The late businessman and Southeastern supporter John Massey was posthumously awarded an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree during Southeastern Oklahoma State University Commencement for master’s degrees July 25, and his son Greg also was awarded an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree.
Southeastern President Dr. Thomas W. Newsom made the presentation on the recommendation of the faculty of the John Massey School of Business in honor of the Massey family’s contributions to Southeastern over the last seven decades as well as the launch of the JMSB’s new Doctor of Business Administration program in August.
Newsom talked about the great things that have happened on campus in the last few months. “One of the biggest and most monumental things to happen to our campus was the announcement in June that we received final approval to offer the first doctoral program in our university’s history, a doctorate in business administration for the first cohort of our students starting in August in our John Massey School of Business,” Newsom said.
“The administration of the university has determined it very appropriate to confer our first-ever doctorate degree posthumously to John L. Massey to acknowledge and celebrate his support for his alma mater, his incredible contributions to the State of Oklahoma.”
Newsom spoke of Massey’s background.
John L. Massey grew up in Boswell, Guthrie, and Durant and was a 1960 graduate of Southeastern who served as student body president. He is the only graduate in our university’s history to receive the Outstanding Student Award for three consecutive years.
While a senior at Southeastern, he won his first race for the Oklahoma State House of Representatives, serving two terms in that body and two additional terms in the Oklahoma State Senate. Massey left the Senate in 1970 to devote full attention to business interests. He owned and established more than 20 businesses, including banks, apartments, nursing homes, motels, shopping centers, real estate developments and laundromats.
In 1966, he joined the Durant Bank and Trust Company as a director, and was appointed chairman of the board in 1986, and changed its name to First United Bank in 1998.
He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1984 and served as a regent of the Oklahoma State System for Higher Education for a record three terms from 1992 to 2019, when he was named state regent emeritus. Massey contributed $1 million to establish four John L. Massey Endowed Chairs in the School of Business at his alma mater as well as a landmark gift of the Durant Bank and Trust Building in Durant to the university to establish its Main Street campus.
He was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 2004, and in May of 2005, the business school was renamed in his honor. He was also the firstever recipient of the Southeastern Alumni Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.
“The contributions John and his family have made to Southeastern have been transformational, including the establishment of all of those endowed professorships and chairs,” Newsom said. “On Friday, June 24, 2022, we lost John. His legacy at Southeastern and across Oklahoma in our region lives on at our university. Consistent with the rules and regulations of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and the Regional University System of the Oklahoma Board of Regents and by the authority vested in my by those regents and the faculty of the John Massey School of Business, it is my pleasure this evening to confer upon John L. Massey our highest award in our university that being the honorary degree of doctor of business administration.”
Newsom then asked Greg Massey to speak and to receive the honorary doctorate in honor of one of the greatest graduates of Southeastern.
“I cannot tell you what an honor this is on behalf of the Massey family,” Greg Massey said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Greg spoke of his father’s history and when he was an elementary school student in Boswell.
“He had a problem,” Greg said. “He couldn’t afford his books and so he got his first loan as an elementary school student from a retailer in downtown Boswell, Oklahoma, to help him pay for his books. I bring that story up because it had an impact on his life because in 1960, as Dr. Newsom said, he ran for the state legislature. His first bill he introduced was a bill to make sure no kid will ever have to pay for books in the elementary school system in the State of Oklahoma.”
Newsom then announced that Greg also was receiving an honorary doctorate.
Greg Massey followed his father’s footsteps in 1990 at First United Bank. He became president in 1993 and has been CEO of First United Bank since 2004. Greg has continued to support Southeastern in the same way his father did. This includes the naming of Spend Life Wisely Stadium, the new Marketing and Entrepreneurship labs in the Russell Building, and numerous funds, scholarships and donations to the university as a whole.
After his father’s passing in 2022, with an initial gift of $7.4 million – the largest single gift in university history – Greg established the John Massey Leadership Scholars Program, a scholarship program which will continue John’s legacy in leadership by providing 40 scholarships to Southeastern students each year.
Greg served as a board member for the Conscious Capitalism organization, the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma State University Foundation and Imagine Durant. He is also an active member of YPO Gold and Victory Life Church. In 2008, Ernst & Young named Greg their Southwest Region Entrepreneur of the Year. Oklahoma State University has also recognized him as a Distinguished Alumni, and the Spears School of Business recognized him as a Top 100 Graduate and inducted him into the Business School Hall of Fame. He is also a recipient of the Sigma Chi Fraternity Significant Sig award. Greg holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Oklahoma State University and is a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking.
“He has told me before that his father often said to him that he was not smart enough to get accepted to Southeastern and that’s why he had to settle for OSU,” Newsom said. “Well, tonight, we’re going to set the record straight and make things right for both John and Greg and do what only is appropriate that Greg will now have a diploma on his wall from the best university in the state. Greg, congratulations.”
