Dr. Sam Hamra was a generous supporter of OU's Middle East programs. Born in Ponca city, he graduated from Lawton High School in 1955, went on to the University of Oklahoma where he was President of his senior class. He graduated in 1959 with a Bachelor's degree in History but stayed at his beloved OU for the next nine years to complete Medical School, his Residency, and his General Surgery Residency with one year abroad for a Fellowship in Lausanne, Switzerland.
After that he enlisted in the United States Air Force as a doctor, serving as a Major in California, Libya, and Wichita, Kansas. He followed that up with three years of Plastic Surgery Residency at NYU, training under legendary surgeon and mentor Dr. John Converse.
In 2020, the Aesthetic Surgery Journal recognized that Sam's scholarly articles about new technics that he had pioneered in the field were referenced more than any other single surgeon, establishing him as one of the greatest innovators in the field of plastic surgery of the face in the last century.
Dr. Hamra was a thoughtful and important patron of our efforts at the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was charming, creative, and a force for good.
We will never forget meeting him in 2014 with his wife, Sonia, and his sister, Sameera. They drove up to Norman from their home in Dallas to inaugurate their family's generous gift to the University. Rami Khouri, one of Lebanon's leading journalists and the Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at AUB, was the first visiting scholar to come to OU to teach thanks to his generous gift. Many more prominent Lebanese professors and politicians followed.
Sam was always an inspiration and never gave up on his plans to advance scholarly exchanges with Lebanon or to develop OU's Middle East curriculum. He insisted that education, hard work, and worldliness were keys to opening doors for our youth and improving our society.
Sam was an exemplar of America's best virtues, a self-made man who wanted others to excel and have as many opportunities as he had. He was kind and determined, remaining attached to both his alma mater, Oklahoma and Lebanon. He explored the world and was always seeking new ways to make it better.
We send his entire family much love and gratitude. We hope to honor his legacy by continuing to make the history of Lebanon and Lebanese Oklahomans an important part of our curriculum.
Joshua Landis, Co-Director of the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
Sandra Mackey was an Oklahoma pioneer. She lived a life of the mind and adventure. After graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma, Sandra earned an advanced degree in International Studies from the University of Virginia. With her husband, Dan, an OU graduate, she moved to Saudi Arabia, where Dan served as a Doctor. Sandra began a secret life as a journalist, writing under a pseudonym to evade Saudi censors. She was a regular in The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. Sandra went on to become a best-selling author, writing six superb books on the Middle East, some of which went through many editions. She interviewed heads of state from Arafat to King Hussein and traveled from China to Lebanon and everywhere in between. Sandra was also a fine photojournalist, who built up a portfolio of slides that is full of beauty and searing portraits.
Her knowledge of the Middle East and its complexities was rivaled by only the most seasoned Middle East hands. Many of her insights were prescient, none more so than that in the closing words of her book on Iraq, The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein, which she completed in 2002 on the eve of the US invasion. She cautioned policy makers who were pressing for regime-change in Iraq that they should not “ignore the threat to American security that could come with Hussein’s demise.” Her prediction was as wise as it was unheeded.
Sandra Mackey’s quick wit, charm, and expertise made her a fixture on NPR and BBC, as well as the major TV networks. She was a commentator for CNN during the first Gulf War and a consultant to the US military during the early years of the occupation of Iraq.
Most of all, however, Sandra was an educator. Her first job was as a teacher in Oklahoma City. Not content to profess only to a small class in Oklahoma and itching to explore the world, Sandra propelled herself onto an international stage, where see became an educator to a much larger audience. She was the best kind of public intellectual, always keenly aware that to reach people she had to entertain as well as instruct. Sandra returned to academe periodically throughout her life, teaching political science at Georgia State and developing a course on Middle East studies for one of Atlanta’s finer magnet schools. Sandra continued to lecture across the country at universities, to foreign affairs groups, and in Washington right up to her untimely death.
Sandra is a paragon of the Oklahoma Pioneer woman. Her life and spirit serve as an example to students, teachers, and Oklahomans of every stripe.
