Luther L. Bohanon

Luther Bohanon was appointed U.S. District Judge for the Western, Eastern, and Northern Districts of Oklahoma on August 17, 1961 after a 34-year career in the practice of law.

In 1974, he assumed the status of senior judge, which made way for the appointment of H. Dale Cook for Oklahoma's three districts.

Judge Bohanon was born August 9, 1902 in Fort Smith, Arkansas, but his family moved to Stigler, Oklahoma four years later. Another move took the family of 14 children to Kinta where he completed his elementary education. He completed his high school education at Muskogee, Oklahoma and in 1922 enrolled in the University of Oklahoma. He entered law school in 1924 and was graduated in June, 1927. The same month he was admitted to practice before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

He opened a law office in Seminole, Oklahoma and month later accepted appointment as assistant county attorney of Seminole County, Oklahoma. He resigned in the spring of 1928 and formed a law partnership with Alfred P. Murrah in Seminole, Oklahoma.

During World War II, Judge Bohanon served in the Judge Advocate General's Department of the U.S. Army Air Force, holding several high-ranking positions. After the war, he returned to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and continued his law practice until appointment to his federal position.

Judge Bohanon was active in Democratic Party affairs on the local, state and national levels. He was a Mason and a Shriner and a member of the United Methodist Church of Nichols Hills. He married Marie Swatek in July, 1933.

External links

*findagrave|8124486
*findagrave|22857704

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY: BIBLIOGRAPHY:
*“Luther Bohanon,” Vertical File, Research Division, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
*“Luther Bohanon,” Vertical File, Oklahoma Room, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
*"Daily Oklahoman" (Oklahoma City), 18 April 1999 and 31 October 2001.
*Kenny A. Franks and Paul F. Lambert, The Legacy of Dean Julien C. Monnet: Judge Luther Bohanon and the Desegregation of Oklahoma City's Public Schools (Muskogee, Okla.: Western Heritage Books, 1983).
*Jace Weaver, Then to the Rock Let Me Fly: Luther Bohanon and Judicial Activism (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).