80 years ago today, America mourned for two Okies

Terrence Miller Clark's masterpiece portrait of Will Rogers

Two of the most famous Oklahomans died today, 80 years ago, when Will Rogers and Wiley Post died in a plane crash at Point Barrow Alaska. 
America mourned, but for Okies the loss was even greater-- they were everyone's heroes, idolized during the tough Depression years. 

The photo Dad used to draw from

We grew up with Will all around us in the Clark household, with books, sketches and our father's masterpiece portrait. My Dad's pencil portrait of Will, which took him a painstaking 14 months to draw when Will was still fresh in that generation's memory, is his best portrait work, showing all the famous people he knew. Damaged over the years, and aging, it hangs in my brother's house in Lubbock. Fortunately we have surviving 12" by 16" rotogravure prints  (About one fourth the size of the original). Dad had them made in the 1950s to try to sell. That didn't work, but they keep showing up in long forgotten friends' and relatives' houses--given as gifts--or even on ebay. One hangs in my office, and we have a few left.
As far as I'm concerned Dad, a relatively unknown poor Okie boy, set the example that Charles Banks Wilson years later followed or whatever for a much less detailed but famous color portrait of Will. You can see for yourself.

The memorial near Wiley Post's grave

And by coincidence, Wiley Post's grave is only about five miles from here in Memorial Park Cemetery on Memorial Road and Kelly.
Here are Dad's portrait, Wiley's grave memorial, and the key to all the people in Dad's portrait.