SEMINOLE — Melvin Moran has spent a lifetime proving true riches lie not in the black gold beneath the earth, but in the philanthropy that elevates a community.
Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, Moran’s journey to becoming an Oklahoma icon began when his family moved to Seminole in 1940 when oil derricks dotted the landscape like steel forests. Over time, the dusty brick streets of the small town would lead Moran to establish a legacy of philanthropy, civic engagement and unwavering optimism.
“Seminole would not be Seminole if it wasn’t for Melvin and Jasmine Moran,” said Stephaney Lambert, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and — like Melvin Moran — a former member of the Seminole City Council.
Lambert had seen Moran being interviewed for this article at Roma Italian Restaurant. An admirer of the upbeat, kind civic leader whose name punctuates donor lists at many charitable institutions, Lambert approached his table and emphasized Moran’s importance to the 7,300-person community.
“A lot of the industries wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Melvin,” Lambert said. “They kept jobs here so that way families like mine could be here.”
‘You’ve got to be a good person’
Melvin’s father, Meyer Moran, emigrated from Latvia “not knowing a word of English.” Eventually, he moved his young family from Maud to Seminole in pursuit of the oil boom’s promise. The elder Moran’s entrepreneurial spirit quickly took root, starting in the pipe business before venturing into oil production. Young Melvin, observing his father’s work ethic and business acumen, learned lessons that would shape his future.
“There was a well that he purchased for the pipe between Maud and St. Louis, and he decided to produce it, and that started us in the oil business,” recalled Moran, who recently celebrated his 94th birthday.
With that well forming the foundation of the family’s oil empire — it produced about six barrels of oil a day for more than 70 years — Moran witnessed firsthand the cyclical nature of the petroleum industry. The Seminole area’s oil boom began in 1926 and made Seminole the oilfield supply center of Oklahoma Virtually every major company had an oil camp there. According to the American Oil and Gas Historical Society, the Seminole oil field once produced more than 2 percent of the world’s total oil.
The family moved to Tulsa in January 1941. Moran was 11 years old, and a month before, the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, spurring U.S. entry into World War II.
“I heard it on the radio, and I was just absolutely terrified. I remember that very well,” he recalled. “Most everything was rationed, gasoline especially, but sugar and meat. And I remember my mother with the various rationing stamps, and I recall the stamps had numbers on them depending on what your allotment was.”
As a student in Tulsa, Moran also learned a lesson in civil rights. Because Seminole had no mass transportation, his first experience riding a bus came in Tulsa.
“Very often, Mother and I, and usually my brother, Sidney, and occasionally my sister, we would be riding the bus, and on the front of the bus were the words, ‘Colored people use rear seat,'” Moran recounted in an interview with The Oklahoma Historical Society. “That enraged my mother. I mean, she was very gentle, but she hated discrimination so much. And so, regardless of how many seats were at the front of the bus, she would always sit at the back of the bus with the African Americans. And whenever the back seat was full, then the African Americans would have to stand, and so regardless of how many seats were empty, she would stand with them. That was her way of expressing her chagrin and her unhappiness with the whole thing. And that was before the days of Martin Luther King, so she was really the first civil rights activist I ever saw.”
As he grew up, Moran realized some people might hold discriminatory attitudes toward him as “the only Jewish kid in my class,” even if they didn’t say anything to him directly.
“My mother used to tell me when I was very young, she said, ‘Melvin, you’ve got to be a good person because you will likely be the only Jewish person that many of these children have ever met, and may be the only Jewish person that they’ll ever know,” he said. “What they’re going to be thinking about Jewish people is how they perceive you. So it’s important that you be a good person.'”
Finding love across the pond
As he entered adulthood, Moran had ambitions beyond Oklahoma. His pursuit of education took him away from Seminole and Tulsa, as his initial dream was quite different from the path he ultimately took.
“I wanted to be a comedy writer for television,” Moran said of his choice to attend the University of Missouri, home to the first journalism school in the country. “Very shortly after I got there, I changed my mind. I knew I would never make it as a comedy writer, so then I said, ‘I’ll probably be better in business.’ So, I went to business school.”
During his college years, Moran was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, where he served as president. After graduating in 1951, Moran didn’t immediately return to Seminole. Instead, he joined the Air Force for two years, an experience that would change his life in unimaginable ways.
That’s where he met Jasmine Burchell. Their courtship was anything but conventional.
“I was in England for two years, and I had a blind date with a woman in London — an actress,” he said. “She wanted to dump me, so she set me up with another woman she had gone to drama school with.”
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Jasmine, a talented singer, dancer and actress, soon landed a role in the London production of South Pacific.
When Melvin’s stint in the Air Force ended, Jasmine was still under contract with the show.
“Our dates wouldn’t start until the show was over, like at 10:30 at night or so,” Moran said. “She had to stay another five or six months, and then when the show ended in London, the cast went on tour. But they allowed her not to go on tour, and so I was able to send for her, and she took a ship over. I met her in New York to go over to Oklahoma.”
Their love story inspired those who knew them.
“The fact that she would leave a city of 11 million to come to a town of 7,000 was pretty spectacular,” said Darlene Wallace, a family friend of the Morans. “That said how much she loved Melvin.”
Upon returning to Seminole after his Air Force service, Moran joined the family business, initially selling junk by the pound. Under Moran’s guidance, the Moran Oil Company grew significantly.
“Today, we operate about 90 wells,” Moran said. “We don’t own 100 percent of any of them, but we operate about 90 wells.”
That success in the oil industry provided the resources that would fuel Moran’s philanthropic efforts in the years to come.
The pivot to philanthropy: A new kind of wealth
Until his retirement, Moran worked as the CEO of Moran Oil Enterprises and manager of Moran-K Oil, LLC. He was a founding director of BancFirst and served on its advisory board, and he was also president and director of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. In the late 1980s, he served as a director of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and he spent many years as a director of the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.
But as the years passed, Moran’s focus began to shift. While he remained actively involved in the oil business, his true passion increasingly lay in philanthropy and community development. His motivation was deeply personal.
“Since I brought my family here, and my wife was from London, it was quite a change from London to Seminole. I just wanted her to be happy,” Moran said. “And so it was important to me that our community be just as good as it could. And I wanted to help the community be as good as it could in any way that I could help it.”
This desire to improve Seminole led Moran into local politics in the 1960s.
“I was always sort of civic minded, so I ran for City Council. I was elected for several terms, and then people encouraged me to run for mayor,” he said. “I did, and I was elected for several terms.”
While the exact dates of his mayoral terms are hazy in Moran’s memory, his impact on the community remains crystal clear to others.
“He has been involved in everything I can think of and always wants the best for this community,” said Wallace. “He will always be the first to raise money for things that are needed, which is a really good thing, because when somebody starts something, then lots of people follow up.”
Reggie Whitten grew up in Seminole and met Melvin Moran around age 12, eventually competing in debate against the Morans’ “absolutely brilliant” children. Marilyn now lives in Indiana, Elisa lives in Colorado, and David lives in Colorado.
Now a prominent attorney, Whitten calls Melvin Moran “probably the most humble, unassuming man I’ve ever met.”
“Everybody likes Melvin. I’ve never met anybody who had anything other than wonderful things to say about Melvin Moran. He’s just done so much for Seminole and the state and me personally,” Whitten said. “I found it inspirational as a little boy growing up poor in Seminole that a guy like Melvin Moran came from Seminole. I found that to be inspirational, because at that young age I didn’t know you could grow up in a small town and be unique or special, and that’s what Melvin Moran did.”
The Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum: A dream realized
Perhaps no single project better encapsulates Melvin Moran’s philanthropic vision than the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum in Seminole. The idea for the museum came from a chance encounter during a family vacation.
“My wife and I were on vacation in Michigan, and we were driving through the town of Flint, Michigan,” he said. “We saw a billboard advertising the Flint Children’s Museum. I’d never heard of a children’s museum, but we had our three children with us, so we stopped there.”
Moran had never seen a hands-on museum before, and he was impressed by all the activities the little museum offered for children. He had a video camera with him, and he captured footage of every exhibit.
Inspired by what they saw, the Morans brought the idea back to Seminole.
“I have a very close friend here in Seminole named Marci Donaho. I took my camera over to her and said, ‘This is what I saw in Flint.’ And so between us, we started raising the money,” he said. “I’m very shy about asking people for money, but she and I went everywhere together. I think ultimately we raised close to $2 million, and we built the museum.”
Built in a petroleum company’s old industrial building where the Morans and volunteers took to their hands and knees to scrub the concrete floor clean, the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum opened its doors in the early 1990s and has been a popular destination ever since.
“We’ve expanded it a bunch of times,” Moran said. “It’s one of the largest children’s museums in the country. I believe now our average attendance is about 82,000 annual attendance.”
A philanthropist in his own right whose charities — Native Explorers and Explorology — introduce children to scientific exploration by digging for dinosaurs along the slope of Black Mesa, Whitten now serves on the Jasmine Moran Children Museum’s nonprofit board. Whitten donated the Acrocanthosaurus replica that stalks the museum’s lobby, and on a joint trip with Moran to visit a paleontologist in Chicago, the two Oklahoma philanthropists visited the Chicago Children’s Museum.
“It was rather shocking to me that Seminole’s children’s museum was far superior to Chicago’s children’s museum,” Whitten recalled. “That really struck me because I just thought, ‘Chicago is a major city. They’ve got to have a better children’s museum than Seminole.’ But that was not true, and it was all because of Melvin and Jasmine. So I’ve just always looked up to the guy.”
With its hands-on activities fascinating little fingers for decades, the museum has hosted children from far beyond Seminole. Visitors have come from 166 different countries, and the international draw has put Seminole on the map and with it economic benefits.
For Moran, the museum is more than just an attraction — it’s a place of joy and wonder.
“When I have nothing special to do and I need something to do, I go over there to the water exhibit,” he said. “I like to just go over there and watch the kids play in this water.”
A legacy of leadership
Melvin Moran’s influence extends far beyond his business ventures and charitable giving. He has been a tireless advocate for Seminole and small-town Oklahoma, serving on numerous boards and commissions at both the local and state level.
He was inducted into Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1997 and inducted into Seminole Hall of Fame in 1975. Residents such as Lambert remember his tenures as mayor as a time of progress and optimism.
“Oh, my, that was so long ago. I think Abraham Lincoln was finishing his term,” Moran joked. “My goal was just simply to do anything I could to help the city become bigger and better in any way I could.”
His passion led to initiatives to attract new industries to Seminole and to improve the town’s infrastructure and quality of life. Many of the parks, community centers and public facilities that Seminole residents enjoy today can trace their origins to Moran’s vision.
Moran’s commitment to the community extended to all aspects of life in Seminole, including religious life.
“There was no synagogue here, or any place for the Jewish people to worship, and he started that,” Wallace said.
At one time, only five or six Jewish families lived in Seminole, but the synagogue served worshipers from nearby Ada, Shawnee and Craig.
Despite his considerable achievements and influence, those who know Moran best describe him as unfailingly humble and genuinely interested in others.
Ryan Kiesel, a Seminole native, attorney and former state representative, said his hometown “is synonymous with Melvin Moran.”
“We should all be so lucky to have a Melvin Moran in our lives,” Kiesel said. “His life is a remarkable example of selflessness, modesty, and generosity.”
Kiesel said his earliest memory of Moran involves his mother taking him to Moran’s downtown office to sell tickets to the Cub Scout Pack #439 pancake breakfast.
“Of course he bought more than his fair share, and it was crucial to my successful campaign to sell the most tickets in my Pack,” Kiesel recalled. “It was in that same downtown Seminole office several years later that I met with Melvin to discuss my candidacy for state representative. Melvin had already made his decision to remain neutral in the Democratic primary, but after I won the runoff in August 2004, Melvin quickly became one of my most ardent supporters.”
That support came with honest assessments, however.
“I remember him calling me one day to ask if I would tone down the rhetoric in a campaign piece,” Kiesel said. “When I asked him what he was referring to, Melvin said instead of saying I would ‘fight’ for a particular issue, he hoped that I could find a less confrontational way to communicate my support. I think of that every time I hear any candidate saying they will fight for something and remember how Melvin champions civility in all things — an admirable goal for all of us.”
‘We are all like diamonds’
Moran’s journey has not been without its challenges, including a near-death experience in a Jerusalum hotel where he promised God he “would be more charitable than ever.” Others are outlined in the 2010 biography about his life, Moving Heaven and Earth: The Life of Melvin Moran.
The oil industry’s inherent volatility tested his business acumen more than once, and his philanthropic efforts have occasionally faced skepticism or resistance.
In the 1980s, when a severe oil bust hit Oklahoma hard, Moran faced difficult decisions in his business. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he chose to prioritize his employees and the community over short-term profits. That decision, while costly at first, earned him lasting loyalty and respect.
“You can’t go out to lunch with Melvin in Seminole or Oklahoma City without having somebody — usually two or three or four people — come up to the table and say, ‘Hi,’ to him,” Whitten said. “If I don’t know them, he’ll introduce them, and they’ll start talking about how wonderful he is. Invariably every single experience I’ve had with Melvin has been like that.”
The greatest challenge Moran has faced in recent years was the loss of his beloved wife, Jasmine, who died in March 2022.
“I think of her every day, think of her all the time,” he said. “I think of her in terms of how fortunate I was to have gotten her to leave an exciting theatrical life in London to come to a very small town in Oklahoma. My friends became her friends, and I was just really, really blessed.”
In a 2017 interview about her magical journey with her husband, Jasmine Moran shared wisdom about the value of kindness.
“We are all like diamonds,” she said. “A cut diamond has many facets. You can see the beauty on the surface, but underneath all those layers may be something not so pretty. I’ve always made it a point to leave kindness behind. You pick yourself up, and you keep on going.”
Even with their friend well into his 90s now, the people who know Melvin Moran say his legacy will always endure.
“The more you get to know Melvin, he’s a little bit like peeling an onion back. You keep peeling these layers back and learning more stories about him,” Whitten said. “I’ve never met a better man. I’m not exaggerating. I’m just so flattered to call him my friend.”
Asked his advice for those who might want to follow in his footsteps, Moran’s response encapsulated his life’s philosophy.
“I think you have to have the goal of making your community or your state better, and that was my goal,” he said. “The only reason I ran for mayor is I thought maybe I could do some things to make Seminole better, to make it a better place to live — not for me, necessarily, but for my family. We wanted to do everything we could to make Seminole the best setting that it could be.”
From the children learning at the museum that bears his wife’s name, to the college students studying in buildings he helped fund, to the small businesses he championed, Moran’s impact has long been notable.
“The guy would literally give anybody anything they needed,” Whitten said. “The giving aspect of Melvin and his family just always kind of blew me away. He helped a lot of people in need, and he did it quietly and didn’t get any fanfare. He is just so respected, and everybody loves him.”
(Editor’s note: Tres Savage contributed to this story by conducting interviews.)
