David Ross Boyd

by Mike Wimmer

When OU’s first President, David Ross Boyd, stepped off the train in Norman, Oklahoma on August 6, 1892, he was greeted with the barren expanse of prairie without a single tree or building to be seen. His only remark at this sight of the future location of the University of Oklahoma was “What possibilities!”

Born on a farm in Ohio in 1853, Boyd raised his tuition for a college education by growing and harvesting a field of corn. He became a teacher at an early age and was later offered the position of superintendent of the Arkansas City, Kansas school system. While there, he persuaded town leaders to hire many of the future land run participants who had been camping nearby and organized them into making improvements to the local roads and schools buildings.

The first legislature of the Oklahoma Territory provided for the establishment of a university. In the winter of 1891-92, a committee from the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, which as yet existed only on paper, came to Arkansas City to view the heating system that Boyd had installed in the school buildings. He became acquainted with the regents and even recommended two potential choices for the presidency of the new university. The regents, however, selected Boyd. He was joined there by his wife and daughter. Construction of the first University building was completed in August 1893 at a total cost of $32,000.

In the spring of 1893, President Boyd began planting trees on the University grounds and along University Boulevard. Using his own funds, Boyd purchased the stock of a bankrupt nursery in Winfield, Kansas and built a five-acre nursery southwest of the University building. He gave these trees to Norman residents who were willing to plant and care for them under a contract that they must pay for each tree that died, while those that lived were free.

Boyd served as President of the University of Oklahoma from September 1892 to July 1908. He later served as superintendent of education for the Presbyterian Mission and established schools in Utah and the Southwest United States. His final position in the field of education was seven years as President of the University of New Mexico.

The central figure of the University's seal is the now famous Seed Sower. In his lifetime, Boyd embodied this image as he sowed not only the seeds of knowledge and opportunity, but the seeds of history and tradition. From humble beginnings, the continued quest for excellence by University of Oklahoma leaders like David Ross Boyd has created one of the nation’s premier learning institutions.

David Ross Boyd by Mike Wimmer was dedicated on March 7, 2006. The commission was managed by the Oklahoma State Senate Historical Preservation Fund, Inc. The painting is located inside the South hallway of the Oklahoma State Senate wing on the fifth floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol and can be viewed daily from 8:30-5:30 when the Senate is not in session.

The Artist

Born and raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mike Wimmer began his career as an artist during the seventh grade. He earned his B.F.A. from the University of Oklahoma, where he met Don Ivan Punchatz. Wimmer later moved to Arlington, Texas to be Punchatz apprentice at Punchatz famous Sketch Pad Studio.  Wimmer learned valuable knowledge regarding the business aspect of illustrating as well as various painting techniques and the working methods of the local Dallas illustrators. After his two and a half year apprenticeship, he moved back to Norman, Oklahoma and set up his own studio using all that he had learned in Texas. Since then Wimmer has become very successful illustrating children’s books such as “Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh” by Robert Burliegh which was the winner of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children in 1990. He also illustrated “All the Places to Love” by Patricia MacLachlan which was published in 1994 and won the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Illustrated Children’s Book 1995. Wimmer’s latest book, “Will Rogers” by Former Governor Frank Keating, was published in 2002 and has won the 2003 Spur Award from the Western Writers Association of America. Even though Wimmer has worked for some of the largest corporations in the world including Disney and Procter and Gamble, Wimmer finds the greatest artistic pleasure within his creation of fine art.