Executive Branch Reform
Governor Nigh appointed the Nigh Commission to recommend changes to State government. During his two consecutive terms of office, Nigh signed the Executive Branch Reform Act of 1986, which reorganized the executive branch into agency function categories, although stopping short of consolidation, of the vast number (over 250) agencies, boards and commissions. Nigh also signed into law the Oklahoma Franchise Tax Code, which established the franchise tax in Oklahoma.
Following his term as Governor, he served as President of the University of Central Oklahoma from 1992 to 1997. During his tenure, Nigh supervised construction projects that transformed the institution from a mostly commuter institution to much more of a regional university with residential dormitories.
In 1990 he was inducted into the Oklahoma CareerTech Hall of Fame and in 1992, he received the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award. From November, 2005 to April, 2006, he served as Interim Director of the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation, during the agency's search for a permanent director.
Nigh and his wife Donna appeared in walk-on roles in episode # 19 of the NBC soap opera Texas (playing themselves as Governor and First Lady of Oklahoma). The episode aired in August 1980. Cast member Lisby Larson (Paige Marshall) serenaded the couple with a rendition of "Oklahoma!"
On April 28, 2010, Nigh and his wife were robbed at gunpoint in the driveway of their northwest Oklahoma City home. They were uninjured, though Nigh's wallet was taken. No suspect has been found.
Read more about this topic: George Nigh
Famous quotes containing the words executive, branch and/or reform:
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—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
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“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)