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.
Read more about this topic: Don Nickles
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard,
Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every mans life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (174095)