Todd Gollihare is an American politician who is the

Oklahoma Senate The Oklahoma Senate is the upper house of the two houses of the Legislature of Oklahoma, the other being the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The total number of senators is set at 48 by the Oklahoma Constitution.Stratford, Oklahoma Stratford is a town in Garvin County, Oklahoma, United States. Prior to Oklahoma statehood in 1907, the town existed under different names and was in the Chickasaw Nation in a geographic region known as Indian Territory. Peach orchards abound in ...

and graduated from Stratford High School. He graduated college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration in 1986. While serving in the Marine Corps, he earned his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from the

University of Tulsa College of Law The University of Tulsa College of Law is the law school of the private University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For 2021, ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the University of Tulsa College of Law at No. 111 among all law schools in the United S ...

Military career

Gollihare joined the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

in 1986 and served for 25 years, retiring as a

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Political and government career

Gollihare served on the Kellyville Board of Education from 2004 to 2016. He taught a leadership class for a year at Kellyville High School before being elected into the Oklahoma Senate. He worked as the Chief Probation Officer for the

Northern District of Oklahoma The United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (in case citations, N.D. Okla.) is a federal court in the Tenth Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are ap ...

from 2014 to 2020.

Oklahoma Senate

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, only two Republican candidates filed for the open seat in Oklahoma's 12th senate district: Todd Gollihare and Rob Ford. Incumbent Senator James Leewright decided to retire before being term limited. During the campaign, Gollihare supported school voucher programs saying "“Competition for state dollars is always good, and it will help the public schools to up their game." Gollihare defeated Rob Ford in the June Republican primary, winning the senate seat since no other party's candidate filed. He was sworn in on November 16, 2022.

Personal life

Gollihare lives in

Kellyville, Oklahoma Kellyville is a town in Creek County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,150 at the 2010 census, compared to 906 in 2000. History Kellyville was named for James E. Kelly , who established a local trading post in 1892 and opened a post ...

References

21st-century American legislators Living people 1960s births Cherokee Nation state legislators in Oklahoma Republican Party Oklahoma state senators Year of birth missing (living people) People from Garvin County, Oklahoma University of Tulsa College of Law alumni United States Marine Corps officers 21st-century Oklahoma politicians {{Oklahoma-politician-stub