Durand Burl Lugar

Durand Burl Lugar passed away peacefully in his sleep on January 20, 2025, just ten days shy of his 82nd birthday, which coincide with the date of his funeral. Durand was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma on January 30, 1943, to Burl Antony Lugar and Opal Juanita Huffmaster Lugar. Durand's sister, Sharon Genelle Lugar Garvin, had been born 3 years before in Stewardson, Illinois, where their parents also had been born and raised. Their father, Burl, had originally taught woodworking class in Stewardson but then joined Phillips Petroleum Company to earn more money, so the family moved to a small piece of land outside Bartlesville. His mother, Opal, devoted herself to homemaking. Durand liked to tell the story of how a distant relative, Twila Lugar Graves, became interested in the Lugar genealogy when Richard "Dick" Lugar became the youngest mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana. He then became a U.S. Senator and even ran for President. The family had fun campaigning for their distant cousin. Twila traced the Lugars all the way back to Adam! ... Adam Lugar, that is, the immigrant ancestor who fled Germany in the 1770s to save himself from execution for killing a royal deer to feed his hungry family. Initially fighting for England as a mercenary, Adam became a turncoat and fought for the American colonies. He is listed as a patriot by the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution. Durand attended Limestone Elementary and College High in Bartlesville, and he faithfully attended every reunion. He was an accomplished trombone player in the band, but it was on the baseball field where he truly excelled. As the number one starting pitcher for his Little League, Pony League, and high school, he led his teams to multiple pennants and dreamed of going pro. In 1957, Durand led the nation in Pony League Earned Run Average for the season with a 0.47 ERA, and he even had a batting average of .306. For those who don't know, that means if he were to pitch a full 9-inning game, he would have allowed an average of less than half a run per game. The average ERA of professional pitchers in the majors is currently between 4 and 5. In those days, it was a little less than 3. Durand graduated from Phillips University in Enid in 1965 with a bachelor's in math, having been the ace pitcher for their baseball team, whose pitching staff ranked second in the nation with an Earned Run Average of 0.84. Durand's favorite pastime was always baseball, whether playing, coaching, watching, or discussing. Durand had always dreamed of playing professional baseball, but as a right-hander, even with his incredible ERA, he wasn't quite good enough for the pros. He always said that if he had been left-handed, he would easily have been drafted. He went on to Idaho State University, where he balanced coaching the undergraduate baseball team and working towards a master's in computer science. When faced with repeating a class due to one C, he chose to leave, claiming that he "flunked out." In 1967, Durand enlisted in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, serving as a communications officer and achieving the rank of captain. At one point, he was chief of a communications station and had top-secret clearance. He was stationed in Thailand much of the time, a place he grew to love deeply. After his honorable discharge in 1971, he continued his studies at Oklahoma State University, where, true to his lifelong passion, he wrote a baseball simulator for his thesis. He was doing the dream-team thing long before it was a thing. Durand attended his graduation from OSU in 1975, but they didn't give him the diploma there, just an empty cover. Being a man of principle, he thought it was absurd, unethical, and essentially fraudulent that they would charge him anything, much less $20 to mail it, when they refused to allow him to pick it up in person, so he told them to keep it. He always displayed the empty case as a reminder of how the school had swindled him out of his diploma. Over 40 years later, they got tired of storing the diploma and finally mailed it for free! He worked at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for over two decades as a computer programmer. He worked for Elumen Solutions for a year doing Y2K Bug fixes. Even after facing age discrimination as a programmer, Durand found fulfillment as a teaching assistant and substitute teacher until his second stroke in 2023. Durand was deeply involved in his faith communities. He was a longtime member of Southside Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) before joining Fellowship Lutheran Church in Tulsa with his young family. Durand had made a point of studying certain theologians, especially Paul Tillich. Being the loyal baseball fan that he was, Durand's favorite Bible verse was Genesis 1:1, "In the Big Inning ...." Soon after meeting Suzy at Southside Christian when she came to visit with a friend of hers, Durand volunteered Suzy to be on the New Year's singles' party committee. He called Suzy on Christmas to see if she was all right in the winter storm and to see if she still had electricity. His electricity was out, so he invited himself to Suzy's house ostensibly because he needed to watch his Christmas harp music video and because they needed to discuss the New Year's church singles party anyway. He also brought his very old copies of his "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "The Night Before Christmas" booklets which he read aloud to Suzy. "Rudolph" caught her attention since he read it as though he were reading to a young child. After the New Year's party at Durand's condo, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he ran out of the room. She thought she'd managed to frighten off another guy when he returned with a mistletoe. Durand married Susan Marie "Suzy" Oliver on April 7,1990 when he was 47. They bought a house in Shadow Mountain neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They had two children, William Oliver "Will" Lugar, born 1992, and Levi Antony Lugar, born 2002. When Will was born, Durand went running into the waiting area where Suzy's folks were to announce that his left-handed pitcher had been born. When Will was playing T-Ball in miserably cold, rainy weather and wanted to leave, Durand said he could go home after his next at-bat. Will hit the ball and instead of running to first base, he ran to Durand and said he was ready to go home. Durand had to talk him into running to first base, but he vowed not to push his dream onto his son and instead to help him achieve his own dreams. For Levi, who was obviously more into acting and performing than sports, Durand supported them by constantly reading stories when they were very young and later by attending every performance and bringing flowers on opening night. Although Durand and Suzy divorced in 2018, their shared history remained an important part of his life. Despite never being drafted to play pro baseball, his passion for the game never waned. He became a practice pitcher for the Tulsa Drillers and coached aspiring players on a young adults' team he called Lugar's Cougars. He supported the Baseball Hall of Fame and U.S. Olympic Baseball. His encyclopedic knowledge of baseball earned him victories in all three Tulsa Baseball Trivia contests, which they decided to discontinue because Durand was too good for anyone to compete against. Durand's favorite song was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," which he sang one syllable ahead of the crowd at every professional baseball game. When Durand was almost 60, it was discovered that he had Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism. Asperger's has typical symptoms of social awkwardness, shyness, intellectual brilliance, and obsessing over favorite pastimes which makes one likely to become a walking encyclopedia about one's hobbies. That explained Durand's extreme shyness and how he was able to win the Baseball Trivia contests so easily. Despite his shyness, Durand liked to throw parties for friends and family at the VIP box at Driller's Stadium. The boys and any other kids who attended got special attention from Hornsby, the Driller's bull mascot. Durand's friend, John Salvo, had a goal of watching every major league team play in every major league stadium of their league both home and away, which adds up to at least 450 games to watch. Durand, Suzy and their older son Will traveled to New York City to watch the Yankees with John as he completed his initial goal. Durand wasn't just about baseball, he also loved running. He was a member of the Tulsa Runners and ran daily, regardless of the weather. He participated in and finished all 30 of the first Tulsa Runs, and he and the other 20-some-odd runners who had done the same were honored at a dinner on the eve of the 30th Tulsa Run. He ran in at least two dozen marathons in Tulsa and around the country, including the New York Marathon and several times the Big Sur Marathon. He was screaming at the end of each marathon, but he finished every run that he started. A highlight of Durand's life was attending the Olympics, which he did at least twice. Survived by his sons William Oliver "Will" Lugar and Levi Antony Lugar, his niece Kaara Garvin Victory and her husband Vernon, his nephew Darren Garvin and his wife Jill, and his former wife Suzy Oliver, Durand's legacy lives on through the countless memories and lives he touched. He was preceded in death by his parents Burl and Opal Lugar and sister Sharon Garvin. Durand will be cremated per his wishes, with the hope that his ashes will be scattered at Drillers Stadium in Tulsa-a fitting tribute to a man so passionately intertwined with baseball. The viewing will be Wednesday, January 29, 6-8pm, and the funeral on Thursday at 1pm, Fitzgerald Southwood Colonial Chapel, 3612 E. 91st Street, Tulsa.

Durand Burl Lugar

January 30, 1943 - January 20, 2025