Fewer than 900 people call Pond Creek home, and, when James was growing up, few kids in her class aspired to be doctors. But one definitely did. “I always knew I wanted to be a physician,” Dr. James says. Dr. Judith James is the Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

It’s not that Kari Watkins was downplaying the unprecedented logistical juggernaut of postponing, rescheduling and ultimately taking the 2020 running of the internationally acclaimed Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon virtual, it’s more that the purity of her organization’s mission makes daunting decisions simple and clear, even if they are difficult.

As a student at the University of Oklahoma, Courtney Mankin worked as a waitress in a cocktail bar- that much is true. Today, just about a decade later, the 34-year-old is president of The Social Order, the restaurant and hospitality company which owns that bar and employs more than 400 Oklahomans across eight restaurants.

About 50 miles south of Sacramento, the northern California city of Manteca is sunny and mild, perfect for tooling around town in a sporty convertible. Sister Barbara Joseph Foley, then just Barbara, a young career woman…

The exhaustion in Oklahoma City Ward 7 Councilwoman Nikki Nice’s voice is palpable. Oklahoma City, along with the rest of the world, is a dozen weeks into the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, followed by sustained nationwide protests and demonstrations over the horrific murder of George Floyd by four former police officers in Minneapolis, and she is running on fumes.

Polly Nichols is a thoughtful, articulate woman whose longstanding work with nonprofits has brought meaning beyond measure to her life and value beyond measure to the organizations she serves. This dedication of hers has been shaped and fostered in various ways, some lovely and some terrifying, over the course of her life, but when all is said and done, this is a woman who wields her influence with confidence and grace.

Tricia Everest is an attorney, a philanthropist, an heiress, a member of one of Oklahoma’s oldest and most prominent families, and the co-founder of two groundbreaking nonprofits dedicated to helping victims of domestic and sexual abuse and to breaking the cycle of incarceration.