[2004] Dwight Kealiher Interview

[2004] Dwight Kealiher Interview

Dwight Kealiher Oral History Project Interview from July 25, 2004

Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on July 25, 2004. Video and Transcript restricted to on-site research. Dwight Kealiher was born in Tulsa and lived in Poteau, Sallisaw, Sulphur, Ada, and Checotah. He grew up in a Southern Baptist family, living a pretty typical small-town life. 6 After graduating from Checotah High School, he enrolled at Oklahoma State University (then, Oklahoma A&M College) in 1955 as a business major. After college, he married a girl he knew from Checotah, staying married for twenty years and having three sons. During that time, however, Dwight also fully recognized that he was gay. Also after college, he spent six months, active duty, at Fort Leonard Wood in the National Guard. He then moved to Tulsa where he fulfilled the remaining five and a half years in the Reserves of his six-year commitment and got a job with a CPA firm. He took some accounting classes at University of Tulsa and later passed the CPA exam, and in 1989, he ventured out on his own, opening his own office in Tulsa. Over the years, he’s been active in local LGBTQ+ support groups such as Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (now Oklahomans for Equality), Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Tulsa Cares, and Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE), along with being a successful businessman.

Dwight Kealiher, Laura Belmonte

July 25, 2004