Raymond D. Gary

Raymond D. Gary

Raymond Dancel Gary was the fifteenth and the first Governor to be born in Oklahoma since statehood.

Born in southern Oklahoma, he became a state senator in 1941, until he assumed the office of governor in 1955. One of his accomplishments was to order the desegregation of the Oklahoma State Capitol restrooms.

One of his first actions was to order the "whites only" and "colored only" signs removed from the Capitol's restrooms. He also declared his intent to make the state comply with the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional.

Gary died December 11, 1993, and is interred at Woodbury Forest Cemetery, Madill, Marshall County, Oklahoma.