Edward K. Gaylord - Gaylord Family

Gaylord Family

His son, Edward L. Gaylord inherited the Daily Oklahoman and other family assets worth $50 million in 1974. Stanford University-educated in business, Edward L. increased the family fortune by a factor of forty, to two billion dollars at the time of his death in 2003. He also purchased the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. He created The Nashville Network TV channel, and also Country Music Television, or CMT.

The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, later named The Oklahoman, remains in the family. Although a respected newspaper during Edward King Gaylord's tenure, it became unabashedly partisan after Edward L. became its publisher; in Oklahoma it was frequently referred to as "The Daily Disappointment," and the Columbia Journalism Review dubbed it "The Worst Newspaper in America" in 1999.

Today the paper is led by Edward's daughter, publisher Christy Gaylord Everest. Everest has led a major visual modernizing of the newspaper in recent years and is assisted in the operating of the newspaper by her sister, Louise Gaylord Bennett.

The Gaylord family has frequently provided selected philanthropic contributions. They have founded the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, and have given the University of Oklahoma contributions totaling over $50 million in the last three decades, resulting in a large proportion of the buildings on campus being named after one family member or another. They provided seed money for the university's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication which recently constructed a new facility thanks in a large part to Gaylord donations.