He was born in Henryetta to a local grocer and attended high school there. He was a skilled athlete and earned a scholarship to Oklahoma University (OU). Charles C. Ingram played competitive sports at Henryetta High School, then played football at OU. While attending school in Norman, he met his future wife Maxine.
In 1939, a year before his graduation, he persuaded Maxine to get hitched. So they hitchhiked from Norman to her hometown of Hobart where they were married. Charles graduated from OU in 1940 with a degree in petroleum engineering.
Jobs were still somewhat scarce then so Ingram took an entry level position at Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) in Muskogee. His job was digging ditches. He would sometimes joke about having a diploma in one hand and a shovel in the other, but he also credited his work among ONG’s Muskogee laborers as his best education about the company.
Two attorneys had begun the Osage and Oklahoma Gas Company in 1905 and its pipeline from the rich Osage oil field was bringing gas to Tulsa. With ambitions of tapping gas production beyond the Osage field, the two entrepreneurs changed the company’s name to Oklahoma Natural Gas in 1906 and the company was incorporated that year, ten years before Ingram was born. The next lines built by ONG went to Sapulpa and Oklahoma City.
By the time Ingram joined ONG in 1940, the company had bought out several smaller gas companies around the state including Muskogee Natural Gas Company purchased in 1936.
During those years ONG had also transitioned from pipeline transmission to local service providers to a multi-faceted company involved with production, storage, leases and lines to individual customers. By 1928, when ONG built its headquarters in Tulsa, the company maintained over thirteen thousand miles of pipeline serving a half million customers in 44 communities.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Ingram entered the Army and served for four years. After leaving the service, he was surprised to find that ONG had held a job for him, this time working in its engineering department.
In 1955 he was made vice president of the Land and Geological Department with an office in Tulsa. To celebrate the company’s fiftieth anniversary the following year, ONG bought television time for a special broadcast from stations in Tulsa, OKC, Ardmore and Muskogee.
Ten years later Ingram had reached the top of the corporate ladder, working as board chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As the company expanded into other states, a name change was desired. It was Charles Ingram who proposed the name ONEOK. He continued as CEO and board chairman until his retirement in 1982.
Reach Jonita Mullins at jonita.mullins@gmail.com.
Read More: THREE FORKS HISTORY: College grad began career digging ditches | Columns