Board of Directors

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Oklahoma Watch’s board of directors includes the following individuals:

Chair

Joe Hight is the Edith Kinney Gaylord Endowed Chair of Journalism Ethics at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is also a columnist, writer, consultant and an independent bookstore owner. His newspaper career as an editor, director, managing editor or reporter spanned 35 years. He was editor when The Gazette in Colorado Springs won the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for its multimedia series, “Other Than Honorable.” He also led or was involved in efforts that won various national awards at The Oklahoman. He was named to the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2013 and was selected as its director in May. He also serves on advisory boards for the Oklahoma Center for the Book and the Ball State Communication School. He has been president of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and a board member for Associated Press Media Editors. His book “Thou Art Thy Destiny/The True and Tragic Story of the Tormented Priest’s Mind,” will be published in early 2018. He owns Best of Books in Edmond with his wife, Nan, and daughter, Elena.

Directors

Gerald Adams is a consultant at the Henry-Adams Companies LLC. Adams was a reporter, columnist and editor at the Shawnee News-Star before managing Robert Henry’s successful campaign for attorney general of Oklahoma in 1985. Adams subsequently served three Oklahoma attorneys general in communications and policy positions for a total of 15 years before joining the administrative staff of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. In 2002, Gov. Brad Henry asked Adams to become his chief of staff, a position he held throughout the governor’s two terms. Following completion of the final term, Gov. Henry and Adams established the Henry-Adams Companies LLC, a consulting firm headquartered in Norman.

Phil G. Busey, Sr. is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Delaware Resource Group of Oklahoma, LLC. The Oklahoma City-based global aerospace contractor was founded in 2002 by Phil and his wife Cathy. Busey is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and Delaware Tribe. He was born and resides in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Busey has been married to Cathy Callaway Busey for 44 years. They met at Oklahoma City University and were married in the OCU Bishop Angie Smith Chapel. Together they have three (3) children: Philip, Brian and Emily, two daughters-in-law, Heather and Janie, future son-in-law Griffin and four (4) grandchildren. Family is a priority. Busey is an advocate for minority, small business and Native American tribal economic partnerships and cultural unity. A focus is workforce development. He is a strong supporter of development of the aerospace and defense industry.

Busey received his Bachelor of Arts from Oklahoma City University and his Juris Doctorate from Oklahoma City University School of Law. He is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell and a member of the OBA and ABA. His practice areas include commercial and corporate law, Native American law, Federal Law and Regulation, government contracting, and financial transactions. He served as a Trustee of OCU for 8 years. He has been a Distinguished Professor at OCU School of Law, a Professor Lecturer at American University in Washington, DC on tribal economic development and is a Professor Lecturer for the OU Aerospace and Master’s Degree Program. In 2013, OCU awarded Busey with the Chairman’s Award and he was inducted into the Oklahoma Commerce and Industry Hall of Honor. DRG’s mantra is, “a profit with a purpose.” He is a member of The Oklahoma City Downtown Rotary Club and has received numerous business and community awards.

Cathy and Phil established El Sistema Oklahoma, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, after-school music program, now in its 8th year. The purpose is social change through music. El Sistema Oklahoma serves 240 underserved students and partners with Carnegie Hall. The first seniors graduated this year after seven years in the program. These seven graduates tey were collectively awarded $660,000 in scholarships. Most are the first to attend college in their families. The Busey’s and DRG support a number of non-profits and community programs as well as their church.

Susan Ellerbach was the managing editor of the Tulsa World from 1995 to 2014 and the executive editor from 2014 to 2020. She joined The World in 1985 as a business writer before being promoted to business editor, state editor, and Sunday editor in 1994. She was a reporter and editor at the Tahlequah Daily Press and managing editor of the Tahlequah American in 1983. Born in Atlanta, she graduated from high school in Shawnee Mission, KS, and earned a journalism degree from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. Her career began with a group of Kansas community newspapers in Baldwin City, KS, including the Wellsville Globe. She was a member of APME and AP/ONE, where she served as president. She remains active in Leadership Oklahoma and has served on the boards of Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Caring Program for Children and the Child Abuse Network. Columbia Journalism Review featured her in “Moms Who’ve Made It.” She was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010.

Lonnie Isabel is a journalist, educator, press freedom advocate and writer who lives in Broken Arrow. He has worked as a news reporter and editor in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York.  Isabel has led coverage of presidential campaigns, the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Second Gulf War and other major stories.  He has been a feature writer, an investigative reporter, an assignment editor and a deputy managing editor.  Isabel has also taught journalism at the Columbia Journalism School and several other universities and has developed a program to provide fellowships for international journalists who are under attack as a result of their work.

Dr. Mautra Staley Jones is known as a thought leader in Oklahoma and across the nation. She advances and elevates each institution she touches. Dr. Jones currently serves as President of Oklahoma City Community College. Dr. Jones is also a board director for BancFirst.

Married to United States District Judge Bernard M. Jones II, with three children—Bernard III, Kennedy, and Brendan—Dr. Jones holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma, an MBA from the University of Phoenix at San Diego, and is a graduate of Vanderbilt University’s prestigious Peabody College of Education, where she earned a Doctorate of Education.

Active in the community, Dr. Jones provides leadership to various civic and philanthropic groups. She currently serves as a board director for the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, StitchCrew, Oklahoma Watch, Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs, American Mothers, Inc., Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc., Civic Center Foundation and the Leadership Oklahoma City Alumni Association. Dr. Jones is also a member of VEST Her, Inc., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the board of advisors for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, Salt and Light Leadership, Leadership Oklahoma City, Class XXIX, and the MSI Aspiring Leaders program at Rutgers University.

In recognition for her service to the community, Dr. Jones has been honored by The Journal Record as a 2022 Book-of-Lists Power Player, its 2020 Woman of the Year, and a 2020 inductee into its Circle of Excellence. She also holds the distinction of being named both the 2021 National Mother of the Year and the 2021 Oklahoma Mother of the Year by American Mothers, Inc. Dr. Jones is a 2022 Hundred Magazine honoree, as well as the 2020 recipient of the HBCU Philanthropy Advancement Leader Award. In 2018, she was named the 2018 Woman of the Year by Perry Publishing and Broadcasting.

Vince LoVoi is publisher of This Land Press LLC, a new media company, founded in 2011. This Land Press was noted as “probably the best for-profit local journalism startup in the country” by the Columbia Journalism Review. This Land Press also operates This Land Films, a film production company that was invited to premiere its first feature-length documentary at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. LoVoi also serves as managing partner of Mimosa Tree Capital Partners LLC, an investment firm in Oklahoma focused on socially responsible startups and turnarounds.

Adam Nemec founded Tulsa-based New Medio in 2000, and the company has grown from a start-up, website-development firm into a broader software development and design company. As chief executive officer, he focuses on business development and managing client relationships, remaining involved in all client projects. Before founding the company, he built and managed the interactive arm of an agency and worked with companies such as Universal Studios Orlando and Broadcast.com. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and one of the founders of software products such as Mobicentric and Reach CRM.

Rep. Suzanne Schreiber serves District 70 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, to which she was elected in 2022. Previously, she served as president of the Tulsa Public Schools board of education representing District 7, to which she was elected in 2014. She is also a program officer with the George Kaiser Family Foundation where her projects include fundraising for A Gathering Place for Tulsa, Tulsa Responds, fostering strategic community partnerships, and staffing special projects. Suzanne is a native New Mexican who came to the University of Tulsa at age 18 and remained in the city. Before joining TCF, Suzanne worked as an attorney and as a federal law clerk for district and appellate courts. She twice took leave from her legal career to work on her mother’s political campaigns for lieutenant governor and governor of New Mexico and has worked on many other campaigns and civic initiatives.

Nathan Shirley is the chief financial officer for Cemplex Group, a regional specialty construction contracting firm based in Oklahoma City. Prior to Cemplex, Nathan worked for 15 years with Accenture, a global IT consulting firm.  He spent five years with the firm’s federal government practice in Washington, D.C., before relocating to Asia to support the firm’s regional practice.   Nathan was based in China, Australia and Singapore and traveled extensively throughout the region. He grew up in Blackwell and went to high school in Bartlesville.  He received his B.S. from Oklahoma State University and worked in Oklahoma City before attending Georgetown University’s MBA Program.  While in Washington, Nathan helped to develop and launch a nonprofit restaurant to train homeless individuals and assist them with finding permanent jobs in the industry. He is an active parishioner at St. Eugene’s Catholic Church in Oklahoma Cityand participates in the monthly “Feed the Hungry” ministry.  He is a board member of the American Red Cross (Central Oklahoma).