Rodger Randle’s family ties to Tulsa can be traced back to before Oklahoma statehood. A former Tulsa mayor from 1988-1992 and state legislator from 1970-1988, he has traveled and lectured abroad extensively, serving in the Peace Corps before fulfilling his dream of becoming a college professor.
Randle’s positions in leadership at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, the Oklahoma Municipal League and as British Honorary Consul for Oklahoma, as national president of Sister Cities International and chair of the Oklahoma Academy for State Goals situated him to witness waves of change sweep over the city during boom and bust, and he has a unique perspective on his hometown.
Why was joining the Peace Corps one of the most defining moments of your life?
I was only in the Peace Corps for about a year (from 1965-66) because my father died, and I couldn’t remain abroad in those circumstances. I’d always had a fascination to see the world. That was the first time I ever went to a foreign country. It was a wonderful experience in the sense you learned what was important and what wasn’t important. On a small level, running water is a great convenience but it really isn’t important. We lived in a poor neighborhood but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. You learned a lot about what really was valuable and what wasn’t valuable. I learned a lot of skills that were very helpful to me when I was in public service.
What was your job in Brazil for that year?
I was in a project that they called community development and it was to work with people in your area to teach them how to do things on their own. At that time, Brazil was in its first really major wave of people moving from the country to the cities. I was in the northeast — that is still the poorest part of the country. The government couldn’t provide services to people, so people had to learn how to do things by themselves. That sounds odd to us in America because it’s very much a part of our culture to get together and do things for ourselves, but it wasn’t part of their culture. In the country, they had lived on big ranches and farms where there was a boss that told them what to do. They were not to think for themselves. They didn’t have this part of their heritage to get together and do things. We were to teach them how to do that because the government wasn’t capable of coping with the numbers of people that they had.
How did you begin your legislative career?
I ran for the House of Representatives, which is another defining point in my life. I really didn’t ever particularly see myself as a candidate for public office. By inclination, I’m really not an officeholder. I would’ve been happy to be someone else’s aid. The only way to get in was to be the candidate, so I did and actually, it was a lot of fun.
How many terms did you serve as mayor of Tulsa?
A term and a half. I served one two-year term. Terms in those days were two years, and during that term, we changed the form of government. We gave the mayor a four-year term, so I served half of that and then I had an opportunity to go into higher education at the University Center of Tulsa (now OSU-Tulsa). I’d always wanted to work in higher education as a professor. I didn’t really foresee myself in public life anyways, so when I had that opportunity, I took it.
What age do you feel right now and why?
I’m 79. I don’t feel old enough to be a “legend.” I still do a lot of things.
How would your friends describe you?
I have no idea. To be completely honest, I’m past the point in life where it really matters. When I was in public life, it obviously did matter, so you try to do things accordingly. I can remember when we were in the older City Hall down at the Civic Center. My office as mayor had a really nice view on the 11th floor and you overlooked downtown Tulsa. Sometimes I’d look out over the city and I’d think to myself how there are people out there I’ve never met who just hate me, and you just had to be serene about it. Tulsans, certainly in those days, were very courteous and nice.
What concerns you today?
American democracy. I grew up in a time when we had an unquestionable optimism about the future of American democracy and boy, we don’t today.
What was a “worst time” and how did you pull through it?
I ran for mayor in ’78 and lost. I didn’t lose by a lot, but I did lose. I was in the State Senate at the time, so that was pretty devastating. But I stayed in the Senate and eventually I rose to be leader of the Senate. That was probably a good thing because when I did become mayor 10 years later, I had all of that time in the legislature. Nobody could have been as more prepared to be mayor as I was when I became mayor.
What have been the most significant changes you’ve experienced in Tulsa?
The biggest thing is the destruction and disappearance of walkable neighborhoods. When I was growing up, we lived in the old part of town but there were a lot of areas where you walked to the grocery store and drug store. There was what I describe as the neighborhood and village model. A number of neighborhoods surrounded a village center where you usually had a movie theater and big grocery store, but you also had little neighborhood drug stores and grocery stores. I had a good friend who in the summer if we were over at his house and it was lunch time, his mother would give us the money and we’d go to the little grocery store up the block and buy as many slices of bologna as we needed for lunch. When you had those walkable neighborhoods, you were connected to the world you lived in in a way that you are not connected when you see the world through a car or glass window.
What are your thoughts on the state of public education?
Public education is a deep worry. When you look at the history of America, the strength of democracy and public schools were the two pillars that held everything up. Both are really shaking today. There’s nothing wrong with private schools.
When I was a kid and entered the seventh grade, a lot of kids participated in a thing called Skilly’s Dancing School. It taught social graces, and you learned social dancing. I was in a carpool with three other people. I was economically from a modest background, and I had a friend who was maybe from an even more modest background. His mother was a secretary downtown, a single mother, and her mother lived with them. She supported her mother and son on her salary. The second person in the carpool was the minister at All Souls Unitarian Church. The third person in the carpool was the son of John Williams of Williams Cos. You had that extreme spectrum of financial backgrounds. Today, that wouldn’t happen. We are so segregated out.
The children of the wealthy and powerful of Tulsa in my day went to public schools. A few went to a Catholic school for religious reasons. The community was the public schools, and today that’s not true. As more people abandon the public schools, the less support there is for public schools. When we had the great mixture of incomes in junior high school, you learned a lot about people who came from different backgrounds than you. Having everybody together meant that you all learned to live together and understand each other. This city was founded and built by people who were as comfortable working with a roustabout in the oil field as they were negotiating with a New York banker. Nowadays, as we separate out with people who are just like us economically and in education and politics, politics can’t work like that.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
I read a lot. It is OK to read parts of books in English, but I wouldn’t read a whole book in English. I only read in Portuguese and Spanish. I have a big library and it’s almost all books in Portuguese and Spanish.
Where did you pick up your Portuguese and Spanish speaking skills?
The Portuguese I learned in Brazil. After I came back to Oklahoma, in those days there was no way to maintain Portuguese, so I started studying Spanish, which is more useful. Just last fall, I gave an important lecture in Brazil in Portuguese. I’ve done lectures in Spanish, too. I’ve done TV programs in both languages.
All of my computer stuff, the systems, all the software are in Portuguese. Or, if that’s not available, it defaults to Spanish. If you’re trying to study a language, you need to be immersed in it.
I also have my own website with the university. I’ve done a lot with photography and other things and a bunch of stuff that I’m doing on Tulsa. I do all of my own coding and design work.
And one other small little thing: I wear a watch with one hand. It’s a 24-hour watch. You cannot see what the minute is. That’s the point of it — to not be obsessed with the minutiae of time.
What classes do you currently teach at OU?
I teach in a graduate program called human relations. I occasionally teach a class in public policy. I teach a class in national human relations, which is about cultures and why our cultures are the way we are. I also teach one called “Current Problems in Human Relations.” It is meant to be a class about social issues in the country. The problem with the usual definition of the class is those change all of the time. If we just study the social issues that we have today in America, half of that is going to be irrelevant 10 years from now. We look at contemporary social issues, but the biggest focus of the class is on change: why does change happen, what does change mean, how does it impact us? We study processes of social change.
Where did you go to school/university? Why?
I went for brief periods to two or three different schools. I spent most of my time and graduated from Riverview Elementary School which is long gone. I went to Horace Mann for two years, which was kind of a continuation of Riverview. Then we moved out to the distant suburbs, and I went to Will Rogers for high school. Those aren’t the distant suburbs anymore, but they were in those days. I did my undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma because it was the furthest away I could afford to go. I would have liked to have gone either back East or I was really intrigued with the University of California at Berkley.
Why did you choose political science at OU and then decide to get a law degree at the University of Tulsa?
Oh, I think it was it thought of as a good profession. I never actually practiced law very much but when I did, I enjoyed it. I went to TU law school when I was a member of the State Senate.
How do you measure success?
By my own standards. I think most people chase success as defined by others. We want to be respected. We want to be somebody. We want to be rich. None of that interests me, really. If I achieve the things that to me are important, then I feel good.
What is a favorite Tulsa memory?
Downtown. By the ’70s, downtown was dying, so I go back to the ’50s when I was a kid. Downtown was just a totally rich place in the sense that there were all of these little stores. There were all of these things going on. There was no end to the fascination of what you could explore and find.
Describe a perfect weekend in Tulsa or elsewhere.
An ideal weekend would be spending a day walking around, seeing what’s going on in the neighborhood. We live not too far from Philbrook, we’re close to the Historical Society, Woodward Park, Cherry Street, so there’s a lot to walk around and see. A lot of great people walked and thought. I don’t know how you can do that. I walk and look at what’s going on. There isn’t any time left over to do very much thinking where there are so many interesting things to see. A great day would be walking around and then spending the evening with friends. And ideally, have some reading time in there, too.
What place in Tulsa do you miss most?
Downtown. I grew up close to downtown, so as kids, downtown was sort of an extension to the neighborhood. There was a bookstore, Harrell’s. It was on Main, and I’d go in to see the books and newspapers from around the country. They had a big collection of the Random House Classics, and I had a friend who by legend read a whole book at Harrell’s, not in one standing but over time.
If you could witness any event of the past, present or future, what would it be?
I would like to have been Japanese at the time Admiral (Matthew) Perry arrived in Tokyo Harbor on July 8, 1853. Those ships came and nobody knew what to make of it. I like things that you’ve got to figure out.
What is the most memorable project or crisis from your years as Tulsa mayor?
Changing the form of government because that had been tried several times. We passed it with over 70% of the vote. We portrayed the change in form of government as a way to prepare Tulsa for the future and make the city government more capable of stronger leadership. We had a really smart lady helping with the advertising. The date for the election was Feb. 14, so the symbol of the campaign was a red heart, and the slogan was “For the love of Tulsa.”
