OHS Board of Directors
Barbara Thompson
Elected
State At-Large, Oklahoma City
Term expiring 2027
Barbara Thompson has been on the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) board since 1990 and has served on multiple committees, including the Oklahoma Heritage Preservation Grant Selection Committee, the Historic Preservation Committee, the Nominating Committee, and chairs the Oklahoma Museum of History Committee. She chaired the OHS volunteer research committees that developed training manuals on Plains Indians, pioneers, Black history, and the Five Tribes. She coordinated the OHS Plains Indians program that was presented to more than 20,000 students, and participated in planning to completion of the Oklahoma History Center. Thompson assisted with education programs for the History Center American Indian gallery (ONEOK, Inc. Gallery’s We Are Who We Were) and is a longtime supporter of Friends of Honey Springs Battlefield.
She earned a BA in French and teaching certificates in French and history from the University of Oklahoma (OU), and has taught in Oklahoma City area public and private schools. Thompson was Oklahoma and America’s Mother of the Year, Honorary Consul of France for Oklahoma, and received the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor from the French President. She was recently elevated to Officier de la Légion d’Honneur. She has received the OU Regent’s Alumni Award, OU College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumnus, OU College of Education Meritorious Service Award, and is past president of OU’s Bizzell Library Society. Thompson is the recipient of the Junior League of Oklahoma City’s 2011 Mary Baker Rumsey Lifetime Commitment Award. In 2017 she became the first Oklahoman to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from American Mothers, Inc., which is the official American sponsor of Mother’s Day. She is the recipient of the 2022 Dulaney-Browne Library Society Award of the Societies of Oklahoma City University.
