It all started with my great-great-great-grandpa, James Taylor, who moved to Big Pasture Indian Territory—now Cotton County—in the 1870s.

He was a station rider on the Goodnight Cattle Trail, the one just west of the Chisholm Trail. He drew the family farm in a lottery at old Fort Sill in August 1901 and farmed it ’til he died in 1945. His oldest son, my great-great-Grandpa Bob Taylor, was born on a farm east of Walters. His oldest son was my great-Grandpa Karl Taylor, also of Walters, who graduated from Texas A&M in the Class of ’41 and went to World War II and fought in the Pacific theater. He came back and farmed the land and also several Indian leases east of Walters until 1989. Karl’s son is my grandpa, Jim Taylor, who grew up on the farm and played football at the University of Oklahoma on the 1974 National Champion team. He was a teacher at Norman High School when my daddy, Travis Taylor, was born in Oklahoma City. Travis lived on the farm for a few months in 1982, moved to and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and Oklahoma City, then moved to Tulsa and married my mommy, Christine, in 2008. I arrived in Tulsa on March 30, 2011—a sixth-generation Oklahoman.