Larry Shelton
Larry Joseph Shelton began his municipal government career in November 1982 as Assistant City Manager in Guthrie. This position followed 12 years in private sector engineering or county planning and development jobs. He retired June 30, 2011, after 20 years as the city manager of Chickasha. He now resides in Norman. Larry served in city management positions for nearly 30 years, including stints in Maumelle, Arkansas, and Chandler, Oklahoma. He is one of the few individuals to receive the highest honors granted by both the Oklahoma Municipal League and the City Management Association of Oklahoma. As such he is a past recipient of the Don Rider Award from OML and the Gerald Wilkins Award from CMAO.
Hallmarks of his career have included a commitment to recognizing, rewarding, and preparing individuals for public service. This is evidenced in his initiation of the concept which lead to the creation of this hall of fame, and in the creation of model programs for “Character First” and leadership institutes for municipal government employees. He was also tapped by the International City-County Management Association to develop three model programs. One is an employee performance evaluation and compensation program, another is a model advertising sign ordinance and the third, a model community assisted housing program
Larry served as president of the state-city management associations in Arkansas and Oklahoma, as well as a board member for OML and the Oklahoma Municipal Services Corporation. OML frequently tapped his expertise for service on committees for such diverse activities as utility deregulation review, conference planning, and executive director search; as well as a Task Force on Finance. He also served on the Grady County Community Sentencing Task Force, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality Fee Review Committee, and as one of only ten members on the National Small Cities Review Committee on Sanitary Sewer Overflows for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
City and town governing bodies also elected him to serve on the board of trustees for the Oklahoma Municipal Assurance Group. Fellow OMAG board members elected him to a term as Chairman in 1999. His distinguished career also included service as Vice President of the Oklahoma Chapter of the American Society of Public Administrators and as Chairman of the Oklahoma Foundation for Local Government.