Oklahoma banker and longtime Lieutenant Governor James E. Berry was born in Missouri and came to Oklahoma as a teenager where he attended Oklahoma A&M College, now Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater. Berry joined the Oklahoma National Guard in its early days and served on the Mexican border. He spent a year in France as a military captain and, following the first world war, commanded a National Guard Company at Stillwater until he was promoted to major. A banker by profession, he was elected president of the Stillwater Bank in 1929 and managed the bank throughout most of the rest of his life.

In 1930 Berry entered state politics and lost his first race for lieutenant governor. He returned four years later to be elected to the post. He was inaugurated in 1935 with Governor E.W. Marland and served for 20 years, under four governors, as Oklahoma’s lieutenant governor.