Executive Session: Bob Blackburn - Oklahoma's Official Timekeeper

Summary

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Bob Blackburn can't remember a time when he wasn't interested in history.

And does it ever show. Oklahoma's official timekeeper doesn't just keep track of history. He recites it in surround sound. He paints it in Technicolor 3-D using a digital brush. He makes it taste like cotton candy at the fair.

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Extract

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Executive Session: Bob Blackburn - Oklahoma's Official Timekeeper

"He has been a superb salesman of Oklahoma's past," said former Gov. Frank Keating, who is his own student of history.

Blackburn has made history relevant in the halls of the Oklahoma Capitol, where he went door-to-door to convince lawmakers to approve $18 million in funding to complete the Oklahoma History Center.

He has done it in print as the author of 18 books and as the editor of the OHC's The Chronicles of Oklahoma for 20 years.

And he can pull a forgotten name, a distant fact or a colorful anecdote out of the air with the flair of a magician.

"Some historians specialize in intellectual history where they are dealing with big ideas," said Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. "Some will try to do expository, where they are proving a point. That's not me. I'm ...

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