Patricia Barnes Briggs (March 13, 1933-February 8, 2024)

After a brief illness, Patricia Barnes Briggs has gone to meet her maker and reunite with many beloved family members and friends.

Pat was born in Tulsa at the height of the Great Depression. She was the youngest of the four children of Fletcher Henry and Oza Jevera Barnes. She attended Porter Elementary School, Clinton Junior High School, and Webster High School, where she graduated as class salutatorian in 1951. A year later, she married her high school sweetheart, Joseph Neal Briggs, who was then enrolled at the University of Tulsa in the Air Force ROTC program. She worked to help Joe pay for college. With his graduation and commissioning into the U.S. Air Force in 1955, she began a period of frequent moves around the American Southwest, as he went through the various phases of training to be a fighter pilot. With that complete, and with two children born (Randall in 1954 and Nancy in 1956), the family moved to Japan in 1957. After a brief period in Japan proper, the family moved to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. Pat and her family returned to the U.S. in 1960. Their third child, James, was born at Cannon Air Force Base, near Clovis, New Mexico, a few weeks after the return. The family spent the summer of 1962 at Nellis Air Force Base, outside Las Vegas, Nevada. Captain Briggs was the distinguished graduate in his class at the USAF Fighter Weapons School that summer. After a visit to the West Coast, including a trip to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, the family returned to Clovis. Unfortunately, Joseph Briggs was killed in a nighttime mid-air collision while flying an F-100D Super Sabre on August 20, 1962.

With the help of her brothers Hank and Bob and her sister Joan, Pat moved herself and her three children back to Tulsa. She became a working mother, working in a variety of clerical and secretarial positions. Under her guidance, her children graduated from high school, Randall (in 1972) and Nancy (in 1975) at Tulsa Edison High School and James (in 1978) at Tulsa Memorial High School. All three attended the University of Oklahoma. With her children out of the home, she became a part-time college student herself. Working her way through junior college and the University of Oklahoma, she graduated with a degree in Journalism in 1982. Her life in journalism took her to various places, from local newspapers in Oklahoma and Texas to KOTV News.

Pat spent most of her life as a member of Trinity Baptist Church in Tulsa. She loved her community, her state, and her nation. She was an ardent fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, the Oklahoma Thunder, and the Oklahoma Sooners. She was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers Fletcher H. Barnes, Jr., Robert E. Barnes, and her sister Joan Kelso. She is survived by her brother-in-law R. Lee Briggs, her three children, their spouses, and many grandchildren, step-grandchildren, great-grandchildren, step-great-grandchildren, nephews, and nieces, whom she loved dearly.

Visitation will be 9am-6pm Monday, February 12, 2024 at the Moore Southlawn Chapel.
Funeral Services will be 2:00PM Tuesday, February 13, 2024 in the Memorial Park Cemetery Chapel, 5111 South Memorial Drive, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Burial at Memorial Park Cemetery.