Penny Williams, a former state lawmaker from Tulsa best known as a champion for public education and equal rights for women, died Monday, her family said.
She was 80.
A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 28.
Per her wishes, Williams’ body is being donated to the University of Oklahoma medical school.
A Democrat, Williams’ legislative career spanned 23 years and included eventful stints in both the state House (1981 to 1988) and Senate (1989 to 2004).
It was as a senator, during which time she chaired the Senate’s Education Committee, that Williams co-authored House Bill 1017, the landmark 1990 education funding and reform package that has been in the news again of late.
In a recent Tulsa World editorial in advance of a statewide teacher walkout, Williams talked about how provisions of HB 1017 had been watered down or outright abolished, harming education in Oklahoma.
She wrote: “We have stopped believing in our students and teachers. We lost faith in the power of Oklahoma education and did not pay our bills as promised.” However, she added, “Oklahoma’s can-do sense and its high spirits are here, still. The key is leadership.”
During her time in office, Williams also spoke out on women’s issues.
As a state representative, she headed the Equal Rights Amendment Committee after being tapped for the role by Republican Henry Bellmon and Democrat David Boren. Of the ERA, which ultimately was not ratified in Oklahoma, Williams said in a 2017 interview with the World: “It was always about giving women control over their own lives, their own decisions.”
On the outlook for women today, she added: “Improvements have been made, but the culture isn’t quite where we need to be — with a lot of strong women speaking to authority. … Most pictures of leadership and power are pretty male-filled. You don’t see many women.”
Williams’ other legislative achievements included the bill that established the former University Center at Tulsa, a public university center offering upper-division and graduate classes. Before that, Tulsa had been the largest city in the U.S. without a public four-year college. She also authored the bill that created the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.
An arts advocate, Williams had served as Senate chairwoman of the Legislative Arts Caucus, authored the Art in Public Places Act, and commissioned and placed artwork in the Capitol building.
Former Senate President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor was her colleague in both the Senate and the House and remained a good friend afterward. “Penny was a champion for excellence,” he said. “She absolutely wanted to move Oklahoma forward. And she was the biggest cheerleader that Tulsa ever had.”
He said he will miss her sense of humor, which “we all loved,” and her generosity.
“Penny grew up in a world very different from mine,” he added, “but she was very kind to a poor kid who’d gotten himself elected to the Legislature.”
Former Tulsa Mayor Rodger Randle, whom Williams succeeded in the Senate, said, “Tulsa will be forever enriched” by her efforts.
Randle, Senate author of the bill that created the University Center, said Williams, as House author, “had an uphill battle, and the passage of it was a credit to the depth of her commitment to education.”
He added: “University Center does not exist anymore, but what Tulsa has now in OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, etc., would not have existed without Penny.”
“I would say that probably there is no one that had a bigger impact on education in Oklahoma than Penny Williams,” said former House Speaker Steve Lewis. “There are just so many ideas she brought forward and was successful in getting done.”
Former Gov. Brad Henry, who served with Williams in the Senate, said she was “a fierce advocate for teachers, students, and improving public education funding at all levels.”
“Penny was, in my estimation, one of the most caring and compassionate legislators to ever grace the halls of the state Capitol building,” Henry said. “She was one of a kind — a bit quirky, tenacious, a dear friend to all who knew her, and a true public servant who always put the best interests of the people of Oklahoma first.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said, “Penny Williams served Oklahoma with honor and distinction in the state Senate. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, she was a tireless advocate for public education and always a champion of her hometown of Tulsa.”
Born Penny Baldwin in New York City, Williams grew up in South Carolina. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Tehran and the University of Tulsa.
Among her honors, Williams was named to the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and was a recipient of the Kate Barnard Award from the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women for her contributions to the state as a woman in public service.
She had served on the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Board, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Gregory’s College Board of Trustees, and the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.
Williams’ son, Joe Williams, said his mother would want to be remembered as “somebody who loved this state and did her best to help build it.”
Survivors include her three sons, Joe Williams, Peter Williams and Jamie Williams; four grandchildren; and two sisters, Cassie Kernan and Helen Bonsal.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sutton Avian Research Center or the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics Foundation.
Tulsa World (OK) 17 April 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Penny Baldwin Williams, former Oklahoma State Senator, died peacefully at her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 16, 2018. She spent her last week in the loving care of her three sons.
Penny was born in New York City on May 6, 1937, the daughter of steeplechase jockey Polly Potter Baldwin and entrepreneur Peter Baldwin. She spent her childhood in Camden, South Carolina. Penny was a tomboy: “I grew up wild, climbing trees and riding horses, with all the freedom in the world,” she recently told her sons. At an early age, in the still-segregated South, she found kinship on both sides of town, often finding herself the only white girl watching movies at the blacks-only theater.
She attended high school at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, leaving college to marry her hometown sweetheart, Joseph Hill Williams. Despite her foreshortened college career, she was a lifelong learner, avid reader and constant photographer. She viewed everything with curiosity. Asked how she felt about approaching her impending death, her answer was characteristic: “I’m interested.”
Her marriage took her to Fort Sill army base in western Oklahoma in 1957 and then to Tulsa. With three small boys in tow, Penny and Joe moved to Iran in the early 1960s, where Joe supervised pipeline construction for Tulsa-based Williams Brothers, which later became the Williams Companies.
The family lived among Persians in a small village on the outskirts of Tehran. These nearly seven years were defining ones for Penny. She immersed herself in Persian culture and language, and took literature classes at the University of Tehran. She also faced many adversities, including the loss of her fourth son, Michael, as an infant. Iran in the 1960’s was a society in transition to modernity, and the poverty and inequalities she witnessed awakened her social conscience and gave her a thirst for involvement in the great social upheavals occurring back home.
Upon returning to Tulsa in 1968, Penny became active in the social issues of the time - from the civil rights movement to Vietnam War protests. She joined the League of Women Voters, co-chaired the Oklahoma Equal Rights Amendment campaign and successfully fought for racially integrated schools in Tulsa. She used her house to gather leaders together from all walks of the Tulsa community.
In 1980 she committed fully to politics, winning a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives — a Democrat in a previously Republican district. She served 8 years in the House and 16 years in the Oklahoma Senate, making her Oklahoma’s longest serving female legislator (she was term-limited and retired in 2004).
When it came to standing up for the children of Oklahoma, she was unstoppable. She co-authored House Bill 1017, a comprehensive education reform bill that included provisions to reduce class size and paved the way for increased teacher salaries and made Oklahoma the first state to legislate statewide early education. Penny facilitated bipartisan cooperation between the Democratic legislature and the Republican governor, Henry Bellmon, to pass the legislation.
She was unceasingly friendly at the capitol, equally at ease with the governor, political adversaries or the janitor. “Everywhere she went, she collected people,” said her longtime friend Norma Eagleton. Still, underneath Penny’s affable exterior lay a serious political strategist, whose infectious laugh and inclusive nature allowed her to navigate the complex legislative landscape of such a diverse state.
When a bill was floated in the Oklahoma Senate in 1996 that strengthened penalties for wrestling sedated bears for sport, Penny, with a sense of irony, attached an amendment that increased punishment for domestic abusers. Her legislative creativity worked and the bill was passed with the amendment intact.
Penny was known to be a relentless advocate for the causes she believed in. Asked how he got along so well with Penny, Oklahoma legislator Don McCorkle laughed, “It’s easy. You just do what she says.”
“Penny truly was the idea person,” said another fellow legislator, Robert Henry. “She would come up with the big picture and we, her loyal lackeys, would suit up and help get it passed.”
A whirlwind of activity, Penny would disarm colleagues across the political spectrum with a unique mix of humor, social grace, wafting scarves, and glasses of iced tea.
“I’ll get it done,” she’d tell onlookers. “Just don’t watch me do it.”
She was instrumental in creating the legislation behind the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics in Oklahoma City, giving gifted students from towns as small as Bugtussle a pathway to world-renowned universities like MIT. She also co-authored the bill that created the University Center at Tulsa, a consortium of higher education institutions, including -- and ultimately becoming --OSU-Tulsa.
Penny understood the importance of symbols, placing a Native American sculpture in front of the state capitol. She was key to the passage of the 2004 Art in Public Places Act, which requires 1.5 percent of the total budget of new state construction and remodeling projects to be dedicated to public art.
She had an abiding love affair with the landscape of Oklahoma. She loved to drive the backroads of the state, snapping photos of everything from bridge abutments to stands of sunflowers.
“At her home overlooking Keystone Lake, there was nothing Mom loved more than watching the wide-open Oklahoma sky, with all its weather rolling through,” said her son, Peter.
She was a supporter of Oklahoma conservation efforts, from protecting caves for rare bats to chairing the board of the Sutton Avian Research Center.
Penny’s advocacy for excellence was a guiding principle. In speeches to the public, she often exclaimed, “Why do we enshrine mediocrity on our license plate with, ‘Oklahoma is OK?’ Doesn’t the Broadway show title, ‘Oklahoma!’ better capture our energy and aspirations?” She lobbied for a new plate and in 1989 it was changed to “Oklahoma – OK!” and carried a graphic honoring Oklahoma’s native heritage.
Coupling excellence with her other guiding principle of fairness for all, she said, “You could sum up my work in two words, quality and equality.”
Her strong sense of justice carried over to the way she raised her three teenage boys. All sides of political debates were encouraged at the dinner table, but manners were always enforced. “She allowed us to explore every nuance of life, as long as we were respectful of others,” said Peter.
“She was the most generous, giving, supportive mother imaginable,” said her son, Jamie. “She was always in our corner. She made us feel like champions.”
Although Penny never had daughters, she took on many surrogates over the years, and served as a role model for her many nieces and their daughters.
She had a great love for her three daughters-in-law. An advocate for women’s rights and the protection of survivors of domestic abuse, she taught her sons respect for women.
In old age, when considering a move nearer to her out-of-state sons, she came to the realization that she wanted to die where she had lived, among the friends, landscape, and culture of which she was so much a part.
Penny was loved by so many. Her easy laugh, expansive personality, kind heart, and humanity will be dearly missed.
Penny is survived by two sisters, Helen Bonsal of Reisterstown, MD and Cassie Kernan of Bedford, NY; three sons, Joseph Hill Williams, Jr. of Knoxville, TN, Peter Baldwin Williams of Boulder, CO, and James Chesnut Williams of Washington, D.C.; and four beloved grandchildren, Ben, Annabel, Nico, and Tuco. She is also survived by her former husband and beloved friend, Joseph Hill Williams, of Charleston, SC.
A memorial service for Penny will be held in Tulsa at Trinity Church, 501 South Cincinnati Ave, on Saturday, April 28, at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Sutton Avian Research Center, P.O. Box 2007, Bartlesville, OK, 74005, or the Oklahoma School of Science of Mathematics at OSSM Foundation, 1141 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Tulsa World (OK) 22 April 2018
She was 80.
A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 28.
Per her wishes, Williams’ body is being donated to the University of Oklahoma medical school.
A Democrat, Williams’ legislative career spanned 23 years and included eventful stints in both the state House (1981 to 1988) and Senate (1989 to 2004).
It was as a senator, during which time she chaired the Senate’s Education Committee, that Williams co-authored House Bill 1017, the landmark 1990 education funding and reform package that has been in the news again of late.
In a recent Tulsa World editorial in advance of a statewide teacher walkout, Williams talked about how provisions of HB 1017 had been watered down or outright abolished, harming education in Oklahoma.
She wrote: “We have stopped believing in our students and teachers. We lost faith in the power of Oklahoma education and did not pay our bills as promised.” However, she added, “Oklahoma’s can-do sense and its high spirits are here, still. The key is leadership.”
During her time in office, Williams also spoke out on women’s issues.
As a state representative, she headed the Equal Rights Amendment Committee after being tapped for the role by Republican Henry Bellmon and Democrat David Boren. Of the ERA, which ultimately was not ratified in Oklahoma, Williams said in a 2017 interview with the World: “It was always about giving women control over their own lives, their own decisions.”
On the outlook for women today, she added: “Improvements have been made, but the culture isn’t quite where we need to be — with a lot of strong women speaking to authority. … Most pictures of leadership and power are pretty male-filled. You don’t see many women.”
Williams’ other legislative achievements included the bill that established the former University Center at Tulsa, a public university center offering upper-division and graduate classes. Before that, Tulsa had been the largest city in the U.S. without a public four-year college. She also authored the bill that created the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.
An arts advocate, Williams had served as Senate chairwoman of the Legislative Arts Caucus, authored the Art in Public Places Act, and commissioned and placed artwork in the Capitol building.
Former Senate President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor was her colleague in both the Senate and the House and remained a good friend afterward. “Penny was a champion for excellence,” he said. “She absolutely wanted to move Oklahoma forward. And she was the biggest cheerleader that Tulsa ever had.”
He said he will miss her sense of humor, which “we all loved,” and her generosity.
“Penny grew up in a world very different from mine,” he added, “but she was very kind to a poor kid who’d gotten himself elected to the Legislature.”
Former Tulsa Mayor Rodger Randle, whom Williams succeeded in the Senate, said, “Tulsa will be forever enriched” by her efforts.
Randle, Senate author of the bill that created the University Center, said Williams, as House author, “had an uphill battle, and the passage of it was a credit to the depth of her commitment to education.”
He added: “University Center does not exist anymore, but what Tulsa has now in OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, etc., would not have existed without Penny.”
“I would say that probably there is no one that had a bigger impact on education in Oklahoma than Penny Williams,” said former House Speaker Steve Lewis. “There are just so many ideas she brought forward and was successful in getting done.”
Former Gov. Brad Henry, who served with Williams in the Senate, said she was “a fierce advocate for teachers, students, and improving public education funding at all levels.”
“Penny was, in my estimation, one of the most caring and compassionate legislators to ever grace the halls of the state Capitol building,” Henry said. “She was one of a kind — a bit quirky, tenacious, a dear friend to all who knew her, and a true public servant who always put the best interests of the people of Oklahoma first.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said, “Penny Williams served Oklahoma with honor and distinction in the state Senate. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, she was a tireless advocate for public education and always a champion of her hometown of Tulsa.”
Born Penny Baldwin in New York City, Williams grew up in South Carolina. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Tehran and the University of Tulsa.
Among her honors, Williams was named to the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and was a recipient of the Kate Barnard Award from the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women for her contributions to the state as a woman in public service.
She had served on the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Board, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Gregory’s College Board of Trustees, and the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.
Williams’ son, Joe Williams, said his mother would want to be remembered as “somebody who loved this state and did her best to help build it.”
Survivors include her three sons, Joe Williams, Peter Williams and Jamie Williams; four grandchildren; and two sisters, Cassie Kernan and Helen Bonsal.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sutton Avian Research Center or the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics Foundation.
Tulsa World (OK) 17 April 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Penny Baldwin Williams, former Oklahoma State Senator, died peacefully at her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 16, 2018. She spent her last week in the loving care of her three sons.
Penny was born in New York City on May 6, 1937, the daughter of steeplechase jockey Polly Potter Baldwin and entrepreneur Peter Baldwin. She spent her childhood in Camden, South Carolina. Penny was a tomboy: “I grew up wild, climbing trees and riding horses, with all the freedom in the world,” she recently told her sons. At an early age, in the still-segregated South, she found kinship on both sides of town, often finding herself the only white girl watching movies at the blacks-only theater.
She attended high school at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, leaving college to marry her hometown sweetheart, Joseph Hill Williams. Despite her foreshortened college career, she was a lifelong learner, avid reader and constant photographer. She viewed everything with curiosity. Asked how she felt about approaching her impending death, her answer was characteristic: “I’m interested.”
Her marriage took her to Fort Sill army base in western Oklahoma in 1957 and then to Tulsa. With three small boys in tow, Penny and Joe moved to Iran in the early 1960s, where Joe supervised pipeline construction for Tulsa-based Williams Brothers, which later became the Williams Companies.
The family lived among Persians in a small village on the outskirts of Tehran. These nearly seven years were defining ones for Penny. She immersed herself in Persian culture and language, and took literature classes at the University of Tehran. She also faced many adversities, including the loss of her fourth son, Michael, as an infant. Iran in the 1960’s was a society in transition to modernity, and the poverty and inequalities she witnessed awakened her social conscience and gave her a thirst for involvement in the great social upheavals occurring back home.
Upon returning to Tulsa in 1968, Penny became active in the social issues of the time - from the civil rights movement to Vietnam War protests. She joined the League of Women Voters, co-chaired the Oklahoma Equal Rights Amendment campaign and successfully fought for racially integrated schools in Tulsa. She used her house to gather leaders together from all walks of the Tulsa community.
In 1980 she committed fully to politics, winning a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives — a Democrat in a previously Republican district. She served 8 years in the House and 16 years in the Oklahoma Senate, making her Oklahoma’s longest serving female legislator (she was term-limited and retired in 2004).
When it came to standing up for the children of Oklahoma, she was unstoppable. She co-authored House Bill 1017, a comprehensive education reform bill that included provisions to reduce class size and paved the way for increased teacher salaries and made Oklahoma the first state to legislate statewide early education. Penny facilitated bipartisan cooperation between the Democratic legislature and the Republican governor, Henry Bellmon, to pass the legislation.
She was unceasingly friendly at the capitol, equally at ease with the governor, political adversaries or the janitor. “Everywhere she went, she collected people,” said her longtime friend Norma Eagleton. Still, underneath Penny’s affable exterior lay a serious political strategist, whose infectious laugh and inclusive nature allowed her to navigate the complex legislative landscape of such a diverse state.
When a bill was floated in the Oklahoma Senate in 1996 that strengthened penalties for wrestling sedated bears for sport, Penny, with a sense of irony, attached an amendment that increased punishment for domestic abusers. Her legislative creativity worked and the bill was passed with the amendment intact.
Penny was known to be a relentless advocate for the causes she believed in. Asked how he got along so well with Penny, Oklahoma legislator Don McCorkle laughed, “It’s easy. You just do what she says.”
“Penny truly was the idea person,” said another fellow legislator, Robert Henry. “She would come up with the big picture and we, her loyal lackeys, would suit up and help get it passed.”
A whirlwind of activity, Penny would disarm colleagues across the political spectrum with a unique mix of humor, social grace, wafting scarves, and glasses of iced tea.
“I’ll get it done,” she’d tell onlookers. “Just don’t watch me do it.”
She was instrumental in creating the legislation behind the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics in Oklahoma City, giving gifted students from towns as small as Bugtussle a pathway to world-renowned universities like MIT. She also co-authored the bill that created the University Center at Tulsa, a consortium of higher education institutions, including -- and ultimately becoming --OSU-Tulsa.
Penny understood the importance of symbols, placing a Native American sculpture in front of the state capitol. She was key to the passage of the 2004 Art in Public Places Act, which requires 1.5 percent of the total budget of new state construction and remodeling projects to be dedicated to public art.
She had an abiding love affair with the landscape of Oklahoma. She loved to drive the backroads of the state, snapping photos of everything from bridge abutments to stands of sunflowers.
“At her home overlooking Keystone Lake, there was nothing Mom loved more than watching the wide-open Oklahoma sky, with all its weather rolling through,” said her son, Peter.
She was a supporter of Oklahoma conservation efforts, from protecting caves for rare bats to chairing the board of the Sutton Avian Research Center.
Penny’s advocacy for excellence was a guiding principle. In speeches to the public, she often exclaimed, “Why do we enshrine mediocrity on our license plate with, ‘Oklahoma is OK?’ Doesn’t the Broadway show title, ‘Oklahoma!’ better capture our energy and aspirations?” She lobbied for a new plate and in 1989 it was changed to “Oklahoma – OK!” and carried a graphic honoring Oklahoma’s native heritage.
Coupling excellence with her other guiding principle of fairness for all, she said, “You could sum up my work in two words, quality and equality.”
Her strong sense of justice carried over to the way she raised her three teenage boys. All sides of political debates were encouraged at the dinner table, but manners were always enforced. “She allowed us to explore every nuance of life, as long as we were respectful of others,” said Peter.
“She was the most generous, giving, supportive mother imaginable,” said her son, Jamie. “She was always in our corner. She made us feel like champions.”
Although Penny never had daughters, she took on many surrogates over the years, and served as a role model for her many nieces and their daughters.
She had a great love for her three daughters-in-law. An advocate for women’s rights and the protection of survivors of domestic abuse, she taught her sons respect for women.
In old age, when considering a move nearer to her out-of-state sons, she came to the realization that she wanted to die where she had lived, among the friends, landscape, and culture of which she was so much a part.
Penny was loved by so many. Her easy laugh, expansive personality, kind heart, and humanity will be dearly missed.
Penny is survived by two sisters, Helen Bonsal of Reisterstown, MD and Cassie Kernan of Bedford, NY; three sons, Joseph Hill Williams, Jr. of Knoxville, TN, Peter Baldwin Williams of Boulder, CO, and James Chesnut Williams of Washington, D.C.; and four beloved grandchildren, Ben, Annabel, Nico, and Tuco. She is also survived by her former husband and beloved friend, Joseph Hill Williams, of Charleston, SC.
A memorial service for Penny will be held in Tulsa at Trinity Church, 501 South Cincinnati Ave, on Saturday, April 28, at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Sutton Avian Research Center, P.O. Box 2007, Bartlesville, OK, 74005, or the Oklahoma School of Science of Mathematics at OSSM Foundation, 1141 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Tulsa World (OK) 22 April 2018
Penny Williams, a former state lawmaker from Tulsa best known as a champion for public education and equal rights for women, died Monday, her family said.
She was 80.
A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 28.
Per her wishes, Williams’ body is being donated to the University of Oklahoma medical school.
A Democrat, Williams’ legislative career spanned 23 years and included eventful stints in both the state House (1981 to 1988) and Senate (1989 to 2004).
It was as a senator, during which time she chaired the Senate’s Education Committee, that Williams co-authored House Bill 1017, the landmark 1990 education funding and reform package that has been in the news again of late.
In a recent Tulsa World editorial in advance of a statewide teacher walkout, Williams talked about how provisions of HB 1017 had been watered down or outright abolished, harming education in Oklahoma.
She wrote: “We have stopped believing in our students and teachers. We lost faith in the power of Oklahoma education and did not pay our bills as promised.” However, she added, “Oklahoma’s can-do sense and its high spirits are here, still. The key is leadership.”
During her time in office, Williams also spoke out on women’s issues.
As a state representative, she headed the Equal Rights Amendment Committee after being tapped for the role by Republican Henry Bellmon and Democrat David Boren. Of the ERA, which ultimately was not ratified in Oklahoma, Williams said in a 2017 interview with the World: “It was always about giving women control over their own lives, their own decisions.”
On the outlook for women today, she added: “Improvements have been made, but the culture isn’t quite where we need to be — with a lot of strong women speaking to authority. … Most pictures of leadership and power are pretty male-filled. You don’t see many women.”
Williams’ other legislative achievements included the bill that established the former University Center at Tulsa, a public university center offering upper-division and graduate classes. Before that, Tulsa had been the largest city in the U.S. without a public four-year college. She also authored the bill that created the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.
An arts advocate, Williams had served as Senate chairwoman of the Legislative Arts Caucus, authored the Art in Public Places Act, and commissioned and placed artwork in the Capitol building.
Former Senate President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor was her colleague in both the Senate and the House and remained a good friend afterward. “Penny was a champion for excellence,” he said. “She absolutely wanted to move Oklahoma forward. And she was the biggest cheerleader that Tulsa ever had.”
He said he will miss her sense of humor, which “we all loved,” and her generosity.
“Penny grew up in a world very different from mine,” he added, “but she was very kind to a poor kid who’d gotten himself elected to the Legislature.”
Former Tulsa Mayor Rodger Randle, whom Williams succeeded in the Senate, said, “Tulsa will be forever enriched” by her efforts.
Randle, Senate author of the bill that created the University Center, said Williams, as House author, “had an uphill battle, and the passage of it was a credit to the depth of her commitment to education.”
He added: “University Center does not exist anymore, but what Tulsa has now in OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, etc., would not have existed without Penny.”
“I would say that probably there is no one that had a bigger impact on education in Oklahoma than Penny Williams,” said former House Speaker Steve Lewis. “There are just so many ideas she brought forward and was successful in getting done.”
Former Gov. Brad Henry, who served with Williams in the Senate, said she was “a fierce advocate for teachers, students, and improving public education funding at all levels.”
“Penny was, in my estimation, one of the most caring and compassionate legislators to ever grace the halls of the state Capitol building,” Henry said. “She was one of a kind — a bit quirky, tenacious, a dear friend to all who knew her, and a true public servant who always put the best interests of the people of Oklahoma first.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said, “Penny Williams served Oklahoma with honor and distinction in the state Senate. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, she was a tireless advocate for public education and always a champion of her hometown of Tulsa.”
Born Penny Baldwin in New York City, Williams grew up in South Carolina. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Tehran and the University of Tulsa.
Among her honors, Williams was named to the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and was a recipient of the Kate Barnard Award from the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women for her contributions to the state as a woman in public service.
She had served on the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Board, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Gregory’s College Board of Trustees, and the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.
Williams’ son, Joe Williams, said his mother would want to be remembered as “somebody who loved this state and did her best to help build it.”
Survivors include her three sons, Joe Williams, Peter Williams and Jamie Williams; four grandchildren; and two sisters, Cassie Kernan and Helen Bonsal.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sutton Avian Research Center or the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics Foundation.
Tulsa World (OK) 17 April 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Penny Baldwin Williams, former Oklahoma State Senator, died peacefully at her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 16, 2018. She spent her last week in the loving care of her three sons.
Penny was born in New York City on May 6, 1937, the daughter of steeplechase jockey Polly Potter Baldwin and entrepreneur Peter Baldwin. She spent her childhood in Camden, South Carolina. Penny was a tomboy: “I grew up wild, climbing trees and riding horses, with all the freedom in the world,” she recently told her sons. At an early age, in the still-segregated South, she found kinship on both sides of town, often finding herself the only white girl watching movies at the blacks-only theater.
She attended high school at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, leaving college to marry her hometown sweetheart, Joseph Hill Williams. Despite her foreshortened college career, she was a lifelong learner, avid reader and constant photographer. She viewed everything with curiosity. Asked how she felt about approaching her impending death, her answer was characteristic: “I’m interested.”
Her marriage took her to Fort Sill army base in western Oklahoma in 1957 and then to Tulsa. With three small boys in tow, Penny and Joe moved to Iran in the early 1960s, where Joe supervised pipeline construction for Tulsa-based Williams Brothers, which later became the Williams Companies.
The family lived among Persians in a small village on the outskirts of Tehran. These nearly seven years were defining ones for Penny. She immersed herself in Persian culture and language, and took literature classes at the University of Tehran. She also faced many adversities, including the loss of her fourth son, Michael, as an infant. Iran in the 1960’s was a society in transition to modernity, and the poverty and inequalities she witnessed awakened her social conscience and gave her a thirst for involvement in the great social upheavals occurring back home.
Upon returning to Tulsa in 1968, Penny became active in the social issues of the time - from the civil rights movement to Vietnam War protests. She joined the League of Women Voters, co-chaired the Oklahoma Equal Rights Amendment campaign and successfully fought for racially integrated schools in Tulsa. She used her house to gather leaders together from all walks of the Tulsa community.
In 1980 she committed fully to politics, winning a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives — a Democrat in a previously Republican district. She served 8 years in the House and 16 years in the Oklahoma Senate, making her Oklahoma’s longest serving female legislator (she was term-limited and retired in 2004).
When it came to standing up for the children of Oklahoma, she was unstoppable. She co-authored House Bill 1017, a comprehensive education reform bill that included provisions to reduce class size and paved the way for increased teacher salaries and made Oklahoma the first state to legislate statewide early education. Penny facilitated bipartisan cooperation between the Democratic legislature and the Republican governor, Henry Bellmon, to pass the legislation.
She was unceasingly friendly at the capitol, equally at ease with the governor, political adversaries or the janitor. “Everywhere she went, she collected people,” said her longtime friend Norma Eagleton. Still, underneath Penny’s affable exterior lay a serious political strategist, whose infectious laugh and inclusive nature allowed her to navigate the complex legislative landscape of such a diverse state.
When a bill was floated in the Oklahoma Senate in 1996 that strengthened penalties for wrestling sedated bears for sport, Penny, with a sense of irony, attached an amendment that increased punishment for domestic abusers. Her legislative creativity worked and the bill was passed with the amendment intact.
Penny was known to be a relentless advocate for the causes she believed in. Asked how he got along so well with Penny, Oklahoma legislator Don McCorkle laughed, “It’s easy. You just do what she says.”
“Penny truly was the idea person,” said another fellow legislator, Robert Henry. “She would come up with the big picture and we, her loyal lackeys, would suit up and help get it passed.”
A whirlwind of activity, Penny would disarm colleagues across the political spectrum with a unique mix of humor, social grace, wafting scarves, and glasses of iced tea.
“I’ll get it done,” she’d tell onlookers. “Just don’t watch me do it.”
She was instrumental in creating the legislation behind the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics in Oklahoma City, giving gifted students from towns as small as Bugtussle a pathway to world-renowned universities like MIT. She also co-authored the bill that created the University Center at Tulsa, a consortium of higher education institutions, including -- and ultimately becoming --OSU-Tulsa.
Penny understood the importance of symbols, placing a Native American sculpture in front of the state capitol. She was key to the passage of the 2004 Art in Public Places Act, which requires 1.5 percent of the total budget of new state construction and remodeling projects to be dedicated to public art.
She had an abiding love affair with the landscape of Oklahoma. She loved to drive the backroads of the state, snapping photos of everything from bridge abutments to stands of sunflowers.
“At her home overlooking Keystone Lake, there was nothing Mom loved more than watching the wide-open Oklahoma sky, with all its weather rolling through,” said her son, Peter.
She was a supporter of Oklahoma conservation efforts, from protecting caves for rare bats to chairing the board of the Sutton Avian Research Center.
Penny’s advocacy for excellence was a guiding principle. In speeches to the public, she often exclaimed, “Why do we enshrine mediocrity on our license plate with, ‘Oklahoma is OK?’ Doesn’t the Broadway show title, ‘Oklahoma!’ better capture our energy and aspirations?” She lobbied for a new plate and in 1989 it was changed to “Oklahoma – OK!” and carried a graphic honoring Oklahoma’s native heritage.
Coupling excellence with her other guiding principle of fairness for all, she said, “You could sum up my work in two words, quality and equality.”
Her strong sense of justice carried over to the way she raised her three teenage boys. All sides of political debates were encouraged at the dinner table, but manners were always enforced. “She allowed us to explore every nuance of life, as long as we were respectful of others,” said Peter.
“She was the most generous, giving, supportive mother imaginable,” said her son, Jamie. “She was always in our corner. She made us feel like champions.”
Although Penny never had daughters, she took on many surrogates over the years, and served as a role model for her many nieces and their daughters.
She had a great love for her three daughters-in-law. An advocate for women’s rights and the protection of survivors of domestic abuse, she taught her sons respect for women.
In old age, when considering a move nearer to her out-of-state sons, she came to the realization that she wanted to die where she had lived, among the friends, landscape, and culture of which she was so much a part.
Penny was loved by so many. Her easy laugh, expansive personality, kind heart, and humanity will be dearly missed.
Penny is survived by two sisters, Helen Bonsal of Reisterstown, MD and Cassie Kernan of Bedford, NY; three sons, Joseph Hill Williams, Jr. of Knoxville, TN, Peter Baldwin Williams of Boulder, CO, and James Chesnut Williams of Washington, D.C.; and four beloved grandchildren, Ben, Annabel, Nico, and Tuco. She is also survived by her former husband and beloved friend, Joseph Hill Williams, of Charleston, SC.
A memorial service for Penny will be held in Tulsa at Trinity Church, 501 South Cincinnati Ave, on Saturday, April 28, at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Sutton Avian Research Center, P.O. Box 2007, Bartlesville, OK, 74005, or the Oklahoma School of Science of Mathematics at OSSM Foundation, 1141 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Tulsa World (OK) 22 April 2018
She was 80.
A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 28.
Per her wishes, Williams’ body is being donated to the University of Oklahoma medical school.
A Democrat, Williams’ legislative career spanned 23 years and included eventful stints in both the state House (1981 to 1988) and Senate (1989 to 2004).
It was as a senator, during which time she chaired the Senate’s Education Committee, that Williams co-authored House Bill 1017, the landmark 1990 education funding and reform package that has been in the news again of late.
In a recent Tulsa World editorial in advance of a statewide teacher walkout, Williams talked about how provisions of HB 1017 had been watered down or outright abolished, harming education in Oklahoma.
She wrote: “We have stopped believing in our students and teachers. We lost faith in the power of Oklahoma education and did not pay our bills as promised.” However, she added, “Oklahoma’s can-do sense and its high spirits are here, still. The key is leadership.”
During her time in office, Williams also spoke out on women’s issues.
As a state representative, she headed the Equal Rights Amendment Committee after being tapped for the role by Republican Henry Bellmon and Democrat David Boren. Of the ERA, which ultimately was not ratified in Oklahoma, Williams said in a 2017 interview with the World: “It was always about giving women control over their own lives, their own decisions.”
On the outlook for women today, she added: “Improvements have been made, but the culture isn’t quite where we need to be — with a lot of strong women speaking to authority. … Most pictures of leadership and power are pretty male-filled. You don’t see many women.”
Williams’ other legislative achievements included the bill that established the former University Center at Tulsa, a public university center offering upper-division and graduate classes. Before that, Tulsa had been the largest city in the U.S. without a public four-year college. She also authored the bill that created the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.
An arts advocate, Williams had served as Senate chairwoman of the Legislative Arts Caucus, authored the Art in Public Places Act, and commissioned and placed artwork in the Capitol building.
Former Senate President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor was her colleague in both the Senate and the House and remained a good friend afterward. “Penny was a champion for excellence,” he said. “She absolutely wanted to move Oklahoma forward. And she was the biggest cheerleader that Tulsa ever had.”
He said he will miss her sense of humor, which “we all loved,” and her generosity.
“Penny grew up in a world very different from mine,” he added, “but she was very kind to a poor kid who’d gotten himself elected to the Legislature.”
Former Tulsa Mayor Rodger Randle, whom Williams succeeded in the Senate, said, “Tulsa will be forever enriched” by her efforts.
Randle, Senate author of the bill that created the University Center, said Williams, as House author, “had an uphill battle, and the passage of it was a credit to the depth of her commitment to education.”
He added: “University Center does not exist anymore, but what Tulsa has now in OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, etc., would not have existed without Penny.”
“I would say that probably there is no one that had a bigger impact on education in Oklahoma than Penny Williams,” said former House Speaker Steve Lewis. “There are just so many ideas she brought forward and was successful in getting done.”
Former Gov. Brad Henry, who served with Williams in the Senate, said she was “a fierce advocate for teachers, students, and improving public education funding at all levels.”
“Penny was, in my estimation, one of the most caring and compassionate legislators to ever grace the halls of the state Capitol building,” Henry said. “She was one of a kind — a bit quirky, tenacious, a dear friend to all who knew her, and a true public servant who always put the best interests of the people of Oklahoma first.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said, “Penny Williams served Oklahoma with honor and distinction in the state Senate. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, she was a tireless advocate for public education and always a champion of her hometown of Tulsa.”
Born Penny Baldwin in New York City, Williams grew up in South Carolina. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Tehran and the University of Tulsa.
Among her honors, Williams was named to the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and was a recipient of the Kate Barnard Award from the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women for her contributions to the state as a woman in public service.
She had served on the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Board, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Gregory’s College Board of Trustees, and the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.
Williams’ son, Joe Williams, said his mother would want to be remembered as “somebody who loved this state and did her best to help build it.”
Survivors include her three sons, Joe Williams, Peter Williams and Jamie Williams; four grandchildren; and two sisters, Cassie Kernan and Helen Bonsal.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sutton Avian Research Center or the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics Foundation.
Tulsa World (OK) 17 April 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Penny Baldwin Williams, former Oklahoma State Senator, died peacefully at her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 16, 2018. She spent her last week in the loving care of her three sons.
Penny was born in New York City on May 6, 1937, the daughter of steeplechase jockey Polly Potter Baldwin and entrepreneur Peter Baldwin. She spent her childhood in Camden, South Carolina. Penny was a tomboy: “I grew up wild, climbing trees and riding horses, with all the freedom in the world,” she recently told her sons. At an early age, in the still-segregated South, she found kinship on both sides of town, often finding herself the only white girl watching movies at the blacks-only theater.
She attended high school at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, leaving college to marry her hometown sweetheart, Joseph Hill Williams. Despite her foreshortened college career, she was a lifelong learner, avid reader and constant photographer. She viewed everything with curiosity. Asked how she felt about approaching her impending death, her answer was characteristic: “I’m interested.”
Her marriage took her to Fort Sill army base in western Oklahoma in 1957 and then to Tulsa. With three small boys in tow, Penny and Joe moved to Iran in the early 1960s, where Joe supervised pipeline construction for Tulsa-based Williams Brothers, which later became the Williams Companies.
The family lived among Persians in a small village on the outskirts of Tehran. These nearly seven years were defining ones for Penny. She immersed herself in Persian culture and language, and took literature classes at the University of Tehran. She also faced many adversities, including the loss of her fourth son, Michael, as an infant. Iran in the 1960’s was a society in transition to modernity, and the poverty and inequalities she witnessed awakened her social conscience and gave her a thirst for involvement in the great social upheavals occurring back home.
Upon returning to Tulsa in 1968, Penny became active in the social issues of the time - from the civil rights movement to Vietnam War protests. She joined the League of Women Voters, co-chaired the Oklahoma Equal Rights Amendment campaign and successfully fought for racially integrated schools in Tulsa. She used her house to gather leaders together from all walks of the Tulsa community.
In 1980 she committed fully to politics, winning a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives — a Democrat in a previously Republican district. She served 8 years in the House and 16 years in the Oklahoma Senate, making her Oklahoma’s longest serving female legislator (she was term-limited and retired in 2004).
When it came to standing up for the children of Oklahoma, she was unstoppable. She co-authored House Bill 1017, a comprehensive education reform bill that included provisions to reduce class size and paved the way for increased teacher salaries and made Oklahoma the first state to legislate statewide early education. Penny facilitated bipartisan cooperation between the Democratic legislature and the Republican governor, Henry Bellmon, to pass the legislation.
She was unceasingly friendly at the capitol, equally at ease with the governor, political adversaries or the janitor. “Everywhere she went, she collected people,” said her longtime friend Norma Eagleton. Still, underneath Penny’s affable exterior lay a serious political strategist, whose infectious laugh and inclusive nature allowed her to navigate the complex legislative landscape of such a diverse state.
When a bill was floated in the Oklahoma Senate in 1996 that strengthened penalties for wrestling sedated bears for sport, Penny, with a sense of irony, attached an amendment that increased punishment for domestic abusers. Her legislative creativity worked and the bill was passed with the amendment intact.
Penny was known to be a relentless advocate for the causes she believed in. Asked how he got along so well with Penny, Oklahoma legislator Don McCorkle laughed, “It’s easy. You just do what she says.”
“Penny truly was the idea person,” said another fellow legislator, Robert Henry. “She would come up with the big picture and we, her loyal lackeys, would suit up and help get it passed.”
A whirlwind of activity, Penny would disarm colleagues across the political spectrum with a unique mix of humor, social grace, wafting scarves, and glasses of iced tea.
“I’ll get it done,” she’d tell onlookers. “Just don’t watch me do it.”
She was instrumental in creating the legislation behind the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics in Oklahoma City, giving gifted students from towns as small as Bugtussle a pathway to world-renowned universities like MIT. She also co-authored the bill that created the University Center at Tulsa, a consortium of higher education institutions, including -- and ultimately becoming --OSU-Tulsa.
Penny understood the importance of symbols, placing a Native American sculpture in front of the state capitol. She was key to the passage of the 2004 Art in Public Places Act, which requires 1.5 percent of the total budget of new state construction and remodeling projects to be dedicated to public art.
She had an abiding love affair with the landscape of Oklahoma. She loved to drive the backroads of the state, snapping photos of everything from bridge abutments to stands of sunflowers.
“At her home overlooking Keystone Lake, there was nothing Mom loved more than watching the wide-open Oklahoma sky, with all its weather rolling through,” said her son, Peter.
She was a supporter of Oklahoma conservation efforts, from protecting caves for rare bats to chairing the board of the Sutton Avian Research Center.
Penny’s advocacy for excellence was a guiding principle. In speeches to the public, she often exclaimed, “Why do we enshrine mediocrity on our license plate with, ‘Oklahoma is OK?’ Doesn’t the Broadway show title, ‘Oklahoma!’ better capture our energy and aspirations?” She lobbied for a new plate and in 1989 it was changed to “Oklahoma – OK!” and carried a graphic honoring Oklahoma’s native heritage.
Coupling excellence with her other guiding principle of fairness for all, she said, “You could sum up my work in two words, quality and equality.”
Her strong sense of justice carried over to the way she raised her three teenage boys. All sides of political debates were encouraged at the dinner table, but manners were always enforced. “She allowed us to explore every nuance of life, as long as we were respectful of others,” said Peter.
“She was the most generous, giving, supportive mother imaginable,” said her son, Jamie. “She was always in our corner. She made us feel like champions.”
Although Penny never had daughters, she took on many surrogates over the years, and served as a role model for her many nieces and their daughters.
She had a great love for her three daughters-in-law. An advocate for women’s rights and the protection of survivors of domestic abuse, she taught her sons respect for women.
In old age, when considering a move nearer to her out-of-state sons, she came to the realization that she wanted to die where she had lived, among the friends, landscape, and culture of which she was so much a part.
Penny was loved by so many. Her easy laugh, expansive personality, kind heart, and humanity will be dearly missed.
Penny is survived by two sisters, Helen Bonsal of Reisterstown, MD and Cassie Kernan of Bedford, NY; three sons, Joseph Hill Williams, Jr. of Knoxville, TN, Peter Baldwin Williams of Boulder, CO, and James Chesnut Williams of Washington, D.C.; and four beloved grandchildren, Ben, Annabel, Nico, and Tuco. She is also survived by her former husband and beloved friend, Joseph Hill Williams, of Charleston, SC.
A memorial service for Penny will be held in Tulsa at Trinity Church, 501 South Cincinnati Ave, on Saturday, April 28, at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Sutton Avian Research Center, P.O. Box 2007, Bartlesville, OK, 74005, or the Oklahoma School of Science of Mathematics at OSSM Foundation, 1141 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Tulsa World (OK) 22 April 2018
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