Renowned voice professor Florence Birdwell who mentored Tony Award winners Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O'Hara as well as hundreds of other Oklahoma City University students over nearly seven decades of teaching died Monday. She was 96.
"If you’re lucky, you get one teacher who is YOUR PERSON. Mine is Florence Birdwell. Your voice rings in my ear forever, Florence. RIP Mrs. Birdwell. I will miss you as long as I live," Chenoweth posted on Twitter Monday.
One of the longest-serving faculty members in OCU’s history at 67 years, Birdwell also was an OCU alumna who earned her bachelor of arts there in 1945 and her master of arts in teaching in 1969.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” chronicles the mysterious murders of Osage Nation citizens in 1920s Oklahoma, after the oil boom made them rich. The brutal killings became known as the "Reign of Terror" and the center of a major FBI investigation involving J. Edgar Hoover.
“Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre” (working title) will take an in-depth, sobering look at the events of a century ago and how the impact is still being felt today.
Oklahoma native and Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill was among the country music stars - along with Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd and Rissi Palmer - to talk about the state of the genre in a segment today on "CBS This Morning."