First Generation

1. Patrick B. DORR, son of Albert Edward DORR and Maxyne C. ZERBY, was born on 20 May 1947 in Oklahoma City, OK.

General Notes: This is the much abbreviated story of my life. I was born Patrick B. Dorr in Oklahoma City on May 20, 1947, five years after my oldest brother, Ed, and four younger than my Brother, Mike (later Dana). We lived at 2401 N.E. 27 th street in an amazing neighborhood. We were one block from our elementary school, Thomas A. Edison, and we had 18 kids on 27 th and 28 th street who were all going to Edison and most of them also attended our Creston Hills Presbyterian Church about five blocks from us on 23 rd street.

My father graduated from OSU (A&M) with an engineering degree and founded his own business, Comfort, Inc., that installed and serviced Chrysler AirTemp air conditioning/ heating systems. His father was killed before he was born, but my Dad could build or fix anything!!! We lived in a house, initially with two bedrooms, one upstairs and one down. He soon converted the front single car garage into a bedroom for Ed and Dana and a darkroom for his photography hobby that he began while fighting WW2 in the Pacific. (That's another great story!) He then built a new 2-car garage on the west side of the house. Then he added a nursery to Dad and Mom's upstairs bedroom. A few years later, he added a large den to the back of the house off of the kitchen/dining room. We had a great swing/slide set in the backyard. My two younger brothers, Jon (1952) and Kent (1954), were the first occupants of the nursery.

I began school at Edison with my 27 th street friends, Patte Wagner and Gary Roush. All 18 kids I mentioned above would go through Edison. As I said, we had a fantastic neighborhood-we had a park with swings, teeter-totters, and climbing toys. My favorite memories are all the night-time games we played on 27 th street. Carol Houston's big tree was the home base for Run Sheep Run, Piggy Wants A Signal, and other games. Boy, did we have fun!!! I fell in love at 2-years old with my across the street neighbor, 2yr old Patte Wagner, whose father, Bert, worked for my Dad at Comfort, Inc. Her older brother, Jay, was in Dana's class. Bert was our Boy Scout leader at Creston Hills Presbyterian church and would pull us through the snow in winter with his truck and giant sled. By the way, my Mom was our Cub Scout leader virtually every year on 27th .

In 1958 we moved about 4 miles northwest to Wildwood where our new house was built, designed by my mother. It had six bedrooms, four on the lower level for us boys, and two upstairs, the master for Mom and Dad, and a guest room for my Grandmother Dorr who would come to stay with us periodically from Tennessee. The house was split level, you walked in the front door and you either went upstairs or downstairs. There was a big den downstairs where we set up our ping pong and pool tables. Upstairs was a living room with a fireplace, a dining area, a kitchen and a utility area, which all more or less blended together. Out the upstairs backdoor was a huge deck which overlooked our new swimming pool.

Wildwood was just north of 50 th St., between Prospect and Kelly. We moved in the middle of my 6 th grade and I went to a new school, Millwood, which was on Eastern just north of the Northeast Highway, right down from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. What is interesting is that we stayed in the northeast part of the city which we loved. We were now just north of Springlake Amusement Park and Lincoln Park Zoo, where on 27 th street, we were just south of both and they were still within a short bicycle ride. Northeast back in the 50s and early 60s was THE FUN SIDE of OKC--Springlake was an incredible amusement park with a giant swimming pool, a Big Dipper roller coaster and many other rides and games. It also had an amphitheater which hosted well known acts, such as the Beach Boys, the Four Preps, and many others in the 50s and 60s. AND Lincoln Park Zoo (now OKC Zoo) was right down 50 th from Wildwood. When you entered the Zoo, you were greeted by a giant ship with monkees climbing all over it. They had about every wild animal you can think of: elephants, giraffes, bears, tigers, leopards (one escaped), and many others. Boy, we literally grew up in the MIDDLE of FUN LAND!!!!!!
The year before we moved to Wildwood, we had moved our Mimmie and Ninnie (Mom's mom and dad) to OKC from Perry and put them in a little house on 24 th street by the Tower Theatre on 23 rd street. After a year, we moved them into assisted living around 30 th and Eastern (now Martin Luther King street).

You would think that moving in the middle of 6 th grade would be hard, but the Millwood kids made be feel at home immediately. And my new teacher, Mrs. Larkin, was my favorite teacher that I had during all of my schooling. Ed and Dana were still going to the same Northeast High School on 28 th and Kelly. Jon was 6 and in 1 st grade at Millwood and Kent was only 4 and not in school yet. Every summer from the 6 th grade through college, I mowed about five big yards in Wildwood for about $10 a yard for spending money.

Millwood went only through 8 th grade (I was the salutatorian) and then I went to Northeast High School from 9 th to my graduation in 1965. I got my driver's license in May after my sophomore year at Northeast. My license shows that I was 5'2” and weighed 112 pounds. To say I was small is an understatement. I grew 5 inches and 25 pounds early in my junior year. At Northeast I lettered in cross country in the fall and tennis in the spring. I was our #1 man in both sports in my senior year. I fell in love the summer before my senior year with a beautiful girl, Eddy Jane, who was about 2-1/2 years younger. We went together my entire senior year, prom and all, and into the entire summer. I started my college at OSU in the fall of 1965 and she had several more years of high school, so our relationship slowly disappeared.

The summer after my graduation from Northeast, my Mother lined me up for a YMCA- sponsored young people's program in Switzerland, where I also got to visit France, Germany, and England. That would create a desire in me that has been with me the rest of my life. (I will talk about that later!!!)

I was lonely my freshman year at OSU but rooming with Jay Suggs, who lived behind us on 27 th street was my roommate which made it easier. He was an engineering major and I started out in history and political science. In the beginning of my sophomore year, I decided to join a fraternity, Kappa Alpha. Jay Suggs also decided to be a KA later than fall and it gave us both a much better social life. After Christmas in my sophomore year, I met Kathy Rhodes, whose father had just begun work for my Father. She was a Kappa Alpha Theta at OSU. We dated the entire spring, summer, and fall of 1967. She was majoring in Business Education and was working as a secretary for the Head of the Accounting Department. She introduced me to her boss, Wilton T. Anderson, who would really determine the rest of my life. After meeting him, I changed my major to Accounting and I was told by Andy to marry this girl Kathy.


Kathy and I were pinned and went together all of 1967, but in January of 1968, Kathy broke up with me. I was broken-hearted, but met a KD, Pat Mayhall from Idabel, that I dated the rest of the spring and summer of 1968. Then, right before the beginning of my senior year, I was telling my big brother, Ed, who was home for a while from his Dallas job, about my new girlfriend, when Kathy Rhodes walked up to our house and my heart told me that I was still in love with her. To make a long story short, I broke up with Pat, and began dating Kathy again. Before Christmas of 1968, our romance was flourishing, so we decided to get married on January 20, 1969, in the middle of our senior year. We moved into married student housing at OSU until we got kicked out for having a dog, Charley. We moved into a house at 405 N. Duncan next door to a little 10-year old boy, Lance Hinkle, who would become special to us for the rest of our lives. He has been the Director of the OSU Student Union Bookstore for over 20 years. We considered him our little boy!!

Kathy and I completed our B.S. degrees in May of 1969, and continued into masters program. Vietnam was raging, so I got into advanced ROTC to allow me to finish my masters. The summer of 1969 I had to complete a 6 week basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was tough and hot, but I was in great shape. That fall I started my M.S. in Accounting, continued in the spring and the following fall. I was a graduate assistant which helped our financial situation. In the summer of 1970, I had to go to an ROTC six-week program in Fort Sill, OK. I got a job in Internal Auditing at OSU while I completed my Masters in the fall of 1970. I continued in this job during the spring and fall or 1971. After completing my ROTC program in the spring of '71, I was assigned to the Adjutant General (AG) Corp of the U.S. Army. That summer, Kathy and I headed to Indianapolis for me to attend AG school. I graduated #1 in that school and I was expected to go active duty/ but Vietnam was winding down, so I had the opportunity to elect to go into the Reserves rather than active duty. After completing my M.S. degree in Fall of 1971, I went to work for the national accounting firm of KPMG (then was Peat, Marwick, Mitchell) in Tulsa for 1972 and the spring of 1973. We bought a nice house on 22 nd street behind Casa Bonita and two blocks from my cousin Rae Donna's family, but we lived in that house for only about 8 months when.

In the summer of 1973, Wilton Anderson talked me into leaving KPMG and joining the accounting faculty at East Central University in Ada, OK. Kathy was pregnant with our first baby, Megan Ranell, was born in Ada on October 30, 1973. I taught Auditing and Intermediate Accounting through the Spring of 1975. We lived in a little white house across the street from the Ada Golf Club. Bill Chapman was my dept head and he was a good man. One of my students, Steve Ely, was the #1 man on the ECU tennis team. The #2 man was Mike Crawford which continues to be a close friend. I helped Johnny Privitt coach the team and I really enjoyed my life in Ada, EXCEPT it is an OU town! Yuk!! Kent Dorr came down with his new baby, Chris, and wife to take classes.

After the two years in Ada, Andy called me again and told me I needed to get my PhD in accounting so he could hire me back to OSU in the future. He directed me to North Texas State University. I did well there for the next two years under some excellent professors, Herschel Anderson, Barney Coda, Barry King, and others. I was about to enter my dissertation stage when Andy called me again and told me he needed me at OSU in the Fall of 1977 even though I had not completed my doctorate. SO, we moved to Stillwater and bought a house at 101 W. Georgia Ave (where we still live after 46 years) from the Economics professor, Bob Sandmeyer, who would be my Dean in the College of Business Administration. That move launched the rest of my Professorial career in a great University! So, I did not have to make a decision in my career; Wilton T. Anderson made all of them!!!

Also about 18 months after we moved to Stillwater, we had our second daughter, Amber Coleen on May10, 1979. Megan was just finishing 1 st grade in her second year at Will Rogers Elementary, which was only about seven blocks from our house. Both girls would move on from Will Rogers to the middle school, junior high, and Stillwater High School where they would both be Pom Pom girls. Both would go on to OSU, the fourth generation. Megan was an accounting major and won the Top Accounting Student Award and within the next year passed her CPA Exam on the first try. Amber would major in history and went to Plan to teach high school.

Arriving at OSU, I was the auditing professor and taught financial accounting. Later on, I developed the Accounting Information Systems (AIS) course which was a new trend in accounting in the 1980s. A few years down the road, I chaired the committee that developed the Management Information Systems course, also. So I would spend 37 years at OSU. Technically, I retired in 2010 after 33 years, but the now SCHOOL of Accounting needed me to teach for four more years. I was not a brilliant researcher, but I did enough to be promoted to Associate and then Full Professor. I did win the award from the AIS Journal for one of the best papers one year and the award for the Best Reviewer in another year. Somewhere along the line, after Dale Armstrong retired, I picked up the Estate and Gift Tax graduate course, not only at OSU, but also as a professional course through the Business Extension Office. I taught Tax CPAs and attorneys in Tulsa and Oklahoma City for years and years.

The other major contribution I made to the SOA was to be the Faculty Advisor to our Beta Alpha Psi chapter, which is the national accounting student organization. We arranged programs every two weeks that would benefit our BAP members and other business and university students. In doing this we also arranged for speakers from the accounting and legal professions. Our BAP members also presented programs on accounting topics at regional and national BAP meetings. In addition, BAP was VERY ACTIVE in providing tutoring services to business students taking accounting courses. We also were active in providing services to the citizens of Stillwater, including income tax preparation, tutoring and after school programs for low income high school students, and reading to nursing home patients. We also had some great social activities! The Chi Chapter of Beta Alpha Psi was recognized many times as being one of the best BAP chapters in the nation!!

As I said early my 1965 trip to Europe in 1965, that great memory led me to take advantage a new OSU-sponsored Study In London (SIL) program. This was a summer program where we took OSU students (usually about 20-25) to London and study courses like International Accounting and visit companies and programs based in London. My first SIL was in 1993, where my daughter Megan was one of the students. We were based at Imperial College and lived in apartments about a half mile from the college. We took one or two visits to different types of international businesses that were based in London, legal, accounting and other.

The next SIL summer trip that included me was in 1998 where the group was based at Regent's College, right in the middle of Regent's Park, across the street from the Queen's Rose Gardens. INCREDIBLE! I took Amber that first year, not as a student but just a sidekick. Regents became my OTHER HOME! I ended up teaching there seven more summers, BUT I made so many close friends who worked at Regents that Kathy and I (and sometime my daughters) were allowed to stay in the dorms for a week or two even though I was not teaching. WE ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!!! All in all, I traveled to Europe 15 times for teaching and just personal reasons (see chart below). After the course ended we often flew to Ghent, Belgium to see my nephew Marc Quataert and his family (wife & 3 girls). I had many trips through the 90s and 2000s. Kathy usually came with me and we got to see a lot of theatre, mostly musicals. We saw many musicals on our trips to London and also the many trips we took to NYC for conferences and vacations.

COMMUNITY SERVICE My wife and I have also been heavily involved in the Stillwater community for many years. I helped Mike Brannon launch the Love Feast, a soup kitchen that fed those in need five evenings a week. I rounded up 20 churches with each one serving one evening meal a month. Out of the Love Feast, I also started an after-school youth program for the 50 or more kids who came to eat at the Love Feast. Next I created a tutoring, study hall program in the evenings for the school-age kids. I also initiated the Crop Walk for Hunger and the first free tax aid program, as well as helping to open the Mission of Hope, a homeless shelter. In addition, I wrote a weekly Helping Hands column in the local newspaper for 30 years to get the word out to the public about needs in our community. Probably, what I am most known for in Stillwater, however, is the Stillwater Community Thanksgiving Dinner, which I initiated and coordinated for 31 years. One fun thing that came out of my volunteer activities is that I was selected in 1996 to carry the Olympic Torch through Stillwater prior to the Atlanta Olympics. My wife, Kathy, was also very active in our community, helping to found the Humane Society and CAAP, a spay and neuter clinic for dogs & cats. She also helped to initiate a Habitat chapter in our community to build homes for families in need. Over our years in Stillwater, Kathy and I have been named Volunteers of the Year and Citizens of the Year by the City of Stillwater and several organizations. The Stillwater City Council also voted May 9, 2000 to be PAT & KATHY DORR DAY.

I loved my days at Oklahoma State, not only teaching accounting, but serving as the faculty advisor for 20 years to our accounting fraternity, Beta Alpha Psi, as I said earlier. Our club was named the top student organization on campus many times out of over 300 such organizations. Working closely with students, in making career decisions and helping them learn the importance of community service, was my greatest joy. My fellow accountants gave back to me in several ways: (1) inducting me into the OSU Wilton T. Anderson School of Accounting Hall of Fame, (2) the Oklahoma Society of CPAs inducted me into the Oklahoma Accounting Educators Hall of Fame, and, (3) upon my retirement, my friends, former students, and other OSU alums contributed over a half million dollars, which was matched by the state and Boone Pickens to establish a Patrick B. Dorr Professorship in Accounting at OSU. What can I say, "I bleed orange" Go Pokes!

Patrick married Kathy Sue RHODES, daughter of Charlie Louis RHODES and Dorothy Katherine BOOKER, on 20 Jan 1969 in Oklahoma City, OK. Kathy was born on 8 Jul 1947 in Ft. Smith, AR.

Children from this marriage were:

   2    i. Megan Ranell DORR was born on 30 Oct 1973 in Ada, OK.

   3    ii. Amber Coleen DORR was born on 3 May 1979 in Stillwater, OK.