*        NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame
Currie Ballard, Bob Burke,
General Thomas P. Stafford,
and Dr. Lewis Stiles
By Elizabeth M. Baxter
Since 1993 the Oklahoma Historical Society has annually honored
up to four individuals, both professional and amateur, in its
Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame. Recipients are selected on the
basis of their contributions to the preservation, collection, interpre-
tation, and dissemination of Oklahoma history. This criteria was
first published in The Chronicles of Oklahoma, 72 (Summer 1994).
To date, sixty-three historians have been inducted.
Early honorees included Grant Foreman, Joseph B. Thoburn,
Muriel H. Wright, Edward Everett Dale, and Angie Debo. In addi-
tion to historians, the award has been bestowed on artist Charles
Banks Wilson, Cherokee genealogist Emmet Starr, author John Jo-
seph Mathews, and Apache educator Mildred Imach Cleghorn. The
inductees are honored at the Awards Banquet held during the
Oklahoma Historical Society's Annual Meeting in April each year.
In April 2010 Currie Ballard, Bob Burke, General Thomas P.
Stafford, and Dr. Lewis Stiles were inducted into the Oklahoma
Historians Hall of Fame. The inductees are featured in this issue of
The Chronicles.
Currie Ballard
Although born in Los Angeles, Currie Ballard's Oklahoma roots
run deep. He is a descendent of Wallace and Minerva Willis, African
American slaves in Indian Territory who wrote the classic gospel

222