William and Robert Thomas was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2017

In 1976, twin brothers Bill and Bob co-founded Gemini Properties — a real estate operating and investment company. The company’s focus evolved toward seniors housing in 1989 with the founding of Senior Star. The company’s living and care options for aging adults include independent living, assisted living, and memory support. A growing company with strong leadership has enabled the brothers to focus their energies on senior and community issues.

Longtime Tulsa Area United Way (TAUW) supporters, Bill and Bob chaired the 2002 TAUW capital campaign, raising a record-breaking $25 million in the midst of the country’s financial recession. The following year, the pair served as board co-chairs of TAUW.

Bill and Bob have had the unprecedented honor of receiving three distinct awards from the Association of Fundraising Professionals Eastern Oklahoma Chapter — being named as the 2000 Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser, the 2007 Outstanding Philanthropist, and most recently the 2016 Pillar Award Recipient for philanthropy leadership benefitting the Tulsa community. The Retired Senior Volunteer Program of Tulsa granted Bill and Bob their 2001 Leadership Award and their alma mater, the University of Tulsa, named the brothers their 2011 Outstanding Entrepreneurs, inducting them into the Collins College of Business Hall of Fame.

William Thomas

Bill served as chairperson of the Philbrook Museum of Art Board of Trustees, as well as for the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) and the Tulsa Community Foundation. Bill also serves on the boards of Philbrook, ASHA, the University of Tulsa, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Sooner Chapter.

Bill and his wife Susan have chaired fundraising galas and capital campaigns for LIFE Senior Services, Domestic Violence Intervention Service, Project Woman, and Street School. They also chaired the Philbrook Wine Experience twice, leading it into one of the top three fundraisers of its kind, nationwide.

Among Bill’s most significant contributions to Tulsa is his seven-year term of board service to the Housing Authority of the City of Tulsa, which included his chairpersonship of HOPE VI, a Public Housing Revitalization Program. This $60 million public-private undertaking eliminated 1940s vintage housing and made way for “Country Club Gardens” — 396 units of exceptional residential apartments for low income and market rate housing.

Robert Thomas

Fueled by a passion to help end Alzheimer’s disease, Bob served on the Alzheimer’s Association National Board of Directors for eight years and was a founding board member for the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement, where he continues to serve as Treasurer. As volunteer lobbyists, he and his wife Jill routinely travel to Washington D.C. to promote increased Alzheimer’s research funding.

Jill and Bob have chaired several galas in the Greater Tulsa area. Bob chaired the 2015 Alzheimer’s Association Oklahoma Chapter Memory Gala, an event known as being among the top three fundraisers of its kind, nationwide. Bob received the Maureen Reagan Outstanding Advocate Award from the National Alzheimer’s Association.

Bob holds advisory board positions for the American Seniors Housing Association and LIFE Senior Services. For LIFE, he also co-chaired two capital campaigns. Bob served as the Tulsa Opera Ball Patron Chair and chaired the Mental Health Association of Tulsa Gala.

Dayal Meshri was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2017

Dayal Meshri was born in 1936 in British India. After the partition of British India in 1947 into “India” and “Pakistan”, his family moved to India and chose Indian citizenship.  He received a bachelor of science degree with honors in chemistry from Gujarat University, followed by a master’s of science from the university’s MR Institute of Science. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Idaho, and did postdoctoral work at Cornell University.

He came to Tulsa in 1969, joining Ozark-Mahoning Co.-Pennwalt Corp., as Head of Research and Research Director, where he worked for 18 years.

Dayal is currently the President/CEO of Advance Research Chemicals, Inc., “ARC”, which he started in 1987, has since become one of the largest inorganic fluoride specialty chemical producers in the world.  ARC makes more than 300 chemicals and caters to a variety of industries.

His research interests vary from Rocket propellants to biochemical drugs, high-energy battery systems, new material for waffers, automobile industry, electronics, fabric and metal surface treatment products, and ion implantation gases., etc.  He was a member of:  The European Grand Sasso Neutrino Project: the Space Research Advisory Board at Princeton University: the Advisory Board for Scientific Curriculum at TJC (TCC): and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) since 2005.

He was inducted into the University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame in 2008 and the College of Science Academy of Distinguished Alumni in 2010.

Dayal is an author and co-author of many technical papers, patents, books, and encyclopedias of chemical technology.  Furthermore, he is well recognized internationally as an expert industrial fluorine chemist, coordinating his research with associates in numerous countries.

His many national and international professional affiliations include: Fellow of American Institute of Chemists and member of the Board of Directors; Trustee for North Gujarat Education Society and Trustee for the University of Idaho Foundation. He  is Chairman and Founder of  the International Society of Indian Chemists & Chemical Engineers,

He has received numerous honors and awards from local, state, national and international groups and organizations and supports many local, national and international charities.

Dayal married his late wife, Dr. Indu Meshri, in 1966. They have two children, Gita and Sanjay, and five grandchildren.

Bonnie Klein was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2017

Growing up on a farm in rural southeastern Arkansas, Bonnie Klein had no idea what her life would be like after moving to Tulsa.

She and her late husband, Joe, a Philadelphia native, moved to Tulsa in 1970 with their four children. Bonnie says it was “love at first sight” with Tulsa.  The family settled in to their home where Bonnie continued to live until 2013.  It was here that she embraced one of her favorite hobbies, gardening, and her home was included in the Tulsa Garden Tour.

Bonnie’s  love for arts and culture in Tulsa blossomed. She has served on the board of the Tulsa Ballet and is currently on the board of the Philbrook Museum of Art.  She is a long-time patron of Up With Trees, as well as of the Tulsa Opera and the Tulsa Botanical Garden.  Her generosity has benefitted several arts and culture organizations consistently through the years.

An avid golfer, Bonnie played three days a week locally and always took her clubs when she traveled.  She and Joe traveled extensively, eventually making it to all seven continents, where not only did they golf, but also participated in many high adventure trips.

But Bonnie’s favorite place in the world is Tulsa, where she says her life has been an absolute joy.  She says the  only regrets she has about Tulsa is she wasn’t born here and she didn’t get to attend Central High School.

All four of her children, Joe, Susan, Paul and the late Beth lived in Tulsa, as do her eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Sally & Tom Hughes was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2017

Although neither Sally nor Tom are native Tulsans, they are both native Oklahomans.  Sally’s family immigrated from England through Williamsburg and Kentucky and on to southern Oklahoma where her grandfather was a physician in Indian Territory.

Tom’s family immigrated through Kansas and on to eastern Oklahoma, then Indian Territory, to establish a hardware store 1901.  This marked the beginning of one of Oklahoma’s longest continuously held, by a single family, companies.

Sally was born in Oklahoma City, graduated from high school there and then went on to graduate from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Science in Education.  Her interest in education has been continuous throughout her lifetime. She believes the process of change that transforms the world happens by small acts, multiplied by many.

Sally was president of her college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta and was honored as outstanding alumnae of the Tulsa Chapter.  She also served as president of the Holland Hall Parent Association, Tulsa Town Hall Board and the Ruskin Art Club. At Philbrook, she served as a member of the Board of Trustees and as a Docent.  She worked on various committees supporting the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa Opera, and the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. Together she and Tom chaired the Salvation Army Dinner. She is an Elder at the First Presbyterian Church.  She has mentored students at Alcott Elementary School and Emerson School for the last fifteen years.

Tom was born and reared in Cushing, where his grandfather moved in 1901 to open a hardware store.  Previously, his grandfather traveled the Indian Territory as a salesman for a wholesale hardware distributor in Kansas and opened a hardware store in Blackwell when the Cherokee Strip was opened for settlement.  In 1923, he opened the first Hughes lumberyard in Cushing.

Tom graduated high school from the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell in 1951 and, in 1955, graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.  Following college, Tom served two years as an active duty U.S. Marine Corps officer.

Following his military service, Tom joined the family business in 1957 and over the next several years purchased the interests of other family members.  Today, Tom is Chairman of Hughes Lumber Company, which operates lumber and building supply centers in nine central and eastern Oklahoma towns and is headquartered at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa.

Sally and Tom married in 1961, began their family in  1963 and moved the family and business to Tulsa in 1970.  Like Sally, Tom has held numerous leadership positions including: serving on the Board of Directors of the Tulsa Regional Chamber and as Chairman in 1982; as a member of the Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission in 1983; and as a member of the Holland Hall Board of Trustees and as President of the Board from 1983-85.  Tom is now an Emeritus Trustee.  In addition, he has been a member of the Board of Governors of Southern Hills Country Club, serving as President in 1988;  a member of the Board of Trustees of First Presyterian Church, serving as Chairman from 1990-92.  Tom served two decades as a Director of the BOK Financial Corporation and the Bank of Oklahoma from 1976 -1996.  He also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lumbermen’s Merchandising Corporation, serving as its Chairman in 2003-04.

Sally and Tom have three children Jeff, Robert and Holly Lehman and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in Tulsa.

David Hogan was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2017

David is a native Oklahoman, born in Vinita and moved with his family to Jones when he was pre-school age. His dad was a banker and his mother a homemaker and substitute school teacher.

At an early age, David showed interest in business as a paperboy and working part time in a grocery store and a service station. He graduated from high school in 1960 and entered college at Central State College in Edmond (now University of Central Oklahoma). He graduated in 1963 with a major in accounting and minors in economics and finance. He then joined Arthur Andersen & Co.’s Oklahoma City office. He became a partner in 1974 and transferred to the firm’s Tulsa office in 1977.

David joined an Army Reserve Unit in 1963 and attained the rank of staff sergeant before being honorably discharged in 1969.

David left Arthur Andersen in 1981 and started a local CPA firm that became Hogan & Slovacek, with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The firm merged with another Tulsa-based firm in 2009, becoming HoganTaylor LLP, now with offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Fayetteville, and Little Rock, Arkansas. David continues to be associated with the firm as a Senior Advisor.

David was married for many years to Linda (Howe) Hogan, an Oklahoma City native. They have two sons, Shane and Seth, and a daughter Amber. David also has five grandchildren.

David’s long-time significant other, June Patton, has been an important part of his life for many years. They enjoy being involved in the Tulsa charitable community and traveling in the U.S., as well as internationally.

David has been fortunate to have served as a tax advisor and business consultant to many Oklahoma families throughout the state. He currently serves as a director or co-trustee of private foundations and serves on the boards of several public charities. He is the chair of the One Awards Commission, a program of the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits.