Former multi-term Oklahoma City Mayor, Patience Sewell Latting has died December 29th, 2012.
Her body lay in state at the City Hall of Oklahoma City on Thursday, January 03-2013. This included a well executed video of her life, which clearly portrayed her changing self in various roles over her lifetime. Mayor Mick Cornett and other City Hall staff were present to the public and to honor Mrs. Latting.
Funeral services are slated for 2 pm on Saturday, January the 5th, 2013 at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in North Oklahoma City, where she was a longtime member. http://www.wpcokc.com/ This is the gothic church at the corner of 25th and Western Avenue.
Latting, wife and mother of 4 was an Oklahoma native. She graduated from "Old" Classen High School, the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelors, with an upper business degree from Columbia University . She was a Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother upon her death at 93.
Latting remarkably became the first female United States Mayor of a town above 200,000 in the 1970's. She held the office for a consecutive three term run. She made many forward thinking strides in business and commercial development and developing corporate interests which have fed today's market in Oklahoma City. Her personal understanding of banking and business development increased prospective developers interest in negotiating and growing businesses in Oklahoma's market.
During her time in office, Oklahoma City Public Schools developed a plan for city integration bussing of elementary schools, whose success was noted in other major cities and used as a direct concept for social change. Latting supported advancing racial and cultural options in the city.
She has been recently honored with a likeness which sits in the main foyer or the Oklahoma City Hall, and a suburban library newly opened with her name on it in a North corner of the city.
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