Kari Watkins came to OU as a third-generation Sooner with a deep passion for the Crimson and Cream. Growing up in Cleveland, Oklahoma, a 3A school in a town of 3,000 people, many of her freshman-year classes had more in them than her entire high school. Raised as the daughter of a weekly newspaper publisher, she loved storytelling and giving individuals recognition for their contributions to the community. Her father, grandfather and uncle were all elected to serve in the state Senate or state House, balancing a life of journalists and community giving. Her mother and aunts set the same tone for Kari and her siblings, instilling an enormous passion for OU and Norman, with her great-aunts all receiving master's degrees from OU at a time when most women weren’t afforded that opportunity.
While many may remember Billy Vessels as a distinguished Cleveland, Oklahoma OU alum, Kari proves her own impact on the Oklahoma community and beyond. She currently serves as the president & CEO of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum and race director for the Memorial Marathon, taking place April 28-30 of this year.
What year did you graduate and what was your major/minor?
I graduated in 1986, and my degree was a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and journalism education with a minor in history.
What is your favorite memory from your time at Gaylord College?
Working on the Oklahoma Daily staff covering city hall in Norman and the friends I made there. I also loved my classes where I met so many different people from so many places that I may never have otherwise.
Do you have a favorite faculty/staff member at Gaylord?
Chuck House (Oklahoma Daily advisor who always had three cigarettes burning at once in the newsroom. Trust me, times have changed) and Jim Paschal, my adviser I met while in high school as the editor of the school newspaper. I had many other great educators and professionals that impacted me as well, but these are the two I spent the most amount of time with and certainly benefitted from during my time at OU Gaylord.
How did your career path lead you to the OKC National Memorial & Museum?
Mr. Paschal was my adviser coming off his involvement with my high school’s newspaper editors. He felt that I had enough background in newsprint and recommended I intern at Channel 4 in Oklahoma City and get some TV experience. I met one of his former students, Linda Cavanaugh, and two other ladies, Adrienne Robertson and Mary Ann Eckstein (both special projects producers), and began my internship working for them. Mr. Paschal said I would only get an A in my internship if I could get the recipe for Linda’s mom’s famous cookies. I never got the recipe, or a sample of the cookies for that matter, but still got the A.
That internship turned into part-time then full-time work, and I worked at KTVY (now KFOR) for five years before taking over the communications department at Sonic’s corporate office in downtown Oklahoma City. From there I went on to complete my MBA. While working towards that, Oklahoma City was devastated by what remains the worst domestic terrorist attack on American soil, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A few months after that, my friend Joey Ferretti connected me to his law partner Bob Johnson. He had been asked to chair (in a volunteer role) the Oklahoma City Memorial efforts and a 350-member task force to build something on the site of the former federal building. He thought I would be a good fit with the political background of my family and my communications experience. That was in early 1996. I’ve never looked back, except to be very, very grateful for this life-changing experience.
Describe your role at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
I started as a part-time communications director in 1996, went full time later that year, and in 1998 was named executive director. Today, 27 years later, I am the president and CEO. I oversee the day-to-day operations of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, a memorial funded and operated privately but in a unique partnership with the National Park Service. The memorial and museum have a staff of 40 people and we are guided by an incredible board of 55 community leaders including family members, survivors and first responders impacted by the April 19, 1995 bombing. I also serve as the race director for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, the largest marathon in Oklahoma and one of the top 10 must-runs in the country.
How did Gaylord College prepare you for your future career?
The classes, the academic rigor, balancing life between working on the Daily, getting my school work done and having a fun college experience—all of these are important life lessons. But the most important lesson was learning how to tell a story and engage an audience. That is something I still do daily at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum and is critical to giving people an understanding of the brutality of the attack and the tenderness of the response. I have hosted hundreds of members of the media, from student journalists to international media, as they come to Oklahoma City to learn our story during one of a dozen presidential or vice presidential visits, and to tell how a community came together in the worst of times.
What advice would you give to current students aspiring to a career in mass communication?
No matter how media has changed or is changing, storytelling will always be key to communication moving forward. During your time at OU, soak it all in, take advantage of EVERY experience or offer you can to get a feel for what you want to do, work hard, put in the time and give it your best effort, every single day. Listen and learn from the advice and wisdom of mentors. I was blessed to work and learn from Mary Ann Eckstein and Linda Cavanaugh, both of whom remain in my close circle today. That was all due to an opportunity OU afforded me, and my being willing to get out of my comfort zone and take advantage of it. I wouldn’t change that opportunity for anything and learned so much about work and life from that experience.
What do you consider to be one of the most significant moments of your career so far?
The chance to rebuild the community and their trust after the bombing, and to be a part of something that united a city torn apart by terrorism. In doing so, being able to use my academic background of getting to know people and their stories so that the innocent men and women impacted by this event are not lost with time. I believe putting a human face to the terrorist and, most importantly, their victims, helps us teach the story and can hopefully prevent future acts. These storytelling moments happen daily and involve the work of so many on my team, never just me.
One of the main lessons I have learned and tried to teach so many is that even if we don’t agree, that doesn’t make me right and you wrong, it just means we have different opinions. It allows us to listen and learn from each other and come to the middle to work out our disagreements. I believe it is a critical trait that all journalists and Americans must continue to work toward as we live in a fractured, divided world. Because someone believes differently, they aren’t the enemy…they simply just have a different opinion. What can they learn from me? And most importantly, what can I learn from them?
One of my most memorable moments was meeting and learning from a lady named Jeannine Gist, who had lost her daughter Karen in the bombing. Understandably, she was angry and upset. In 1996, when we were trying to finalize the mission statement, a young man who had lost his mom recommended we add the word “hope” to the final line of the mission statement: “May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, HOPE, and serenity.” It was a last-minute addition and not everyone agreed, especially Jeannine, but after hours of discussion, she conceded and agreed to let it be added. Through the next five years, she helped us work through some tough times, choosing pictures and stories for the museum, and never missed an opportunity to be at a meeting or review of the memorial and museum.
It came time to dedicate the memorial on April 19, 2000, the fifth anniversary. President Clinton was coming to the dedication and the advance team asked me to choose some folks who were critical to the process. There were so many, and we had several join us, but I wanted Jeannine because she was a die-hard Democrat, understood our process and had lost so much. She joined me under the 9:03 Gate of Time shining brightly with the newly clad bronze. As we were waiting for the presidential motorcade to arrive, Jeannine grabbed my hand and said, “I can’t imagine this place without hope." I couldn’t either, and still can’t. Oklahoma City has and continues to give other communities that are undergoing trauma HOPE just by how we have rebuilt and remembered.
What do you do for fun outside of work?
I enjoy hanging out with my husband, Hardy, and our kids: Ford, a junior at Davidson College, and Caroline, a freshman at OU. Our hobby is traveling, seeing and learning as much as we can—especially from different cultures—and experiencing things together. We took our kids to all 50 state capitols before they finished high school and got to see so many great things across America. We play some golf but love being together and traveling with family and friends. I also love the OKC Thunder and especially LOVE to come to OU football and basketball games. Even in the hard seasons (when we don’t win as much), we still love Sooner Nation.
Are there any other organizations or projects you are involved with outside of your current job that you want to highlight?
One of my favorite projects I got to work on was during Oklahoma’s centennial, moving the original Billy Vessels statue from Heisman Park in Norman back home to Cleveland, Oklahoma in front of the new athletics events center. You see, when OU installed the second Heisman statue of Steve Owens, it was much larger than the original statue of Billy, so OU had to create a scale that all other sculptors would follow and put a new Billy Vessels statue in Heisman Park. In the meantime, I got to work with Lee Allan Smith (my former boss at Channel 4), the OU athletics department, and folks from my hometown to “Bring Billy Home”. It was such a fun opportunity that tied my love of all things Cleveland and OU together. I won’t ever forget that bus ride and the stories I learned from Oklahoma City to Cleveland with Coach Switzer, Lee Allan and many of Billy’s teammates as we drove to the unveiling of this beautiful statue and celebrated with Billy’s family and lifelong friends who had come from all over the country.
I currently serve as an elder at Crossings Community Church, a place I found as my “home” following the bombing. My husband Hardy and I were married there and raised our kids there. I love what our church is doing across the country.
I also proudly served on the MAPS 3 subcommittee on Scissortail Park, a project that I took on when my son Ford was in second grade and my daughter Caroline was in kindergarten. It was a 12+ year commitment to plan and build the beautiful park in downtown Oklahoma City. I went from that to the MAPS 4 Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, one of the greatest stories of Oklahoma City’s history in the civil rights battle that created a precedent across the country—it is not well known, but critical to our country’s history.
I am also very honored to serve on the Gaylord College Board of Visitors and the Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau. One of the things I am most proud of is that I put together teams of people from literally around the world who come to us for advice and wisdom about the memorialization process and how to rebuild a city. We have hosted dozens of communities who have come to learn and we have been able to go to many communities, including the three sites of 9/11, and many other cities and countries that are eager to learn how we do what we do every day.
