Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

The Oklahoma Military Academy (OMA) that
replaced Eastern University Preparatory School
(EUPS) in Claremore, closed in 1917. In January
1919 State Representative H. Tom Kight of
Claremore introduced legislation calling for the
creation of a state-sponsored military school in
order that the United States would never find
itself ill prepared for war as it had been in 1917.
The mood of the country, coupled with the lack of
schools in northeastern Oklahoma, led legislators
to pass Kight’s bill in March 1919.
OMA opened in the fall of 1919 as a secondary
school, with curriculum including mandatory
vocational and military training for all cadets,
beginning with a corps of forty cadets. It grew
steadily, becoming a six-year institution in 1923
and offering cadets four years of high school and
two years of junior college. More than twenty-five
hundred graduates served their country as officers
and noncommissioned officers in World War II,
Korea, and Vietnam. Six became general-grade
officers. More than one hundred OMA men gave
their lives.
Despite OMA’s successes, enrollments declined in
the late 1960s and OMA closed on July 1, 1971.
Rogers State College (now University) has occupied
the OMA campus from 1971 to today.
Rogers State
University
Above: The Rogers State University campus has three large-scale
sculptures of U.S. presidents: Thomas Jefferson, George Washington
and Abraham Lincoln. The Jefferson statue is near the main entrance
of the Claremore campus.
Below: Rogers State University in Claremore.
O K L A H O M A : A S t o r y T h r o u g h H e r P e o p l e
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