Dale W. Renfro

Chairman of the Board

Fourth-generation cattleman from Kingfisher County. Owner and operator of Renfro Land & Cattle Co. since 1997, a cow-calf and stocker operation covering approximately 4,200 acres across Kingfisher and Blaine counties. Former president of the Kingfisher County Cattlemen's Association and a past delegate to the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association annual convention. Attended Oklahoma State University; did not graduate, a fact he considers irrelevant and mentions first to save time.

Has served on the boards of three rural water districts and the Kingfisher County Fair Association. Married forty-one years to Patricia Anne (née Draper); five children, eleven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild he refers to as “the argument for optimism.” Joined the SOONER founding committee at the invitation of a neighbor whose children he had watched be educated poorly by people with advanced degrees.

Rev. Curtis A. Vance

Vice Chairman

Pastor, First Baptist Church of Elk City, since 2003. Previously served congregations in Weatherford and Anadarko, and spent four years as a hospital chaplain in Amarillo before returning to parish ministry. Graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., 2001). Ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Chair of the Board's Standards Committee and the primary architect of SOONER's moral formation curriculum framework. Author of the SOONER curriculum guide Reading the Book They Read: A Pastor's Guide to Teaching Classical Literature in the Christian Home (SOONER Publications, 2025). Married twenty-eight years; four children, all homeschooled through graduation.

Marlene H. Hobbs

Secretary

Retired middle-school social studies and civics teacher, Ada Public Schools (1978–2019), where she taught sixth, seventh, and eighth grades for thirty-one years. Recipient of the Pontotoc County Teacher of the Year award, 1994 and 2007, and a finalist for the Oklahoma Teacher of the Year in 2008. Developed and taught an original eighth-grade civics curriculum that remained in use at Ada Middle School for over a decade after her retirement.

Chair of the Board's Publications Committee and the supervising editor of all SOONER classroom materials. Homeschool grandmother of six, active in the Ada area cooperative since 2017. Of the opinion that the decline of cursive handwriting instruction is a leading indicator of civilizational collapse and has the data to support it.

Everett J. Talley, CPA

Treasurer

Principal, Talley & Associates, an accounting and tax practice serving small businesses, family farms, and agricultural operations throughout central Oklahoma since 1988. A significant portion of the firm's practice involves estate planning and succession work for multigenerational family operations — work he describes as “making sure the ranch outlasts the rancher.” Graduate of the University of Central Oklahoma (B.S., Accounting, 1985). Certified Public Accountant licensed in Oklahoma since 1987.

Deacon, Church of the Redeemer, Edmond, where he has also taught the adult Sunday school class for eleven years. Trustee, Oklahoma Small Business Foundation. Treasurer of the SOONER Board since its first meeting in October 2024. Father of three; grandfather of seven.

Everette C. Altdoerffer, Esq.

Director · Legal Affairs Committee Chair

Attorney licensed in Oklahoma and Louisiana, with a litigation practice spanning five states across the mid-South and lower Plains. Senior Vice President of Litigation and department head overseeing a portfolio of civil matters and a staff of attorneys, and support personnel. Background in biochemistry, geology, and acid-base chemistry, with a lifelong obsession with traditional pedagogy. Homeschool father.

Serves as Chair of the Board's Legal Affairs Committee and counsel of record for the organization on matters of standards adoption and examination administration. Believes the Uniform Commercial Code is the best-written document produced in America after 1787. Holds that the phrase “consult your attorney” has done more for the moral formation of the American family than any single Supreme Court decision, and that most social ills would resolve themselves if the parties involved had a working understanding of adverse possession.

“A well-drafted contract is a form of moral instruction.” — E.C. Altdoerffer

Dr. Loretta M. Bagwell

Director · Curriculum Committee Chair

Founder and academic director of the Cimarron Valley Homeschool Cooperative (est. 2011), which has grown from an informal reading circle of seven families to a structured cooperative serving approximately 140 families across six counties in western Oklahoma. The cooperative offers full-year academic tracks in language arts, mathematics, history, and the natural sciences, along with an apprenticeship program in agricultural trades that she developed in partnership with the local Farm Bureau.

Doctorate in Education from Southeastern Oklahoma State University (Ed.D., 2016), with a dissertation examining classical education models in rural homeschool settings. Chair of the SOONER Curriculum Committee and the principal author of the SOONER K–8 Language Arts Framework. Mother of nine, all of whom she educated at home from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Considers this her most significant credential.

James O. “Jim” Prewitt

Director

Retired independent oilman and rancher with fifty years in the Anadarko Basin, including decades of independent leasing and production operations in Grady, Stephens, and Caddo counties. Attended the University of Oklahoma, class of 1967; left before completing his degree to accept a leasing opportunity he has never regretted.

Founding member of the Grady County Historical Society and a longtime donor to the Oklahoma History Center. Serves on the boards of two Oklahoma-based private charitable foundations focused on rural community development and agricultural preservation. Joined SOONER's organizing committee because, in his words, “someone had to make sure we didn’t accidentally build something the government could take over.”

Rebecca L. Stoval

Director

Homeschool mother and cooperative organizer in Payne County, where she has coordinated a rotating curriculum-sharing network among twelve families since 2015. Former legal assistant with seven years of experience in civil litigation, a background she applies directly to her work reviewing school board policies and district communications on behalf of SOONER-affiliated families.

Serves as regional coordinator for the SOONER Educator Network in north-central Oklahoma, overseeing outreach to Payne, Lincoln, Logan, and Noble counties. Author of the SOONER family resource guide A Parent’s Guide to the School Board Meeting (SOONER Publications, 2025), which has been distributed to over 800 families across the state. Mother of five; describes her philosophy of education as “classical by conviction, practical by necessity.”

Rev. Thaddeus P. Bledsoe

Director

Pastor, Bethel Assembly of God, Lawton, since 2011, where the congregation has grown from approximately 180 to over 600 members during his tenure. Previously served twelve years as a military chaplain at Fort Sill, providing pastoral care to active-duty soldiers, veterans, and their families across multiple deployment cycles. Graduate of Southwestern Assemblies of God University (B.A., Ministerial Studies) and holds a Master of Divinity from Oral Roberts University.

Chair of the Board's Moral Formation Committee and the primary contributor to SOONER's character education supplementary materials. Brings to the Board a particular concern for the educational needs of children in military families, who he notes are among the most frequently disrupted by inconsistent state curriculum standards. Married thirty years; three children, two of whom were homeschooled.

Harlan M. Cauthron

Director

Owner and operator of Cauthron Feed & Supply in McAlester, an agricultural supply business established by his father in 1962 and now serving customers across five southeast Oklahoma counties. Has operated the business since taking over from his father in 1998 and has expanded its offerings to include custom feed mixing, livestock health supplies, and a small-equipment rental operation.

Vice-chair of the Pittsburg County Republican Party, 2016–2020. Homeschool father of four, all of whom completed their secondary education through the family's participation in a local cooperative. Attended Eastern Oklahoma State College. Joined SOONER because he became tired of being told that his opinions about his children's education were less informed than those of people who had never met his children.

Priscilla A. Vandergriff

Director

Retired administrator with thirty-two years in private Christian education, the last eighteen of which she spent as Assistant Head of School and Director of Curriculum at Oklahoma Christian Academy in Edmond. During her tenure she oversaw the school's accreditation process, rewrote its K–12 scope and sequence three times, and hired and supervised more than sixty classroom teachers. Holds a master's degree in educational administration from Oklahoma City University.

Chair of the Board's Nominating Committee and the member most likely to have already identified the answer to a governance question before it is formally raised. Grandmother of fourteen, eight of whom are currently school-age. Returned to active involvement in curriculum work after retirement because she found that retirement, in her words, “agreed with me less than I expected.”

Wendell K. Ochsner

Director

Farmer, cattleman, and independent insurance agent based in Texas County, where his family has farmed the same ground since his grandparents homesteaded it in the 1920s. Operates a dryland wheat and grain sorghum operation alongside a modest cow-calf program, and has maintained an independent insurance practice serving agricultural clients across the Oklahoma Panhandle for twenty-two years.

Founding member of the Panhandle Homeschool Cooperative, established 2009, which now serves families in Texas, Cimarron, and Beaver counties. Elder, First Presbyterian Church of Guymon, where he has served in various lay leadership roles for over two decades. Married thirty-six years to Susan (née Albright); three children, two grandchildren. Represents on the Board the conviction that geographic and cultural distance from Oklahoma City is not a deficit to be corrected.

Fr. Ignatius R. Halloran

Director · Ex officio

Rector, St. Isidore the Farmer Catholic Church, Perkins, a parish he has served since 2014. Named for the patron saint of farmers and rural laborers, the parish draws from a wide agricultural community in Payne and Lincoln counties. Graduate of Conception Seminary College (B.A., Philosophy) and the Pontifical College Josephinum (M.Div., S.T.B.), ordained to the priesthood in 2009.

Serves as Chaplain to the SOONER Board and participates in the Curriculum Committee in an advisory capacity, with particular attention to the moral formation and classical literature components of the framework. Brings to the Board a familiarity with the classical Catholic educational tradition — including the trivium and the integration of faith and reason — that has shaped several elements of the SOONER Standards. Fluent in Latin; functional in Spanish; describes his Greek as “aspirational.”