Peter Edward Wheeler

January 22, 1938 - August 31, 2021

Peter Edward "Ed" Wheeler, left this life, his family and many friends behind on Tuesday, August 31, 2021. Despite having lived a life other men only dream about, at heart he was a soldier whose career took him from an Army Buck Private to Brigadier General. He began his military career in 1956 when he enlisted in the Oklahoma Army National Guard's "F" Company, 2nd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division as a rifleman, while still a high school senior at Tulsa Central High School. Thirty-five years later, he retired after becoming the state's first Deputy State Area Commander and successfully commanding Task Force-45 during Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-91. A year later, at the age of 54, his daughter Kelsey Elizabeth was born, who later became Miss Oklahoma 2013. In 1956, he attended Texas A&M for one year and couldn't afford to continue, so he entered the Army. He continued his education at the University of South Carolina while stationed at Fort Jackson and upon returning home he enrolled in the University of Tulsa. Throughout his life he earned BA, MA, and MS Degrees, and graduated from numerous military schools including the Basic and Advanced Infantry, Military Intelligence and Military Police Schools; the U.S. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS; Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington D.C.; Defense Civil Preparedness Staff College, Washington D.C.; and the U. S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. During his enlisted service, he was a top ranked marksman with both small bore and large bore rifles and pistols, and consistently won battalion, regimental and divisional individual rifle and pistol shooting championships. As a graduate of OCS, and later as a 1st Lieutenant, he continued to apply his shooting skills and became the first Oklahoma National Guardsman to be named to the "President's Hundred" in 1964, the top 100 large-bore, long-range, rifle marksmen in the nation. He was born in Knickerbocker Hospital on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, NY on January 22, 1938 to Edward George and Eleanore Stehle Wheeler. He accompanied his parents on occupational transfers throughout the United States and several foreign countries. Upon arriving in Tulsa in 1952, his parents liked the city so much that the family settled in Tulsa and Tulsa became their permanent home. His father gave Ed a single shot, bolt action, .22 caliber rifle and taught him how to shoot it when he was 12 while they lived in Garden City, KS. In short order, he brought home rabbits he killed on the run with single shots. As a result, when he arrived at Tulsa Central High, it was natural for him to be attracted to the rifle team. By his senior year, he had lettered three straight years, won the Oklahoma State Junior Small Bore Championships held then in Stillwater and was Captain of the Central High School rifle team. That skill won for him a one-year scholarship to Texas A&M where he became the first freshman ("Fish") to qualify to shoot on the Varsity Team where he became the Southwest Conference's Outstanding Individual Marksman and a feat never accomplished before by a Freshman student, and he also qualified for the 1956 U.S. Olympic Small Bore Rifle Team. Unfortunately, the Olympics which were scheduled for Cairo were canceled due to the Suez Canal crisis and he entered the Army the next year. Upon returning to Tulsa, he acquired a job as a Research Assistant at Gilcrease Museum to help work his way through Tulsa University. It was during that time that he developed the idea of publicizing the museum with a radio show which became known as "The Gilcrease Story," five-minute historical vignettes twice a day that ultimately lasted nine years. It became so popular in the first year on KVOO Radio, that it won two national awards. By the time it ended nine years later, he had written and narrated over 1,400 scripts. The series also spun off into a television series called "The Gilcrease Hour". In its first year, it won ABC's national award for the best locally produced television documentary and during the production, the technique of 'stop action' photography was developed on this series, later used for the first time on network television in "Gary Cooper's American West". Essentially these efforts in Tulsa were the forerunner of what later became the highly popular History Channel on television today. While at the University of Tulsa, he met his first wife, Marcia Jane Largen and they were married in 1963. They would remain married for 33 years until she died from ovarian cancer in 1996. During that time, he was employed by John Whitney Advertising Agency and later by Oklahoma Natural Gas Company from which he retired 33 years later as General Manager-Corporate Communications. While at ONG, he became a member of the College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America, President of the local chapter of PRSA, authored several hundred magazine articles on military, historical, economic and political significance in local, state and national publications as well as a book on the U.S. involvement in Somalia entitled, "Doorway to Hell: Disaster In Somalia" which has been published and republished worldwide. During the Vietnam War, he was assigned to Army Military Intelligence and although he never spoke of his activities during that time he became fluent in Vietnamese and German. Within the next two decades he compiled a distinguished military service record and in 1989 was promoted to Brigadier General. A year later, he was assigned to command Task Force 45 during Operation Desert Storm, where he commanded the mobilization, training, equipping and deployment of more than 2,000 Oklahoma Army National Guard troops, the first ones called to active duty since 1950. He was honored by being inducted as an honorary War Chief of the Kitkahaki Band of the Pawnee Nation as a result of his role as Task Force commander during the first Persian Gulf War; a Life Member of Guild Hall Lodge of the Masonic Order, a Life Member of The American Legion, Post 1, Tulsa; a Life Member of the Reserve Officers Association of Oklahoma, the first Commander of the Eastern Oklahoma Chapter of the Military Order of World Wars and a Life Member; a Life Member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, the National Rifle Association and the President's Hundred Association of the United States. After successfully bringing all his troops home, he enrolled at the University of Tulsa and earned a second Masters' Degree at the age of 54. During this time, he was offered the job of Adjutant General of Oklahoma and promotion to Major General. He declined the opportunity because his wife had been diagnosed with cancer a week before and he knew she would need all of his available time. Their son, Brian Edward Wheeler who had graduated with honors from Memorial High in 1986, graduated again with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1990, served two tours in Somalia. He went on to graduate with honors from the University of Oklahoma Law School and participated in the Liberation of Iraq. Five months after he returned home, in 2005, he was tragically killed in a jeep accident in Mayes County with his fiance', Susan Clark Martindale. In 1999, he joined the Adjunct Faculty of Tulsa Community College's Southeast Campus where he taught U.S. History, American Federal Government and Cultural Geography. In 2006, he was named the first TCC-SE campus Outstanding Adjunct instructor and taught for the next 12 years retiring at 74. In the same year, he joined the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office Reserve Officer Corps. He had previously graduated in 1975 from the Tulsa Police Academy and had served for 14 years as a Tulsa Auxiliary Police Officer and Director of the Tulsa Auxiliary Police. His fluent knowledge of German, Spanish, and Vietnamese, Military intelligence and police experience and his ability to interpret intelligence caused him to be noticed, and he was transferred into intelligence operations. In 2011, he was named the Outstanding Reserve Deputy for the year 2010. Ed is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Susan Wheeler, a graduate accountant from OU and a veteran hospice nurse; his daughter, Kelsey Paul and husband, Hunter Paul and granddaughter to be, Keller; Susan's daughter, Teresa Gale Miller and son, Robert Steven Curlee of Wyalusing, PA; three grandsons; one granddaughter; and sister-in-law Virginia Bland of Tulsa; In lieu of flowers, memorial monetary contributions are encouraged to be made to the Captain Brian E. Wheeler Write-On Award Fund at the Law School of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK Funeral service will be 10:00 A.M., Saturday, September 11, 2021 at Moore's Southlawn Chapel, 9350 E. 51st, Tulsa, OK. Moore's Southlawn 918-663-2233 share memories at www.moorefuneral.com