DID YOU KNOW OKLAHOMA HAD A MILITARY ACADEMY?

The Oklahoma Military Academy (OMA) supplanted the former Eastern University Preparatory School (EUPS) at Claremore, which had closed in 1917 with Gov. Robert L. Williams's veto of the institution's necessary appropriations. In January 1919 Oklahoma State Rep. H. Tom Kight of Claremore introduced legislation calling for the establishment of a statesponsored military school in order that the United States would never find itself ill-prepared for war as it had been in 1917. Kight's bill could not have come at a more appropriate time. The nation's success in World War I had spurred nationalistic fervor, and traditional American wariness regarding the military gave way to the general belief that military training would help young men become better citizens within a democratic society. The mood of