Early Life
Don Nickles was born and raised in Ponca City, Oklahoma, where he attended the public schools. To help pay for their education at Oklahoma State, he and his wife operated a janitorial service (Don Nickles Professional Cleaning Service) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Oklahoma State University, and earned a BA in business administration in 1971
After college, he went to work for Nickles Machine Corporation in Ponca City, a business started in 1918 by his grandfather, Clair Nickles. He rose to be the company's vice president and general manager. He also served in the United States National Guard from 1970 until 1976.
A formative experience was the distress his family suffered following his father's death in 1961, when Nickles was thirteen. They had to sell off part of the family business to raise cash to pay the estate tax that was due.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)