Hogan still working with kids

 

Life has changed for Andy Hogan, an educator more than 30 years. Since retiring as an elementary school principal, his interests are long distance running, bow hunting and anything to do with Will Rogers.

He relates personally to the man he touts in his duties at the Claremore Will Rogers Memorial Museum. Since 2005, he has been the Museum’s historical guide and Will Rogers interpreter.

Hogan is host and guide for most of the thousands of commercial bus tour visitors and children’s school groups that come through the museum, this year at in record numbers.

He wears his Will Rogers hat and with rope in hand leads tours through the Museum’s galleries filled with art, artifacts and memorabilia relating to the life and times of the Cherokee Indian legend born in Oologah, Indian Territory.

Hogan has acquainted himself with the chatty ways of Will Rogers and with a long history in the classroom relates to children as well as adults.

His Will Rogers’ chatter has even got requests for his autograph and recognition on the street as Will Rogers.

He is a popular speaker at clubs and school events and this year appeared before more than 1,000 Rotarians at Rotary Institutes in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. He is often on Tulsa and Oklahoma City television telling about Will Rogers and Will Rogers Museum activities

An Oklahoma native born on Tulsa’s east side, he lived on Route 66 where “everything that went through the world went in front of our house.”

He graduated from Tulsa East Central High School and earned bachelors and masters degrees at Northeastern State College, Tahlequah.

Hogan’s first teaching assignment was junior high English at Sand Springs. He went from there to Barnsdall, then a dependent district (now Osage Academy Central) where he was a teacher, principal, bus driver and coach.

He came to Claremore in 1975 as Claremont elementary principal, a post he held 21 years. He often sees former students as parents and teachers of students who visit the Museum.

After retiring from education, Hogan helped open the Claremore Recreation Center in 1999 and worked there until joining the museum staff. He officiated football and basketball more than 40 years until retiring in 2007. He was inducted into the Greater Tulsa Officials Association Hall of Fame.

He and his wife, Jan, have four children and eight grandchildren.