeler, CEO of Phillips Petroleum Company for years, was appointed chief of the Cherokee Nation by President Harry S. Truman in 1949 and served through 1971, when the Cherokee were able to hold their own elections. Keeler was democratically elected and served until 1975. Adams' ancestors include other prominent Cherokee leaders.
Adams graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1940 after lettering in three sports. After a brief stint at Menlo College, he transferred to the University of Kansas (KU), where he completed an engineering degree.
During World War II, Adams served in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater of operations, attaining the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade. After the war, he returned to KU for additional studies and became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
Shortly after his 1946 discharge, Adams was on a trip in which his plane was fogbound in Houston, Texas. He liked the area and decided to settle there.
Soon afterward, Adams launched a wildcatting firm, ADA Oil Company, that eventually grew into Adams Resources & Energy. The company's basketball team was an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) powerhouse, finishing third nationally in 1956.
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