Legislature legacy
Former economics graduate elected as Okla. state rep.
Family legacy, along with personal credentials and service work, helped Dan Boren win Oklahoma’s state representative race.
By Joi Harris
Staff Reporter

FORT WORTH — Winning almost 64 percent of the popular vote, alumnus Dan Boren defeated eight-year incumbent Mike Ervin in Oklahoma’s District No. 28 state representative race Tuesday.

Boren, a third generation politician and Democrat, takes the seat once held by his father and late grandfather. Boren said he knew he wanted to be involved in public service and follow the examples his father and grandfather set before him.

Boren said the potential pressure to continue the legacy did not bother him and that he welcomed the challenge with open arms.

“I ran against an incumbent who been there for eight years, so even with name recognition the campaign was an up-hill battle,” Boren said in a phone interview.

He said former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright was a strong influence and one of the first people to get him active in service. Wright said that he worked on Lyle Boren’s congressional campaign passing out literature when he was 12 years old.

Wright said Boren’s election could have been a combination of his legacy and his own service reputation.

“I believed in him as a person,” Wright said, “but I also encouraged him to go up there and establish himself in his own right so that he’d have some credentials.”

Boren received his bachelor’s of science degree in economics from TCU in 1997. Since then he has studied at Yale University and Oxford University.

He recently received his masters degree in business administration from the University of Oklahoma, where his father serves as president, with a concentration in international business.

Boren said he has not made any decisions on what his next political step will be and that he just want to focus on his job at hand. He said he wants to use what he as learned as president and CEO of the Seminole State Education Foundation at Seminole State University to cover the issues of economic development, education and health care.

Joi Harris