Robert A. Hefner, Jr.
Robert A. Hefner, Jr.
“He was a quiet man and avoided the public eye to the extent few Oklahomans realized the enduring mark he made on the pages of our state’s history.”
Biography
Robert Alexander Hefner, Jr., was born in Texas and came to Oklahoma in 1909, where his father, Robert A. Hefner, became a pioneer oil man and political leader. Hefner graduated from Stanford University and studied law at Harvard before receiving his law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He opened a private law practice in Oklahoma City in 1931 and later served two years in Washington, D.C. as an assistant to the counsel for the Reconstruction Finance Commission. Before returning to Oklahoma City in 1946 to assume management of the Hefner Company, he practiced oil and gas law in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Hefner founded and managed Hefner Production Co. and, under his direction, it built reserves of more than 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 3 million barrels of oil. He was active in forming the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and was named Outstanding Oil Man in 1976.
Fun fact
Robert Hefner, Jr., was a Regimental Featherweight Boxing Champion, set a course record for golf, won the Gold Medal for the State of Oklahoma while playing the violin, and played in both the Stanford University Chapel Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony – all before the age of 21. Years later, he was instrumental in arranging the donation of his father’s historic family home to the Oklahoma Heritage Association (now the Oklahoma Hall of Fame).
Oklahoma connections
Hefner, Jr., moved with his family to Ardmore, Oklahoma in 1909.