ONEOK Celebrates Veterans At Tulsa's Annual Parade

ONEOK is the presenting sponsor of the annual Tulsa Veterans Day Parade this year. News On 6's Dave Davis spoke with Jamie Hoskin, who is a veteran and senior vice president at ONEOK.

Davis: What does it mean to you, Veterans Day, in this parade?

Hoskin: Well, I'd just like to say thank you to all of our veterans out there. ONEOK is very proud to be able to sponsor and take part in this parade. Liberty For All is the theme, and for ONEOK, we have a float, and it's going to have an 80th-anniversary celebration about D-Day. This weekend, I grabbed a photo that I took back in 1994, and it was at the 50th anniversary of Battle of the Bulge. And if you see in it, a Jewish lady is walking around. She's going up to all of the veterans carrying the sign saying, "Thank you, GI and allied forces, you liberated me from a concentration camp in 1945." When I think about service, it's a core value of ONEOK. It's also a value in all of service. And that's, I think, what rings true to a lot of our veterans.

Davis: It speaks a little bit to your service as well. So you were here in 1994 to take this picture at the 50th anniversary. Why were you here? Because I think that's a cool story, too. In the battalion.

Hoskin: The 326 Engineer Battalion was one of the flagged units back during the Battle of the Bulge, and it was part of the 101st airborne division. So that was one of my first assignments.

Davis: That battalion still going strong today all these decades later is pretty remarkable. You spoke to it earlier, Jamie, but I mean, ONEOK has things that they can sponsor, and there are a lot of choices and a lot of things that you could do as a company, a lot of events that you could sponsor. Why Veterans Day? Why the Veterans Day Parade?

Hoskin: ONEOK has about one in 10 employees that have military service. We go back to that values discussion and talk about service, and that's so important to us as a company, but also for those employees in their communities. Whether it's Tulsa or whatever state and community that they live in, I think for ONEOK, and just looking at that value and looking at how active we are, the military is a big part of that, and that's one of the reasons we support so strongly.

Davis: So what can people expect if they come out to the parade this morning? Good weather this year. I know you've been involved with some parades. It's like the wind is just biting your face or it's raining. It's going to be beautiful today.

Hoskin: Well, the Tulsa Parade is one of the biggest in the country. I think folks are going to see a great day as you talked. It's very exciting. As you watch, the schools are part of it. We're going to have about 200 employees out there. Those aren't just veterans. Those are folks that are saying thank you and just supporting our veteran community throughout Tulsa.

Davis: We were talking about the importance of thanking a veteran, especially those World War II veterans, because this picture was now 30 years ago. This was in 1994, and they were senior citizens back then. I mean, we're talking about this is getting on pretty, pretty late in the game here, 1924, 1925 some of these folks are born.

Hoskin: Truly, if you think about 28 years of service, for those who came before me, the veterans that are going to come after, it's just a time there's a stop and pause and say thank you.