Wewoka writer is one of state’s hidden gems
WEWOKA — There is a 100-yearold treasure hidden in Wewoka and his name is Vance Trimble.
Trimble, winner of the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished reporting of national affairs, will celebrate his 100th birthday July 6 with a party at the Wewoka Country Club.
He is truly hidden away in Wewoka — you won’t find his name in state museums focusing on historic Oklahomans.
But Trimble, even at 100, is amazingly au courant. For example: he’s read 400 books in the last three years. He has been writing books and learning the new ways of sharing them — e-books, self-publishing — even in these last few years.
His secret to longevity? “Stay in love,” he says, and he has.
Trimble was born July 6, 1913, in Harrison, Ark. After moving to Oklahoma, Trimble was hired at age 14 as a cub reporter by the Okemah Daily Leader, working after school for $1.50 a week.
That job launched his lifelong career, which took him to national journalism heights and later to writing books.
The family moved to Wewoka while Trimble was a freshman and he continued his career as a courthouse reporter and sports editor at the Wewoka Times-Democrat while finishing high school.
Working on the school paper, The Little Tiger, he met the love of his life, Elzene Miller. They married at age 18.
With the Great Depression drying up newspaper jobs, the Trimbles spent a year and a half driving a $35 beat-up 1926 Chevy from Florida to Colorado, eking out a living by repairing typewriters and adding machines.
They then returned to Oklahoma and Trimble resumed his newspaper career at The Seminole Morning News, Seminole Producer, Muskogee Phoenix, Okmulgee Times and Maud Enterprise, where he investigated a robbery by Pretty Boy Floyd and interviewed the robber’s wife.
They moved to Texas, where their daughter, Carol Ann Nordeheimer, was born. She lives now in Wilmington, Del., where she is a consultant in the fields of marketing, politics and communications.
During World War II, Trimble was a Signal Corps staff sergeant and edited the Army newspaper in Camp Beale, Calif.
In 1955, Vance was promoted to the Scripps Howard national bureau in Washington, D.C.
He became curious about Capitol nepotism and payroll abuse, and spent six months researching his story before breaking the scandal in January, 1959.
That work earned Trimble the rare journalism Triple Crown: the Pulitzer, the Raymond Clapper Award and the Sigma Delta Chi.
In 1963, Trimble was appointed editor of the Kentucky Post in Covington, Ky., He turned author in 1970, first publishing “The Uncertain Miracle” on hyperbaric medicine. His book, “Sam Walton,” sold 700,000 copies.
In 1974, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
When Trimble’s wife died in 1999, Trimble brought her back to Wewoka to be buried beside her mother; he later built a handsome electronic “singing tower” in Oakwood Cemetery as a memorial to his wife.