1909
Jefferson A. Liner was the first superintendent of Connors State School of Agriculture (CSSA). Liner, along with four instructors, opened the first session during the first week of February 1909 in temporary quarter in the Warner Public School Building. Fifteen students were enrolled in grades six through eleven. In three weeks, enrollment had grown to 35 students. Liner left CSSA after the first term to become the first superintendent of Cameron State School of Agriculture in Lawton in November 1909.
1909-1910
Walter Van Allen was CSSA’s second superintendent. During his tenure, classes were held in the second floor of the Overstreet Building in downtown Warner. Van Allen laid the groundwork for the transition of the school from Warner to its current location. An architect was contracted and work began on construction of an Administration Classroom Building one mile west of town.
1911-1912
J.S. Murray was the brother of William Henry (Alfalfa Bill) Murray, Oklahoma’s ninth governor, and CSSA’s third superintendent. During his year at CSSA, the school moved from its location in the Overstreet Building to its current Warner Campus location. After his tenure at CSSA, he became superintendent of Oklahoma’s Department of County Farmers’ Institutes of the State Board of Agriculture in 1912. As such, he traveled the state by train, lecturing on better farming methods and the importance of good roads.
1913
Superintendent Winfield S. Renick and three faculty members had the dubious distinction of being among the shortest tenured administrators and faculty at CSSA. Superintendent Renick, according to some agriculture board members, had never received an agricultural education and therefore was not, in their opinion, qualified to handle the affairs of an institution that pertained mainly to agriculture. The Board did concede, however, that his record as a schoolteacher was good.
1912-1913
1913
John V. Faulkner was the fourth superintendent of CSSA. Prior to his brief tenure as superintendent, Faulkner was the representative in Oklahoma’s First Legislature from Kiowa County. He served as chair of the General Agriculture Committee and was listed as CSSA’s agriculturist during the Murray administration. By occupation, he was first and foremost a farmer, but he was also a township trustee and assessor. After his tenure at CSSA, he traveled the state lecturing on agricultural issues.
1913-1917
Prior to J.S. Malone’s tenure as superintendent, he served as an assistant in animal husbandry at the Experiment Station at Stillwater. Malone was the first superintendent to serve longer than one term or year at CSSA. Malone had West Cottage built as a residence for male resident students. Female resident students lived with local Warner families.
1917-1918
George A. Coffey was elected to the State Senate from Kowa in 1910. In just one session, he authorized bills creating the State Board of Education and created more bills for state education that any other person.
Coffey was the only person to be superintendent of two State Schools of Agriculture at one time. In 1915, he was appointed superintendent of Haskell State School of Agriculture in Broken Arrow and in 1917 he was also appointed superintendent of Connors State School of Agriculture. He traveled between schools by train and car until Governor John Williams closed Haskell because the maintenance fund was vetoed in 1917. Haskell was combined with CSSA in 1918.
In 1936, Coffey was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. After serving in the legislature, Coffey moved back to the Warner area and taught math in the local public schools until his retirement.
1918-1933
In 1927, during Hiram C. King’s tenure at Connors, the Oklahoma Legislature passed legislation that changed the State Schools of Agriculture into Agricultural Colleges. Therefore, H.C. King became the first to hold the title of president of Connors State Agricultural College.
King was the first campus “building” president and was noted as a hands-on leader.
1943-1946
True B. Emerson was dean at CSAC when Jacob Johnson was called to active duty during World War II. The State Board of Agriculture appointed Emerson as acting president in Johnson’s absence.
During most, if not all, of Emerson’s tenure, the campus was home to the Army Air Force Training Command (AAFTTC) as well as holding classes for college students.
Two years after Johnson’s return from the war front, Emerson was appointed by Governor Turner in 1948 to be the first state textbook director under a new law providing for the state to begin furnishing free textbooks for the lower grades.
1933-1965
Jacob Johnson, the tenth president of Connors is, to date, the longest serving president with thirty-two years at the helm. Johnson was referred to as “the Dean of Junior College Presidents” because of his long years of service in Oklahoma junior colleges.
Johnson served three years as captain in the Army in the European Theatre during World War II, from 1943 to 1946. He was also awarded four Bronze Stars, the Victory Medal, and the European Theatre Ribbon.
Many of the current buildings on Connors’ Warner Campus were built or remodeled during Johnson’s long tenure. After retiring from Connors, Johnson served as a consultant of junior college programming at the University of Oklahoma from 1965-1968, and as president of Oscar Rose Junior College, now Rose State, from 1970-1972. In 1965, Jacob Johnson was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
1965-1978
The period of Melvin Self’s tenure as the twelfth president at Connors was the second in terms of building and expanding the Warner Campus infrastructure as well as expanding programs and services via grant writing. It also marked the early beginnings of Connors’ presence in Muskogee and distance learning via microwave transmission.
1978-1994
Dr. Carl O. Westbrook was the thirteenth president of Connors State College of Agriculture and Applied Science. He was the first Connors president who came to the job with presidential experience at the community college level from Colorado.
During Westbrook’s tenure, Connors’ branch campus in Muskogee became a reality. Associate Degree program offerings were increased. A library and other campus buildings were built or extensively remodeled. Intercollegiate sports programs were expanded to include women’s softball and men and women’s tennis. National basketball and livestock judging championships were achieved during his tenure. Connors acquired 1,316 acres of land south of Warner that includes farmland, wetlands, and wildlife habitat.
Four months after Westbrook’s retirement from Connors, the Oklahoma State University A&M Board of Regents asked him to serve as the interim president of Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell. Westbrook retired from OPSU in 1996.
1994-2000
Dr. Ronald D. Garner was the first president to come from within the ranks of the institution. Prior to his appointment as president, he served as vice president of continuing education and director of the Muskogee Branch Campus since 1988. Like Dr. Westbrook, Garner had served as a college president in Kansas from 1986-1988. He also served as a vice president for instruction and student affairs at Redlands Community College in El Reno, Oklahoma, from 1968-1986.
During Garner’s tenure at CSC, expansion of programs and classes at the Muskogee Branch continued, including the building of a classroom/science complex in northeast Muskogee in 1994.
2000-2011
Donnie L. Nero, the fifteenth president of Connors State College (name of college officially changed by the Oklahoma Legislature in 2002) is the first African-American president of a non-historically black institution in Oklahoma. He began his career teaching in Sapulpa Public Schools then moved through the ranks at Tulsa Community College to become provost of the TCC Southeast Campus before becoming CSC’s president.
In 2002, Dr. Nero was named the Distinguished Alumnus at East Central University and in 2010, he founded the Oklahoma African-American Educators Hall of Fame to remember the contributions of Oklahoma’s black educators in the era of segregation.
Dr. Nero was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame and in the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame in 2011, and the Oklahoma Association of Community Colleges Hall of Fame in 2012.
2011-2016
As the sixteenth president of Connors State College, Dr. Tim Faltyn’s leadership led to sweeping change and vast improvement of infrastructure on both the Warner and Muskogee campuses. During his tenure, the Nursing and Allied Health Facility was constructed on the Three Rivers Port Campus, the Warner Campus Student Union underwent a multi-million dollar renovation, while Holloway Hall and Russell Hall were both transformed into usable facilities. A shotgun shooting sports complex was constructed on the Gary Harding Research Ranch, and the Athletic Hall of Fame was initiated.
A teacher by trade, he holds four graduate and undergraduate degrees in public service and education. He was named a Carnegie United States Professor of the Year and the International Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology. Dr. Faltyn completed post-doctoral programming through Harvard University.
Originally from Los Lunas, New Mexico, he began his professional career in the Oklahoma public sector before joining the Oklahoma State University A&M system, where he served as a tenured faculty member, department chair, dean, associate vice president, and vice president of academic affairs before becoming the president of Connors State.
Dr. Faltyn left Connors State in June of 2016 to become the president at Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell.
2016-Present
Dr. Ronald S. Ramming is the 17th President of Connors State College.
Dr. Ramming grew up on a diversified livestock and crop farm in Hinton, Oklahoma and began his educational career at Connors State where he graduated in 1985 with his Associates of Science degree.
After attending Connors State, Dr. Ramming then completed his undergraduate studies at Oklahoma State University in 1987 earning his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. He went on to pursue his master’s degree in Agriculture from the University of Tennessee later returning to OSU to obtain his Ph.D. in Agricultural Education and Higher Education Administration.
In 1990 Dr. Ramming began his career in higher education at Connors State College as an Agriculture Instructor and Assistant Livestock Judging Team Coach. He then became the Director of Distance and Extended Education in 1998 and then Dean of Enrollment Services in 2004. In 2009 he assumed the role as Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Services as well as Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs for Connors State College. He served as Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs from 2014-2016 and as Interim President of the college from 2016-2017.
Dr. Ramming has chaired and served on numerous boards and organizations and currently sits on the Warner School Board and serves as president of the Muskogee Area Education Consortium. He serves on the Campus Safety and Security Task Force for the Oklahoma State Regents and is a member of Muskogee’s St. Francis Hospital Board of Trustees and the Greater Muskogee Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.