John & Joy Reed Belt Award

Max Weitzenhoffer is an independent producer of New York and London theater productions and currently owns six theaters in the West End in London. He has been nominated numerous times for Tony Awards and has won for The Will Rogers Follies and Dracula on Broadway. Additionally, he has won Drama Critics Awards and an Olivier (Britain’s equivalent of a Tony Award). He is routinely named among the top 10 most important individuals in British theater by The Stage newspaper.

Mr. Weitzenhoffer graduated from Casady High School and studied at the University of Oklahoma. While there, he became interested in theater and participated in everything from acting to designing and building sets. He then served as company manager at the La Jolla Play House, directing children’s theater and getting his equity card.

After many years of producing on Broadway, Mr. Weitzenhoffer’s professional focus shifted to London as the cost of producing plays in New York escalated. His shows in London include A Moon for the Misbegotten with Kevin Spacey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Swimming with Sharks, both starring Christian Slater, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Kathleen Turner. He still participates in Broadway shows occasionally, most recently as a producer for A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury.

Mr. Weitzenhoffer has served on the board of regents for the University of Oklahoma, Cameron University, and Rogers State University, having served on the board of the OU Regents from 2003 to 2017, twice as chairman. At the University of Oklahoma, he has provided major support for the athletic department, the College of Fine Arts, Schools of Drama and Art, and he created the Department of Musical Theatre, which bears his name.

During the 1990s, Mr. Weitzenhoffer returned to Oklahoma to raise his family. In 1994 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and has received many awards from the University of Oklahoma, including the Regents’ Alumni Award, the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Citation, and an honorary doctorate. He and his wife, Ayako Takahashi Weitzenhoffer, have two children, Nikki Weitzenhoffer and Owen Weitzenhoffer.

Community Impact Award

Inasmuch Foundation champions journalism, education, human services, and community to improve the quality of life for Oklahomans.  The Foundation is guided by Edith Kinney Gaylord’s original vision to benefit people and communities by inspiring change and advocating for Oklahoma’s most vulnerable citizens.  The Foundation furthers her legacy through its grantmaking and has awarded grants totaling more than $340 million over the past 20 years.  Thanks to Edith’s keen foresight, the Foundation is positioned to address critical issues, encourage innovation, and connect the community for good, well into the future.

Innovation in Education Award

Frank Keating is currently a senior partner in the international law firm of Holland & Knight. Formerly, he was the president and CEO of the American Bankers Association. The ABA is a 140 year old association that represents banks of all sizes and charters and is the voice for the nation’s $13 trillion banking industry and its two million employees.

Keating became ABA’s president and CEO on January 1, 2011, and stayed through December 31, 2015, following seven years of service as the president and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers, and after serving two terms as Oklahoma’s 25th governor.

Born in St. Louis, Frank grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma. His 30-year career in law enforcement and public service included service as an FBI agent; U.S. Attorney and state prosecutor; and Oklahoma House and Senate member, including service as a Republican senate leader.

He served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the Treasury, Justice, and Housing departments. His Justice and Treasury service gave him responsibility for all federal criminal prosecutions in the nation and oversight over agencies such as the Secret Service, U.S. Customs, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Marshals, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and all 94 U.S. Attorneys. As assistant secretary of Treasury and general counsel and acting deputy secretary of HUD, Keating worked on banking issues that are demanding attention today—including housing finance, lending practices, securitization and Bank Secrecy Act issues.

In 1993 Keating returned to Oklahoma to run for Governor. He won a three-way race by a landslide and was easily re-elected in 1998, becoming only the second governor in Oklahoma history to serve two consecutive terms.

As the governor of Oklahoma, Keating won national acclaim in 1995 for his compassionate and professional handling of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. In the aftermath of the tragedy, he raised more than six million dollars to fund scholarships for the nearly 200 children left with only one or no parents. His accomplishments as Governor include winning a successful public vote on right-to-work, tort reform, tax cuts, and major road building and education reform.

Keating is the chairman of the Board of the Washington based Bipartisan Policy Center and recently served on the Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, a group of former cabinet members, elected officials and key stakeholders of both parties that recommended a series of tough measures to address the nation’s fiscal challenges. He also served on the BPC’s Housing Commission. He was previously chairman of the Advisory Board of Mt. Vernon and president of the Federal City Council. He also served on the boards of the National Archives, the Jamestown Foundation and as chair of the National Catholic Review Board.

Keating also is the author of four award-winning children’s books, biographies of Will Rogers, Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, and Standing Bear, the Ponca Indian chief who argued Native Americans deserve the same rights as white Americans. He is the recipient of six honorary degrees.

He and his wife Cathy live in Oklahoma City, OK. They have three children and ten grandchildren.

Outstanding Harding High School Alumni Award

Joe Williams is an international management consultant, public education advocate, Op Ed columnist, and writer who has made his home in Bartlesville, Oklahoma for 47 years.

He came to Bartlesville in 1975 with TRW Reda Pump. While with TRW Reda, Joe pioneered the use of strategic communications planning and research methods in organizational communications. Over 10 years later, he began his management consultancy, providing research, training, and consulting services to leading world-wide clients.

Joe has also authored several award-winning books and served as an editorial consultant for dozens of others.

Over the last 34 years, more than 2,000 managers have come to a ranch in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona where Joe shares his innovative tools for thinking, planning, and leadership in his week-long flagship workshop, “Dialogue in the Desert,” the first of its kind to teach strategic thinking, leadership, and communication in a hands-on, experiential format.

He holds more than 125 national awards, including 12 Gold Quills from the International Association of Business Communicators, scores of Bronze Quills, several ADDY’s, and numerous awards for strategic planning, marketing, change management, writing, and design from organizations such as the Art Director’s Club of Tulsa, the New York Art Directors Club, Chicago Communication Collaborative, PRSA, and others. The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) named him a Fellow, the highest honor that organization bestows.

After 34 years of service, Joe recently retired from the Board of Directors of Arvest Bank. He has been on the Board of Directors of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State University, the Advisory Board of the School of Media & Strategic Communications at Oklahoma State, and the Dean’s Board of Advice for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, NSW, Australia. He has served on the Board of iRise Above, a Washington, DC, breast cancer foundation, and is currently on the board of Public Education Advocates for Kids (PEAK), a Bartlesville public education advocacy organization that played a key role in the 2018 teacher walkout in the State Capitol that pressured Oklahoma Legislators to raise teacher pay. He has been involved in a leadership role in every successful bond issue for public schools in Bartlesville since 1978.

He is the recipient of Bartlesville’s Allied Arts and Humanities Council award for civic and humanitarian service and was received the Mayor’s Award as the outstanding citizen of Bartlesville. He has been an adjunct lecturer at OSU Tulsa and has served on numerous local boards, such as the inaugural OK Mozart Festival, the United Way, and the Boys and Girl’s Club—where he served as a Big Brother. He has provided pro-bono strategic advice to schools, small businesses, and non-profit organizations, as well as providing editing and publishing advice to individuals and companies.

Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and advertising management and a master’s in mass communications from Oklahoma State University, where he was a Paul Miller Scholar and named the outstanding graduate student in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting.

In the late 1960s, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army (Armor). After the Army and graduate school, he and his young family spent a year vagabonding through Europe and North Africa in a VW camper, living for three months in Morocco and coming back to the States on a Yugoslav freighter.

He has backpacked non-maintained trails in the Grand Canyon and in several National Parks, crewed a 47-foot sloop from Bermuda to Long Island after the Newport-Bermuda yacht race, and has worked with horses teaching corporate leaders nonverbal communication skills. He has been a volunteer hurdle coach for the Bartlesville high school track team, and has been a guest opinion columnist for he Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise and the Tulsa World newspapers.

In the summer of 2016, Joe made a 500-mile hiking pilgrimage over the Pyrenees of France and across northern Spain to the tomb of St. James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. Known as the Camino de Santiago, the 34-day trek fulfilled a promise he made 19 years ago. His blog, CaminoJoe.com, is a narrative of his journey.

He and his wife, Barbara have what their granddaughter describes as a “romcom” marriage of 55 years. They are the proud parents of two sons and grandparents of six college students.

Outstanding Harding Fine Arts Alumni

Luke Wittmann is an award-winning filmmaker who graduated from Harding Fine Arts Academy in 2013. Luke stayed in his hometown to study filmmaking at Oklahoma City University. He tells observational, empathetic stories that explore the darker shades of human existence. Luke is currently helming his writer/director debut with feature film “9 Brains, 3 Hearts” starring Piper Perabo, Stephen Moyer, Samantha Isler, and Nicholas Hamilton. Luke directed his first feature film, “All We Have is Now” in 2017 which premiered at Circle Cinema Film Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His previous work has screened at national and international festivals including Oaxaca FilmFest 2019, Tulsa American Film Festival 2016 and 48-hour Film Festival 2018 where he received nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Score. Luke is a collaborator. He works with filmmakers inside and outside Oklahoma to help create captivating stories.